3. Memory
As we rode in Jared's big black truck—me being squashed in between Quil and Embry—the silence was terrible.
I started to bite my nails until they were a jagged, lethal weapon. Amusing myself by scratching angry pink lines into my skin on my arm—a terrible habit when I'm deathly bored—until Embry placed his hot hand to stop me from drawing a scratchy sad face on my forearm.
Quil kept stretching his broad muscles and kicking the back of the passenger seat. Jared snapped at him to knock it off, throwing pop cans back. My fingernails dug deep into my palms creating crescent moons on the pad of my flesh.
When on the freeway I couldn't bare the silence any longer and asked Jared—kindly—to turn on the radio. Any station, just let it be loud enough to block out my embarrassed thoughts.
When a particularly calm song came on I sang along. It was an old song but I've always listened to it when I needed to go to sleep.
As the truck was surrounded by walls of trees, and hardly any light shone through the windows, I let myself doze.
I was running in the rain. My sneakers making those annoying squeaky noises along the smooth pavement. I turned off onto a gravel path and looked back. There was a familiar structure there. It was a plain white house. Baby blue laced curtains and red oak porch steps.
It was my house.
Was my house really that small? I remembered it to be bigger.
I kept running, the emerald shimmer of the forest ahead seemed a nice refuge. I wiped my face with my shirt, the rain stinging my eyes. When I pulled the cloth away I stopped running. It was soaked red. Red with blood. I brought a shaking hand to my lip and pulled back when I felt the sting. My fingers dripped with droplets of blood.
Feeling around my face I found that I was covered with blood. A lot of blood. My breathing became difficult as panic bubbled into my throat. Wanting to scream but couldn't from the blocked wind pipe.
Furiously I kept wiping away at my face, but I never seemed to stop bleeding.
I fell to my knees. The mud sloshed and soaked my jeans. The grass around me was splattered with blood drops when I sneezed from the cold. I couldn't breath.
I grabbed at my chest. Coughing and then more blood came.
I was dieing.
"STOP! STOP! STOP!!"
Jared stomped on the brakes just in time before I climbed over the dazed looking Quil and fell out of the truck. I rolled on the gravel road. The sharp rocks scratching my arms as I struggled to my feet. My chest felt oddly heavy, yet I felt buoyant.
Embry held my up as I coughed and coughed.
Dry, painful coughs. But no blood.
Tears came to my eyes as I shifted my entire wait onto Embry. My legs felt like jelly. I wobbled as I struggled to control myself only to fall again onto the gravel.
Embry and Quil made to help me up again but I thrust my arms towards them and shouted.
"Just, just let my lie here for a while."
I closed my eyes and the bloody mess from my dream came back again.
This time I was inside the house.
There was someone sprawled on the couch. He was quite pale. Yet he looked terribly beautiful. He had red, red eyes. And a smile that made me shake uncontrollably.
"Who are you?" I said.
He picked at a shiny pointy tooth and ran his marble fingers through his blond hair.
"Don't you remember me?"
I took a step back towards the kitchen, where the phone was, and the cutlery.
"No."
He narrowed his eyes and sprang up too quick for a human, off the couch.
"That makes me sad Emma. You don't even remember your boyfriend?"
I gasped and dropped the butcher knife I had hid behind my back. It made a sickening crash against the linoleum floor.
"Riley!" I shouted more to fill the crushing silence than acknowledging him. "We broke up Riley." I emphasized that we still were. "What…what happened?"
I watched as Riley made a fist that looked oddly rock like. A small boulder.
"I've been given a gift Emma." He sneered. "A gift to make you mine again. We will never be apart…for all of eternity."
I staggered back until I hit something cold. Like ice.
I yelped when the cold object laughed. A chilling high-pitched evil laugh.
"Really Riley? You'd have her rather than me?"
White as marble—like Riley—the red flamed haired woman stood in dirty ripped clothes. She was also bare foot. Her arms wrapped over her strong body.
"I'm. Not. His." I said through gritted teeth.
I swung my arm to slap her, only to be thrown back against the living room wall. My arm hitting the couch, my head on the arm rest. Crack! I think that was my nose.
Laying there, half conscious, I watched through drooping eyelids as the red head approached me and yanked my hair.
I screamed and groaned.
"Not so clever. Are you?"
I kept my mouth shut, knowing that if I opened it, I would only make things worse.
"Cat got your tongue?" She purred.
"Let her go."
I heard Riley's voice.
My head fell back onto the arm rest. My nose making a gross skrish sound.
"Fine. She's no use for my plan anyways."
"What is your plan?" Riley asked. Fully excited.
Son of a bitch.
"I'll tell you later when I find more…of us."
I could hear the evil smile in her tone.
They left me there, suffocating in my own blood.
Blood. So that's why I was bleeding.
"Are you okay?"
Embry lifted me into his arms and hugged me as I nodded.
"Yeah I'm fine. Just—." I closed my eyes and saw blood. "Motion sickness. It passed."
