LETHAL BRIDE
EPISODE 24
(SKEPTICISM)
BY BRABAR AUSTIN
“Do you know him?”
“Yes I do”
“Do you know he was part of the people that killed my parents?”
“Crystal, I have no idea he had a part in the deaths of your parents”
“Why did he come back here?”
“Crystal, trust me I don’t know anything, I was also trying to find out why he came. I have always been there for you trust me”
“Easton he said I was spared for a reason, why did he say that?”
“Sincerely I don’t know what you are talking about”
“I lost my parents when I needed them the most”, she broke down as fresh tears streamed her eyes, she threw the gun to floor.
He reached out to her and comforted her.
He felt her hot tears on his shoulder as he held her.
“Everything would be fine”.
Suddenly she stopped crying and pulled her head away from his shoulder.
“I want a favor from you.”
“What is it?”
“Light up his body and scatter his ashes. Will you do that for me?”
“If it makes you better I will”.
She wiped her eyes, took one last glance at the body and walked out.
As soon as she left, he dragged a long sigh of relief. “that was close”, he thought, he looked at the body and knew what Crystal demanded was necessary, he wasn’t planning on letting his dad know. This was his mess, he had to clean it up himself.
**************
He needed some fresh air, he left and headed to Crystal room. He knocked but no reply came, he knocked again, still no reply. He decided to get in uninvited. He searched for her but didn’t see a sign of her, he only saw a note on the bed, “I’m out for a long ride, I need to clear my head”.
He left the room and hoped she came back safely. The images he had tried shutting away suddenly became fresh in his head.
He still remembered the terrified eyes of her mother pleading that he spared her life. He ignored her pleas and shot her still.
He lost appetite for food. Guilt was what fed him through out the day.
*************
He kept looking at the clock. It was getting late and Crystal was still out, he became worried and feared the worst. He took out his cell phone and dialed her number.
He was surprised when she picked the call.
“Crystal, where are you?”
“In a dump, called a motel”
“Are you still coming home tonight?”
“No, I won’t, I need to be far away for now, but I will be back home tomorrow”
“Its alright, take care of yourself. I am expecting you tomorrow”.
“Alright”.
He ended the call and wondered how he was going to make her forget this event. She was deeply hurt and it hurt him to see her that way.
He ran his fingers through his head and paced. He remembered the favor she asked for and took out his cell phone and dialed Reuben’s number. It kept ringing but no response, he swore and dialed Francesca’s number, it rang twice before she picked it up.
“Hello Mr. Easton”
“do you have any idea where Reuben is?”
She hesitated a bit, “no, I don’t”.
He paused to listen to her environment “anyway I need both of you to come here tomorrow, to take the body far away and light it up”
“He’s dead!” she asked with a surprised tone “Yes”. He ended the call and sat down.
*****************
His thoughts hovered around Crystal; he wondered how she actually felt.
How would she react when she finds out it was him that pulled the trigger on her mother. Everything would be ruined. A part of him didn’t want to loose her; she had lived with him for eight years and he had grown attached to her presence. She was already his family. He remembered the day he picked her up from the street, he remembered how frail and sickly she looked, he remembered the eagerness in her to leave the street. He remembered how she rushed the food given to her, he smiled when he remembered the loud belch that came out
of her and how she innocently apologized when she finished eating.
He needed to fix this, if not everything would be ruined.
********************
Crystal laid on the filthy sheets and thought things through. She thought about everything, left, right, back forth, and centre. She wondered if Easton and his father had a hand in the deaths of her parents. She wondered why she was spared. Maybe she was spared to be trained into an assassin.
Maybe why she was spared was for the life she was currently living. She shoved the thought of Easton having anything to do with it.
He was a killer but he wouldn’t have done it. If he had, when he saw the tears in her eyes
and the gun pointing at him, he would have confessed, he wasn’t scared of anything.
She kept thinking till her head hurt. She knew she would fall ill if she continued this way.
She looked at the bottle in her hand and shook it, it was empty, she craved for more liquor, but she couldn’t go out in her state. She slept off fully clothed.
*****************
She opened her eyes and looked around her. She was sitting down her childhood bed. She opened her eyes more to see her environment.
She saw a picture of her parents beside her, they looked happy. She wondered why she was there and how she got there. Crystal got up and left the room. She heard the voices of her parents laughing in the kitchen. She moved towards the voices and saw her parents making dinner.
“Mom, dad”, she still didn’t believe what she was seeing.
“Hey honey, you’re up” her mom smiled and hugged her
“What’s going on?” Crystal looked confused
“It’s your sixteenth birthday baby”, her dad said k!ssing her on her cheek.
“I am not sixteen anymore dad, I am twenty-four”
“Don’t be silly dear” her mom laughed, “come lets go to the dinning section, we have a
surprise for you. Her parents dragged her to the dinning, there she saw a huge red cake
with sixteen candles on it.
“Make a wish and blow your candles” her father told her as he placed his hand on her shoulders.
She looked at their faces and saw the calmness in them, the joy they felt. She
closed her eyes, made her wish and blew. When she opened her eyes, the cake wasn’t there anymore, she turned and saw her parents lying down in the pool of their own blood. She
screamed so hard, she looked at her hands and saw blood dripping from them, she was frightened, she didn’t understand what was
happening. She ran out, and kept running. She noticed a man in black chasing her. She doubled her pace and kept running, she panted heavily.
She searched for a place to hide but couldn’t find any, she knocked on doors and no one
answered. She kept running. The man in black wasn’t relenting, he kept chasing. She finally saw a trash can and dived into it, closing the lid tight. She tried calming her breath so that the strange man wouldn’t hear her.
Someone started banging the cover of the trash can, she became really scared and
screamed.
The lid of the trash can was forced open, she shut her eyes, whimpering and waiting for the worse to happen.
“Hey, it’s me Crystal.”
She knew the voice and opened her eyes to see Easton’s hands stretched towards her.
“Come let me give you a better life”. She grabbed his hand and came out of the trash can.
**********************
She opened her eyes and looked around, she was still in the motel room, her head throbbed severely. She got up quickly. She needed to go back home, back to Easton.
She drove back , her mind still dwelling in the dream she had.
She got home to meet Easton in the sitting room sleeping, she got closer to him and tapped him. He opened his eyes slowly, when he saw her, he sat up quickly.
“When did you get in?”
“Just now”
“How are you?”
“My head hurts terribly”.
He got up and cupped her chin with his pal.
“Crystal, some things are better when they not revisited, you have a whole lot in front of you and you have me, I will always be there to protect you, just trust me”.
She nodded weakly and rested her head on his chest, every form of doubt she had, was going to be wiped out. She believed and trusted Easton.
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