Tears were stinging my eyes again. I took a deep, controlled breath- I needed to keep it together now, for all our sakes. I crawled over to the rest of the pictures on the floor. I picked the one closest to me and tried to focus in on it. I sat back on my heels and hugged all three photos to myself in one hand while I stared at the last one in my other. I had an awful feeling that I already knew who this was.
My mother sat on the branch of a large willow tree. Dusk sunlight filtered through the hanging leaves behind her and haloed her long hair. The picture had been taken a long time before I was born- she wasn't that much older than me and her laughing face was youthful and innocent. She wore a long dress of white cotton and a wreath of white flowers crowned her head.
I was mesmerised by it, but I forced myself to look up at Nigel. His expression was stormy. "I think they have them." He forced out through gritted teeth.
"...Have them?" I squeaked, not really comprehending what he was trying to get across.
"Yeah. As hostages."
"Who's they?"
"Either Archer's gang or their rivals."
"So," I started, "why would they send me a picture of Archer?"
He snatched the photos from me, singling out Archer's and dropping the other two to the floor, which I scrambled to pick up again. He eyed Archer's photo for a moment, then handed it back perched between his index and middle finger. "Could be a trap. Archer could have failed his mission. Could have-" he batted his eyelids and smiled, "fallen in looooove with you. I've known him for a long time and it sounds like something that sook might do."
"You really dislike him, do you not?"
"If you'd only known him as long as I have. Archer. Gets. Annoying," he growled through gritted teeth
I rolled my eyes and looked up at him. "Oh c'mon, pretty sure there is more at stake here then a couple of teenagers who's personalities clash. This might come as a surprise to you, but the earth does not revolve around you." I was only half joking.
"Hmm"
I looked up at him. He extended his arms towards me and I took his hands. We stayed like that for a second before he pulled me up and to him. His expression had softened and he was looking at me differently now.
"Hey. I know that. But I also know that with my knowledge about the type of person Archer is, I can help figure out what's happening here. I know this isn't between me and him. This whole thing isn't, but something is. Him and me have a history, Liliana. Anyway, the situation at hand right now is the photos- who sent them and why."
I was reassured by this little speech- perhaps I had underestimated him. He clearly knew what he was doing and was used to being a figure of authority, but I couldn't just sit back, not worry about it and let him deal with it. The people in those pictures were my life.
He let go of me and took a giant, sideways step towards the stereo on the entertainment unit. He turned the volume dial up before pressing play, and my brother's heavy metal CD blared, causing us both to jump and Nigel to fumble for stop. He opened the CD player and plucked the heavy metal CD from the tray, replacing it with something I was too far away to make out the cover. The sweet harmony of the violins and strings ensemble flowed across the room, giving the narrow, off-white living space a cool and peaceful air. Nigel gracefully waltzed over to me, gently placing his right hand on my waist and interlocking the fingers on his left with mine. I raised an eyebrow up at him. "I can't dance," I told him.
He smiled then; a genuine, friendly smile that warmed me to the core. "It doesn't matter," he assured, "I'm leading you, and I'm the bomb. Just remember, right leg back, together. Left leg steps left, together. Right leg forward, together. Right leg to side, together."
We danced: back, together, side, together, forward, together, side together. He was holding me close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from him. I glanced to Archer's photo on the floor and stopped dancing, letting go of Nigel to take a step back. "I'm sorry, Nigel. I can't stop worrying about them. About him..."
As my sentence trailed off, my thoughts intruded. I was consumed with worry. How could we be dancing in a situation like this? I felt guilty that I was almost as worried about Archer as I was my family. I didn't want to be the reason anybody was in danger. I made up my mind.
Not looking at Nigel in case it weakened my resolve, I scooped up my trench coat and slipped my arms through as I strode purposefully out the door. Nigel tried to grab my arm, but I slipped free and squelched through the melting snow toward the street in a pathetic attempt to run. The ashphalt had been cleared of snow, thank goodness- I could run on the road.
I turned to the right when I reached the dimly lit street, running alongside and as close to the path as I could so that I could follow Archer's footsteps in the snow. Why hadn't he just walked on the road? Maybe guessed i'd follow him and wanted to lead me to him? A growing feeling of trepidation rose inside me, but I pushed it back, comforting myself with the thought that at least I was doing something.
It must have stopped snowing since he'd walked off, because the indentations in the snow were still almost perfectly preserved. I slowed down to glance over my shoulder to see if Nigel was behind me, and he wasn't. A shiver ran up my spine. The footsteps were all over the footpath, as if Archer had started staggering and jumping around, but that was when I realised there were two different sets of footsteps. I'd been following Archer's all the way to this very spot, so I knew his prints were the bigger of the two; the smaller footsteps being about two thirds the size of his.
I stopped walking when I came across a dark, almost black, shape in the snow. It was a liquid, soaked into the snow rather than one that sits on top. The streetlamp next to me gave only enough light for me to catch a glint of red. It must have been blood*, it's colour preserved by the cold. Only then, I noticed that it was still dripping. I could see the droplets pass to the ground right before my face.
I looked up, catching sight of a suspended figure, covered with a black sheet, hanging from the lowest branch of a tall tree. I stifled a scream by covering my mouth with my hand and fumbled three steps backwards. I was scared stiff, but curiosity had gotten the better of me. I regained those steps and placed a hand softly on the black, cotton sheet. I gripped and reefed it off, spattering blood all over myself and the snow. Ridiculously, I wondered whether I would be able to get the bloodstains out of my coat.
The thing hanging from the tree was definitely human, and I could see the blood-matted, dark hair on the back of a head. A pair of thick-rimmed glasses fell to the snow and I knelt down, picking them up. My heart was thudding so heavily that it filled my ears, the blood rushing through my head made me feel flushed. I began raising my head and caught the swaying body in my peripheral vision. I backed up on my hands and knees before standing up. The body had turned around to face where I was now standing. I gripped his glasses in my hand and looked the dead boy in the eye. "Connor!" I screamed.
A hand came around my head and covered my mouth, pulling me back and in position for a punch to the chest hard enough to wind me. "I'm sorry," a voice whispered, and in the dim light of the street lamps, the last thing I saw was Archer's very solemn face before I blacked out for the second time tonight.
