Morphine

nineteen : true colours

I had it all planned out. I spent hours pushing away my broken feelings and instead channelling them towards what I wanted to do. I had to find out the truth. It was completely rash of me to go to such lengths to know more about a person I hadn't even spoken much to. But there was something in the way he looked at me that day.

Till today, the only person I know who is smarter than anyone I know is Freya.

It took fifteen minutes to learn how to use Skype and create an account. I could have asked Milan but I didn't want him to get suspicious once I'd done the deed. I asked Freya for her Skype username through Facebook. I was new to all these social media sites but they were quite helpful and even a little fun. Birmingham is five hours ahead of Providence. Right now the time there is almost seven pm.

After a little persuading and smooth lying, I convinced my bodyguard – whose name, I bothered to find out, is Archibald Coburn – to drive me home because I had forgotten to do my chemistry report that I had to submit tomorrow and had unfortunately completely forgotten about. He seemed stern and bold – true to his name – and even made me beg him.

Now here I sit staring at the computer screen in my room. The arrow hovering on the 'call' button. Should I do this? If I did, this would easily be the most deceitful thing I'd have ever done in my life. I would have to lie to Mum, Milan and even Archibald who was constantly by my side all the time.

I press the call button. The short, bubbly tone rings through my ears as I wait impatiently for Freya to answer. Ten seconds pass by and still nothing. I don't give up though. I hang up and try again.

The sound stops and I hear Freya's enthusiastic voice. "Heya Meira!" Her round face appears on the screen. The very sight of her makes me smile. Her hair is neatly tied in a sock bun atop her head and a purple pen stuffed between her ear and her temple. She looks studious and as if I just interrupted her. "How are you?"

She still has that same curious twang in her words like everything in the world fascinates her. "Hi Freya. I'm good. And you?" I try to summon the same amount of excitement that has her eyes shining, but I fail miserably.

"I'm well. Exams are two weeks from now. They just dumped a ton load of chapters on our heads in the last minute. Can you believe it? Bloody wankers." Freya shakes her head as if it weren't important. "How's the States? Any fine men around you?" Then she looks mortified. "Apart from Chase, of course." I know what that expression meant. She knew Chase and I weren't together but she still upheld the pretence that Chase and I were meant to be together and any other men being around me in that way was not even an option. "Sorry," She mouths at me.

Freya just spoke continuously without letting me get a word in. I laugh it away, trying to look nonchalant. "Don't worry about it. They're alright." An uninvited image of William Maurer pops into my head and the smile disappears. "Lots of homework to do here too, unfortunately."

"Speaking of," She begins in a serious voice. "Shouldn't you be in class right now?"

There it was. Freya wasn't stupid. That's exactly what I was counting on. I try to not look like I am using her only for her intelligence but there is no other way around it.

"You want me to do something?" I look up at her surprised. "You wouldn't have bothered to call me through skype otherwise. I figured out. Oh, don't look so guilty. It's alright. I'm not that sentimental."

"I was hoping if you could...um...find out where they are keeping—"

"Zahid?!" There. She figured it out.

"Yeah, I want to talk to him"

She stared at me. There were several emotions that crossed her face, most of them that I recognised. Judgement, suspicion, surprise and a sliver of pride. Out of all the things she could have said, most of them questioning my mental health of course, she asked, "Why? "

"Because—"

"Give me one good reason why I should do this." She already looked ready to say yes.

"Because I want to ask him what he knows." I use my words in the vaguest way possible so that she doesn't get into much trouble because of what she knows.

"Lucky for you, I already know where he is."

I hadn't anticipated this. There was no reason why Freya should be looking into this. "Why? How?"

She smiles at me, a little sadly, and says, "You forget that you are the sort of girl for whom boys would do anything."

Now I have no idea what she's talking about. "What is that supposed to mean? Who are you talking about?"

Just when she opens her mouth to speak, the door to her room flies open and there stands Freya's mum. "Are you coming to eat dinner?" Then her gaze flits across the screen and her expression immediately becomes guarded. "Hello Meira."

"Hi." I reply with a smile. Her mum looks rigid and uncomfortable. Even though it took  me a couple of seconds, i understood why. Her mum didn't want Freya to have any connection to me because that could mean that maybe even Freya would get hurt.

"I'll be there in a minute." Freya, on the other hand, looked completely oblivious to the whole exchange. Her mum closed the door and left. "Sorry, Meira. I have to go. Mum makes us all eat dinner early, I don't know why."

"Wait no. Tell me what you meant earlier." The urgency in my voice is loud and clear. "Why do you know where he is? And how did you find out? Please, tell me Freya."

Freya looks towards the door, apologetically. "Fine." She leans forward. "I don't know if you've noticed but Ewan has a massive crush on you. But he knows you're with Chase—" I shake my head and she waves it away. "You'll get back together with Chase, I know it. Anyway, you're also in another country so obviously there's nothing Ewan can do now. But he was extremely angry with the whole Zahid thing. And when I say angry I mean psychopathic kind of angry. It was as if he was the one who was stabbed. Then he forced me to find out where the police were keeping him so he could kill Zahid." She goes silent all of a sudden. "Kill him, Meira. Ewan was talking about killing him. And he looked like he would do it too. It also didn't help that you didn't speak to any of us before leaving. Ewan found out only because Milan called and told him."

"I'm sorry. I just—"

"You had a lot going on, I understand." She smiles weakly. Her former demeanour of enthusiasm was all gone now. She just looked tired. "Anyway, it looks like Ewan is pushing all this hurt and anger towards finding Zahid and...killing him. I can't believe I'm saying that. One of my best friends is talking about killing some guy and I'm behaving as if it's a perfectly okay thing to do."

"Freya, listen to me. You have to stop him. Don't let him do it. I never thought Ewan would—" But then again I don't know any of you so well. "You have to give me the address, Freya." I haphazardly pull out a book from my bag and a pencil. "Tell me, where is it?" I don't know why I'm not persisting Freya to tell me just how she found out where Zahid was being held. She didn't look like she would tell me right now.

Her mum shouts from downstairs and Freya shakes her head. "She's angry. I don't know why. I have to go. I'll send it to you on facebook later tonight." She pauses before hanging up. "I can see what you're thinking, Meira. Be careful. That's all I have to say."

Freya clicks on the end button and my screen goes dark.

I just sit there staring at the blank page for a while. This information is overwhelming. The part about Ewan scared me but there was nothing I could do about it. I doubted he would do it. But Ewan is wealthy, that I knew, so he can pay his way through.

So can I.

The next plan starts forming inside my head. I log out of skype and notice that I have a message on facebook.

Chase : "Hey, what're you doing?"

I ignore it, log out of facebook and shut down the computer. I didn't need the emotional war that came with speaking to Chase.

What I needed is my mum's credit card and a brilliant plan to fool Archibald and Milan.

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-nymisha