The Dangers of Pursuing Red

Chapter 4 - It's all in the Blood (Part 1 of 5)

Copyright © 2012 Dominic Eagle

All rights reserved

CHAPTER 4 - IT’S ALL IN THE BLOOD

Mel was fine. But I, on the other hand, was not.

At 9:00am on Saturday 7th April 2012, Melissa Rose was emitted from hospital with a few stitched up scars on her forehead. She talked incessantly about what she would do once she’d got her hands on the “prick” that shoved her into the road, and theorised about the culprit probably being that “bitch in economics class” who despised Melissa for the crude fact that she had “much bigger breasts” than her. It was all jittery rubbish, and I realised that, in reality, the culprit could be any number of people, given the amount of enemies Melissa had accumulated in her time.

Whilst she droned on, I could only hear an underlying tone of pure fear in her voice. So I took the liberty of cutting into the one-way conversation, at long last.

“Nobody’s gonna hurt you Mel, I promise. Don’t be scared.”

“What? I’m not scared! I was only saying that... Well, you know....” She stopped midsentence, blushing furiously as she realised I’d uncovered her frailty.

I wrapped my arm around her and gazed down into those petrified green eyes, which concealed nothing anymore. I do remember asking myself, why on earth don’t I love Melissa Rose? I should have loved her. She was beautiful and sweet, underneath all the bravado she liked to drape around her feeble heart. She had an endearing naivety and yet owned a confident aura, with that casual, laid-back attitude of hers. But, most importantly, she lacked the intensity of Laura. Mel served to distract me, though Laura was always on my mind. Perfect Laura Hills… And I suppose that was my answer. I could never really love Melissa, because I loved Laura.

I realised Mel had started talking again.

“… And I only went outside because Rachael said-”

“Woah, rewind a little there Mel… What did Rachael say?” I suddenly perked up attentively.

“Oh, stopped daydreaming now, have we? She told me… Oh God, I can’t remember!” Melissa exasperated, rubbing her head crossly. I remembered she’d suffered a little memory loss from the car accident. However, the driver had been travelling below the speed limit and if she’d had the misfortune of running into a reckless driver, she might not have even been alive that morning - never mind being able to retain any knowledge of that night.

“Wait, I do remember now,” She continued. “She told me that you were already outside the night club. She said you were vomiting by the bus stop; or some ridiculous story like that. Obviously that turned out to be a lie, but, being completely wasted, I simply wandered out there and ended up standing by the roadside, declaring to the empty night that ‘James isn’t here’. Next thing I know, I can feel hands forcefully pushing me into the road, and then… Then… Well, all I saw was darkness. But it wasn’t Rachael who pushed me, because I’ve been told that she was inside the nightclub when it happened... Right? Or I suppose it could’ve been her… I just don’t know!”

“Damn it! This is the second time something like this has happened in a month. And you can’t tell me that this event was an accident like the fire, because you have physical proof that it wasn’t,” I frowned, rubbing her hand a little to ease her own discomfort.

“What are you saying James? That… The two events are linked somehow?”

“I’m not sure Mel. I don’t want to worry you, but-”

“- No, you need to get your head out of the clouds, that’s what you need to do, James Smith!” Melissa cried, storming ahead and then standing in my path, facing me dead-on. I was cognitive of the fact that this was fear talking in place of her rationality, once again. “I know you live a careless life and the world has become your playground, but you can’t just go saying things like that to scare me! It’s not cool.”