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CHAPTER EIGHT: PROMISE ME ( trigger warning; mentions of violence, death, blood and gore )
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MAGGIE HAD ALWAYS HATED the colour of fire. She wasn't entirely sure why, but the dark orange hue always seemed to set her on edge, twisting at her stomach until the organ was feeling inside out. Out of place. Fire was uncontrollable, a whole new level of discord and destruction. Where Maggie Sullivan was like the ocean, like the soft blue hue of a pale sky that did wonders for soothing the soul, fire was the total opposite; it burned relentlessly at her skin and her hair until she was nothing more than ash and bone. She refused to ever go near the fire, having no desire to burn, but much like the unknown that came with the flames, Maggie had no control over the contact.
The hair of her mother's monster was a bright shade of white blonde, but she remembered the flash of red in the window that night, almost as if the fire was guarding the crime scene, herding the killer and victim together so there was no chance at her survival. It blurred with the sea of red before her now, a sign that she needed to remember.
"Maggie," her mother's frantic voice reached her ears as she was spun around. Maggie hadn't known it then but Delilah Sullivan had spied the trio of people standing outside her house and had known nothing good would come for it. She needed to protect her daughter, even if it was the last thing she did. "Maggie, honey, you need to listen to me, okay?"
"What is it, mummy?" came six-year-old Maggie's high-pitched voice from seventeen-year-old Maggie's right hand side. The older version of her looked down, eyes sorrowful as she took in the tiny child with choppy pigtails wearing her barbie-themed pajamas. Her last shred of innocence captured in the calm before the storm.
"You need to go upstairs and hide for me," Delilah ordered as she kneeled before her. "Don't come downstairs until I call for you, alright? Promise me, Maggie."
"I promise," little Maggie giggled like it was one big game. Then, with a kiss to her mother's cheek, she was bounding up the stairs to hide under her bed. She wouldn't stay there, but Delilah Sullivan would be dead by the time her youngest came back down. She had no control over what Maggie would see.
The memory seemed to blur around the seventeen-year-old as time slowed down. Her heart was racing a mile a minute, stomach heaving with the urge to vomit as she heard the faint muffle of her mother's fading cries and her younger self's terrified whimpers. She fought through it, though, eyes locked on the red blur in sheer determination.
What are you thinking, Velma Dinkley?
She rushed across the room, legs weighing her down and eyes squinting through the fogged glass to memorise the face of the flames. It was a woman, her features thin and pointed and her smile wicked. Just like Maggie suspected, she had red eyes, as did the man beside her. His skin was dark, the bloody hue standing out against his angular jaw and dreadlocks. Maggie gasped at the sight, stumbling back from the window to fall to the floor. Inches away from her face was her mother's, eyes staring unseeing into her own. Maggie hurled and tucked herself against the lounge, fists pressed to her face as she begged the scene to change.
