Melody Jade Allen - Dead Breath

What does friendship mean to people? Absolute trust, support, dedication… But, as you know, there is nothing perfect in the world. Friendship also means accepting the dark side of your friend, and sometimes you switch to that side on your own… Will your friend be able to save you?

Another day in June in Los Angeles monotonously counted down the hours until Midnight under the scorching Sun. This city has hardly changed, andr its people have not changed. Many of them had a vanity, although unlike many others they didn’t have a habit of hiding or having it – for them, the mask was a sign that you accepted yourself and your essence. Here everyone could be who he really is – no judgments, just one of many faces…

Mireya Rothe, a 26-year-old blonde with big eyes and a fragile figure was a graphic editor in the company of her long-time friend Rick O’Connell. Sitting in the office in front of her computer, she looked at her colleague through a sip of latte. Her colleague George was standing in front of the shelves of documents; his voice always annoyed Mireya – George was a guy with squeaky, overly bright shirts with flowers and funny bright trousers that were painfully combined with sneakers or classic slippers. She took a deep breath and sipped her coffee again, feeling it burned her throat.

“Will you come tomorrow?” George asked, stepping closer to her desk.

Mireya looked away from the monitor and looked at him questioningly.

“Well, tomorrow is it like a corporate party?” George explained.

Mireya leaned back in her wide computer chair made of black leather, “I always missed it. And you noticed it. Then why the question is?”

George backed away. “I just asked.”

Mireya threw her head back, closing her eyes. Too often he asked her stupid questions.

Rick went up to them and put the folder with documents in front of Mireya, winking. “This should be done before next Friday, you have a lot of time.”

Mireya smiled. “No questions asked.”

Rick gave a predatory look to George as if preparing for an attack. “What are you doing here? Buddy, you didn’t even complete the day before yesterday. Do you want me to hire someone to replace you? I personally don’t mind.”

“No, I…” George looked around awkwardly, “I’m leaving, I’m sorry.” He tripped over something, heading back to his workplace.

“I would like to re-educate him,” Rick said.

Mireya pressed her lips together. “I think he’s just not made for the job. Sometimes I even feel sorry for him, Rick. He seems to be a lot nervous.”

“Well yes. We will discuss this later.” Rick replied, his cell phone distracting him. Answering another call, he walked away.

Mireya’s cell phone vibrated, she exhaled irritably. She didn’t like it when someone called her during the working day. She took the phone from her desk drawer and looked at the display – Leandra Rae. She raised her eyebrows in surprise.

Mireya and Leandra were best friends before and even after they went to college together. But at some point, Leandra left their common path and after she left college, she moved to Las Vegas to work at the Casino Hotel. Nevertheless, not understanding her choice Mireya tried to communicate with her as often as possible, but in the end they drifted away, and as it seemed to her, their communication stopped. They haven’t heard of each other for months, but now something seems to have changed.

Mireya doubted whether to start a new dialogue, and decided to press the green button, taking the call. “Yes?” She said into the [hone.

“Mireya?” The voice of Leandra answered, “God, I haven’t heard you for so long! How do you?”

Mireya rolled her eyes. “Not bad. But I’m at work, Leandra. I thought we were no longer close?”

“That’s right, but…” Leandra hesitated, “Unfortunately, it was my fault. But I want to see you. See you at the hotel tonight?”

“Wait, are you here? In Los Angeles?”

“Yes!” Leandra shouted enthusiastically, “I arrived a couple of hours ago and immediately called you. So what do you say?”

Leandra’s proposal caused mixed feelings, but the thirst for curiosity had some elusive advantage, and Mireya agreed to meet with her. Her hotel was a high-rise building in downtown; upon arriving there, Mireya climbed to the 25th floor admiring the colonial-style corridors in red and gold colours.

Knocking on the door of Room 247, Mireya froze, realizing that she probably didn’t want to be here. But the door handle turned.

Leandra, a girl with long blonde hair, greeted her with a slightly childish smile, straightening her creamy jacket, which was paired with a black T-shirt and jeans. “Mireya! You’re here!” She hugged the one she still considered her friend tightly and let her in.

Mireya mentally grinned, studying the situation – she was in an expensive room with a double bed, three night lamps (it was strange, but Leandra was afraid of the dark, but didn’t like the light of the lamps on the ceiling), a red soft carpet, a Russian drink, probably from a Russian store (Leandra’s grandmother was from Siberia), several suitcases of stuff, and this awfully familiar smell of perfume that Mireya would recognize from a thousand. She turned to look at Leandra, who was staring into her miniature mirror, fingers running down her thin eyebrows.

“Well.” Mireya walked around, “Why am I here?”

“You as always, start the dialogue outside the box”, Leandra sat down in a wide chair, which almost merged with the colour of her jacket.

Mireya looked back and looked at herself in the reflection of the floor hotel mirror. A striped T-shirt, a black leather jacket, black jeans and gothic boots – Leandra must have thought she hadn’t changed in all this time. However, she would be right… in part.

“You probably wondered many times why I did it?” Leandra said, “Why did I so abruptly leave college, where I was so fanatically striving to get, but I thought it was all worth it.”

“Is your job in a casino hotel worth it? By the way, you still haven’t said what you were doing there?! Mireya looked at her suspiciously, “This is not… what is connected with…?”

“No, no.” Leandra waved her hand, “Nothing like that.”

Mireya breathed a sigh of relief, but her tension returned instantly. “But it was something illegal?”

“Why did you decide so?”

“Otherwise, why should you be silent about it?”

Leandra fell silent for a couple of seconds. “There were people who illegally worked as hackers for jealous guys or girlfriends. It was almost like a hobby.”

Mireya spread her arms, “Well, if you say so.” She suddenly caught herself thinking that she was almost not interested in everything that happened to… perhaps still her friend for the entire time of their remoteness.

“Do you want something to drink?” Leandra said, smiling too sweetly.

Mireya felt a slight irritation. “A water?”

While Leandra was pouring mineral water into a glass, Mireya distracted her cell phone, checking the message she had just received from her boss: “There was a technical error. Please, send me the results of your work over the past three days. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“Here,” Leandra handed a glass of water to Mireya.

Mireya put her cell phone aside and took a couple of sips, once again seeing Leandra’s typical overly cute look.

“Probably, I should go – I have unresolved problems at work,” Mireya said, putting her glass on the wooden table. “Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

Leandra smiled slightly, for a second panic flashed in her eyes, but Mireya was too distracted to notice it. Her cell phone ringtone shattered the silence between them. Mireya looked at its screen again. “I have to answer the call.”