Quantum Entanglement ~ Tamber

Chaptet 15

What are you implying?" Tara asked anxiously. She knew exactly what Judy was implying, but she needed to buy time. Her eyes shifted from her sister to her girlfriend to the door and then back to Judy. 

"Wes said that he recognized her , so I'm just trying to reduce the suspect list. I know it certainly couldn't have been you, which doesn't leave a whole lot of people," the Sheriff explained. "Sam, Amber..." 

"Liv and Mindy, too," she pointed out. "He knows them, and he talks to a lot of girls in school. He's really popular." 

Judy wasn't buying it. Her polite smile stiffened into a straight line, and she inched further into Tara's personal space. "Oh honey, now I know that's not true." 

Fuck it. Desperate times called for desperate measures. Throwing her head back, she slyly hit the button to call for help and proceeded to force herself to shake unconvincingly. Yes, she was faking a seizure to get out of answering questions. Except she had no clue what a seizure was supposed to look like. 

The commotion was enough to wake both Amber and Sam, who immediately rushed to her bedside. 

"What the fuck did you do to her?" Amber bellowed at the Sheriff. 

"I'll call the nurse," Sam said in a panic, rushing out the door and immediately calling for help. 

Tara knew she looked ridiculous, okay? She knew she did. She was flopping around like a fish, thrashing desperately to get away from the line of questioning. But as long as the three women in the room believed it, she was fine. She could make a fool of herself to save Amber and buy them some time. 

Maybe she could ask her girlfriend to make the boy into a vegetable. That sounded awful, right? But really, him not dying but not being able to say anything would be ideal. Amber could live, and he'd never be able to rat her out. Without evidence, she'd get away with it, and they could live happily ever after. 

Before she had been attacked, a lot of people had accused Tara of being a naïve, stupid girl – her mother and Wes included. Back then, she had been an optimistic, trusting girl. Now, however, she questioned everything. She may have hoped for the best, but she planned for the worst in ways that sometimes made her sick. Planning to leave her old friend in a vegetated state was one of those ways. But she had to do what she could to survive, and she would do whatever it took to keep Amber and Sam alive, too. Without them, there was no her after all.

It was about a minute and a half into her fake episode that she felt herself start to slip away for real. Distantly, she heard alarms going off and the sounds of desperate screams, but she wasn't sure if it had anything to do with her or if something was going on with Wes. Either way, the world collapsed around her and shot her into the dark void she had come to know so well. No one spoke. No one moved. There was no sound, no feeling – nothing. It was empty and meaningless, and she was stuck there. 

Suddenly, she saw quick flashes of flames and embers, but she didn't feel any heat. She saw a hand reaching through the fire, coming almost so close to her that it felt like it might grab her at any moment. Then it was consumed once more. Before she could finish processing what she had just seen, she was plummeting back into her body, which was still shaking violently. 

It was a few seconds before the seizing halted and she was able to move again. She gasped, feeling entirely too warm and out of breath. 

"There you go. In and out. Just breathe," she heard the same kind nurse from before instruct. She opened her eyes and stared at the woman, unable to do much of anything else. 

"Baby," she heard Amber say from her side. "It's okay, angel. It's okay. Sam and I are here." 

She wanted to ask what happened but all she could think of were those hands in the flames, reaching out. She knew those hands. She knew the ring attached to those fingers. It was her girlfriend, and she was burning.