Chapter 3 The Case of a Faulty Conscience Part 2

"Remind me again. How do you get yourself in these situations?" The voice spoke up after what had proven to be a very short interlude.

"Shut up!" she hissed back, unwilling to let the annoying voice of her conscience further devastate her.

The action could not keep away the memories, though.

The memories of her rather disastrous morning. Memories that were rearing their ugly heads at her, one ugly head after another. They tormented her even as she tried to force them down. Only to have them push their way back up into the forefront of her current thoughts in a relentless manner.

It was scary, and a shiver racked through her body. She quaked with apprehension at the barrage of thoughts that had conjured up yet another image of the morning. She recalled the scarf dancing in a wind that was both strong and teasing. The wind tagged it. It pulled the scarf and her to the grassy knoll on the other side of the road.

She saw herself hesitate once then twice before she finally made up her mind to do it.

She had done it countless times before and even had the scars to prove it. Therefore, she pulled herself onto the barbed fence, praying that the barbed fence was not live.

She lifted a finger and touched it. It was not live. Malisha breathed out a relieved sigh when the wire did not stun her. She was in luck. She had decided, and nothing could put a damper on her day, or so she had thought.

Now, she realized that all along, fate had been laughing at her. All along, she convinced herself of her luck, but fate had primed for a proper letdown. After all, pride did come before a fall, and in her case, that had happened literally.

She had done it so many times before. Then why did it turn out so differently? Why did her red pumps have to catch on that spike?

That piece of accursed wire tasked to destroy her! She had tripped upon it, and it had caused her to fall from the topmost wire.

More tingles shot through her body even as her vision blurred before the images of soft grass rising to meet with her face came into focus.

She shook her head in futility, a useless attempt at ridding herself of those thoughts that were now tormenting her. The mental onslaught kept going on. There was no end to it, nor was there an end to the deriding laughter and the words that her consciousness could not allow her to forget.

"Have you no pride!" the voice insisted. It disparaged and mocked for the evident lack of sense in certain aspects of life.

"This is on you too. You did not stop me, remember?" She accused after finally having had enough of it. Even then, the elevator dinged as it stopped on the second floor.

Malisha peeked out her head and looked out, ever vigilant to avoid a second encounter with the household staff. Convinced that she was all alone, she escaped the box successfully and sneaked into her room unnoticed.

"Oh, I did, but you never listen, do you?" The voice riposted after she took a turn into her room. Malisha shook her head no.

As if it meant to prove her wrong, the thing conjured up yet another memory of her. Another image of her further humiliating herself popped up in her head, and she cried out in embarrassment.

"Will you please stop?" she closed her bedroom door and her eyes in frustration.

"Why? Because you exposed your entire derriere to the 'oh so handsome' Duke of Carlisle?" The voice goaded.

Funny, right? But no, it was not fun at all. She thought as she tried to push away the memory but was unsuccessful. She could see herself now. In her yellow, floral print dress. As she fell and the dress floated up before it settled above her waist, exposing her entire bottom in the wind of the fall and into a muddy puddle nonetheless.

"Stop that! And I will have you know that his name is Duke, not the Duke of Carlisle." She grounded out, wincing as even more images continued to explode in her vision, taking over her thoughts and her sanity as well. "Whose side are you on anyway?" she finally cried out in despair.

"Of what is right." The blasted thing had the mettle to reply with a smug tone.

"Yea right." The young lady in Malisha was not supposed to roll her eyes. However, she did it anyway, and the annoying voice chuckled with what she could only assume to be much derision.

"I must commend you though. You did do quite a great job of salvaging that situation."

Salvaging??? Was this thing insane? What had happened after that could never be considered recouping. If anything, it had added fuel to a fire that had long been smoking.

"Yea, right," she responded caustically. There was nothing else to say in the wake of such insanity. All that was left was to move on. Maybe, the searing comments and the deriding laughter that had followed her back then would cease to follow her yet again.

"I mean, how could you have known that that particular 'someone' would ride up at that particular moment and with his little 'harem' in tow?" She could feel the air marks on that one-word 'harem.' Malisha shook her head in despair as the voice cackled up with bemused laughter.

"You mean Genevieve Mathers and her pose of socialites? She is practically his girlfriend so there is no surprise there, but riding with a host of female socialites at eight oclock in the morning? Now that is weird." She agreed, closing her eyes as she massaged her temples lightly. If only to relieve the pressure that was mounting from a growing headache.

It was all its fault. It was the fault of the conscience. It sounded weird, and Malisha was aware of it. However, the one she possessed was quite faulty and even now, the thing was cackling in her head like a madwoman, if only to induce more pain as it continued to dredge up memory after memory of that unfortunate morning.

"Anyway, that was embarrassing right? You have to admit it, right?" It continuously nagged her.

Was it even her conscience or an alter ego? She found that she could not tell. Whichever it was, she found it irritating and badly wanted it to stay quiet!

"Fine! Fine! I get it! Now shut up! You are giving me a headache!" With that, she turned into the bathroom to clean up before retiring to her bed, dreading the hours and the confrontation she knew was sure to come.