What the hell?
I look up at the sky with my hand above my eyes, and I see something odd: the sky is different from the one above the park. I’m also looking at a bird that peacefully flies towards us. My eyes go wide when I see, as clear as day, how it seems to enter a whole other world and fall on the ground, probably dizzy from the storm and this situation, as I surely am.
“It looks like an electric dome that changes the atmosphere,” Lucas whispers. “They make us think it is a storm to stop us from finding out this town’s secrets.”
That’s just great. We should’ve thought about all the variables for our plan before coming here, not let all of it in fate’s hands.
It’s not on our side.
Chapter 11
The iron-fist negotiator
I wake up in the morning shaken up by reality. By what was going on behind my back. By who I really am.
Yesterday, I couldn’t fully process everything. Heck, I didn’t even think about that. All my thoughts were consumed by the betrayal I felt from the people surrounding me.
But today, the present took me by surprise. And with the clothes from yesterday. I guess I forgot to change my grey sweatpants, and I slept in them.
My life before wasn’t pink either. A 25-year-old woman trying to find her calling, who’s gone from job to job because she was getting bored with each of them. I attempted to be an author, and I’m saying that because I was struggling to write down some ideas and turn them into a full book. I was going from one story to another without finishing them. I also am a hardcore reader with a gigantic home library full of books bought with her fiancé’s money, but who is too tough on herself to really write a book.
Shortly, I was a walking disaster with big thoughts and dumb ideas. I guess this explains why I chose this fucking adventure as a loophole for escaping a bad routine. I wanted to find a story good enough to become a bestseller author. It didn’t even cross my mind that I would find myself in a place so unknown and a magnet for trouble, even though I wished for an experience full of suspense and danger.
Somehow, the thought of being in the middle of the peril excited me, until I began to find out how naive and ignorant I could have been. The truth was hidden from me by everyone, more than I could have ever imagined. Moreover, how could I do this stupid plan with Lucas, nonetheless?
Why didn’t it scare me that I cheated on Marshall? It was probably due to my knowledge of the dangerous world in which he really worked. He’s done more damage than I have. He cheated more than I did. I only did it through a sexual act. But he… killed people. That’s not something I can overlook.
I’m not saying that Lucas did something different, but the way Marshall did it crossed the line. However similar they may seem, my soul keeps telling me the difference between the two of them is huge.
Finding out about these kinds of things, it is clear as day that the wedding we were supposed to have next spring will never happen.
Why the fuck do you even think about this event?
Moreover, I don’t know if he’ll realise I’m gone until the wedding day. Yes, you heard it well. Sometimes, he forgot about me, but he always made amends through expansive gifts and time spent beside me. I was usually escaping reality through the worlds of the books, imagining that I was the main character and my life was there, alongside the fantastic romanticism and the indecent scenes. Even though I got my own amazing indecency beside him, I’m now scared when thinking I could’ve easilyended up like the girls in the photos. Especially because of what he sometimes did to me.
I shiver at this thought. No, there was no physical violence, but the sexual experiences were… something else entirely.
God, I don’t even get why I saw that life as being perfect. It was more defective than I could’ve known. My love for him only blinded my logical thoughts. There were always signs that something was not right with that man, but I was too absorbed in the books’ reality to realise what was going on around me.
A sound gets my attention from my memories. I see the main door open and an unknown staff member enter with the cart full of food. I freeze, and the panic takes over me. I don’t even manage to process the fact that he is talking to me. My mind goes to the darkest of places.
Well, if he isn’t dead, then why is this person here?
He takes the food to the other room and steps out of the apartment, led by Lucas. After the door closes, I manage to calm down a bit and inhale some air. I didn’t even realise that I was holding my breath.
Lucas comes in front of me and takes my hand to escort me to the living room. I sit down and stay there, trying to breathe normally and slow down my heart rate. Lucas disappears for a moment and returns with a known device in one hand. It is the one who fried the bomb that was attached to Blake.
When he pushes aside the lids covering the food and tests them, I realise how vital that device is for our lives.
“Everything’s fine,” he sighs and exhales.
So I’m not the only one panicking and paranoid. He just knows how to keep his emotions in check. He looks so calm and relaxed, probably because of what he does for a living.
I take a mental note to find out more about that, but first, I need to eat and think where Blake might be.
?
We ate in complete silence. We neither spoke nor took our gaze off our food plates. Each of us was caught in their thoughts, and at least mine went to the dark side.
