The Ensnared by Palvi Sharma Read Free Book Online

over her body. She
coughed up once and suddenly found herself throwing up everything she had eaten
just now. Melissa sobbed out loud as she vomited and heaved for breath.
     
    Once the nausea had passed, Melissa
pushed herself away from the counter and dragged herself to one of the couches
in the lobby. She lay down on it as her head spun and closed her eyes.
     
    She found herself sinking towards a
memory and Melissa knew she was falling asleep. In her dream she saw herself as
a twelve year old in her pajamas as she made up a sleeping bag for Jennifer.
Jennifer was a year younger to her and even though they were in different
classes, they had been the best of friends ever since she had moved in next
door to her when she was only six.
     
    “I don’t want to hear it!”
Jennifer screeched. “Stop scaring me!”
     
    Melissa saw her younger self
giggling helplessly.
     
    “Oh, Jenny!” she saw herself
say. “It’s just a tale. Dragons are mythical creatures. They don’t live under
our beds waiting for us to fall asleep before they barbeque us and eat us up!”
     
    “Stop!” Jennifer said and put
her hands on her ears as she cried helplessly.
     
    Melissa saw herself stop laughing
and going over to hug her friend. Jennifer had just lost her elder sister in a
drowning accident and ever since then, Jennifer had always been scared of pretty
much everything. She had overheard her parents once say that Jennifer’s elder
sister had died right in front of her and that she had been unable to do
anything at that time because she had been too young and too scared.
     
    “Don’t worry.” Melissa said. “I
won’t let anything ever hurt you.”
     
    “You promise?” Jennifer sobbed.
     
    “I promise.” Melissa said.
     
    She opened her eyes then and stared
the ceiling. The theatre was getting darker and Melissa looked at her watch.
The sun was setting in the distance and that meant that she had fallen asleep
after all. She sat up on the couch and rubbed her temples, letting her headache
subside.
     
    It was getting darker and she still
hadn’t come up with a plan to get out of here or search for her best friend-
the friend she had promised to look after.
     
    “Where are you Jenny?” she asked
out loud. “Where could you be? You were right beside me!”
     
    Had Rafe and Fiona taken her to the
other side in the city? Had they seen Mark approach from a distance and just
fled? But Jennifer would never leave her behind. No, something else had
happened. Her friends were probably still on that islet, hiding. She had to
find a way out of this trap and make her way back to the islet.
     
    Just then, she heard the sound of
motorcycle engines rumbling right outside the theatre. She crawled towards the window
again and looked outside. The riders were out there again, wearing helmets. She
spotted one of them with a white bandage on his thigh and she guessed that he
was Mark.
     
    She squinted as she spotted someone
else in the middle of the road. She shifted to the side to get a better view
and gasped.
     
    It was her friends, huddled and
looking scared as the riders approached them.
     
    “Jennifer.” Melissa whispered and
felt her breath being sucked away as Mark pointed a gun at her.

Chapter Ten
     
    “You know what the best thing
about Mark is?” Melissa asked on the phone. She was cuddled up in her bed,
watching the rain and talking to Jennifer. She twirled a lock of hair in around
her finger as she stared at her reflection.
     
    “What?” Jennifer asked with a
hint of disinterest in her voice.
     
    “Mark makes me feel safe. It’s
like, when I’m with him, I feel like no one can ever harm me.”
     
    She heard Jennifer sigh on the
other end and frowned. “I guess that’s what love should feel like, right? When
you know that no matter what, someone will always be there to protect you?”
     
     
     
    Melissa blinked back her tears as
she gazed at the scene below her. It was amazing how her thoughts ran to