Beloved Murderer

Broken Beloved - Chapter 2

My eyes fluttered against the warmth of the sun that was streaming onto my heavy eyelids as I awoke from a restless sleep. Instantly, I became alert when I saw that I was in our room in the cottage. Panic filled my chest like it was pouring into me, saturating my veins, drowning me. I remembered instantly what had happened at the mansion, like Mason's words were screaming at me even in my sleep.

I flung my body up in the bed and searched the sheets for him, but all my hands grasped were empty sheets. I gulped down the panic, but it was no use, the pure terror seized up my stomach. I jumped up from the bed and sprinted out into the cottage, screaming for him.

"Mason," I yelled in a sob as tears streamed down my cheeks. He wasn't here. He had truly left me. A strangled cry escaped my lips as I hunched down on the floor, curling my hands around my knees and digging my head into my thighs.

I didn't know what to do, I didn't know how to live without Mason. I couldn't. I needed him. I wracked my mind to think where he would be, if I could find him then I could convince him to stay with me. I snapped my bowed head up as I realised that he still might be at the mansion; he still had a body to dispose of.

I stood up, wiping the tears from my eyes and grabbed my car keys from the hanger by the door. I knew I shouldn't be driving in my state, but I had to get to him as soon as possible. My car swerved around the corners as I sped down the road and up the hill towards Mason's mansion. I leapt out of the car when I was out the front of the main entrance and I barged in the house, the door slamming open behind me.

"Mason," I yelled into the house. The only thing I heard back was the echo of my own painful cries. The front room was empty, only with a few lit scones lighting the entrance. I gulped down a sob and ran my hands over my mouth as my breathing became pants. He could still be in the basement.

I darted for the kitchen, my feet tripping over each other from moving so erratically. I barged the doors open into the kitchen and I breathed out heavily as relief settled the restrictive panic in my chest when I saw the body bag still on the kitchen counter. That meant Mason was still here if he hadn't disposed of the body yet. Mason must still be in the basement.

I stepped over towards the open entrance to the basement and as I walked past the kitchen counter, I looked down at the body bag to find the zip still open. When I looked down at the body of the dead man Mason had murdered it wasn't the face of our enemy that was staring blankly up at me. It was Mason's.

I gasped, my salvia choking up into my throat so severely I stopped breathing. I grasped my hands to my throat as my stomach hurled and pure dread took a hold of my heart. Mason's brown hair curled messily over his face and his blue eyes stared up at the ceiling with no life in them. His long lanky body was motionless and covered in blood with a bleeding hole in his chest.

"Mason," I screamed, the sound so horrified and piercing it echoed through the entire mansion. My heart stopped beating as my entire body was petrified into a state of pure agony. My knees gave out and I fell into his body, clutching at his white shirt that was covered in his blood.

But when my hands touched the scar on his beautiful face, it changed in a flash to the dark-skinned face of Kevin and the dead body I had already seen before. I fell away from him, my feet stumbling away as my mind tried to comprehend what was happening. I raked my hands down my face to find them covered in blood and another surge of terror streamed through me.

When I took my hands away from my face, I saw Mason's dead body in the bag again. My heart couldn't stand the sight and I screamed violently. I fell to the floor, my hands scrambling me away from the dead body that I didn't know if it was Mason or not.

"Mason," I screamed out an elongated screech on his name as I curled my head into my knees and clutched my head between my hands. I didn't know what was real and what was reality, my mind was giving out on me. I screamed and screamed, the sound a constant wail as the torment pierced away at my soul. Was Mason dead?