SECRETS | COMPLETED

Chapter 17

I rushed over to Avi worriedly, wondering what on earth he was doing, storming in here like that. As soon as I was close to him, I opened my mouth to speak but he grabbed my arm and dragged me out of the door, not saying a word...

"Avi what the hell?" I gasped, as he pulled me out of the building.

"Speak in a minute." He replied bluntly, clearly out of breath.

We made our way to his car, he opened the passenger door, gesturing for me to get inside, then walked round the car and sat down next to me. Once we started driving he began speaking again. 

"It's Travis." He sighed, not looking at me.

"What about him?"

"He-He's been causing a huge fuss in the jail and starting randomly attacking his inmates...one of them ended up in hospital."

"So? That doesn't explain why you practically kidnapped me."

"They've moved his death date to today. The judge decided that he was a danger to the other prisoners and no-one else was getting killed today so..."

I looked at him in shock. I was on my way to see Mitch's ex get killed...today?! And I was on my way to it happen?  I wasn't ready to see this! No, no, no, no, no! 

"Do I have to go?" I asked desperately, praying that I wouldn't have to.

"Well yes, you're the one who was most affected by what he did." Avi said simply as though it was the most obvious thing in the world. Did he not get how difficult the past few days had been for me? Had he not seen me in my depressive state?

 I buried my head in my hands for the rest of the journey. It made me feel sick but I was already feeling unwell so I didn't care. It only took about twenty minutes to get to wherever we were going. I didn't know where that was as I hadn't asked and Avi hadn't told me.

 We stopped outside of an old, abandoned arena that I had never seen before; which was weird because I didn't live that far away. The building looked ancient - like nobody had step foot in it for at least fifty years. We got out of the car and entered the arena through a huge gap in the wall. Why bothering finding a door? I gasped as I saw the wreck that was the inside. All of supports that held the place together were broken and rotted away, half of the seats were missing and the whole thing looked like it could just collapse if a slight gust of wind knocked it.

(This is kind of what I had in mind.) 

"Wh-" I started before Avi interrupted me.

"This is where Travis will be burned. They'll arrive in a few minutes." He said looking around.

"Burned! What the hell? How could no-one have told me? That's just so...utterly disgusting and painful! I thought he'd get an injection or something!"

"That's how we vampires do it. Injections just don't work because what's poisonous to humans, isn't to us. Plus, we like to stick to our traditional methods." He smiled, as if burning someone alive was entertaining to him. I was absolutely horrified. For some reason I struggled to understand how any decent human...vampire, whatever, could do that to another person.

My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of rusted metal clattering to the floor. I looked to my side and saw two prison guards burst through another hole in the partly demolished wall, pulling a grief-stricken looking Travis behind them. Guilt washed over me as I saw how terrible he looked. The bags under his eyes were huge, purple and puffy, his skin was red and blotchy and his lips were white and had cracked so much that they had started to bleed. 

They dragged him over to a wooden pole and roughly tied him to it so that he couldn't escape. I watched him struggle but didn't protest or try to help him. By this time a small crowd of people had gathered round to watch, in the crowd I recognized the judge, a few members of the jury, some people from the courtroom but the rest I didn't recognize. Was this their sick idea of entertainment or fun? Seeing a stranger get burned alive on a pole? 

I looked back over to Travis and saw that the two prison guards were drenching him in gasoline. They called me over. Did I have to do something? I hoped not. Nervously, I tip-toed over to the pole. I could feel everyone's eyes on me. By the time I had gotten there Travis was dripping in the flammable liquid. I could see that every breath he took was a struggle as the stench of the gasoline burned his nostrils, throat and lungs. One of the guards handed me a matchbox, motioning for me to strike a match. Slowly, I slid open the box and picked up a match. Letting the smooth, wooden stick rest in between my shaking fingers for a few seconds whilst Travis looked at me in pure fear. I could practically see the beads of sweat on his forehead. I swiped the match on the lighting strip of the box. It didn't light. I heard Travis sigh in relief. I tried again and a small flame ignited on the end of the wood. I looked at the flame and then back up at Travis. In his eyes I could see he was begging me not to do it...

"I'm sorry." I whispered, before throwing the match directly at Travis. His entire body became alight within seconds, his skin starting melting and he screamed in pain. He cried Mitch's name hoarsely, begging and pleading for help. His screams subsided as the fire burnt through the ropes and his burning body fell to the ground. 

After a while, all that could be heard was the faint crackle of the fire. My eyes glazed over with the heat and my own tears as I, and around twenty others looked at his blackening corpse. What had I done? I was a murderer. A cold-blooded, heartless murderer... Mitch would hate me. Not being able to look at Travis' burning flesh any longer, I turned around and pushed through the confused crowd, running out of the stadium as fast as I could...