Falling

Chapter Five

Amelia was having an awesome night. Her husband, Kyle, had made dinner, a huge relief to her, and had even remembered her long list of allergies of the month to avoid adding to it. Their pug came and snuggled in with her on the couch as she waited to be served.

Kyle brought out a plate with steaming lasagne, a colourful salad and three cherry tomatoes. She grinned at him and settled back into the couch to enjoy her feast.

She even got to pick the movie and started flicking though Netflix trying to find one she could actually watch the whole way through, it drove Kyle crazy when she fast forwarded through parts she felt she'd seen too many times, even if she'd never seen the movies.

Eventually she settled on some action flick with archery technique that would make her cringe, that she could rant about and critique. Kyle wrapped an arm around her and when they'd both finished their food, he forced her to sit as she tried to go off to do the dishes.

It was a pretence she had mastered in her childhood, pretending to be very interested in chores, until they start to say, oh but you do it all the time, its fine, leave it to me.

Amelia was feeling blessed and rather pleased with herself when the doorbell rang. It was seven at night, so her assumption was the neighbour's children had accidentally kicked the ball over the fence again and were desperate to retrieve it.

She did not expect to see Vic standing there, Vic had a key, Vic lived there.

Amelia had been training Victoria as long as she could remember being a coach. She had always considered Vic family and thought she knew close to everything there was to know of her friend. As she looked Vic in the face now, she didn't recognise anything in her expression.

"Vic are you okay?" Amelia asked, seeing that the blood had poured out of Vic's face hours earlier. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around Amelia, completely lost for words. Vic felt like a boa constrictor, squeezing the life out of Amelia. When they eventually pulled apart Amelia manoeuvred Vic into their house. Vic physically shook with the effort of walking in.

"Did something happen at work?" Amelia asked but Vic shook her head. They could hear Kyle clattering dishes around in the kitchen. Amelia sat Vic down on the couch and paused the action flick as something or rather for some inexplicable reason seemed to explode.

Vic's hands vibrated in her lap and Amelia realised what was wrong, Vic was more angry than she had ever seen her. More angry than when she found out a particular group of people were going around changing the sights of her team during matchplay. More mad than when her boyfriend had decided that her best friend Margo was rather gorgeous. More angry than when they fired Stana Katic from Castle due to the bullshit excuse of budget constraints.

Vic looked Amelia in the eyes and said words that made her heart stop for a second.

"I've never wanted to kill someone until today." She said simply. As if it wasn't the most terrifying thing Amelia had ever heard her say. Vic was always laughing, caring, being kind to all those around, sometimes even to the deficit of herself.

"What happened?" Amelia asked, never taking her eyes away from Vic. Vic swallowed hard looking at Amelia.

"Someone raped Sarah in the park last night. Now, since she's damaged and injured and won't be in competitions for a few months, won't be earning them prize money, they've decided to kick her out." She stated calmly, but the fury on her face, ripping through her body in torturous waves, was so evident to Amelia it might as well have been written across the sky.

Amelia absorbed the news quickly but the damage began to pound at her before long. She couldn't believe it. Sarah? Sarah with the infectious laugh, stubbornness to a fault who was constantly trying to help others, Sarah. Sarah who always went off on rants and coached little kids, Sarah? No, it didn't make sense. Why would anyone in a million years see Sarah and want to hurt her?