Chapter 3 - Death 2

Raye's POV 

"What the fuck are you doing? Why did you push her?" Antonio yelled angrily at Sasha, his eyes filled with panic. 

Sasha towered over me, her hands balled into fists like she was ready to attack anytime. The panic and shock that filled her eyes earlier had been replaced by one of hate and fury. She grabbed my phone from my coat pocket where I had placed it like she was possessed.

"What did you expect me to do then? Just let her leave and tell the whole world we had an affair. It would ruin not just your life but also mine and I'm not going to let that happen," she snapped furiously at Antonio.

"But look at her, she's hurt and bleeding," he whined.

"Can you just shut up and let me think? If you don't care about your reputation, that's your problem but I'll not let all the work I've put in to finally become the head doctor go in vain," she spat, her eyes filled with derision and anger.

I tried to stand up but the more I moved the more it felt like thousands of glasses were searing through my skin. 

"How could you do this to me after everything we've been through? You were supposed to be my best friend. Were you not satisfied enough with sleeping with my husband?" I lamented bitterly through clenched teeth. Sasha was the last person I had expected to betray and her betrayal cut deep into my heart.

She laughed, a loud sinister grin on her face as she sauntered over to my side. She knelt down in front of me, so close I could feel her breath on my skin. Her eyes no longer held the warmth it usually had when she looked at me instead it was cold and unfeeling. How could someone change so much or did I really ever know the real Sasha?

"I've never thought of you as my friend. I only felt pity for your pathetic life and the connections that came with having you as my friend. I mean take a look at yourself. Who would actually want to be friends with you? You act like the whole world revolves around you and everybody should always worry about you. I can see why your own father doesn't like you either," she uttered, her words sending shards of pain through my heart.

I felt red hot tears burn the back of my eyes but ignored it, blinking it away. "I've never asked for your friendship, nor have I ever begged for it. I've always treated you like a sister and nothing less. My heart was pure all through our friendship and I honestly believed we were friends " I argued, betrayed that the entirety of our friendship was nothing but an illusion.

"Oh please. Stop trying to act like a saint. You treated me like a maid all throughout our years in school and you even stole Antonio from me. You knew I met him first but instead you went ahead and trapped him with your fake innocent facade, but now I got him back," she spat angrily, her eyes blazing with fury. 

The tension in the room thickened even more as the pain in my head continued to increase. 

"Fine then. If you want him so much you can have him but just know one thing I'll make sure the both of you pay for betraying me no matter what," I threatened coldly, feeling a surge of power coursing through my body.

She scoffed, waving me off. 

"You won't be able to do anything at all. Nobody will know what happened if there's no evidence of an affair," she uttered, smirking slyly as she brandished my phone in her hands like it was a trophy.

I couldn't let her delete the only evidence of their affair. My entire body hurt from the pain but I ignored it gathering my strength as I stood up slowly.

"Give me back my phone," I yelled, slamming my body into her, taking her by surprise. My body was moving on pure adrenaline at this point. She looked taken aback and was not preparing for my attack but she didn't back down either. She held onto the phone tightly and we both struggled for it, pushing each other until we left the room.  

"I'm not going to let you get away with what you did," I retorted, kicking her in the stomach. I took my chance as she recoiled from the pain but she was much faster and held onto the phone more tightly.

"Let go, you stupid bitch," she yelled furiously, her frustration boiling over as she pushed me forward with all her strength. Unfortunately I was standing right at the head of the stairway. My hands hovered in the air trying to grab any support I could onto but it was too late. 

I rolled down the flight of stairs, my head hitting the bottom of the stairs with full force. At first I couldn't move or feel anything as I lay sprawled on the floor. My body went numb as pain exploded through my body. A scream erupted from my throat but it was cut short as air left my lungs. 

From the corner of my eye, I saw a pool of blood gather at the base of my head down the side of my face and I started to panic then. I was bleeding badly and I needed help.

At the top of the stairs, Sasha and Antonio stood still, their expressions mirroring my helplessness. Antonio broke the silence first.

"Oh my God. Look at what you've done now," he uttered frustratingly, running down the flight of stairs to me, Sasha followed closely behind him.

Through the pain I could see their faces clearly and their expressions were filled with panic and fear instead of pity and concern at the state I was in. Gathering a little ounce of strength I held out my hands to Antonio in a silent plea for help, a single tear falling from my face.

"Don't touch her," Sasha hissed in a fit of hysteria, pulling Antonio's hands away immediately.

"Why not? Can't you see she's bleeding. We need to call for help right now," he uttered, his hands trembling as he pulled out his phone from his pants pockets.

"And then what happens next? What are you going to tell the cops when they come here? I clearly pushed her down the stairs. How are you going to explain that to the cops?" she thundered, running her hands through her hair in frustration.

"But it was a mistake. You obviously didn't mean to push her down the stairs," he retorted but his defense only made her angrier.

"Do you think they are going to believe us? Look at the situation we are in right now. Who would believe any word we say?" She bellowed irritably.

Slowly her words started to register in his head and he pulled his phone back into his pocket. "What do you suggest we do now? We can't just leave her here," he muttered, turning away from me like the coward he always has been.

"We were never here together. You came home and saw her lying down at the bottom of the stairs in the pool of her own blood after a tragic fall. That's the story we'll stick to when the police start their investigation," she announces, her voice expressionless and cold.

Antonio stared at her in disbelief. "Who's going to believe that story? How can a healthy person suddenly fall down the stairs to her death?"

"They will believe it when they find out she's sick," she announced casually like she was discussing the weather.

Antonio's eyes rounded in shock. "Sick? What do you mean by that?" He asked.

"Raye has been sick for quite a while now and I'd only just found out a few days when I saw her chart. Apparently she doesn't have a long time left to live," she uttered, shrugging her shoulders unconcerned.

"You knew and you didn't tell me about this. Does she know about this?" He asked, staring at me through the corner of his eyes. I lay in silence watching the two of them plot my death like I didn't matter to them. 

"It doesn't matter. What matters is that we have our story. She came back from work stressed and had a dizzying spell due to her illness. She slipped and fell to her death. It's a win for us. She doesn't get to ruin our reputation and now that she's out of the way we can finally date out in the open," she announced cold-bloodedly, her words sending a shiver down my spine. 

How could I have never noticed her hatred towards me? I must have been so blinded by my love for her that I never saw the obvious signs there. The betrayal from the both of them hurt me a lot more than the pain from the fall.

I could feel the life draining out of me and I knew I didn't have long to live. I wanted to scream at them but the words wouldn't materialize. Why did my life turn out this way? None of my family ever truly cared about me, even after all the sacrifices I had made for them and now here I was lying in the pool of my own blood without any help from anyone I cared about. I slowly came to realize in my thirty one years, nobody had ever truly cared for me, except for him. 

Through the haze of memories that passed through my mind in my final moments, only one face stood out before me. The man who I had taken for granted but had done nothing but help me. I regretted the day I left him for Antonio.

A lone tear slipped through the corner of my eyes as I choked on my own blood. "If there's a God, the only thing I ask of you is to give me a second chance to help me make things right again," I prayed silently before slipping away into the cold embrace of death.