hey loves!

ps: very dramatic chapter ahead
read it best under the covers!

✩

A M A Y A

I wake up feeling thirsty. Warmth floods my cheeks when I find myself sleeping over Carter's chest with one of his arms securely wrapped around my body. We are pressed chest to chest, like two lovers sharing heat in the night.

The room is as dark as it was before I fell asleep and there is no sign of Dawson.

I push myself to sit up and my first instinct is to touch Carter's forehead to check his temperature. He is still deep in his sleep like a sick person, but his temperature is no longer burning hot. Feeling glad of that, I climb down from the bed and arrange the blanket over his body. He groans, turns over to his stomach and curls his arms around the pillow I had been using. His body relaxes as he inhales the scent of it.

Finding no water in the jug on the bedside table, I take it with me outside the room. The hall is dark as I step out. All the ceiling lights are off except for the glow coming from the kitchen. Since I don't know how to turn them on and Dawson isn't here to help me, I quietly follow that one light to the kitchen.

Inside, I fill up Carter's jug to the brim before picking a glass from the counter. Carter's kitchen is so posh and modern, all black tiles and strange machines I could never afford to buy. There is even a dishwasher. I look around the expensive kitchen, taking in its rich beauty which looks so masculine. If it was my kitchen, there would be more softness to its touch.

I sip the water, letting the cool liquid quench my thirst. If it was my kitchen...

"I knew your name sounded familiar."

The voice behind me raises the hair on my neck. My lips on the rim of the glass freeze as a cold feeling of being watched rushes over me. I recognize that voice - it is female, sugary sweet with a hint of dark temper lingering in it.

With my stomach squeezing tight, I put the glass back on the counter as I turn around.

Molly Delacruz is standing behind me, looking at me with blazing eyes. She is in the same clothes she was in when I stumbled upon her and Carter. Her hair is a mess of curls and in her hand...

Fuck...she has a knife.

"How did you get in?" I blurt out as she takes a step towards me while I take a step back.

"I never left," she replies with a curve of her lips.

She was here. She was here all this time. That's why Dawson said she conveniently disappeared before he came in with Carter. The assaulter never left the penthouse.

"Molly, put the knife down," I say. "Put it down. You don't want to do this."

"You don't know what I want to do, Sommers!" she retorts, her hold around the knife vice-like. "I loved Carter for three years. Three fucking years! All the time I had been waiting for him to look at me the way I look at him. I wanted him with his heart and body. But he was obsessed with his high school sweetheart, the one he almost got married to. The one who is you."

The knife shines in her hand as she edges closer to me. I am slowly walking my way backward out of the kitchen. She sees that and increases her steps, the devilish glint in her eyes a warning for me. The water that I drank already dries up in my throat.

I am scared of what she intends to do. She is not normal. How the fuck did Carter not know that?

"Molly..." I raise both my hands before my face, attempting to shield myself from any sudden attack. "Please...don't..."

"I want him, Amaya. I want your Carter," she seethes, saliva coating her lips. "He is mine now...but he will never love me till he has you."

"Molly, put that fucking knife down!" I shout this time but her expression stays filled with rage.

We are in the hall now and I try to think of how to contact Dawson. With the sleep Carter is in, I don't think he will hear me even if I scream. If anyone can save me now, it is Dawson.

"Amaya, Amaya, Amaya..." Molly continues as she backs me against the coffee table. "All these years his grandfather has been trying to convince him to be mine but that man has been stuck on you. What's so special about you, Amaya? You aren't even that pretty! How can he still think of you after having met me?"

My body is shivering at the dread of being dead any minute. The sharp edge of that knife is pointed right toward me and all I can think of is my son back home, who has no idea where his Mommy is. I wonder what would happen to him if I died today.

I can't get killed by this bitch.

"Molly...you're freaking me out..." I warn her, my palms sweating in fear. "I kill people when I freak out."

And I won't hesitate to do it again if I can't go back home to my son.

She doesn't give me a chance to blink as she strikes with the knife. I am thankfully fast with my reflex as I stumble down on the sofa. The pointy knife digs into the couch instead of my body, pulling out the padding underneath.

Molly grits her teeth, tears pooling in her eyes. I jerk up from the couch, moving behind it as she frees the knife from it.

"I waited for years," she growls out in a hollow-sounding voice, one full of extreme hurt. "I wanted him to love me. I wanted him so fucking much and all this time, he had been obsessed with you..."

"Molly, please put the knife down and we can talk. You aren't in your senses."

"Shut up, bitch! You took him from me. He was supposed to be mine."

"Molly, put the bloody knife down! You'll hurt yourself and me."

She doesn't listen to me and instead proceeds further. I turn to run from there but my foot collides with the coffee table nearby. With a shrill cry, I topple to the floor, taking the table with me. A nearby vase falls with me too, its glass shattering into pieces.

The impact of the fall hits me right on my knees, causing a chilling pain to tear through my body. It reaches my brain, blinding me for seconds as I scramble on both hands and knees, intending to get up.

"Ah!" I scream when Molly's hand grabs my hair.

She wraps my long hair around her hand, forcing my head to tilt at an odd angle. I know I am crying for mercy even before the sob leaves me.

"If I can't have Carter, then no one can," she swears near my ear.

I look at the broken vase nearby which lies in pieces. Quickly, I reach for a sharp piece and Molly cries out when I dig that piece into her thigh. I feel blood trickle down my hand as the glass cuts through my skin too in the process.

Her grip on my hair loosens as she takes a look at the injury I caused her. While she is focused on the cut in her polished skin, attempting to take the glass out, I stand up to my feet, the blood from my hand creating a mark on the tiled floor.

Carter's room is nearby. If I reach there, I can wake him up. My phone is in there. I need to go in, lock the door and call Dawson.

I drag a heavy step toward Carter's room but I am unable to proceed as long fingers wrap themselves around my ankle, causing me to fall back again.

I flip around, scared and frozen as Molly's eyes meet my own, the darkness in her pupils sending a shiver down me.

"Molly...please..." I sob. "I...have a son...please don't do this..."

"I don't care, Amaya," she spits out. "You should have thought about that before you let Carter back into your life. He is mine."

"This isn't you..." I try to explain in a calmer voice.

"This is me!" she yells. "You took him from me. I'll do anything to get him back. Anything."

"Please..."

I drag myself over the floor to get away from her but the wall behind me causes me to stop. She closes in like a predator closes in on its prey and I shut my eyes in defeat as I wait for the knife to tear through me.

Molly gives a loud gasp and instead of the slash of the knife, I feel the presence of something comforting near me.

I open my eyes slowly, my hands raised to cover my face as I peek from between my fingers.

Carter is right before me, crouched on the floor. The sharp edge of Molly's knife is within the hold of his hand.

Blood drips from his fingers, falling like drops of rain on the white floor.