β™‘ Chapter 17 β™‘

Background color
Font
Font size
Line height

The snow falling down lands in my hair as I rush toward the gate.Β 

I call out a 'Hello' a few times, fog coming from my mouth every single time that I do.

But finally, after the third time, the door swings open.

Michael pokes his head out and questions, "Azalea?"

"Hi!" I say cheerfully with a smile. "I did it again, and really need to use the bathroom."

He shakes his head as he steps out of the building and starts walking toward the gate.Β 

"You're silly, Az," he says while opening the gate for me. "Go on in, sweetheart."

"Thank you so much!" I say happily over my shoulder as I walked past him. My cheeks were already red from the cold.

I step inside, the heat from the building warming me as I followed Michael toward the bathroom once he reached the door.Β 

I looked around. People were working on the floors above, but none on the main floor.

Once we reach the bathroom door, he smiles and gestures for me to go in. I smile widely at him before stepping inside, "Thank you so much."

I enter, and shut the door behind me.

I walk around. I pace. I feel like I need to poop but I don't even though there's a toilet beside me because I'm too busy eating at my nails while overthinking everything.Β 

But I pause, hearing Michael speak.Β 

"Yep. He killed the entire fucking group of them," I hear him say, which I imagine is into his phone. "So, new plan. I haven't been in contact with Joesph yet so I haven't had time to give him the address and have him go do it himself. So you group of ten go, okay? The address isΒ 987 Partridge Road. Kill the boy, then kill Ricci once he gets there."

My ear and hand press against the door as I listen.Β 

Slowly, I drop my hand, and take a step back.

I turn and look at the toilet. I ask loudly so that he can hear me over the door, "Hey, Michael? Are you able to come in here? The toilet looks like it's broken."

"Oh, shoot," he mutters.

He opens the door, and steps inside.

I move back to give him room to step to the toilet. I stand behind him and watch as he hunches over the toilet, lifting the top of it.Β 

He looks around for a few moments and shrugs, "It looks okay. Lets see if it flushes."

He puts the lid back on, and watches it as he flushes, and the water goes down perfectly.

"It's working just fine," he smiles while turning back around to face me.

I slit his throat with the knife that I had in my jacket pocket.Β 

His eyes widen, and he tries to scream, but he can't because of how deep I cut him. The blood from his neck sends splatter across my face, but it doesn't even make me blink.

He stumbles back, laying down on the ground as he continued to attempt to scream. The sounds that came out of his mouth were horrid, yet I felt no guilt. The bathroom was covered in his blood, and his bloody handprints were smeared against the toilet from when he fell.

I continued holding the knife as I looked down at him. And slowly, his eyes went still, and he stopped making noise.

His fingers twitched a few times.Β 

And then stopped.Β 

I step over his head body, and grab his phone out of his pocket. I dial the last number he called.Β 

And after a few rings, they picked up.

"I know where Reese Ricci is at this exact moment," I speak into the phone.

"Who in the fuck is this?" a guy asks from the other line.

I don't respond at first. I slowly turn around to face the mirror above the sink. I hold the phone to my ear as I walk forward, staring at my reflection the entire time. Blood is splattered against my face. I wear the blood of a man that trusted me.Β 

"Doesn't matter," I say dryly. "You want his location? Or not."

When I'm met with silence, I nod, "That's what I thought."

I go on to tell them where to go. And once the words leave my mouth, I end the call and set it down on the counter.Β 

I keep staring at my reflection for a few moments. Looking at the blood that I wear.

And then very calmly, I wet my hands, and remove it from my face.

I exit the bathroom, and start walking back outside while playing with the necklace around my neck.

I've chosen my side.Β 

«────── Β« β‹…Κšβ™‘Ιžβ‹… Β» ──────»

~ Reese POV ~

I'm flying down the road at 120 miles per hour.

I stare at the road in front of me angrily as I rush to get my brother.

Leaving her broke my fucking heart. I wear my anger on my face as my speed increases to 130.Β 

I have never cried since I was a child. I've been tortured, shot, stabbed, and abandoned by my own parents. And never once did I cry.

But as I fly down this road, after leaving Azalea for God knows how long, my eyes turn glossy for once.Β 

I've never met a girl like her in my entire life. She's kind, compassionate, and has the biggest fucking heart. But I can see it in her eyes, that even though all of those things are true, she's capable of so much. She's willing to do what she needs to do. She's shown me that, by killing for the first time to save my life.

I worship the ground she walks upon. Looking at her has made me believe in angels.

I think that something inside of her changed the day that she met me. The series of events fell like dominos.Β 

Part of me feels fucking awful for it. Awful for making her kill, and ruining her relationship with her father.

But the bigger part of me, and the more selfish part, doesn't regret it at all. To have her kiss me, kill for me, want to come with me is worth more than winning any lottery on Earth.Β 

My phone rings. My eyebrows lower seeing that it's a number I don't have saved, and I have to lower my speed to look at it.

"Hello?" I speak into it when I pick up.

"Reese!" Azalea's voice reaches my ear from the other end, and the second I hear it, I fucking melt. But then I grow worried as to why she's calling me. "You need to come back to my house, right now!"

The stress in her voice hurts my fucking heart. I ask her, "Woah, slow down. What happened? Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine right now, but please come!" she urges.

I don't waste even a single second. I drop my phone and do a U-turn on the highway, making some cars slam on their brakes and honk at me. And I quickly start speeding back to her house despite already almost being out of town.

I'd drop anything in this world if she were in danger. If a single thing ever happened to her, there would no longer be a New York.Β 

I don't give a damn about the people honking at me. I don't give a damn that I risk my life as I fly down this road.

All I give a damn about is her.

Nerves press heavy on my chest until I pull into her driveway. I feel a little bit of comfort, knowing that I'm here now, but I don't feel completely okay since I can't see her for myself.

I jump out of my car and start running to her front door. I don't even bother to shut my car door.

I enter her house with ease since the door is unlocked. I call out in concern, "Azalea?"

When I'm not met with a response, I start to search her entire house for her. I'll tear every single brick off of this house until I find her.

"Azalea!" I call out while continuing to search every room.

I run up the stairs. I search her entire room, ripping her bedsheets off the bed and tearing the shower curtain off while looking to see if she was in there. But when I see she's not, something doesn't feel right in my stomach.

My chest rises and falls quickly while I step backward. My fingers rake through my black hair, as I whisper to myself, "No."

I start to think if this as all a trap. If her dad put a gun to her head, and forced her to say that to get me here.

And when I hear something from outside, I freeze and realize my thinking may just be right.Β 

"His car is here - he's got to be inside!" a mans voice that I don't recognize yells outside.Β 

I reach for my gun.

And I realize that I was in such a rush, I forgot it in my car.Β 

Multiple footsteps rush into the house. It sounds around ten, I believe.

My brain races.Β 

I need to get out of here

But what about Azalea?

Is she okay?

Where is she?

Her father would look amazing with a bullet hole in his head.

"He's not down here. He's got to be upstairs," a mans voice says, snapping me out of my worry.

I only have one option, since they have guns, and I don't.Β 

I turn, and open her glass balcony door. The second it's open, a cold gush of wind from the outside hits me, and makes my dress shirt blow.Β 

I step outside, into the snowstorm. The wind is vicious and angry. My ears quickly feel numb as I jump down from her balcony, getting hit by the quick falling snow.

The wind howls in my ears, making it hard to hear. And the snow makes it hard to see.

I start running around the house, jumping over the fences to get back into the front yard. But as I'm running, a door at the side of the house swings open.Β 

A guy quickly aims his gun at me, but I smack it out of his hands. It lands against the snow and the wind blows it away as I tackle him to the ground. I wrap my arm around his throat, choking him, as he clawed at my arms to release him.

I snapped his neck and let his body drop.

I quickly stand up, and as I keep running to my car, I'm far more worried about Azalea than me.Β 

Although I don't deserve her, I want her so goddamn bad. I know that she is far better than me in every single aspect, and I find it a blessing every time that she lets me speak to her. I never take a moment of it for granted.Β 

The day that I kissed her, I think I truly did taint her. I brought out the parts of herself, that she didn't even know existed. The parts that can kill people. The parts that can betray her dad. The parts that wear a dress to a dead mans funeral, gifted by the man who did the killing.

And seeing these parts of her, has only made me like her more.Β 

I reach my car. Snow fills the inside of it since I hadn't closed my door before.Β 

I sit in my car, keeping the door open as I try and turn the engine on. I twist the keys, but nothing happens. I try again, but still nothing.Β 

"Shit," I whisper harshly under my breath.Β 

I get out of my car, getting hit by the snow as I walk over to the engine.

And I see that the men put three bullets into it.

"Fuck!" I curse over the wind.

I'm fucked. I'm completely fucked.

This entire thing was a setup. They knew exactly where I would be.Β 

I'm fucked.Β 

And this is it.

I stand in the snowstorm and I accept my fate.

The wind causes my hair and shirt to whip around violently. The second that they see that I'm out here, I'm a dead man.Β 

There's nothing that can save me now.

The loudest sound that I had ever heard in my entire life happens. The strong color and heat make me cover my eyes as I stumbled back a few steps.Β 

I don't understand what's happening at first. My ears ring from the explosion, and my vision is blurry. I have to blink a few times to get my eyes to focus again.

And once I realize what I'm seeing, my eyes widen and I step back.

The house errupts into flames. The flames are strong, thick, and orange. The cover the entire house, and every single window shattered, sending the glass flying onto the ground.Β 

The winds from the snow storm only help for the flames to spread. Black smoke drifts into the air, and you can hear the sound of the house burning in front of you.

Men scream from the inside.Β 

The front door flies open.Β 

One man, with flames covering his body, runs outside. He's screaming, hoping that there's something that could be done to save him. He collapses on the ground and begins rolling, desperate to put out the flames.

But as the flames live on, his screams stop, until his body lays lifelessly in the snow.

"What the hell?" I whisper to myself, watching the large house go up in flames from the middle of the yard.

This didn't make any sense. There was nobody else in the house, and none of those men could've possibly set a fire this big.Β 

The roof started to collaspe, making the flames grow even wider as the white house was now black.Β 

A hand grabs my arm and I whip around.Β 

My heart stops. I whisper, "Azalea?"Β 

She stands in front of me. Seeing her, my immediate reaction is worry. She's standing in the cold, in nothing more than jeans and a shirt. She could get sick so easily, and just the thought of it breaks my heart.

"You're okay," I say in relief once I process that she is here and in front of me.

I pull her into my chest. I hold her small body tightly against mine, trying my best to protect her from the rough elements.Β 

I take a deep breath of her soft scent. It reminds me that she's truly here.

"What are you doing here?" I pull away from the hug and ask her, bending down to be face-to-face with her to see her better. "Did your dad force you to do that call? Fuck, I was so worried."

I cup her face. I have to be touching her, or else I feel like I can't breathe.Β 

"I'm so sorry I worried you," her big, light brown eyes look up at me apologetically. "But I needed you to get here fast, so that your car was here and they'd go inside."

Her words confuse me and my eyebrows lower. The house continues to burn to the ground beside us, the bright orange flames lighting up the right side of her face.

I ask her, "What are you talking about?"

She forces herself to swallow her saliva. The confused look remains on my face.Β 

"It's done," she states matter-of-factly.

I keep looking at her, trying to understand what she was saying. But as I slowly pieced it together, I looked at the burning house beside us, and then back at her.

"This was you?" I ask, shock lacing my tone.

She nods.Β 

"I killed Michael, too. Now there's nobody left alive that knows where your brother is," she says.Β 

The shock on my face could be read like a book. She did all of this?

With a soft expression, she adds quietly, "It's done. Now, you don't have to leave."

Word count: 2597


You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net