Over the Edge

Ch.27-Time's Up

~Emmalyn~

Yes, I was excited to see Rhys. And yes, I was a little nervous about what he could possible want to talk about.

But that didn’t stop me from arriving on the step of Vittorio’s five minutes early.

It was cold. I was wrapped in a thick sweater. I stared up at the grey sky and wondered if it would snow. I wished it would. I hated the cold but I loved the snow.

The street of Heart that I was on was eerily deserted. It was Sunday so everything was closed, but still. There was not a soul strolling about. I checked my phone, wishing Rhys to appear. I could use his excessive warmth right about now.

A couple cars passed by, but none were him.

I checked my phone. He was two minutes late.

I paced back and forth, contemplated calling him, but didn’t want to seem like the anxious one. I was nervous enough about what I wanted to bring up in the conversation. I was pretty sure Rhys had never been in a legitimate relationship before, and to ask him if he wanted to experimentally try one out, well . . . I couldn’t take his rejection if he said no.

Ugh, I thought. I was already giving myself a headache.

I checked my phone. Seven minutes late.

I did a few jumping jacks to keep warm, blew on my hands when they began to lose feeling. I even tried the door to the pizzeria, even though I knew it would be locked. It was.

And then I checked my phone. Thirteen minutes late.

That didn’t sit well with me, though I wasn’t sure what to believe. Did he ditch? Did he decide to cut his losses? Was he laughing it up right now?

Stop it, I chided my overactive mind. He was different. Somewhere along the way he had changed. He may have done it before but he wouldn’t now. Not anymore.

Twenty minutes late.

I was beginning to think he wasn’t going to show up. At that saddening conclusion, I decided I would drive back home and drop him a text. But just as I was beginning to do that, a car pulled alongside the curb. I was so relieved and eager to see him I failed to realize it wasn’t even Rhys’s car.

I jogged up to the window. “Rhys, I—”

The words died on my tongue mid-sentence. Ice froze my veins and my feet glued themselves to the ground.

A fearful breath caught in my throat as I stared down the nose of the pistol.

“Get your ass in the car,” Mike ordered.

~*~

My arm was red from pinching myself. I was hoping desperately that eventually one would make me up and I would see that it was all just some horrible nightmare. That Mike Packer hadn’t stuck to his promise and found me. That I wasn’t currently sitting beside him in the passenger seat, in view of the gun resting on the compartment between our seats.

I was afraid to say anything while he drove. This man I had once thought I would give forever to . . . And it all turned out to be childish fantasies of a naïve young teen.

“Finally found you,” he spoke out, voice grating against my nerves in the small confines of the car. “Hard as hell to find, I’ll give you that.”

I gulped.

He cast me a side glance. “What, are you mute now?”

I said nothing.