THE STORM WITHIN

****

The evening air in New York was crisp and full of the distant smell of exhaust and wet asphalt, away from the antiseptic efficiency of Mr. Henderson's office. Melinda had left him to begin the intense work on the legitimate remedies that would start her fight against Ethan and Sage. The demand in her voice had awakened him, but the real fight, she knew, remained ahead of her, hidden in the black, ugly abyss of her tomorrow.

She had to get out of New York fast and quietly. She shivered half with fear of getting caught or accused of manipulating her legal identity. Her little compact carry-on bag, packed with essentials, felt heavy with the burden of her stolen life.

At JFK, the usual mad chaos was kept at bay, far away, as if she moved through a fantasy world. She leaned her head down, her eyes scanning the recognizable faces, a paranoia she knew was amply warranted. When she finally arrived at her gate, she scanned the boarding agents, attempting to disappear in the crowd of faceless bodies. The plane was boarding, a stream of tired looking passengers spilling into the jet bridge.

As she drew out her boarding ticket, her gaze drifted over to the flight stewardess standing by the plane door, greeting passengers with what seemed to be rehearsed smiles. The tilt of the head, the tight spiral of dark brown hair wound into a knot close against the skull, made the stewardess look even more familiar. Melinda attributed it to some illusion of her own anxiety. She wallowed in self-pity as the effects of her present dilemma mocked her mental stability – She was now seeing ghosts anywhere and everywhere.

She walked down the aisle to 23A, her seat, then proceeded to put away her bag in the overhead compartment when the flight attendant walked down her row. "Good evening, ma'am," she said, her voice a low, musical one that suddenly got Melinda's mind thinking.

"Melinda? Melinda Sterling? Is that you?"

Melinda's blood ran cold. Did the details on her ticket contrast those on her ID? Her head snapped up in a flash, and the flight attendant's smile congealed in her throat, eyes open wide with recognition. and then pricked with a weird, unworldly feeling of shock and relief. There, before her very eyes, evenly matched, stood Chloe Evans, her high school best friend and her college crisis counselor, shattered by life's unpredictable gusts after graduation.

"Chloe!" Melinda exclaimed, an honest, real smile flashing beneath her fear mask for the first time in days. "Oh my God, Chloe! Is that you?"

Chloe nodded in, in cahoots, her eyes sparkling. "The one and only! What are you doing here? And on this flight, of all flights! I thought you were in New York, taking over the world of architecture"

The question broke Melinda's fragile peace. The truth in its awful simplicity, was too much to carry in an airplane corridor. "It's… it's complicated, Chloe," Melinda stuttered, frantically glancing around. "A lot's happened. I'm… I'm running away."

Chloe, sensing the undertone surge of pain and urgency in Melinda's tone, nodded. "Okay. I'm flying this one myself, but tomorrow night I've got a layover. Can we meet up some other time? Dinner, maybe? My treat.”

Melinda's heart soared aloft, a faint beam of light amidst the suffocating darkness. A smiling face, a taste of real life, and at once so much less complicated. "Yes! Yes, certainly. I'd love to. I'll ring you when I get established. I'm actually heading over to my grandmother's place just beyond the city first." She announced as she scrambled through her bag to grab her phone.

"Your grandmother's cottage? I remember you saying that you'd been there," Chloe said, her wide smile of sentiment spreading across her face. "So far out there. Perfect for hiding from every potential monstrosity, whatever it is that you're hiding from." She gave Melinda a teasing squeeze on the arm. "Don't worry, I won't ask. But I'm here for you, always."

As Chloe headed away to minister to other travelers, Melinda was filled with profound gratitude. Finally! A lifeline. A friend. Possibly even a new friend for the war ahead. The chance encounter of Chloe was a small but mighty boost to her morale, a reminder that even in very dark times there can be kindness and friendship to be found in the very unlikeliest of people. She clung to the hope of their reunion, a glimmer in the darkness of the uncertain future ahead.

She looked out of the window, anxious about what Las Vegas had in store for her. The drone of the engines of the aircraft seemed to be a lullaby to Melinda's pounding heart rate. 

The sight of Las Vegas after all these years dodged a blur that was too common and strangely appealing. She avoided the tacky casinos and tourist hotspots, jumping into a taxi directly to the edge of the city, the more rural, scenic sections where her grandmother had chosen to place her tranquil retreat.

The driver, a loquacious old man who had been regaling her with tales of his Nigerian grandchildren and the riveting loveliness of the desert, nodded towards the just visible stars in the darkening horizon, unaware of the thunderstorm inside his passenger. Melinda gazed out of the window, a tightwire butterfly twisting inside her stomach. The cottage was a little ways away from them now. She had called Mr. Henderson as soon as she arrived, and he had assured her that on-site security measures were being adopted, but she wanted to grasp the reassuring stillness of the rolling hills in her own hands.

Suddenly, a blinding burst of light erupted from beyond a broken turn. Melinda jumped back, her hand flying up over her eyes. Before she could do anything to precipitate it, a desperate swerve, screeching tires, and then a horror-shuddering groan escaped from the old man's lips. A stomach-churning jolt shook her, her head snapping forward, with a shattering crack in her ears. White-hot pain flared behind her eyes.

The acrid odor of gasoline and burned rubber wafted through the air, giving a nauseating combination that made Melinda retch even in unconsciousness. Her twisted form, folded against torn seats, sensed nothing but deep, fiery agony. Time lost meaning and was replaced by a whirlpool of dislocated sensations. The sweet tang of metal on blood in her mouth, the distant sirens, a wall of sound that pierced the ensuing silence following the crash, moving closer, growing louder, finally announcing the gruesome arrival of rescue. But to Melinda, those sounds were mere echoes in the huge, hollow expanse of her mind, a space that had been distilled into a flashed tapestry of pain and fleeting images. She felt, rather than heard, the rough, insistent prodding as ghostly hands explored her twisted flesh. The sudden crack of a gurney being unfolded, the quiet, rapid whispers of emergency workers, each sound a muffled interference with her lonely hell. She could faintly hear the hysterical rush of the medical team speaking in languages of urgency and measuring, but the words a muddled din, senseless.

There was a brief glimpse of Chloe's happy face, the memory, ready to snap under pressure from her bodily pain. She felt, or appeared to feel, the smooth glide of a blanket drawn over her, small comfort among minds close to bursting with pain. Each breath a shallow, agonized struggle, her lungs revolting with an excruciating burn that ran through her chest. The beep of a monitor, faint at first, growing louder, added to the symphony of her pain, an insistent reminder of the thin line between life and death. Lying there suspended between knowing and the void, Melinda's mind clutched the remaining fragments of her life with furious intensity, a name, a face, a cry out for a future that now lay infinitely out of reach. Memories of Ethan and Sage, the very individuals from whom she was fleeing, pursued her like a ghostly menace, a chilling reminder of the struggle that stretched before her, now apparently far out of reach, perhaps even lost, amidst the devastation of her world. The cold, hard impact of metal rail against her arm, the scent of antiseptic gauze, and the steady, low hum of hidden machinery were the last impressions before the pure blackness closed in around her entire body.