Blake's P.O.V

When we reached home, Jo ran into her room crying. Well, maybe that murdered girl was a friend of hers.

I began following dad into the kitchen but he shot me a look and I knew that he wanted me to go back to my room.

Huffing, I draw back and head up the stairs. That's not fair. People are getting killed and I am not told anything about it. I deserved to know something about such an important matter after all.

Walking into my room, I slammed the door shut to show my annoyance. I rolled onto the bed and closed my eyes.

I just couldn't keep that girl's chilling eyes out of my head. It must be horrible to be her. Dying in a horrible and painful way. I shuddered. I couldn't imagine how horrific that would be. The sad part was that I didn't even know her name.

This is frightening. I seriously needed to talk a bath to get rid of this feeling. Like right now.

Dragging a towel along with me, I go into the adjoining bathroom and undress. Standing under the pouring water, I tried to imagine how death could have come to that poor girl. All that cuts and bruises. I am not that sensitive but I can assure you that if I had a cut, I wouldn't be able to hold a knife for even a month.

Wrapping a towel around myself I walk into my room and my gaze immediately goes towards the open window in my room. 

Weird. I remember that it was closed before I went for a bath. I walking slowly towards the window and popped my head out. My window faced the huge and dark forest situated behind my house. No one was there.

Frowning, I closed the window and drew the curtains.  I turned back and my breath hitched. My heart began to beat faster than normal and my legs began to shake.

There was a fully blossomed red rose laying on my bed and under it lay a strange pink colored  note. 

I slowed walked towards the bed, my fingers tightly clenched over the white towel. Maybe I was being paranoid due to my new discover. Maybe it was just dad who placed a note to apologize for his behavior when I went for a bath. Maybe it is not a crazy person who crept into my room while I was bathing and placed it there. Maybe I was hallucinating.

But as my fingers slightly brushed against the paper, I knew that it was no hallucination but actual reality. Taking a deep breathe, I braved myself to read the note. What I read did no good to me and I slumped down on the bed heavily, dazed.

The note slipped out of fingers and fell down on the ground. I turned my head slowly to look back at the note which made me more sick and helpless.

One can still see the perfect handwriting and the red ink from where I was sitting and by just staring at it, I began to feel shivers flowing down my spine.

You Might Be The Next One, My Love. Be Careful.

~ Yours Truly

~***~

When I finally shook myself out of my thoughts, I decided to go down to have my dinner.

As I climbed down the stairs, I heard a door slam behind me and Jo comes out with a very pale and messy face. Looks like I was not the only one to have a bad evening.

We entered the dining room together and I could immediately sense the tense atmosphere surrounding the room. Dad sat on one side while Sandra was bringing in hot pie.

We settled down and began to eat, but after a while the silence was broken by Sandra.

"Tom, we need to shift."

"Shift? We don't need to."

I looked up from my food when I heard dad's stiff voice.

"We don't need to? We don't need to? There is a killer out there Tom and you are asking us to stay!?"

I had to agree with her on that one. I actually wanted to speak up for her, but decided to stay put.

"Nothing is going to happen, hon. We will be safe."

Dad continued eating his stew and was dismissing the topic like it was nothing.

"Safe? Hah!" Sandra's voice began to raise with every word.

"I don't know about you but I don't want my daughter to end up dead in a ditch like that Mia girl!"

Oh, so her name was Mia.

"As I said before, we don't need to shift. My job requires me to stay here and stay here we will. No one will discuss about shifting, in this house anymore."

I raised my eyes on dad at this one. After mom left, Dad started working as a manager for a company that supplies lumber to many companies. But isn't our safety more important than money? 

I decided to tell dad about how I could be the next victim of the killer when Sandra stood up. Her face scrunched up in disgust when she looked at me and I could tell that she was angry. Very angry.

"I don't care about your job, Thomas! We are more important than you. I don't care if your daughter is slaughtered and sliced and diced up but I care about my daughter. I know you care about our daughter. Think about her future."

I was shell shocked. The fork in my hand stopped mid-air and my mouth hung open. Say what?! I knew that my step-mom was evil, but never to this extent. I felt bad and my chest felt heavy.

"You know that I don't care about her, honey. If not for her mother going to some retarded place, she would have never been here. But still, my decision is finalized. One more word from you and you will be out."

Everything became silent for a second, before I stood up and raced up to my room.

I laid down on my bed and muffled my screams into the pillow. So, I was a burden after all. Tears threatened to spill out of my eyes but I clenched them tight. Never will I shed another tear drop for people as ruthless as them. I wonder why I came here in the first place. I guess that there was a tiny hope in my heart that dad missed me as much as I missed him and would shower me with love.

I had to laugh out loud at that one. Shower me with love? He would be ready to exchange me for his other daughter's' life. I was replaced with someone better after all.

As I lay in my bed surrounded with my misery, sleep slowly took over me and I began to doze off into the world of imagination.

And that was when the nightmares began, again.

~***~

OMG!!! My 10th grade results would come tomorrow and I literally had a mini panic attack today! I just hope that the outcome would be really good. Crossing my fingers. Shit! I was never this nervous my entire life! I just wanted to share this info with ppl and here I am doing just that. 

Chapter Completed: June 1, 2018

Ciao! I hope it isn't boring our anything.

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