Falling in Love Again: A Valentine's Day Proposal

by Mia Ford

  I grab my cell phone out of my pocket as soon as I get outside, and I put in a call to Raelyn.

  “Hello?” she answers sleepily. I can picture her sleeping on my couch, taking a little nap. She needs it!

  “Hey, Raelyn, I just wanted to let you know that I’ve just been to speak to the police.”

  “You have?” she gasps, all of a sudden, she sounds more awake. “Really?”

  “Yes. My contact found out all I need to know and I’m not so worried about the perpetrator anymore. So, I did the right thing and I went to make a statement. I was clear, so I don’t think they’ll need one from you.”

  “They probably will do at some point, won’t they? To agree with what you said.”

  “Maybe, but I wouldn’t worry about that today. They aren’t going to need you right now.”

  “Oh, wow that’s amazing. So, do you think it’s safe for me to just go outside now?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think there’s anything to panic about anymore. It’ll be fine.”

  “So, I can come out and meet you then?” She sounds adorably excited. “We can go for lunch?”

  “How can I refuse an offer so wonderful?” My stomach growls at the mere thought. It seems like forever since I’ve been properly hungry. “Let’s do it. Where would you like to go?”

  “Hold on, I’m just getting my jacket on. Why don’t you meet me at the bakery at the end of your road?”

  “Ooh, sounds lovely. I’m just getting in the car now, so I won’t be long.”

  “I’m heading there now.” I hear the sounds of the outside world whooshing around her. She sounds more human, like the intense weight has lifted off of her as well. “Do you want me to order for you?”

  “I’ll tell you what, I’ll connect you to my car phone and keep you on the line, then you can let me know what they have in stock and I can make a decision from there.”

  “Anyone would think that you want to keep an eye on me,” she teases playfully.

  “I do! I’m not denying that, but it’s more because I want to hear your voice…” She doesn’t reply. In fact, it goes eerily silent on her end of the line. “Raelyn? Raelyn, are you still there?” I check the phone screen but it says the call is still connected. “Raelyn, I think your signal is playing up…”

  Then there’s a sound, a terrible crashing noise that makes my heart stop dead. Instinct tells me that this is something bad.

  “Raelyn,” I yell this time. “Raelyn, I’m coming. Just hold on… I won’t be long!”

  I jump in my car and hit the gas pedal hard. I don’t know what this is, but I don’t like it one bit.

  30

  Raelyn

  What the…? At first, when someone grabs me roughly around the waist, I fall willingly, thinking that it’s Carter playing a trick on me. A risky one, considering everything that’s happened, but since he’s just assured me that everything is safe, I don’t see why we can’t have a bit of cheeky fun here.

  But then my phone is snatched violently from my hand, hurting my skin too much to be a cute prank, and I hear it smash loudly on the ground. The sound is so much it causes a shriek to fly out my mouth.

  “Argh, what the hell?” I yell. “What is going on here? What are you trying to do to me?”

  I still don’t fully get how potentially dangerous this is. Not until I’m pushed so hard again that I smack my head against the brick wall in front of me. It’s hard to believe that someone would hurt me in broad daylight like this, in a public place where anyone could see. I always think of crimes happening at night time in dark alleyways, just like the one that we saw the murder being committed in, but it seems that I’m wrong.

  It seems like it can happen anywhere, and at any time. I just hope someone calls the cops.

  “I don’t have anything,” I call out to the potential mugger. “Only a phone and you broke that.”

  My hand flies up to my forehead and a red sticky liquid trickles over my fingers. Great, I’m injured too.

  “I’m going to turn around now, then we can talk about this like adults.”

  “I think that’s a good idea,” a darkly sinister voice replies, making my body jolt with shock.

  I hold my hands up, trying to show surrender to get this over and done with as quickly as possible - hopefully before Carter gets here or he’ll never let me out of the house again - but they fall back down when I lock eyes with him. Him. The sinister dark eyes that I have seen once before. Twice before if I include the police station but I wasn’t close enough to him then to actually stare into his eyes like I am right now.

  “You,” I whisper, my fear levels rising by the moment. “It’s you. You’re here.”

  I can see him now, knife in hand, plunging it into that guy then waving it at us. I don’t notice any blade with him now, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t got it. I’m sure that he wouldn’t come to me without intent to kill.

  “I sure am here,” he replies smugly, knowing that he has me in a corner. “And it seems like so are you. Alone.” He gets closer to me;I can almost feel his breath on my face. “Now, isn’t that interesting.”

  “What do you want?” I try to demand, but it comes out like more of a whimper.

  He laughs loudly and nastily. “Now, isn’t that a question. What do I want? Hmm…” He taps his chin in mock thought. “I guess what I want is for you to keep your stupid mouth shut about what you saw.”

  “I don’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I try to bluff my way out of it.

  “Oh, I think we both know that you did. You and your little boyfriend.”

  I chew down on my bottom lip, unsure of what he wants me to say. “Okay, so… so I’ll say nothing.”

  He slams his fist into my shoulder, sending a burning hot radiating agony all the way through me, coming from both sides since it hits backwards as well, smashing back against the wall. It’s so shocking that I gasp out in pain. He did that to show that he means business. The message is well received.

  “You will say nothing, and so will your little boyfriend. You will keep well away from the police and you won’t tell anyone else either. Not a soul, do you hear me?” I nod, which makes him scream right in my face. “Do you hear me? Because I don’t think that you get it, bitch. I don’t think you get it at all.”

  “I do, I do.” My cheeks stain with wetness. Now I’m a crying, blubbering mess. “I get it.”

  “Have you told anyone else?” I shake my head, lying out of necessity. “You better not have.”

  “I haven’t told a soul.”

  “You haven’t been to the police? Because I can get Bessie… just in case you don’t get to understand what I mean by that, Bessie is my little blade, the one which killed that asshole.”

  Something cold presses against my stomach. I daren’t look down in case it’s the blade. I don’t know if he’d be crazy enough to pull the murder weapon out here, but he has just admitted it aloud, so who the fuck knows anymore? I don’t know if I can stick this out until Carter gets here. I need to escape.

  “I won’t tell anyone. Please, just let me go. If I haven’t told anyone yet, I’m not going to.”

  He grabs me around the throat, his fingers growing tighter as he smirks at me. I try to gulp, I try to breathe, but I can’t do anything. He holds me tighter, and tighter. So tight that I can’t really fight him off anymore. I claw at his fingers desperately, my survival instinct screaming at me, but my vision is slipping, sliding away.

  I’m dying, my brain thinks hazily. I’m actually going to die here.

  My life races through my mind with clarity, the people who are important to me, and I can’t help but wonder what they will do without me. How will they go on after I’m gone, knowing that it happened in such a terrible way? Will Carter go as well, or will my death be enough of a warning according to these guys?

  I am panicking, but there’s a surprising amount of calm as well, considering. It’s almost like accepting the end of my life is making it
so much easier to just experience. My body is ready to just shut down.

  Ring, ring… Ring, ring..

  The dull sound of his cell phone gives me a moment of relief. His fingers loosen just the tiniest bit; I can see a moment of panic cross his face. It makes me wonder if his heart is as in this as it first seemed.

  Who is this guy? Why did he kill someone else? Was it an initiation? Maybe he didn’t mean for any of this to happen. Perhaps he’s in over his head and this isn’t something that he wants to do.

  Maybe I can survive this. A bolt of hope races through me, bringing some strength with it. A strength that I thought had long gone, the moment his hands grabbed my throat. Perhaps I’m not going to die now.

  “Fuck.” He doesn’t know what to do, I can see it in his eyes. “Fucking, fuck.”

  His fingers slip a little more. The uncertainty regarding this phone call is everything. I just need to work out how I can use it. If this really is an organized crime thing, then he might be low down on the chain, needing to answer to the higher ups. I stare at him desperately, trying to silently communicate with him that he needs to pick it up. I want to add to the pressure that’s clearly racing through his system.

  “Fucking hell, I need to just…” I can breathe. I can actually breathe. “One minute. I just have to…”

  I use this. My body flips, shocking him and myself. Only moment before I was about ready to give up, to cave to the shade of darkness that wanted to overcome me, but now I’m attacking like nothing else.

  “Fucking hell, who the fuck is calling me now? Don’t they know that…”

  I kick, connecting with his groin, and as he yells out in pain I slip away. He yells after me but already knows that it’s useless. The moment I hear him answer the phone, I know I can escape. But I don’t stop. I’m not about to risk it. That was the most terrifying experience of my life and I don’t ever want to go through it again. My heart pounds, my stomach churns, my legs ache, but I keep going. I see Carter’s home, but I race passed it. I’m pretty sure this asshole knows where Carter lives which is why he’s here, so I need to just go.

  I put my head down and I race, turning around corners all the time to try and get lost. I remember Carter doing this the first time around, and it helped. We did lose this guy temporarily. Even temporarily will help me right now. Until Carter gets here. He’s on his way, he should be here any moment. To save my freaking life.

  “Hey, come back!”

  Oh shit. He’s coming. He’s fast. He’s chasing after me, even after picking up the phone and talking to someone else, he’s found me. This diving and darting around corners, hasn’t saved me. And it’s getting worse, because I’m not really on the main road now so Carter isn’t going to be able to find me. I’m also getting tired, I peeked too early, I raced away too quick, and now my lungs hurt, my chest aches, my whole body is on fire. I don’t think my knees can hold out much longer, this is going to end in disaster.

  I need to do something drastic, and I need to do it quick.

  “Help!” I cry out, the sound bursting from my chest. Tearing a giant hole in the agonizing raggedness that I’m already struggling through. “Help me, someone, help me, please.”

  “Shut up, bitch!” He’s closer now, I can tell by his yell, and somehow, he doesn’t sound out of breath at all. “Stop trying to fight this because it won’t get you anywhere. I’m here, ready to tear you apart.”

  The phone call was supposed to help. It should have been the thing that saved me. Instead, all it’s done is give me a burst of hope that’s now been violently dashed away. The calm I felt when I was almost dying before has long gone and I know for sure that I won’t be able to get that back.

  Now, I’m still going to die, and it will be terrible.

  “Carter,” I scream, as one last moment of hope. “Carter, help me. Carter, where are you?”

  There’s a moment when I think I see the shadow of another person, someone who could save me, but the speck is gone before I can get there. My vision has blurred from the exhaustion so it could have just been an illusion anyway. Yet. It’s heart breaking to lose it, I feel the edges of my life slipping away around me. It’s dreadful.

  Fuck, what’s happening?

  The axis that the world is balancing on tilts and shifts. I feel everything falling, there is an uncontrollably hollow sensation in my stomach as I lose my footing, my place on the planet, my identity… everything slips and falls off me as I tumble really hard. Despite all the fighting, I’ve lost, and there isn’t a damn thing that I can do about it.

  The world pin holes, I lose my vision to a spot as my body slams violently against the hard concrete. My head follows, banging the ground with such force that I’m sure I must have knocked my brain to the side. As the blackness takes me, I want to cry, but I don’t have any tears left in me. The fight is lost; the war is over. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me now, but that’s out of my control. I’ll just have to wait and see what terrors await me… if I live long enough to find out…

  31

  Carter

  I race into the bakery, hoping and praying desperately that I will just find her there, eating, drinking and waiting for me. I keep trying to tell myself that her cell phone just ran out of battery and that it isn’t anything to worry about. But as my eyes desperately flicker around the place and she’s nowhere to be seen, I know. I don’t know what to do, but things aren’t good. Something bad has happened to Raelyn, and it’s all my fault.

  “Fuck.” I run outside and look both ways. There is no one around, especially not her. This is dreadful. “Raelyn!” There’s no point in being quiet about this. I don’t care what other people think, I just need to find her. “Raelyn, where are you? Raelyn, please answer me if you’re about.” I get strange looks, but I don’t care.

  She might be at my house; my addled desperate brain tells me. Maybe she went back for something.

  I don’t have anything else to go on, so I run with that thought, heading back in the direction of mine…

  “Holy shit…” I almost fall over it, that’s how I notice it. “Is that…?”

  I reach down and pick it up tentatively. Deep down, I already know what this is, but I have to have it confirmed. It isn’t working though, it’s actually been broken, so I can’t be one hundred percent sure… but I know. This is Raelyn’s cell phone. She really is in danger. They have got to her. I relaxed because I knew it wasn’t the big boys, but Lee did warn me, he said that these guys were dangerous, and I didn’t listen.

  “Oh my God.” Sick bile go up in my throat. “Oh my God, oh my God.”

  They’ve won. They outwitted me. Whoever this petty gang is, they are smarter than I gave them credit for.

  “Fucking hell. What do I…? How do I…?” I don’t even know what question to ask first. “Shit.”

  I run wildly. I don’t even know where I’m going, I just run. My eyes dart everywhere just searching for her, whatever state she’s in I need to find her. Especially if she’s hurt. I can’t stand this. Images of her as the guy with a knife in her chest almost consumes me. I can already feel is swallowing me up whole. Hurting me all over.

  “This is my fault,” I murmur as I run. “This is all my fault. I shouldn’t have… done any of this.”

  I don’t know exactly where it went wrong, but I know that it’s my fault. I’m the one who definitely did something wrong. If I don’t put a stop to this soon, that guilt is going to eat me up whole. Running without any aim isn’t really helping me. All I’m really doing is making myself exhausted and more frantic. I need to take stock and work out what action I can take to make this work, to save Raelyn.

  “Lee,” I gasp out, knowing that I need him right now. “I need to call Lee.”

  My heart thunders in my chest as the phone rings. This moment of standing still is too much; it feels like a massive waste of time. But I don’t know what the hell else to do either.

  “Carter? Is everything alright? This is a l
ot of calls in one day!”

  “No, everything isn’t okay, Lee. I’m in a mess and I fucked up badly.”

  “Okay, shit.” He sounds worried, which makes it even worse. “What’s happened?”

  “I went to the police, I spoke to them, I made a statement. Then when I came out, I called Raelyn. But… but something happened. I don’t know what, it just went all wrong, I couldn’t tell what… she just hung up quickly and I couldn’t get hold of her afterwards. But now I’m here, where she was when she was on the phone with me, and she’s gone. Her cell phone is all smashed up and she’s gone. They have her, Lee, I just know it.”

  “Who has her? Do you know who has her?”

  “Them. The gang. The killer, I don’t know.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “I don’t have any evidence, but I just know it. It was them, it has to be.”

  “Okay, Carter, you need to calm down. Being all panicked right now isn’t helping is it?” I shake my head. I know he can’t see my face but I don’t trust myself to speak. “I will have a look into it and see what I can find.”

  “You will? Oh, thank you, Lee. I don’t know what I’d do without you. And what should I do?”

  Whatever he tells me, I’m really going to follow it. He was right the first time around and I didn’t take it in.

  “Well, you’ve been to the police now, they know about this. I would suggest that you go again. Tell them how much danger Raelyn is potentially in. It might be difficult to get them to listen because it’s only just happened, but you need to do what you can.” He sighs loudly, frustration rolling off his tongue in droves. “If this is going the way it seems like it might be, you need all the help that you can get!”

  “Okay, go to the police and report this,” I repeat. “I can do that. Then what?”

  “Then wait. Either the cops will tell you what to do, or I will.”

  “Wait.” That part will kill me. But if Lee has said it then that’s what I need to do. “Okay.”