Venus was running on a poor mix of little sleep and a great deal of caffeine, the scales tipping greatly in favor of caffeine. When Trent had called her the previous night she'd gone down to the school, and she'd stayed there with all the other families. She saw some of Trent's siblings, but didn't make herself known. The unfortunate truth was she was there just as much a reporter, and she felt that was a surefire way to make sure the Summers pack would write her off for good. In the morning she'd had to go into the office for a little bit, but she'd ended up only taking a brief power nap before grabbing her laptop and heading back to the school. She wrote her column on the scene. She emailed it to her editor, but she didn't leave. She stayed. She talked to people. Friends, family, and curious outsiders alike. She gathered what information she could, but no one really knew anything. She saw a lot of pictures of loved ones inside the school, but she couldn't take her mind off of Kyle and Lotti. She wished, so desperately, that it would have been acceptable to offer her support to Trent's family. She just couldn't know how they would take it.
It had been a long time since she'd pulled an all-nighter like this, and her body was starting to really protest under the effort. She was just thinking on leaving when she pressed close to the barriers again, and realized that Trent was back. Not thinking twice about it, she hopped the police barricade like she'd done it a thousand times before (okay, maybe she had) and headed over to the ambulance. One cop looked pretty close to stopping her, but ultimately must have thought better of it. That one knew she was a reporter anyway, so he probably just figured she was being nosy.
And she was, but she had a right when it was her fiance.
"You didn't have to go to work today, you know," Venus said, once she was within a range where she knew Trent could hear her. "You could have called in. They would have understood. You have the best excuse in the world to not give a crap about anyone's problems but your own."