Page 48 of Ruthless God

It’s been raining on and off, and the smell of mist and wet asphalt hits my nostrils.

A guy is walking slowly behind me, wearing a black hoodie, his hands tucked in his pants pockets. Is that Snow following me? I told him where I was going and I gave him my location.

I take out my phone to shoot him a text.

Me: Are you following me?

I watch the guy behind me from the corner of my eye. I note that he doesn’t bother looking at his phone, so my spidey sense is telling me it’s not Snow; he wouldn’t hide behind a hoodie either. With my heart beating loud in my ears, I have to remain calm. I can’t let the guy know I know he’s following me. I pretend to be looking around the empty parking lot, trying to calm my nerves, but my stomach turns, and fear overrides my senses. I glance back at the guy to see a knife is tucked between his fingers, so I run to my car, get inside, and slam the door shut in his face. The guy beats on my door, screaming at me to get out, banging the handle of the knife against the window to try to break it. Fortunately, my windows are both shatterproof and bulletproof. I watch the guy leave, get on a motorcycle, and with shaking hands, I put my car into gear and rush out of the parking lot.

The guy is right behind me. We’re bobbing and weaving through traffic as anxiety tightens in my chest.

He’s fast on my tail and my car isn’t a sports car, it’s a Lexus I got after the accident.

My dashboard shows Snow’s name, so I answer on the first ring. “Someone is following me, Snow. I’m so scared.”

“Calm down, take deep breaths. Go straight to the mansion, the one where Jameson, Keanu, and Irvin live. I’ll be waiting for you.”

I switch lanes, even run a red light, but he’s still on my ass, like white on rice. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

“Yeah. Trust me, it is.”

I do eighty through the town and the guy on the motorcycle pulls up beside me, trying to run me off the road, but I floor the gas pedal, speeding up, and now he’s right behind me.

Once I make it on campus, I take the path which leads up to the mansion. Snow and Jameson are waiting in the driveway, guns in their hands. I park just as Snow shoots the guy in thearm, but he takes off at full speed. Keanu then speeds off on his motorcycle, following the guy in the hoodie.

Snow rushes to my car, opens my door, and I hug him tight. Tears fall down my cheeks, and I feel safe and protected in his arms. He squeezes me back, stroking the back of my head, soothing me, whispering in my ears that I’m safe. All the while my tears wet his cotton shirt.

“Come inside,” he says, wrapping his arm around my waist.

When we’re in the living room, I exhale, slouching on the couch, relaying everything I learned at the storage. I even show Snow the sketch and my theory that Bailey was pregnant at one time, about the way she was acting strange before her death and how she was paranoid. He punches the wall, screaming.

Guilt flashes in his pupils. “I failed my sister,” he says to himself. “She was suffering, and I wasn’t there to protect her.” He hangs his head as he runs his fingers through his hair.

No one says a word for several moments. I place my hands on his cheeks, and to my surprise, he leans into my touch, causing me to blush.

“Snow, look at me.”

He shakes his head, and I’m assuming he feels too shameful to look at me.

“Please. I need you to look at me.”

“It’s not your fault. Bailey kept a lot of secrets from us. It’s no one’s fault,” I say, genuinely.

He nods, but I don’t think he believes me.

“I mean what I say, Snow. I’m serious. I don’t know what to believe, what was real and what wasn’t. She lived a double life, and who knows what she was into.”

My best friend hid so much of her life from me the last few years of her life. At first, I thought I was being crazy, that I’m the one who should feel guilty and not him. I was the one who was spending a lot of time with her. I should have seen the signsthat something was off. Tears wet my eyes because I truly don’t know who she was during the last few years of her life. If I had been more forceful, maybe follow her to places when she used to disappear, then maybe I could have saved us both. When she said she felt like someone was following her, I should have taken her seriously. I failed her more than anyone else in her life.

I’ve never felt as much guilt as I do now.

“Did Keanu track him down?” Snow asks, squeezing my shoulders tight.

“Yeah. He sent me a text, he’s on his tail,” Jameson replies, kicking up his shoes on the coffee table, typing on his phone. “He’s going to beat him and bring him to the basement.”

“Go lie down in my old bedroom. You need to rest, Lyrical.”

Usually, I would fight him, but not tonight. So, I head upstairs, go directly to Snow’s bedroom, kick off my shoes, and slide under the covers. And I fall asleep.

---