Fever Dream Red

60

Our less than adequate conversation was cut off by Nick bursting into the room. He was never flustered: he simply walked quickly with an upset look on his face.

It had happened quite often.

Me and Inez looked at him with a certain sense of curiosity. Zoe added a bit of bemusement to her look. She didn't really take him seriously, after all.

Eli looked at Nick with a certain sense of resentment, perhaps mixed with a little fear.

He passed by our table and headed straight for the siblings.

It wasn't us he was there for.

"You betrayed me, Eli."
"I did?"
"You told Skye you wouldn't tell anyone that they murdered Aggie. Am I correct?" Nick asked in a stern tone.
Eli visibly gulped and looked terribly concerned. It was quite ironic that somone so dismissive of Nick's power would quake in his shadow the next day.

Nick had power. He just used it sparingly.

"I, um, I-"
"Did you or did you not?" Nick's voice became sterner and his face became closer to Eli's.
Eli cast his eyes down to the floor.

"Yes."
"Thank you for your honesty." Nick stood up straight. "Zoe, you're coming with me."
"Where."
"You know where."

Zoe's face fell like a child who had been disappointed monumentally. Her eyes shifted from their usual proactiveness into a downturned misery pooling at the seams. It was a shame to see such pretty things sad. It was like seeing one of the seven wonders in the rain.

Her lips wobbled even though she stayed wordless. It didn't matter. Her face was a picture: It could say a thousand words. None of them were good.

Eli was inconsolable.

His head was in his hands. I couldn't see the inevitable tears streaming from his eyes but I still knew they were there.

When at last he resurfaced, his eyes were dead from the inside out. There was no longer life in them.

Eli clasped Zoe's hands and she watched him cry, motionless and accepting of her fate.

She went to stand up and Eli followed her, but instead of letting her go he pulled her into a hug that lasted a good few minutes.

They were savouring everything about each other, perhaps to aid their memory when the other was gone. They stroked hair whilst murmuring unknown words into each other's ears.

This would kill the both of them but it had to be done.

Zoe ran upstairs when they let go of each other almost unwillingly.

She had to go and pack and say goodbye to Mimi.

In a way I was glad I didn't have to witness that.

Nick watched all of this with a little smile on his face. He loved watching families get torn apart and lives changing like putty in his hands. He could mould us into anything he wanted us to be. There were no laws or morals or people or things to stop him now.

What would become of us?

Eli stared at him with his dead eyes and the puffy red skin around it. Nick just smiled right back.

Power had been restored.

Without warning, Nick's men seize Eli, a man to an arm, and carry him out.

It reminded me of the very first time we had been at The Base, where Eli was carried to Nick and he spat in his face.

Not much had changed, evidently.

No doubt he was going to the prison where Danny had been kept. Maybe he would meet Zack. Maybe they would get out eventually. Maybe Nick would let him out. Maybe they would escape. Maybe they would rot their forever.

I couldn't wait to find out.

He didn't scream or protest. He didn't do a thing.

Zoe's life was now in Nick's hands. If Eli sadi the wrong thing or did the wrong thing, not only could Nick punish Eli. He could do the worst thing of all. He could punish Zoe.

For her, Eli would do anything.

Me and Inez watched all of this unfold. It was like a film you never wanted to see. One so heartbreaking and devastating, you end up regretting watching the film at all.

That was what it felt like. It was painful to watch.

It put me off of my pancakes.

We finished our pancakes in complete silence, the cafeteria now desolate.

When we were done, we walked out just in time to see Zoe.

Her head was down low, and she was carrying a suitcase. It was old leather, vintage and cool. She looked like a small child without anyone to care for her. She was.

She had to put up with Nick, a boyfriend which would be forced onto her, and a bunch of snotty rich people.

I couldn't think of much worse.

She saw us coming and she smiled at us sadly. We smiled smiles of sympathy back. It didn't help, but it made us feel better about the situation.

It reminded me much of a funeral, even though the girl was just a teenager.

But in a sense this was the end of her freedom. It was the end of her life as she knew it. This phase of her life had consisted of her living in an incubator of hospital gowns and illness.

And now, having only been in the wild for a day, she was moving straight back into captivity.

For her, the apocalypse had only just begun. She had heard the starting bangs, but she hadn't been able to see the living corpses on the streets or the streets absent of any recent human altercation.

Now she would. Whilst she was driving to her prissy life in a dumb school she would drive along the streets and perhaps weep at the wreckage.

And we would stay here, not sure whether we should wish to be her or not.

We watched her, heads bowed as she climbed into the car, that looked a bit like a hearse from here.

She drove off into the end of the world and left us in this fever dream.