Love in the dark~ rini oneshots

The Unforgiven Act: part 3

Ricky's POV:

"Richard, when you found her body, did you see anyone around her?"

"No... nothing." Mr. Mazzara took off his glasses.

"Did she do any sports? Anything she was really committed to?"

"She um dabbled with swimming one year, she was always into acting."

"Mhm do you know who was on the swim team that she talked to?" I nervously ran my hand through my hair.

"No, she honestly didn't like swimming that much. She never really hung out with anyone on the team either." He nodded again. If I'm being honest, I don't like how he's doing that. "Did she hold grudges with anyone?"

"Nah. She would never."

"Okay then this is going to be a lot harder than I thought. Was she being weird the few weeks prior?" I started to play with my fingers. In fact, something had happened. She called me crying one night.

"Um yeah actually. She had been very distant, very quiet. Her grades had started slipping from an A+ down to a B- for the past month. Something really weird happened."

"Do tell, Boy." He told me, clicking the button on his recorder.

"Well, one night she called me at around 12:25 in the morning. I have insomnia so I was up anyway. It sounded like she couldn't catch her breath. She was crying. And then I heard her say "Ricky I need you. Ricky, he's here." And she was crying my name. I heard her start to cry louder, and at this time I was more than halfway to her house. Then I heard her say "Ricky he's going to hurt me, he's almost to the window." When I got there, I found her in her room, crying in a ball on the floor. When I looked outside no one was there. I tried to convince her that it was just a bad dream, but she said this had happened before, and she knew he was going to come back."

Mr. Mazzara hit stop on the recording.

"Any clue of who this man could be?"

"No... she just talked to me and EJ... plus EJ was with me and Gina at the time of her murder."

"And you said she did swimming at East?" I nodded in reply. "Bring in your yearbook."

-the car-

I ran out to the car and jumped in, driving home as quickly as I could. I don't think anyone at East would kill an innocent girl. Right? Let's just say my truck had seen better days as it was sputtering the whole way home. Once I arrived, I ran up to my room and grabbed the yearbook from my Junior year. I also grabbed the bag from my dresser and stuffed it in my pocket for good luck.

Arriving back, I had bookmarked the swim team page and the page with her photo on it. She looked so happy in this picture. I remember this day.

Flashback: before they were together

"I can't belive it, Ricky! We did it!" She laughed as I picked her up and spun her around.

"Hell yeah we did!" I set her down and grabbed her hands. "Ice cream?"

Soon enough, we were on the pier, getting ice cream at Abbott's. She had ordered strawberry, and I had ordered chocolate. We sat at a table for two talking about everything from school, to friends, to music, everything. It was the day we finished 11th grade. 

Sitting here, laughing with her was the best. Better than finishing another year of hell. That was until things got intresting. When we were sitting down, I saw a man, older than us, wave to nini. She waved back with an uncomfortable smile. Her smile started to fade as he approached us, and nini grabbed her bag.

"Nini where-"

"Ricky let's go." She was in a hurry and she sounded shaken up. The man kept walking towards us.

"Nina! Nina, it's me! Danny!" She continued to pack as she started for the car, me following behind. The man soon caught up and placed his large hand on the small of her back and she froze. 

"Nina. It's nice to see you here! What are you doing out?" She took a deep breath but never turned around to face him.

"I'm getting ice cream with a friend."

"No kidding! I was just going to get ice cream too! May I join you?"

"Uhm no. Not to be rude or anything... we were actually just leaving." She turned around to face the man. 

"Oh okay..." He leaned into her ear and whispered something. "Don't forget about our deal." She nodded and said goodbye, pulling me into the car.

"Neens what was that about? What promise? Who was that man?"

"No one that concerns you, Ricky. Now what do you want to do?"

"Bubs, your avoiding my question."

"Yeah because I don't have to answer it." She snapped her head towards me. I nodded and she looked down at her hands. "I-I'm sorry, Ricky. I didn't mean to snap."

"Your okay." It was silent for a minute. She started to play with her wrists and I looked down. They were bruised black and blue. "Jesus what happened!?"

"Ricky you can't say anything..."

"I won't."

"It was Danny..."