Cheater [Watty Awards 2011]

Chapter Seventeen [Part Two]

*Possibly the meanest cliffhanger in the world here, but earlier scenes in the chapter give it away, I think. I can't believe we're almost at the end of it all. Will Cole survive or not? What do you think? Drop a comment, pretty please. :')*

Chapter Seventeen [Part Two]

“What was that...?” One turns down the radio very low, and the other fidgets with her fingers, nervously.

Wishing they’d never spoken, one sighs. They won’t speak until they absolutely have to.

“Tell me.” A red light halts the car. The atmosphere grows very tense inside the bouncing, stationary vehicle, and only breathing can be heard.

Still.

“Tell me.” One commands. The other keeps their eyes, keeps their head very low,

“Speak.” One demands again.

“I...”

Then contradicting themselves, they cut in with, “I thought...” One begins, as if the idea is impossible, “I thought you said you were pregnant.”

A moment lasts for much longer than a moment, “I...did. I-I am.”

And just like the traffic light, the atmosphere in the car changes. Fast.

“Is it his?” One says, sharp, making the car rage forward with a flick of their wrist.

“Yes.”

There is a long period of silence before one finally explodes,

 “How do you think this is going to make him feel? H-How do you think...? God, you’re so selfish!”

 “I-I...I didn’t know. I’m sorry!”

“What are you ‘sorry’ for? Sorry isn’t going to fix anything.”

“We said we’d leave him alone. W-We...We-”

“Can you STOP stuttering? It’s pissing me off!”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I have to.” Then, the car pulls up at the kerb and halts abruptly.

“No, you don’t. And you won’t.”

“What?” One gasps, wiping away tears with a slow arm.

“Is that why we’re here? Is he the reason?”

One glares at her sister, distrustfully, while the other stares back in confusion,

“What? You know that I’m only here to visit Mom and Dad for the weekend. After that, I’ll go back to the city.” One then adds for extra clarity, “I won’t even talk to him.”

“Liar.”

“Excuse me?”

“You think you can just steal him from me, again?”

One stops playing her fingers for the first time throughout the whole journey, and squints at the other in utter disgust, “You slept with my boyfriend, remember?”

“He was in love with me the whole time he was with you.”

One scoffs, finally realising the full extent of the other’s insanity, “You’re actually not okay... You’re-you’re not well; I think it’s... the change in weather.”

“’Change in weather’.” One mocks.

“You’re scaring me. Look, it’s the last Friday of November. Let’s go out.”

“No. Get out.”

Silence.

            The pair find each another’s eyes and stare for a few moments, before one exits the vehicle without even a ‘goodbye’.

The vehicle drives off across scattered, red, brown and yellow autumn leaves, making a loud rustling sound as it speeds away, out of the neighbourhood and out of her life.

Or so it seemed.

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            “Do you know where you are?” Valerie queried, fully aware that a chained Cole would not be able to answer. He writhed and tugged, but his shackles would not even budge.

“Of course not.” He mumbles.

“I thought torture... That’s too easy. I thought assassination – but what fun would that be? I wanted to take part.” She smiles, twisted, “I chose this especially for you.”

“What?” He cries, literally allowing tears to come down his beaten face.

“12 o’clock sharp, we’ll be releasing a gas into the room.” It still made Cole shiver to remember that Natalie was a part of this.

Natalie.

Why?

“Original.” World War II comes to mind at the thought of being gassed to death.

“Oh no, this gas... it acts like an acid, especially designed to destroy the heart.” Cole’s heart aches; he pants, still struggling, “It eats away at it, dissolving it slowly, until there is nothing left but emptiness.” She pauses for a moment, smirking, “In other words, you’re-”

“Dead inside.” He finishes.

“Fun, right?” Valerie looks back at a nervous looking Natalie, who looks as though she will pass out any minute now.

Cole.

Forgive me...

“But that’s not the best part?”

“Oh, yeah?” Cole tries to hide his complete terror with some shaky sarcasm.

“I thought... This is too good to miss.”

Cole waits, and waits.

Valerie is enjoying it all too much. Then, remembering something it seems by the way her eyes light up, she runs to the front of the warehouse and then, suddenly, the whole place is filled with light. The overheads burst into life, at first twitching but soon, they begin to maintain a blinding, yellow glow. Cole shields his eyes, groaning. Even his prison is filled with light.

A deep sigh, “I brought you,” She chuckles, “Your own private audience.”

The scraping noise comes again; it is the metallic scrape of a chair leg. Something, someone is being dragged toward him.

Cole cannot find words for what he is seeing.

No...