Bloody Summer

Chapter 11: Alone

    The next day I found out that trial would be starting the following week. I suspected that the trial would take a week or two. So that left me with three weeks tops.

Great.

Derelli was the only face I saw for the next few days, until Monday when Agent Stewart finally came around. 

I was laying on my bed, my eyes were following a small dust speck around. God I wish I were a dust particle. I said to myself, then I'd be out of this hell hole. 

"Miss Vera." I heard Agent Stewart call. I turned my head to see him standing outside the cell. I swung myself out of the bed. 

"Hey Stewie," I sang. Derelli pulled out his keys and opened the cell, Agent Stewart handed Derelli his gun. Derelli slammed the cell. "Look who finally came around," I teased, "What do you want anyway?" He shrugged. 

"Just thought you could use some company." I raised my eyebrow. Company? I thought this was jail, not a retreat.

"It's strictly business," he said in response to my body language. I chuckled. 

"It's not business if you're here for a chat." I stood up from my bed. I glanced over at Derelli who didn't appear to be paying attention. I made my way over to  Agent Stewart. The closer I got to him, the more nervous he got. 

He was wearing a blue button up dress shirt, with a black blazer, and jeans. Very casual dress for a flatfoot. 

He wasn't on duty. 

I pulled on the sides of his blazer, trying to provoke something, anything, from him. As I continued to pull at his blazer he willingly moved closer to me.

"What are you doing here?" i asked again, hoping for an acceptable answer. His breathing got heavy. As he moved closer his intoxicating scent became even more apparent. "Huh?" I said. 

"I...I just wanted to see you. To make sure you're alright." I smiled. He was acting like he was seven years old, and I was his first crush. I pushed him away.

"That's more like it."

    Derelli gave me a look from the outside of the cell when Ian left. 

"What?" I asked, sitting Indian Style on the floor. He just shook his head. I guess he had been paying attention. It felt as if Derelli was my older brother, ready and willing to pick on me. This thought provoked something in me. Something that brought me back to when I was six and I lost my brother. 

It's  1672 and I'm sitting in the sitting in the grass in our back yard. Our house is a small cabin hidden in a vast wooded area. I know nothing of the outside world, this cabin is the only thing that I know. I'm playing quietly with my doll, and my brother Joshua is playing with a spinning top. 

"Round and round!" Joshua yells as he plays. 

"Joshua!" I yell. He stops and turns towards me.

"What do you want Mary?" he yells back.

"Quiet down, you're gonna wake Sally." I rock the doll back and forth in my arms.

"ROUND AND ROUND!" he yells even louder.

"Joshua! You're nine! Act like it!" I yell as I continue to rock Sally. My mother had explained to me that just because I was mature for my age, that didn't mean everyone else was going to be. 

"ROUND AND ROUND!" he yelled again. I get up and strut over to Joshua. I snatch up his spinning top.

"Hey!" He yells, his voice cracking, "Give that back!" He reaches up for it, but I refuse to give it to him. "Give it back now Mary or I'm gonna tell Ma!" I still refuse. I begin to run deeper into the woods as he yells for out mother. When I stop, I throw his toy. It's now hidden somewhere in the mass of fallen trees and over grown grass.  I stick my tongue out at him, even though he's nowhere in sight. 

"Na na! Now you have to find it!" With that I begin walking back towards the house, and I hear a blood curdling scream coming from the house.

"Joshua?" I yell. I hear nothing else. This scares me. I run even faster, and trip over a fallen tree. Joshua isn't there. I run into the house and to get mother. She's no where to be found, neither is Joshua or father. I'm alone.