It was now a Saturday. A whole week had gone by since Fiona's funeral. And it wasn't getting any easier. Fiona's mother was distraught and hardly ever left her house, leaving her daughter, Lexi, to be the strong front of the family. They didn't count Ian as a part of the family. Being such a successful writer, he was never around for his wife and daughters. His ex-wife had estranged herself from him entirely. Lexi and Fiona just didn't care about him. He wasn't an attentive father, so why should they cause a fuss over him. In those days that followed the funeral, Lexi often saw him around the town and treated him like any other local, with indifference.
Lexi was two years older than Fiona. Her hair was a darker shade of blonde but they weren't too dissimilar. She wasn't like her though. Lexi never gossiped much, never glued her eyes to her phone screen for over half an hour and she never cared about being popular. She was normalish.
"Can I buy you a drink?"
Lexi turned slightly to see an arm had already been cast around her torso, preventing her escape from the bar. It was only Spike though, the most handsome man in town apparently. Lexi smirked internally. She knew he was in the pub the night her little sister was murdered.
"Vodka white, please," She curved her pink lips into an innocent pout. Amongst the young men of the town, they all spoke about Lexi's lips and how perfect they were. Word got around to her pretty quickly and it wasn't long before she began abusing her power to get what she wanted. It wasn't malicious though. The men usually wanted the same thing from her.
•~~×~~•
"Wait here," Francis muttered to Olivia. He quickly ran a hand through his short, ruffled brown hair and straightened out his red and black flannel shirt before climbing up the wooden frame on the red brick wall that was supposed to be there for flowers to creep around as they grew. Francis just used it to climb up to Raphina's room without getting caught. He opened the window and tumbled inside. It was dark inside apart from the glow of moonlight, "Raph? Are you in here?" He looked around the room only to see her sitting up on her bed.
"Oh my," She gasped, giggling slightly, "A young man hath come through my window to visit my chambers," Then she laughed musically. Francis gave a sad smile. She wasn't even in her nightgown. She was in a full on Edwardian styled dress. It was dark purple with long sleeves, frilled at the ends. The skirt was longer than her own legs. Raphina's dark hair was pinned in an up-do. It was pretty, beautiful even, but it was wrong. Francis saw the brown bottle on her desk and picked it up. He shook it until one pill landed on his palm. Then he sat next to her, holding the pill up to her.
"You need to take it," He said quietly. She curiously took it from him and swallowed it before lying down and closing her eyes. Francis sighed and waited. In any moment, she'd be back. Half a minute passed and her eyes shot open. She sat up, breathing heavily.
"Where am I?"
"You're at home, in your room," Francis replied, "You're safe, Raphina,"
"Oh Francis," She basically lunged forward to hug him tight, "I'm sorry,"
"It's not your fault," He rested his chin on the crown of her head, "You just need to take your meds or you'll keep lapsing into this," She said nothing. He kissed her head and got up from her bed, "Get some rest,"
"You're not staying?"
"No, sorry. Just get some rest, Raph," He headed for the window.
"Francis," Her voice stopped him, "I love you,"
What was he supposed to say? He couldn't lie to her. Could he? No, he couldn't. She suffered enough without him adding to it. He had to say something though. He had already been silent for a second too long.
"..Get some rest," He said, trying not to dive straight out the window. Once he was over halfway down the wooden framing on the wall, he leaped down to the lawn again. As he turned back around again, he straightened out his shirt again, "Sorry about that-" He stopped himself, "Olivia, where are your shoes?"
"Britney took them," She simply replied.
"Britney? She doesn't live anywhere near here," Francis furrowed his eyebrows.
"She was here to get her," She shrugged.
"So instead of Raphina, she made fun of you?" He was getting annoyed now.
"Yes! That's it," Olivia beamed, sounding proud of herself that he had understood what she was trying to say.
"Come on, I'll give you a piggyback home," He sighed, bending over slightly, letting her jump onto his back.
"Can we get ice cream?"
•~~×~~•
Femme poured a little more vodka into her mouth and tried to get as comfy as she possibly could in the tree which she had climbed. On the edge of the town, there was a small enough forest. It was mainly pine trees. It was always far darker than it actually was in between those trees, and throughout the seasons, it never failed to give visitors the light chill of winter. It was a haven of sorts for Femme. On a Saturday night, while other girls and boys her age would be out in J's or in LOUD or even at someone's house party, Femme would be up a pine tree with her trusty vodka bottle and loyal iPod.
Just as her favourite song by Nirvana came on, she heard voices from beneath her. She switched off the music and tucked her knees into her chest. It was quite dark though, so she was well hidden anyway.
"I don't know about this," One boy said, "We should give it to the police, or her family at least,"
"I know you cared about her but this is too much, Reyn," Another male voice responded, "We shouldn't have these, if they find us with them, they'll bring us in,"
Femme tried to shuffle herself slightly so she could see what he was holding.
"But we didn't do anything,"
"Exactly,"
"But if we destroy them, we're guilty in a whole other way," Reyn began to pace in frustration, "We should've done something. We should do something!"
"She was already dead when we got there, you know that," The other tall man stepped right into his face, forcing him to stop pacing.
"We know though. We know who did it and all we're doing is getting rid of the evidence they left behind,"
"Do you want to die next, Reyn?" There was no reply, "Yeah, I didn't think so,"
"Bradley.. If anyone finds out-"
"Nobody is gonna find out, okay?"
That's when Femme saw them. Bradley, the older one had a pair of blue latex gloves in his hands. The fingers were all bloodied. Bradley had leather gloves on his own hands to prevent his own fingerprints from projecting onto them.
"What're we gonna do?" Reyn asked after a short silence.
"Dig a hole somewhere here, throw them in and forget about all this," Bradley sounded far too confident in his words for such a sketchy conversation.
"There's still a murderer running around though," Reyn protested.
"Look, they wanted to kill Fiona and now she's dead. If we say nothing about it, we won't be dead. That's it, get over it and move on with your life," Bradley was clearly getting impatient, "As far as we're concerned, we don't know anything. This is our little secret,"
"Some little secret," Femme couldn't help mutter to herself with an eye roll. It was going to be a long night.
