Mr. Popular and I

Chapter Forty-Six - The Colour Red

       "I'm sorry, I understand now that I was wrong for the way I treated you," I tell him truthfully, no matter how dry and weighty my tongue feels in my mouth. "You can't do this though Nick, we all make mistakes."

       Keep going Lea, you're being so strong.

       A scoff escapes his lips, "my mistake has turned me into a murderer." He says the word with such hatred. "I was drunk that night, I was fucked up, I persuaded her to get into that fucking car. I'm a murderer."

       What I do next is something that I never thought I would be able to do. Praying that I don't misjudge the timing, I lunge forward towards him as he's speaking. His reaction is slower than mine and it gives me the advantage to grab at his wrist with both my hands and twist it until his grip on the gun weakens. Nevertheless, in his panicky attempt of stepping backward to dodge me and jolting his arm away just as soon as I twist it, the inevitable happens.

       The trigger is pulled.

***

River

       I don't exactly know what I was expecting to find when I threw open the door, but my guess was right. It was a gunshot, obvious from the gun lying on the floor and the blood pooling beside Nick and Lea. I just don't know who the blood belongs to.

       Lea, please be okay. 

       When people say you have an out-of-body experience in a hard situation, it's true. It's as if I'm watching myself from the corner of the room, not accountable for my following actions. I'm not even sure what I shout as I rush to Lea's side.

       Her hands are covered in blood, her eyes permanently wide in shock as she clutches at Nick's thigh. It's only when I kneel to bring her closer to me that I realise the deep wound in Nick's inner thigh that gushes blood the colour of the sunset which is now showing in the sky. An image flashes before my eyes as I look down at him and it brings back a painful memory of the night of his car crash.

       He had suffered superficial (in the metaphorical sense) wounds – a few deep cuts, a couple broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. Problems that could be solved by surgery, rehabilitation and time. But another not-so-superficial wound was his madness – that night when I visited him he had turned mad, there's no other way to put it. He kept calling for Emily, or more like screaming.

       The madness probably clawed away at him throughout this year, but maybe he kept the scratch marks hidden.

       Until now.

       My rigid arms manage to wrap themselves around Lea's shaking body, my clasp on her tightens as I pull her away from the madness I see before me. Even though it was a mistake, he was responsible for the death of my sister, I would never let him take Lea away from me too.

       In my hurry of getting her as from away from the blood and the gun as possible, I think I whispered something along the lines of "baby, are you hurt?".

       "No, I'm fine. But help him, he's hurt." Like her body, her words shake as well, with eyes fixated on the blood covering Nick's leg as mine are on the blood covering her hands.

       What have you done to Lea? What have you done to Nick?

       As if all the noise surrounding me has been muffled up until this point, I finally switch back into reality and I hear shouting. It's coming from Ky.