Trust No Bitch: Part 2

Gemma Akintola

The moon was high in the sky by the time Gemma finished her shift at TGI Fridays, a mid-morning until early-evening killer, not helped by the 6am start she'd needed in order to get in enough time on the track before she left for work. The National Athletics Qualifiers were in just over a month and there was no time for her to piss about, what with work, being in 3rd year and the workload that came with that, as well as everything that had happened since the discovery of Cleo's body. Managing to fit in a meal with Josh was therefore a luxury she hadn't yet experienced before that night. It wasn't just that she didn't have the time; there was always the possibility of somebody seeing them together that lingered in the air, like the smell of burning after a bonfire, that made Josh putting his arm around her in public or his hands touching anywhere on her body not feel the way she wanted it to. It was fortunate that the TGIs that Gemma worked at wasn't frequented by students, especially from St.Edmunds; not only was it too expensive for those having to survive on an all-day-every-day diet of spaghetti hoops but most considered themselves too "cultivated" to be spotted in somewhere like it. It had always amused Gemma that those same people had no problem, however, with getting so smashed on a Tuesday night at Chaos that they could be found the next morning passed out in a puddle of their own piss. Either way, it meant that Gemma and Josh had scheduled a meal there free of charge, as part of her managers's rather lame expression of gratitude for the abundance of overworked, underpaid hours she'd spent at the place.

"Alright?" Gemma greeted Josh, who was waiting for her outside the kitchens, whipping off her apron and shoving it into the drawstring bag she'd brought with her. It contained the dress she planned to change into, the same close-fitting, white mini dress she'd worn the night of Cleo's disappearance. Some people might call that morbid of her but she wasn't Lilly Philipps or Alice Jenkins; she didn't have hundreds of pounds going spare to explore the cornucopia of beautiful dresses offered by the boutique shops in town. The white dress would have to do, and in her not so humble opinion, it looked bloody amazing on her anyway, bringing out the deep golden hue of her skin tone and the muscular definition in her legs. It was better than the alternative; Josh seemed most unimpressed by her TGI's uniform.

"Akintola." He responded with a grin. "In uniform and everything. Am I supposed to be turned on right now or?" He gestured towards the ill-fitting black shirt and red and white stripy tie her manager insisted on everyone wearing. Gemma, hitting him on the upper arm lightly with her tie after pulling it from around her neck, pointed towards a table at the far end of the restaurant upon which one of her colleagues had, in what they clearly thought was a hilarious move, placed a cheap looking candle and a vase of flaccid flowers.

"You. Sit. I just need to get changed and I'll be out in a minute." She said under her breath before waltzing into the empty toilets and throwing a cubicle door open, dropping her bag of clothes and makeup onto the closed toilet lid. Peeling off her shirt, slightly damp with sweat from the 9 hour shift, and quickly slipping out of her trousers, she stood silently contemplating her figure for a moment or two. It was the Cleo effect, she supposed. That immutable sense of always being second best to someone or something, in that case, Jade March, Josh's ex. You're fucking bomb, she reassured herself as she pulled the white dress over her head and tugged at the hem before shoving her uniform into the drawstring bag, hoisting that over her shoulders and sauntering out of the toilets. She paused for a second as she laid her makeup out on the edge of the sink, her hand, which had been hovering between her powder and bronzer, loitering for a second in mid air. There was a rustle from the cubicle next to the one she had just exited, she was sure of it. Probably nothing, she thought, don't let yourself turn into Alice. Paranoia ran through the blood in that girl's veins in a higher concentration than oxygen. Continuing with her contour, swishing the powder brush across her cheekbones, it was the sound of shoes hitting the tiles that made Gemma stop. Laying the brush back down next to the bronzer, she peered into the mirror, seeing a pair of black shoes peeping out from beneath the cubicle door, the clack of the lock being pulled back startling her.

Shit.

Had this person been there the whole time? Stood on top of the toilet or something? Was it a pervert? Her aunty had once told her a story of a man she'd come across in a French service station who'd been hiding in the cubicle next to her, sticking his head underneath the cubicle wall when he thought she wasn't looking, which unfortunately for him, she was. Not only did the scumbag get his face stamped on by the aunty in question but he also got a pretty lengthy prison sentence. But this didn't seem like that to Gemma. She didn't even have time to ask who it was before her questions were answered, the mystery neighbour surfacing from their cubicle, all the air in Gemma's chest leaving her as if someone had punctured her lungs like a balloon. A mask, a white, distorted face, a gaping O-shaped mouth as black as the sky outside, that looked like somebody had gotten 2 hands and tugged the top and the bottom of it apart until they would never meet again. She knew it very well. Had imagined it there through every dark window she'd looked out of for the past month or so. And its wearer was approaching Gemma, one hand behind their back, the other outstretched.

The Supplier.

"Leave me and my friends alone." She croaked but they didn't stop. Instead, they took a step closer and the hidden hand crept out from behind their back, revealing what they were holding in it: a beaker of sorts. "Did you hear me? Just fuck off!" Gemma yelled, moving back into the sinks. She couldn't get any further away. Her only option was to run to the door, but it was too late. Too late for that. With a flick of the wrist, a clear liquid glided from the top of the beaker in The Supplier's hand, splashing towards Gemma's arms, which she had earlier raised in defence.

And then, the pain hit.

What the hell was happening?

She had no idea. Her consciousness, in that moment, was made up of one thing.

Pain so inexplicable a room full of the world's most illustrious writers couldn't describe it, her flesh audibly sizzling like meat on a grill, like a snowman shoved in front of a fire. So much pain her body couldn't contain it, it flowing out into her limbs so that she fell to the floor in the foetal position. Her legs and arms quivering and shuddering like a malfunctioning machine, she screamed and screamed and screamed and howled like a fox in the middle of the night, until it felt like her vocal cords were tearing in half, the sound making no sense anymore. Past her bloody mess of an arm, she saw the Supplier shove Josh out of the way as he ran in, a bunch of strangers behind him, all of them gasping and recoiling.

"A phone?" He roared at them all as they stood, eyes bulging from their heads, hands trembling. "Call a fucking ambulance! Someone go after that person who just ran out of here!" But they all continued to just stand, uselessly, looking down at Gemma on the floor in the corner of the bathroom. Josh, teeth gritted, grabbed the phone from the hand of a particularly dumbstruck woman and dialled it himself shouting "Arseholes! Arseholes everywhere!" as it rang out.

It was the last thing she remembered before letting the pain devour her. Take her consciousness.

She was done. For a while, at least.