Page 86 of Dublin's Danger Dancer

He stands back to allow me to enter. “Where is he?” He asks again.

As soon as the door closes. I take my gun from inside my dirt soaked sequin gown. I point it at him. “I want to see the video you made on 7 July 2002.”

“What the fuck Ciara? Why are you pointing a gun at me?”

“Just put the video on.” I shout.

“Why do you wanna see that particular date?”

“It’s the date you and Liam left my sister for dead.” I cough struggling to get my breath and keep the gun steady at the same time. Pull out a gun on me Aaron, and I’ll shoot you dead and find the video myself." I say bringing my head to my mouth.

“I was going to get you a glass of water.” he says holding his palms face up.

“Just the video,” I say, guiding him to a cabinet filled with old videotapes.

He runs his finger along the row of VHS cassettes until he finds it and pulls it out.

He pulls back the white slip it’s been encased in.

“I only have a video player for VHS in my games room,” he says.

“Take me there.” I say. I follow him around the corner, past his kitchen to a door that leads out onto the balcony. He opens the door and inside is a dark room with a slick game chair in the middle and a range of screens circling it. The sweaty winged headrest of his gamers chair drifts up my nostrils.

He feeds the videotape into the VHS player.

A crackly picture forms. I hear my sister’s voice and see her. She’s wearing the lemon butterfly crop top she left the house in and low rise blue jeans. Her bare midriff showcasing her dangly belly button piercing she’d got earlier that year. It’s strange for me to see that outfit without the blood stains emblazoned on my brain from identifying her body.

I swallow hard.

“Fast forward.” I say as the video shows my sister resting her elbow on a wooden bar top, smiling from ear to ear. The figures move in fast motion.

“Stop.” I demand at the point they begin to climb down to the river.

My sister steps forward, wobbling, she’s definitely had too much to drink. She loses her footing and slips back, her head smashes audibly against an enormous charcoal grey stone.

Aaron drops the camera. Aaron and Liam scream. They rush over the rocks to her, but she’s totally still.

Blood runs down the side neck and into her butterfly top.

Her big blue eyes stare are still open, staring up at the white clouds.

Aaron bends down to check her pulse.

Tears roll down Liam’s cheeks. He falls down beside her. He pulls her by the shoulders trying to shake her awake, but she remains limp like a dolly.

Aaron pulls him away, but Liam pushes him off.

He reaches to her wrist and unclasps the pink leather braided bracelet.

With that, he and Aaron scamper up the rugged stone banks to the street.

Aaron looks at me, his hands in his pockets.

“She was dead. Ciara, there was nothing we could do. She died instantaneously.”

I lunge at Aaron. My nails pressing into his neck, my sequin gown scratching his polished floor.

“There was nothing we could do, Ciara, ‘’ he says, pushing me back.

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