No Innocent Love

The Company

    I stared at Sarah's body and listened to Riley's cries and sobs. He cried for hours. No one looked for us. No one looked for me, Riley or Sarah. Eventually, Riley stood up and walked to me. I couldn't bear looking away from Sarah but I felt his eyes on me. 

Riley made an unintelligible sound trying to say something, but it was probably physically impossible for him. I saw him, in the corner of my eye he lowered his head and he walked out of the room. He came back with butlers and maids and they took Sarah out of the room. That night I heard sirens, and they took Sarah away.

    'Mr laurin,' I thought, 'is going to kill me.'

    But I wasn't scared. He can kill me. I'm tired, tired of everything.

    . . .

    Sarah is dead and has been for almost a week. Life has stopped and everything went quiet. I never left our room and no one made me. I haven't heard from Mr. Laurin, I never heard from Riley, and I never heard from Sarah.

    I can't believe it has been a week. Nothing has happened. I haven't eaten and I've barely slept. I'm just sitting here, staring at the ceiling, the same ceiling where Sarah hung and spent her last living moments. Struggling, her body unaware of her mind's choice. Her body reflexively gasping for oxygen yet her mind wanting to die.

    I've been having nightmares of that moment, the moment I was still behind that door. I allow the said door to fall into my gaze. The sounds I heard in reality overlap with images I'm left to imagine. I then slowly look back up at the ceiling. I never saw the life leave her eyes while awake, but these nightmares seem so real, too real that I wish I had seen her die so I can find out that it isn't as horrid as my dreams make me believe.

    I've seen mommy die, I saw her life leave her. Yet that's nowhere near as horrid as these nightmares are. Missing Sarah's death makes my imagination run wild. Sarah's gaze, the horror.

    For the most part, my time in Sarah's room is silent. I hear the occasional footsteps in the hall outside, but besides that, silence. I take a deep, shaky breath when I hear one of those occasional footsteps stop outside my door.

    "Sammy? Its Riley, are you still in there?" I can't say anything, I continue to take shakey breaths. "I have good news, Sam." He calls my name a couple more times and after a long silence, warns me he's coming in.

    He steps in with a blank look on his face. He's holding a tray with a beautifully decorated bowl on top. After a long silence, it was too awkward to bear. He finally gives me his signature smirk and speaks. "I heard you haven't been eating, I brought you soup."

    "How?" I whimper the first word I've said in a long while, "How are you happy right now?" I can't look at him. I hear a heavy sigh come from Riley, along with a barely audible chuckle.

    "If I tell you the great news," He sets the plate down in front of me. "Do you promise to eat the soup I've worked so hard to prepare for you?" I look up at my friend with wide eyes.

    "You prepared?!" Only Mr. Laurin's most loyal workers are allowed in the kitchen to prevent poisoning, The kitchen has camera's and is heavily guarded. If Riley got caught trying to get into the kitchen, "What the hell are you thinking?! When father finds out-"

    "He isn't here anymore." It took me a while to understand his words.

    "What do you mean?"

    "He got arrested, I didn't only come here to bring you soup." The boy taps the spoon placed inside the bowl and it spins partly around the rim. "The FBI is downstairs, they wish to speak with you." Riley's smile grows longer. "The company, it's now yours."