Two: The Mystery Guest

Her legs give-way, but before she fell on the floor, she felt someone's arms grab her waist from behind. Not Armand’s, she was too disgusted by him to even let him catch her when she fell. 

She resisted and turned to look. It was the tall man she saw at the end of the hall.

"Sshhh ... take a deep breath ... don't make a scene," he said to her.

She looked at him confused, her sobs died down from the surprise.

"Don't cry ... pull yourself together ... this is no time for a meltdown," his eyes were staring into hers.

"Wh ... what? Who are you?"

The man looked around, they were still in the quiet corridor next to the main hall. No one noticed them but he looked concerned. He held her hand and led her away from there.

"Where are we going?" she was puzzled, she wasn't quite out of her shock from catching her husband red-handed.

The man picked up his pace and came to a wall, he leaned his back against the wall next to the double door to the main hall and peeked. He pricked his index finger to his lips to tell her to be quiet.

He looked to the right where the main bedroom was, someone was stepping out from the room, they could hear a door was slammed.

Just as they looked in the direction of the footsteps coming from the corridor, three black sedans pulled up at the lobby in front of the main hall. The cars screeched to a halt like they were in a hurry.

The man grabbed her with one arm, he was holding her tight in front of him, and then he pulled out a gun from his back.

She gasped in horror.

The man covered her mouth, "Don't scream ... I'm going to get you out of here."

The instruction came without an explanation, she looked to her right and saw Armand was walking towards their direction. He had put his wedding suit back on. She wanted to scream for him but her mouth was covered, she was crying for a whole different reason now, there was a gun in the man's hand and it was really close to her face.

Men came out of the three sedans and barged into the party. She could hear the guests screaming. She forced herself to look and the men were holding guns, they were all dressed in black, their faces were covered in masks and without a warning, they started shooting.

"Shit," the man muttered, he kept his back pinned against the wall and held her tightly in his arm.

Armand jumped when he heard the gunshots, for a second he saw her in the arm of an armed man but he turned around and ran back to the bedroom.

She screamed her lungs out to no avail, her voice was muffled by the calloused hand of a stranger whose intention was not clear to her. A man with a gun holding her against her will was not someone she could trust. She struggled to get away, but he was too strong.

The screaming from the main hall was distracting, everyone scurried out of the house but the men with guns kept shooting at them. And then she saw it, one of the men came over to her father and shot him point-blank on his head, the gunman turned to her mother and did the same thing. Both of her parents fell on the floor with their heads blown away, all the blood, all the horror, all the chaos cannot be real. She was screaming hysterically and there was no one to hear her scream.

"We have to get out another way ... to the garage?" The man who held her didn't seem to be part of the group of the armed killers who crashed into her wedding.

She was losing her mind at that point, she couldn't comprehend what was happening around her.

The man had to act quickly, he carried her on his shoulder and ran quietly through the corridors to get to the side exit of the house. He seemed to know his way around, he had been there before. Shots were fired again, they were already halfway out of the house.

He was strong enough to carry her all the way out of the house to the garage, he took the keys to one of the cars and threw her in the backseat of Armand's favorite silver-grey Porsche. He started the engine and zoomed their way out of the premises.

She was screaming uncontrollably in the backseat as she looked back to the carnage that was her wedding only minutes before. She screamed and screamed until it was too much for her to bear and then everything went black.

When she finally came to, her hands were bound and her mouth was taped. She struggled to remember where she was and then it slowly came back to her. She was still in her husband's car, she looked outside and it was dark. She was inside a parking lot, an abandoned one. The man who took her was nowhere in sight. She tried to open the door but the child lock must be on. As reality sunk in, she started to cry again. She jacked up the door handle but it was no use, she was locked in, the engine was on.

She kicked the door, twisted her wrists and tried to lose the tape around them, the only thing she could do was to control her fear and not cry.

The front door was opened, it was the man, he had changed into a casual outfit and he brought a duffel bag with him. She recoiled to her seat, she remembered he had a gun. Her eyes stared at the man in horror.

He glanced at her briefly, his expression was serious, he took the gun from his back again and cocked it. He moved to open the backseat and stared into her eyes, "We need to leave ... don't make a scene or I will have to sedate you ... do you understand?"

She swallowed hard, there was no one in the area, if she screamed no one would hear her. She nodded.

The man pulled her out of the car and let her walk across the lot to another car. It was a small dark blue SUV, it must be the getaway car. He pushed her in the back seat and put a handcuff around her wrist, he cuffed it to the headrest of the front seat. At that moment it was clear to her, she was being kidnapped.

Her breaths increased, she had no idea where she was and who this man was. She remembered her parents were shot dead, her husband ... what had happened to Armand?

The man sat in the driver's seat and started the engine. Without saying a word he started driving. When they were out of the building she recognized the area, they were still in Gastonburry. It wasn't long until they reached the highway and the car sped away out of town.