TO LIGHT MY FIRE

SEVEN

I felt my heartbeat in my ears. Self-consciously I giggled to myself. How much did I drink?

The concert must be over because the only music I hear is the speed of my heart.

Cassandra’s grandma is most likely waiting for us outside expecting us to be dead.

Something was restraining my arms from moving. Along with my legs.

‘What did you do to her?’

‘We went from having no shots to drinking a dozen! Give her a break, she’s never even had a wine cooler.’

‘Why do I smell weed on her?’

‘She might be a little bit high.’ The girl snickered. Lucy.

Tinted light hit my groggy eyes as I attempted to open them.

‘She’s waking up.’

Two people stood in front of me. I could barely see the first one’s face because of how wasted I was, but the electric blue hair told me that it was Lucy.

The man standing next to her was a face that I knew too well. Someone I thought I would never speak to again.

‘Parker?’ His face was hard. He was giving away no emotions so I couldn’t tell how he felt about this situation.

‘How are you alive? Everyone saw your body. There’s no way.’

‘To you and everyone else in the world there’s no way. However, there is.’ The boy who I used to call brother walked toward me in long strides.

That’s weird. He dislocated his knee when he was seven and always had a stagger in his walk.

‘Great observation. I will explain everything, but not all at once.’

Did I say that out loud?

‘No, you didn’t, Eve.’ That was the first time that he said my name. Every memory came back to me at that moment.

The Rocks. The braais. Sunday Church. Parker’s screams…

I looked up at him just in time to see the slightest bit of reaction. He winced and his eyes carried fear and horror. Before I could read into it his rigid façade came back.

While straightening myself in the chair I was handcuffed to, I caught a glimpse of another hostage in a chair to my far left.

‘Cassandra!’ I turned to them. ‘What do you want from us?’ My anger started to build up as my drunkenness faded away.

Parker nodded to Lucy and in a flash she was holding a karambit folding knife in her right hand. Turning it in her hand, she stalked toward Cassandra’s limp body.

‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ My eyes began to water as my realization kicked in.

My best friend might die tonight. She was the only one who wouldn’t look at me like I was crazy or broken when I had seizures. She was there emotionally when Mom didn’t want to be bothered with my terrible day at school. She was a person I would be proud to call my sister. The last words that I told her was that I was going to the bar.

Lucy inched closer to her and d pushed Cassandra’s hair to the side. The blue haired girl aligned the claw looking knife to my best friend’s nape and slid it all the way across making a perfect line.

I wasn’t able to scream. No sound would escape my mouth as Cassandra’s blood splattered on the walls and Lucy’s black tank top. It didn’t feel like the cuffs were holding me back anymore and I felt a fire in my stomach that was near to exploding.

With all the strength I could muster up, I broke free from the chair in seconds. In the process I tore the chair apart.

‘I will rip your throat out!’

Where did that come from?’

I started to run toward Lucy, but Parker tackled me to a wall. He was so strong I thought my shoulders were about to break. Nevertheless, I still attempted to break out of his hold which I almost did.

‘Look at Cassandra!’ My breathing was fast and my eyes were the size of bowling balls.

‘Look at her!’ I took a glance at my best friend who was covered in blood, but her wound was gone.

One Look at Lucy, and I saw her holding her neck as blood slipped through her fingers. Her eyes were about the same size as mine when she fell to the floor.

Cassandra still hadn’t woken up.

I looked at Parker and saw an apologetic look on his face, but then it quickly went away.

Sorry God but,

What the fuck just happen?