Beloved: Memoir of a Phantom

Chapter 15- Nothing survives the flame

CHAPTER 15

Nothing survives the flame

I spent three days living like this.

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling and wondering where the hell everything went wrong. Was he really killed upon his first plane ride, or was it something else? Perhaps he simply didn’t want to be around me anymore and was too afraid to tell me. I believed it to be the latter, accepting the theory of rejection over death.

After all, he really couldn’t be killed unless there was a massive fire involved right? I told myself constantly.

My parents grew more and more worried about me as the meals they left on my nightstand gradually grew less and less eaten until finally I wasn’t touching food at all. On day three I had a visitor who, much to my parents joy said that she would try her hardest to snap me out of my stupor; that and she grew tired of calling only to find I wouldn’t answer the telephone.

Shirley peeked her petite freckled face around the door, wearing a big grin. “Hi, mind if I come in?” She whispered as if she wasn’t sure if I was asleep or not. I simply stared blankly at her as she invited herself in, closing the door behind her and settling on my nearby desk chair.

“How have you been doing Is? You look good.” She trailed on, attempting to make conversation.

I simply shook my head in response, my throat too dry and sore from crying to respond.

“Oh I see... Things are still pretty bad inside, right?” She asked sympathetically. I nodded mechanically.

Shirley looked as though she were about to respond, but instead she paused and sniffed the air, her blood-brown eyes following the direction of the scent before they settled hungrily on the plate of untouched food on my bedside table.

“Ooh, are you going to eat that?” She asked nodding in the direction of the plate of cold rubbery steak and carrots.

Again I shook my head “Go ahead, help yourself.” My voice crackled from lack of use.

“Thanks” she said looking almost relieved before snapping up the plate and began scarfing down the contents, completely neglecting the fork that was sitting beside it (A hungry werewolf has to be by far the messiest eater I’ve ever seen in my life.).

She looked up momentarily from her mouthfuls of food to see my shocked expression.

“Sorry…haven’t been to…eat too much lately…never mind hunt… been on high alert since…Jess disappeared.” She mumbled through mouthfuls of cold carrots.

I sat bolt upright in bed at those words. “What?! What’s happened to Jesse?”

“Not sure…We think the purifiers might have nabbed him.” She snorted, licking the plate clean. “As if taking out the only Vamp in the region wasn’t enough for them.”

I felt the hot tears well up under my dry swollen eyelids at her remark; if those nasty excuses for human beings had anything to do with Gabriel’s…disappearance I would scorch them where they stood!

Shirley noticed my pained expression immediately, and dropped the empty plate with a dull thud on the rug. Her cheeks had flushed a deep crimson, almost the same colour as her auburn hair out of regret for what she said.

 “Oh Izzy, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean… Oh stupid me that came out the wrong way!” She reeled remorsefully over her previous slip up of a sentence.

I tried to clear my mournful thoughts aside for a moment and really gave thought to what she had said. Slip up or not, it might mean that the weres knew something I didn’t about what’s really happened to Gabriel.