Rohan had taken Melaine to the hospital without delaying a minute. Though the difficult part of the entire ordeal had been the removing of shard from her foot, that he had to do without causing her much pain as possible, and applied pressure on the cut by tying kitchen towel on her foot that he dreaded for amputation. A Podiatrist and a nurse attended her at the hospital and ran her X-ray of foot before performing a minor surgery of suturing two inch deep cut; stitching her ripped muscles. The stitches were dabbed with antiseptic to clean them and rolled a clean bandage around her swollen foot.
"The swelling will take two-three days. You should be careful when putting pressure on your foot." The doctor explained to her and she nodded to him in understanding. The room faintly smelt of antiseptic; disinfectant Iodoform that reminded her of a vague memory but the scent mixed with her own sweat coated her olfactory senses thick and heavy. Like their cellar room, that would sometimes reek of alcohol and iodine; anaesthesia or metallic tang of copper of splattered blood and the hospital had never been the source of her comfort. Because they weren't much different to her, except for the white light unlike basement and he would sometimes spare the siblings a mercy and like doctors who spare the sorry to the families of expired patients. In the corridor, she could see through blinds of window that Rohan was talking to her surgeon and clasped his hand with him. He briefly made a phone call to someone and she fretted the idea of cops questioning her about the accident at her house. Rohan ended the call and entered the room meeting her tired sunken eyes.
"How's your foot?" He gestured vaguely at her bandaged foot and she chuckled under her breath.
"I can't feel it for now", she answered shrugging back at him.
"I think we should call the cops. If you say then David..."
"No!" Her voice came strong in rejection.
"What? Ethan has been trying to hurt you..." Rohan tried to reason with Melaine who shook her head frantically.
"Police can't help us", she reiterated every word for him with clear pauses and stated sternly.
"Why? Why can't police help us?" Rohan could never get inside her head, if only he had telepathy to read her thoughts because she at the hospital was back to wearing a blank face which didn't help his confusion either.
"What I'm going to tell them? That my ex-boyfriend who's been out of jail is back to hunt me or my ex, who's supposed to be dead is back on revenge because once I had killed him?" Melaine exclaimed desperately.
"What are you saying?" He furrowed his eyebrows at her who was rubbing her face.
"I lied to you, okay?" She confessed to him.
They looked at each other and a long beat skipped by when she opened her mouth again to speak, "Ethan...yes, he's abusive and a psycho. He had been arrested but at that night when I was at my friend's house, he was bailed out. The night...I came back from my friend's house, he knocked me unconscious and dragged me to the woods. Ethan tried to kill me that night and I had my hands wound around the dagger fighting to push him away in self-defense but, I accidentally stabbed him in and he fell over the cliff in a deep ditch..."
"I can't believe this..." He passed his fingers through his dishevelled hair and started pacing the room.
"I didn't know what to do, police would've arrested me if I gave my statement. I had no other choice. I buried the dagger somewhere and rain had already washed away the footprints in the woods. My uncle thought it's better for me to move here for a fresh start."
"Didn't police find out about this?" He asked passing tongue on lips to moisten them, a habit he had picked in his childhood out of his nervousness.
"My uncle had taken Ethan's murder charge on his head by altering the facts and evidence along with a fake weapon of murder before confessing his crime to the police."
"You didn't tell me." He sounded disappointed and she didn't blame him after what she had told him.
"Tell you what? That I've been a fugitive? And you would've handed me over to the police?" Rohan flinched at her mockery.
"I'm sorry", Melaine nodded as he dejectedly left the room.
Melaine sighed and stared at the ceiling. She remembered that horrific night when Ethan had almost gotten her and tried to kill her with his own hand. Melaine opened door of her house to meet pitch blackness, the power was out, she thought and didn't feel Ethan behind her who had put chloroform on her nose making her unconscious. She woke up to the pain in her ribs, where he had kicked and stood above her holding a dagger. She hooked her leg with his and tripped him over. She ran into the deep of the woods and ran fast as her legs allowed her. He's following her to catch her.
"Laine stop"! He shouted and she looked around hiding behind a trunk of tree. A twig snapped and she knew he's near around her.
"Laine! Please come out". He pleaded and she covered her mouth, heart in her throat, throbbing in her ear. He's on the other side of trunk. She skidded aside, avoiding being caught by him. She sighed in relief when he missed her but shrieked as he grabbed her by hair forcing her to face him.
"I love you!" He yelled, "How many times do I have to tell you"?
Ethan pressed blade of dagger in her throat, and she choked struggling against his vice grip. Melaine stomped her shoe on his foot and broke free from him who flung knife at her aiming to slash her belly. Melaine gripped the tip of dagger, blood dripping from her hands and tried to push the knife away from her. They struggled against each other, standing at the ledge of cliff. Melaine had tip of blade pointed in his direction and in this desperate battle, Ethan stumbled over and dagger stuck in his naval. Melaine stood horrified, holding on handle of dagger as he vomited blood and fell over the ledge.
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"and the boy falls dead in the river from bridge", Alan narrated the end of his story to her sister while lying in the hospital bed after falling from stairs.
"Alan don't stop now", his sister scooted closer to him eagerly on her sitting stool.
"Then Lia's uncle tells police that he's killed the boy."
"But, first you said Lia doesn't have any uncle!" The girl whined at her brother, whose blond hair were sticking out in every possible direction.
"I didn't mention it before but Lia does have her uncle now and it's my story." The boy spoke writing in the pale yellow page of his diary with pencil.
"It's pretty lame, Alan. You need to work on your stories."
"Just wait when I'll be a good story teller one day."
YOU ARE READING
Melaine
Mystery / Thriller"If obsession falls in the category of love, then you can say that I love her." "Madness also falls in the category of obsession." A girl moves to a new neighborhood and meets a boy met who becomes possessive of her. Or rather, a boy meets a girl...
