04

I pulled out the knife I had hidden. I’d watched enough Hell’s Kitchen to chop up whoever came close to me into confetti. Gordon Ramsay style. Oh, who am I kidding !? I’m fucked !!

Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity Fuck. Such a nice, versatile word. I wondered who came up with it. It was such an accurate way to portray the many emotions one felt. I’ve been using it a lot lately, haven’t I ? If I had a swear jar it would be looking like Bill Gates’ bank locker by now. But that wasn’t my fault.

My mind wanders off on a tangent in stressful situations, I need to keep reminding myself to stay focused (my therapist from anger management said that) like right now.

I walked into the house, the doors of all the rooms were open. Nothing out of ordinary.

I should stay here. It felt safer than my apartment. I’ll wait till classes end and he would be home, if he wasn’t home by five, I’d call the cops and go into witness protection and figure out a way to convince them to give me a fake passport and a ticket to Antarctica. Were there planes to Antarctica ? There had to be.

By now I had decided that doing anything now would be a bad move. I was stressed. My decisions might be wrong. I needed to relax and think.

I wandered upstairs into the bedroom of the silent house. Dylan’s family came from money, like most of his friends. I didn’t expect his taste to reflect anything but. And it didn’t, there was a King sized bed occupying the center of the room, above that was his family crest, a rose and a hawk. An ornate dressing table took a good portion of the space. A gold chandelier hung from the ceiling.

I sat at the edge of the soft bed and sighed. What could I do ? The overwhelming fear had died down to a dull buzz as fatigue took over. I felt tears fill my eyes. I don’t know why, maybe it was because I was too overwhelmed and I didn’t know what was going on. Or what I should or shouldn’t do.

I lied down on the bed and slowly fell asleep. I would be needing my energy. God knew how right I was.

I dreamt of home. My family was welcoming me back. I had graduated and a lot of things happened that didn’t make sense but I was happy. It was as if my brain was telling me that I’d had enough.

When I woke up the sun was setting. It was well past seven. Dylan should have been home by now. But he wasn’t.

Okay, no need to worry. I’ll call the police.

I walked downstairs, still half asleep but driven by a sudden need to get out. I nearly fell down the stairs. Maybe the fall would have fixed my unusually stupid brain.

I walked out of the house and looked around, the neighborhood was silent. Strange.

I walked towards my car and got in. I needed to get sleep. I yawned. No, I needed to wake up. I felt a strange sensation on my back. Like you would when you know there’s a killer loose in your street and you may have left your door unlocked. The feeling that something was definitely wrong.

I turned around and screamed. Loud enough to wake the dead. Loud enough to send goosebumps and chills of raw fear down my own spine.

As a general rule, I preferred not to ask the question ‘can it get worse’ because the universe might be in the mood to answer and will be a complete darling and provide a detailed explanation of what could go wrong and even drop a few examples.

That’s Murphy’s Law. Anything that can go wrong, will. Must have been a very optimistic person. Although, at that point I was sure he was still more optimistic than me.

There’s something about having a gun pointed between your eyes that can kill your vibe. Or kill you.

Either way there was no denying that I was dead.

A scary calm settled over me and I became numb to all my sensations. It felt like an out of body experience. It happens when you’re in shock or stressed. Well, the fact that I could recall that much said that I could still think straight.

There were two men. Both were dressed in black leather. Their skin had a light tan and they had dark hair. That was where the similarities ended.

One of them had blue eyes and the other had hazel. The hazel eyed one looked a lot more menacing with the relatively stronger build and the gun, but the quiet, calm, detatched blue eyed one was the one that truly scared me.

« Who are you ? » I feigned innocence. My voice sounded foreign to my ears. I knew exactly who they were. The way they carried themselves, the Mediterranean features gave it all away. And also the minor detail that one of them had a gun.

Blue eyes chuckled, but there was no amusement in his eyes. He looked like he was in his late thirties.

« She’s a slow one isn’t she ? And she looks so small. Is Adrian sure it’s her ? »

Adrian. I held on to that name. It might come in handy .

The hazel eyed man laughed. « I doubt it, but I’m not planning on questioning the boss anytime soon. »

Adrian DeLuca ! I read about him in the papers. He was a rumored Mafia Boss of the DeLucas. He graduated business school at eighteen. He was a prodigy. At twenty, he took over the legitimate companies of the DeLucas. There were rumors that he’d taken over the Mafia too. And he was so fucking smart and manipulative that the DeLucas became much, much stronger under his leadership. I certainly respected him, despite never having met him. I’m not entirely sure I wanted to meet him.

I didn’t reply.

« Get out of the car. » Hazel said.

Don’t let them take you to a different location. I had to act and I had to do it now.

I slowly stepped out of the car and suddenly ran down the streets, lockinh them in.

The car unlocked from inside, but I had switched on the child-lock which prevented it. They were trapped in.

Adrenaline fueled my great escape and suddenly I heard gunshots and the sound of glass crashing. I looked behind and I saw them get out of the car, having broken the glass, they were atleast a seventy meters behind me but it wasn’t far enough. I’m sure the gun had a longer range.

I screamed in terror. But there was nobody to hear.

I was growing tired. My pace was slowing. Why did I bunk all the gym classes of my life ? Please, please, please hold it together. My feet slapped against the concrete of the road and I was running short of breath.

I heard feet pounding on the road.