Fever Dream Red

31

My heart began racing. I wasn't sad, as such, just disturbed. It proved to me that nowhere was safe. No justice would be served to the offender. They would never see the inside of a prison cell.

Me, Alfie and Doug practically ran to her body. Sunny led us into Aggie's room.

It was neat and tidy. I had a chic burnt sunset sofa and a hazelnut coffee table.

The double bed was just behind Aggie's body.

It was splayed out like a disused doll, except dolls didn't have blood pooling on the floor next to their pale head. Limbs failed everywhere, attempting to regain existance.

The life had been shot out of Aggie. She was simply an object now. She no longer existed in this world. What had been was no longer.

Nick was stood there biting his nails furiously. Now he looked seriously ruffled. His perfect world had been blown apart by the simple shot of a gun. His world had been undone and unravelled. His control had been lost.

Suddenly Fae and Lily burst in. Lily took one look at Aggie, screamed quietly, and ran to the nearest toilet. In the dead silence you could hear her bring her morning yogurt up.

Quiet tears streamed down Fae's face as she knelt down next to Aggie, as if in prayer. She lifted the cold, dead hand of a mother and kissed it, the salty tears on pale skin as the only reminder of a daughter's love.

I had to leave then. The whole affair seemed not for my eyes. Like Lily, I was almost sick, throwing up on my daily pair of sweatpants.

The net seemed to be closing in on me. Soon I wouldn't be able to work my way out of the mesh. Soon I would be trapped here forever, either terrified for my life or bored to death. There was no in between in The Base.

I felt sinful after witnessing the body and all that came with it. I felt like a crime scene just being in the same room as it. I decided to go swimming, if only to cleanse myself without taking a boring old shower.

I didn't find Skye there. I never did anymore. I never really saw Skye around. They were apperently beside themselves with worry. Zach was all they had.

A part of me felt guilty then for not doing more for them. I could've been a shoulder to cry on. Instead I was just a boring old knee who watched on.

I had a sudden impulse to find them. But, as I do with everything, I convinced myself out of it so much that in the end I didn't see any point in going.

I swam for a while. I'm not sure for how long, but I knew that after a while I became aware of a figure on the edge of the pool. As I swam up I realised that it was one of the Nick's men.

My cheeks heated up as I realised horrendously that I was only in my bathing costume and he was in his suit and no one was around and if he wanted to he could very well take advantage of me.

That didn't happen.

"Nick wants to talk to you." He told me in a gruffly voice.

My face contorted again into a grimace. What had I done this time? I couldn't wait to learn.

"Don't worry- you're not in trouble."

My face dropped in happy dissapointment. If I wasn't in trouble then what was the fun?

"He just wants to talk to you about the...incident."

My heart dropped when I heard that. I had managed to cast the thought of death out into the pool for a while, but the mention of it again brought the darkness flooding back.

I was brought to the interview room by the man after I had got changed. He had waited whilst I sorted myself out in the cubicle.

"Hello, Finny."

I had been pushed onto the metal chair again, yet this time there was a white cushion on it.

This intrigued me. An effort to make the place look more comforting, perhaps? The place did feel easier, but maybe it was because I wasn't in trouble this time.

"Where were you from last night onwards?" Nick asked me with a facaded smile on his face. How could he be smiling when someone had died?

"Well, I went to bed around ten, and then at around" I thought, trying to decide what time Doug had arrived on my door,"elevenish? Doug woke me up. He was knocking on the door like a mad man."
"What did he want to talk to you about?"
I froze and thought about the best thing I could say. I had to say something that Nick would not find suspicious. The thing that Nick could definitely see Doug doing.

"He said there was a new yogurt flavour in."
"Really?"
"You know what he's like." I rolled my eyes lovingly. Inside my heart was beating against my chest.
"There was no new yogurt flavour out today."
"I know! I was scathing at him when I realised he had got me up early for nothing!"

Nick stood up and started staring at the wall thoughtfully, even the wall was empty of answers.

"Did you know anything about Doug's...incident last night?"
"No."
"Does he sleepwalk?"
"Who?"
"Doug."
"I don't know." I shrugged. "He could do. I've never seen him sleep.
"Has he ever mentioned it to you?"
"Not really, no. Mind you, I could be forgetting. I am awfully forgetful."

Nick nodded at me happily, seemingly impressed by my answers. Perhaps he was just admiring the believability of my lies.

"That's it, Finny. You can go now."

I left certainly shaken.

He was asking about Doug. Asking and asking about Doug. What if Nick was trying to pin this whole thing on him, just because of the night before?

The thought of it made my stomach fail from guilt.