I was sprinting towards him before my brain could even begin to comprehend what had happened. Everything was a blur and panic filled my mind.
"Archer!" I shouted. There was no reply and my voice echoed eerily throughout the deserted street. I dropped to my knees on the cold grey pavement beside his head. There was a bright red welt across the side of his face near his heavily bleeding ear. I put my hand under his neck and lifted his head into my lap, placing two fingers on the side of his neck, searching desperately for a pulse.
I glanced upwards, checking the street for anyone to help. My eyes stung with fresh tears and my throat burned. "Help!" I yelled as loud as my vocal cords would allow and waited. Deciding no one was coming, I lay his head back down on the snow-cushioned pavement.
I got up, stumbling a little, and sprinted back to my house, banging my fists as hard as I could against the wooden door. A hollow echo resounded. "Mum! Help me, for goodness sake!"
I heard no footsteps behind the dark wooden door- no one was home. My hands were shaking too badly to get my spare key out of my pocket and I slammed my entire body into the door in frustration, sobbing. My phone rang, and I extracted it from my pocket with shaking hands.
"H-hello?" I gulped
"Liliana? Are you okay?"
I recongnised the voice immediately, and despite everything that was going on, I felt a thrill go through my body. "Nigel?"
"It's me, is everything okay?"
"No! Nigel, Marbla is still missing, and I think she might have been in the limo that went past earlier, and Archer is here but somebody hit him and now he's unconscious, I just..." I trailed off, realising he probably had no idea what I was on about.
"Okay...calm down, deep breaths, where are you now?"
"Outside my house... " Something new occurred to me. "Wait, how do you even have my number?"
"Um. Long story. Marbla gave it to me just in case. Turn around."
I spun. Nigel was loping up the street towards me. I leapt down the three front steps of my house and ran towards him, my hair billowing behind me. I reached him and stopped too fast, skidding across the slippery, ice-slicked ashphalt, my feet flying up in the air.
"Woah!" He swooped and caught me, pulling me back up effortlessly. "I see your balance matches your conversation skills."
I wrenched myself away from him furiously and straightened up, fixing my coat which had become skewiff during the fall. "Shut up. Why do you have my number? Where is Marbla? What happened to Archer?" I fired my questions at him, desperate for answers.
He surveyed me with interest over the top of his gold-rimmed glasses, looking into my eyes for a long moment. My fierceness wavered slightly, taken aback by the intensity of his gaze. "Liliana. You're going to have to trust me, okay?"
"Trust you? I met you an hour ago! There's a guy injured back there and you better tell me what you know about this or so help me."
"Hey, now," he looked over at the unconcious boy on the path with his hair now adorned with snow. "That's Archer?"
I turned around, vision blurred from the tears in my eyes. "Yes" I snapped.
Nigel strode over to him, nudging Archer with the toe of his boot. "Aaaand?"
I punched his shoulder as hard as I could then backed away, just in case he decided to retaliate- I wasn't taking any chances. He smiled patronizingly. "I should really teach you to punch one time."
He bent down and felt for Archer's pulse, then looked back up at me with a wry smile. "Yeah, he'll be fine."
He grabbed a handful of snow and, before I could ask what he was doing, chucked it hard at Archer's face, grinning as he did so. Archer inhaled sharply, his eyes opened and he started spluttering. Nigel rolled him over with one hand, the stringy muscles of his tanned right arm standing out as he pushed.
He looked faintly repulsed by the sight of Archer lying there in the snow. Pushing up off his knees effortlessly, he paced through the snow back towards me, then stopped slightly in front of me, obscuring my view. I stared blankly around Nigel's shoulder at Archer's shocked expression.
Then Nigel turned around to face me, placing his hands in a firm grip on each of my shoulders. "Lily-" was all he had a chance to say before I pushed away from him promptly, for some reason unwilling to let Archer see him in such close proximity to me. I wasn't expecting him to let go so easily, so when he released me I stumbled and caught myself on a lamp post, swinging myself back around to face him.
"My friends call me Lily. Can I even trust you? Nigel... what is going on? Tell me now-".
He reached out, placing his index finger against my frozen lips and moving closer. The closer he was, the more I had to tilt my head to keep eye contact with him. The post behind me prohibited me from inching back away. I could have tried a side dash, but he slid his right arm around me, placing his hand on the small of back and lowered his face to meet mine, staring intently and into my wide, confused eyes. He opened his mouth to say something-
And he was gone. I blinked, bewildered. To my right, Archer and Nigel were now engaged in a kind of wrestling match. What? I watched as they squabbled, and Nigel soon had Archer in a firm headlock.
"If I let go, will you stop trying unsuccesfully to attack me?" Nigel sniggered, rolling his eyes at me. I fought to hold back a smile at his cockiness. It was apparent that Archer wasn't too badly injured if he had had the strength to rush at Nigel like that.
"Geroff me" Archer panted, his voice muffled. Nigel laughed scornfully and released him, shoving him away. Archer hit the snow hard, swearing. In a moment he had sprung back up again. He gave me a careful once over with his eyes before turning back around to Nigel. I looked around us at the empty, lifeless street- the commotion hadn't attracted any attention.
When I turned back to the boys, Archer had backed away about 5 metres. His nose had started bleeding. Nigel had his back turned on him and he was grinning at me, as if sensing he'd won.
Then then the dark blue lid of a wheelie bin made contact with the back of his head and sent him falling heavily into the ground. He rolled onto his back as Archer flung the lid away- it hit me hard in the ankle and I winced, unnoticed by either of them. Archer pounced Nigel, bringing down brutal punches on his face. I'd had enough.
I took a deep breath. "STOP!" I shouted, trying my best to make my voice sound authorative and commanding. They both stopped and looked at me blankly, as if waiting for more orders. "Get off him, Archer, now!"
Archer looked down at Nigel, and cautiously raised himself upward, not breaking eye contact once. He stepped over Nigel, but purposefully trod on the already damaged glasses next to Nigel's head. He walked slowly towards me, not limping, but the flow of blood from his nose had increased. I pulled a crumpled wad of tissues from my pocket and handed it to him. "You should go home, Archer." I looked over at the still but panting Nigel and jerked my head in the oppposite direction from him.
Archer drooped. "Liliana... I'm sorry. I didn't mean for this to get so out of hand. I'm so sorry."
I was mad at him; both of them, but I still had to suppress a smile at his still apologetic nature. I looked into those solemn brown eyes and I didn't see regret- just a ravenous beast lurking below the surface, as if the taste of Nigel's blood would be enough to set it loose. My lips pressed together at the thought. "Archer, just please go." I let the disgust I felt colour my tone. Why did boys love violence so much?
He fixed Nigel with a look of purest loathing. "This isn't over," he growled at him, venom inflicting every word.
Then Archer turned and plodded down the path without looking back. I watched his slender profile dissappear into the dark.
I turned back to Nigel, suddenly exhausted.
