Anne It was an ugly, deep purple scar, slightly peeking out of her sleeves when she folded her hands underneath her bosom. She widened her eyes and immediately dragged down her sleeves to conceal what I’d already seen. “What is that, Jane?!” I asked again, moving close to her. She stepped back from me, darting her eyes fearfully towards where we’d seen Joshua. He was still standing there, but he wasn’t looking our way. “Did he do that to you?!” I whisper-yelled, already boiling with anger. “Don’t be ridiculous, Anny. It’s just a new tattoo I got. It’s still healing. Joshua would never hit me,” she defended. I was speechless. I didn’t know how to act rationally there and then. My mind kept telling me to stomp over to Joshua, grab a bottle from the table beside him, and smash it against his evil head. I couldn’t do that, though. Jane hadn’t admitted he was the culprit. “Can I see it then?” I said, conjuring up the calmest voice I could muster from within. “No. It is still messy.
Anne I heard her voice first before I saw her. She was begging, pleading to be let go, but the perpetrator wouldn’t listen. He had her pressed against the wall, smashing his whole body against her while he held her neck tightly. “You little b*tch! If you’d followed me when I was a bit calm, this wouldn’t have happened. But no, you decided to meet with your stupid friends and wag your stupid mouth,” he said in a low sinister voice that gave me chills all over. “I didn’t,” she cried bitterly. “She just saw it and started asking question. I didn’t tell her anything, please! You’re choking me! I can’t breathe,” she gagged. My eyes stung with tears as I advanced forward. I had seen this scene before. But it wasn’t of Jane. It was rather, of a little girl being dragged by a beast of a man into a dark alley. Yes! I remember the nightmare I had when I was sick. Was it coming to live? Was he going to draw out a shiny sharp knife and stab her? I didn’t wait to answer my question. I bent ove
Anne If beastly was human, that would be Vincent and the look in his eyes. It was scary. Worse than the one he’d exhibited that time Fiona said some sh*t about my mum. Vincent was beyond enraged. He was destructive. It was evident in the cracking sound I heard as Vincent slowly bent Joshua’s raised hand backward. Vincent had his eyes fixated on his face, watching his reaction as he turned his arm into an odd twist. I don't know whether the sound came from his shoulder or Vincent's vicious hold on Joshua's wrist. I did know that Vincent’s intention at that very moment was to break Joshua’s entire arm off. “Vincent…” I had started but was abruptly cut short when Andrew jumped in…no…more like flew in from behind Vincent, with elbows pulled back and hand tightened into a veiny fist, with which he descended on Joshua’s jaw, sending his face to the back of his head. Jane and I screamed in horror as Joshua went limp and fell to the floor. There was no way he could survive such a blow. “He
Anne “What are those?” I asked, slitting my eyes thoughtfully as I walked into Vincent’s room from the bathroom. I just finished having my bath. I had a towel wrapped around my body and another tied over my head to dry my hair. Vincent had come back from his shift and laid some gadgets on his reading table. I met him standing in front of them with folded sleeves and a hand beneath his jaw. When he heard my voice, he turned to me and waited for me to reach him. When I got closer, he brought out his hand and took my hand, pulling me to stand in front of him with my back against him. He then wrapped his arms around me and placed his jaw on my right shoulder. “What are these?” I asked again, chuckling briefly while raising my hand and caressing his cheeks. “I won’t be with you at all times. You’ve got school and other things going on for you. So!” he said aloud, removing his head from my shoulders, then stretched his hand and grabbed a gadget. “I’ve decided to fortify my fortress,” he
Anne With all the events of the past month, things had been a whole lot stressful physically and mentally. The thing with the paparazzi was taking longer to diminish. Vincent being the heir to Sawyer Memorial plus his other passive income asserts had placed him on the top 10 billionaire bachelors under 30. It was from the press releases that I found out that in his early twenties, he’d taken the money he’d gotten from his trust fund to acquire new and dying companies, both foreign and local, and today, more than half the companies were flourishing wildly. On top of that, Vincent and Andrew had inherited properties worth billions of dollars from their grandparents. This was why the press was still shocked as to why such people would go for a nobody like me. “It’s not a movie…” read one news caption, “It’s life.” Vincent had mentioned his wealth sometime in the past, but he didn’t delve into it. Stupid me was lost in kissing the heck out of him that most of the things he told me were l
Vincent I wanted to call her, but work got in the way. Just like every other day, there was this urge to hear her voice. Today was stronger than usual. I don’t know if it was because I didn’t call her during lunch, but I felt like it’d been ages since I last heard her voice. We conducted three different surgeries today. The first was on a little girl who was the only survivor of a car accident with her parents. The other two were scheduled surgeries. All three surgeries lasted for hours. I was so exhausted. I couldn’t even have a proper lunch. Before the third surgery, which was by 2 pm, I had to bite down on two chocolate bars then heading into a surgery that took 4 hours. By the time I got out, it was already 6 pm. It'd been like this yesterday. I came back home, exhausted and hungry, and had quickly plugged my phone into its charging port, then went straight to the bathroom and had my bath, ate food prepared by Anny, and went to bed. It was in the morning that I realized I hadn’t
Anne The police were already at the address before I arrived. There were two of them, a male and a female, coming out of the five-story building. I rushed towards them, introduced myself as the distress caller, and asked after Jane. It shocked me they weren’t carrying her out of the apartment already. There were no ambulances in the area. People did not gather around as they should at a time like this. ‘A time like what?’ my brain asked me. The two officers told me it was a false lead. That I had given them a wrong address, or I was playing a prank on them. Something that, according to them, had been going on lately. I played the call I recorded to them. After listening, they confirmed that the individual truly sounded like someone in trouble, but could also be acting just to make me believe she was really in danger. Nonetheless, the address she’d given clearly was the wrong one. Just to be sure she’d not confused the buildings, they’d gone to several other houses, inquiring about
Vincent I hated that my time with her felt like an old memory. It felt like years, even though it was just two days since I last set my eyes on her. Two days of hell if you ask me. “Sir.” I couldn’t sleep a wink, and neither did I have the appetite to eat anything. I felt like a ghost living in an alien body. “Sir… sir!” I shot my eyes to the detective standing like an unpaid male model. No offense, but they were beginning to get on my already messed up nerves. My dad highly revered him for all his accomplishments, but all they’ve done since we reported Anne’s case was to ask loads and loads of questions, some of which sounded irrelevant. It might be vital to finding Anne, but I felt we were wasting a whole lot of darn time. Anything could be happening to Anne as we speak. “Sir, we need to ask you a few more questions, if you don’t mind,” said the annoying detective. “Are you serious right now?” I asked, slowly rising from the couch. I could feel my anger boiling inside, ready