True Love – Chapter One; Blood Red Ruby

"God. Where on earth is she?" Emma groaned looking out of her bedroom curtain onto the road outside here house. She examined the road outside. Big houses. Many cars lined up along the side in-between the palm trees. You could see the sea over the top of the house opposite Emma's.

"She has to walk her Emma! Give her time.."

"Cleo! She's had time. She's late. We told her to be here for 10, and it's 10.02. She's LATE!"

"Ok, Emma. Calm down. We will go outside and walk to Rikki's house. You do remember it's a Saturday morning..Right? Rikki normally doesn't get up on saturdays until at least 12!"

"Fine. Come on then. We'll probably meet her on the way anyways."

We walked down the stairs, and put on our shoes.

"Mum! We're going to meet Rikki!" Emma called out.

"Ok darling, do you have your phone?" A voice echoed back from somewhere in their massive house.

"Yes Mum!"

We walked out onto the street, and walked down the pavement, towards the caravan park where our best friend Rikki lived. A couple of week ago, we didn't know where she lived. I can't believe that she thought that we were all so shallow that we would actually care that she lived in a caravan. Or that she and her dad didn't have much money. She's still Rikki. Nothing would change would change what we thought about her. She's our Rikki.

"So what do you wanna do later?"

"I don't know..Swim? Then we can meet up with the boys and go to the juicenet? Me and Ash aren't working today."

"Good idea.." I was about to suggest a pool match between the boys, but as I opened my mouth, an ambulance zoomed by, and you couldn't hear a thing I was saying. I looked over at Emma. She was a few paces behind me, she had stopped walking. She had her eyes shut, and she touched her forehead, her chest, then her left shoulder, then her right. You know that weird holy ghost and spirit stuff?

"Emma..what are you doing?"

"I'm doing a little thing for whoever that ambulance is going to."

"Huh?" I cocked my head to the side.

"Well, My Gran always told me that if I ever see an ambulance go by, I have to do the Catholic ritual. That way, I bring luck on that person the paramedics are going to...And like, If I don't do it, I feel really bad..you know?" She chewed anxiously on her fingernail, displaying an unusual show of insecurity.

"Aww, Emma that's really sweet. I should start doing that..I've never really though that every time I see an ambulance go past, somebody is in pain..And they could probably. You know, die.."

"I know..Well, come on, lets go and see Rikki!"

"Yeah."

We both walked down the road, and neither of us said anything. I think it was because of that talk we had just had. It sort of scared us. I started watching a butterfly fly down the road, I love butterflies, they're so graceful.

"Cleo! Look, there's the ambulance! There's been a car crash..I hope no one has been hurt!"

I turned my head round, and followed her gaze. She was right, the ambulance had stopped, its lights were still flashing silently and there was a car, well, truck and there was blood all over the tarmac. There was a man in the middle of the wreckage, shouting at a police officer. The funny thing was, the policewoman looked to be about 5" minimum, and this guy was a heavily built 6". But this woman didn't look even slightly intimidated by him. I turned my head towards the paramedics that were making there way across the junction pushing a stretcher with a person on it. When I looked closer, I saw a flash of blonde hair as they slammed the back door shut.

"Emma..." I said warily.

"Yeah Cleo?"

"That person..That girl..On the stretcher..S-She had blonde hair..And Rikki was walking this way.."

"No way Cleo..I-I mean..Like something like this wouldn't happen to Rikki. I bet she's round the other side, staring at all the blood and guts!"

"Yeah..You're probably right.."

We slowly walked around the wreckage, and were amazed at the amount of blood there was on the road.

I saw something that caught my eye, and I ran towards it.

"Cleo! Cleo! Where are you going?" I stopped, and picked something up from the ground. I heard Emma running up and joining me by my side. "Cleo, what is it?" I opened my palm, and we both looked at the thing in my hand. A locket, exactly the same as ours, was there, with a Ruby at the top. It was in a pool of blood. Rikki's blood. Rikki's locket. Rikki's Ruby. Rikki's blood red ruby.