Ice Cold

15: Disappearance

The first thing I did the next day was go to hide the body. It was roughly five in the morning and I assumed that Chris wouldn't be up yet. I just hoped that Harriet hadn't woken him in the night with all of her screaming. With a sinking heart, I remembered that I'd left the scythe on Chris' bedside table and swore under my breath.
     Tiptoeing out of my room, I stared down the hallway and had to stifle a scream. The body was gone! All that remained was a small pool of blood, proving that it hadn't all been a dream. Did that mean that Chris had seen it and removed it? Or had Harriet still been alive and somehow managed to drag herself away?
     "Chris?" I whispered through the crack in his door. Instantly, he opened it and stared at me, bleary-eyed. He gave me a halfhearted smile and my eyes trailed down to his six pack.
     "What's up?" He asked drowsily and I noticed the bags under his eyes. Maybe he had woken up in the night after all.
     "Umm...there's a spillage outside your room. I was just going to get a drink and I saw it." I said quietly, gesturing to the stain on the carpet. He closed his eyes and it almost looked like he was having an internal battle before he opened them again and looked everywhere but at the stain.
     "Please can you clean it up? Blood makes me feel sick." He whispered and I frowned.
     "Who said it was blood?" I asked, my brain now whirring with a million questions. He seemed to panic for a split second before composing himself.
     "What else could it be? None of you have had any red wine that I know of." He said with a nervous chuckle. Something was definitely very off about him and I was determined to find out what. At that moment, Indigo emerged from her room and her eyes widened instantly, even though she was at the other end of the corridor.
     "What's going on?" She questioned and I shrugged, following her every footstep with my eyes. 
     "There's a pool of blood outside Chris' room." I stated simply, getting right to the point. Her eyes widened and she looked up at Chris, her expression unreadable.
"Are you sure it's blood?" She asked me, never taking her eyes off of him. That was when I remembered what had happened when I had tried to stab him. My eyes instantly went to his chest and I remembered how hard it had been. Before I knew what I was doing, I grabbed his arm. He looked at me weirdly and I withdrew my hand, pretending to look at it in annoyance.
"Sorry, you had a fly on your arm." I lied smoothly before remembering Indigo's question. "And yes, it's definitely blood." Without warning, I walked back to my room and slammed the door. Chris' skin had been soft and seemingly easy to penetrate with a knife just then and that led me to even more confusion. What had been different about last night then? And where had the body gone?
Nothing made sense.

Chris

Indigo and I were now alone in the hallway. She looked at the blood and then at me, probably suspicious. I bowed my head as I waited for the inevitable question.
"I don't think you did it, honestly." She murmured quietly and my head snapped up in confusion.
"Y - you don't?" I asked in surprise and she shook her head.
"No. Although, I know that you had some part in all of this. I saw you running into the woods with the body last night."
"You were in the woods?"
"Nope. My senses are better than a human's and the noises coming from your room woke me up. I watched you from my window." This could be the vital clue that I was looking for.
"What did you hear?" I asked, desperately hoping for something that would prove me innocent.
"I heard Harriet talking, asking questions. But they didn't make any sense. It was almost as if someone else was in the room." My eyebrows shot up and my jaw dropped in perfect unison. Maybe I didn't injure her initially!
"What do you mean? What kind of questions?" She stared me straight in the eyes before answering.
"I'll tell you if you tell me how you got rid of the body. I'm curious." Sighing, I reluctantly started to tell her.

I was out of the house in an instant, already running towards the woods. Harriet was in my arms, blood no longer pouring from her wounds as I had completely drained her of her blood. My senses were even stronger now that I was full and it took everything within me to not just run away and never come back.
Eventually, I reached the lake that gave me peace when I was stressed or sad. I would sit down here some days and just be alone with my thoughts, gently dipping my feet in the water. But now I was about to taint all of the tranquil memories I'd had of this place with something horrible. The disposal of a body; of someone that I'd killed.
With no further hesitation, I threw the body as hard as I could and watched as it sailed through the air before landing in the water in the distance, making a small 'plop'. I closed my eyes for a second and forced myself to become calm before racing back to my house and pretending that I'd been there the entire time. This would be something that I'd never forget.

I finished my story and Indigo looked at me with sympathy, rubbing my shoulder.
"Well, you know you can always count on me to be there for you. I've been a fan of yours since day one and neither of us are human so I guess we can open up more to each other." I nodded, realising she was right and smiled at her. She returned it and was about to walk away when I remembered our deal.
"What questions did Harriet ask?" I asked again and Indigo turned to me, remembering as well.
"Oh yeah. Well, you're not gonna like this but it was something along the lines of 'were you trying to kill him?'." My breathing hitched in my throat.
Someone was trying to kill me.