Colour Me Red

Chapter 9: Ellie

Chapter 9: Ellie

I was sprawled across the woodland floor with dirt and leaves in my hair, blood dripping from the oh-so-painful gash that had taken refuge across my stomach.

"How do I look?"

Dune glanced at me with a dubious look in his eyes.

"Urm, how about dead?" he responded.

I laughed out loud and Dune rolled his eyes.

"I think we're done here," he said, staring at the camera he held in his hands, flicking through the pictures.

We'd spent over an hour perfecting the scene we wanted to portray, focusing on every last detail so that it looked as realistic as possible.

For a good twenty minutes of that hour, I'd stayed silent, scolding myself for being so stupid.

'Aren't you going to kiss me?'

I mean, what was I thinking?

When I'd finally accepted that there was no way for me to go back in time and undo what I'd said, I started communicating with Dune again, commenting on pointless things like the weather.

"So what do we do now?" I questioned curiously.

"Now we send them to your father and hope that he doesn't suspect anything," he replied.

Standing up, I did a little shimmy to get as much dirt out of my hair as possible before glancing up, just in time to catch Dune staring at me, his eyes black as night.

"We should get going," he said, voice gruff.

I raised one quizzical eyebrow before throwing on the tee shirt he'd handed me earlier.

"Put this on when we're finished," he'd said. "We don't want anyone seeing you and thinking you're actually injured."

Once we had collected all our belongings, we made our way back to the car, brushing away the branches that clawed at us.

"Are you sure you're okay with this?" Dune asked, his voice breaking through my subconscious thoughts.

He caught my gaze before continuing.

"You're not going to be able to contact anyone you know, not even your mother. I need you to fully understand that before we can go through with this," he explained.

I nodded slowly.

I knew I'd have to worry about this certain complication some time or other, I'd just hoped that it would be later on in the game so that I had time to prepare.

"I know it's going to be hard, but I want them to be safe and if that means they have to believe I'm dead, then so be it," I spoke with a certain determination in my voice.

I hadn't realised I felt this way until I said it out loud, but I was glad that I was so calm about the situation.

Now was not the time to panic.

"As long as you understand," Dune said with a nod. "Felix and I will support you all we can; try and find you a job, buy you new clothes, whatever you need."

I smiled at the endearment and struggled to remember why I was so afraid of this man to start with.

Uh, because he kills people for a living and he wanted to kill you?

Okay, so I could remember, but it was still strange to think that I was terrified of him when all he'd done was try and help me.

"Thank you. I mean it, you're a better person than you give yourself credit for," I whispered solemnly.