Fatal Alliances

Chapter 17

This can’t be happening. No, this….this isn’t real.

Shutting my eyes tightly I opened them back to realize that this really was happening, this was real. This pain felt like a knife plunging into my stomach slowly yet brutally ripping through me. I called the ambulance in the useless hope that Mr. Dawnly could still be alive, maybe this was like part of a rare unconsciousness or something. My faced damped as I cried. That man in the mask, he....he was one of the same men I saw before, I just knew he was. He was there that night. This….instantly I remembered Ricardo telling me to call the number he gave me if I saw anything strange but….I never expected it to be like this. 

Clumsily I scattered the contents of my purse as I sobbed and found the number I stuck inside it. My hand were still trembling, it felt like a magnetic force was against it as I dialled the number. It rang twice and I heard the other end pick up. At first I didn’t even know what to say, my voice trembled and tears kept streaming down my face. I tried to speak but all I did was sob into the phone.

 'Hello?’ the person answered.

 That voice, I never expected to hear from him ever again.

‘A-Adrian? I – I…’ I sobbed continuously. I couldn’t continue, this was too hard but I tried to, ‘Adrian- he…there was…’

My voice broke, nothing I said was even making sense. I just kept crying into the phone.

‘Greene where are you?’ he asked.

‘I –I – I’m at E-ellen Street…the old c-car tunnel.’

‘I’m on my way.’ He stated and hung up.

Was…was he really coming? Or was he just telling me that? Honestly, I didn’t know what to do again other than cry about what just happened. This never happened to me before, this kind of experience, it broke me. I felt I had no strength in me again, I felt like a coward, a scared pathetic little girl. Getting up I tried phoning Jenna but my battery died after the second ring. Everything just seemed so hopeless, my heart just felt heavy and aching as I paced up and down trying to calm myself. It wasn’t long until I heard the sound of a car stopping and someone walking up from behind me.

“Adrian.” I whimpered as I buried my face in his shirt and sobbed, “A-Adrian he…there was a man and...”

I didn’t want to continue, it was too hard to. Instead I just kept crying unable to control myself and tightly clutched onto his shirt. I’d have expected him to push me off but instead he held me with him yet it didn’t seem like a comforting kind of embrace. Daring myself to look at him I noticed that his eyes were fixed upon Mr. Dawnly’s body, there was menace, confusion and of course his undefinable expression. I blamed the old man’s death upon myself but it was Vandermir who said everything would be back to normal again, it was him who said that it would be alright for me to leave.

“You- you lied to me!” I cried bitterly as I hit him on the chest, “You...said that everything would be okay. You lied to me. If I was too much of a burden on you then you could have just said so! I would have left, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

I knew he was angry because I saw how cold and harsh his gaze became but he never spoke a word to me nor take his eyes off the body.

“Why did this have to happen?” I continued sobbingly, “He…today was his anniversary, he was buying his wife a ring! He’s a good man, he- he didn’t deserve this. Ginger didn’t deserve this kind of surprise. Do you know, he wanted to take her to Paris with him? He- and he was talking about these strange things-”

Suddenly something clicked to me, “Adrian- he- he was talking strange things- about some covert partnership, he said it wasn’t my fault, I don’t even know.”