Tonight is the night we die

Chapter Twenty-Nine

JAKE'S POV - PRESENT TIMES

I recounted this part of my past to Gloria, my head resting on her lap, her hand running through my hair. She listened attentively and once I was done, I sat back properly, facing her. She opened her arms and threw herself at me. It was a weird feeling to open up to someone. I never thought I would have the opportunity to share a piece of me like that. It seemed natural to do it with her.Gloria was not planned, falling that deep for her was not planned. It was all that my scaring me the most. She was that "third time", she was that "third loss" I could not allow myself to have. I rejected her, I rejected my feelings, I pretended they were not there, it made me sick to my stomach, the desire and the denial, mixed together, it was aching my entire body. The pain disappeared as soon as I let her in.

We nestled our faces into each other's necks, for long minutes. Her hand brushed my back, the other in my hair, her steady breathing against my neck. This was the comfort I had needed since I lost it all. It all became too real, it came back, my past was there, a lump in my throat that I could not swallow. My breathing was not as steady as hers. It quickened and soon I couldn't hold my barrier up anymore. I burst into tears. Tears that I kept inside for nine years. Gloria was the right person to show them to. She let them come out and then brushed them away, taking the torment with them.

After calming down, I wanted to keep working but Gloria insisted on going to bed. I followed her like an obedient little boy. I had a hard time believing I cried like that in front of her. I was not ashamed of it and she was not weirded out by it. There was something special about being able to be vulnerable with someone and having zero fear that they might use it against you.

I could not sleep. I had a presage that something was going to change. A gut feeling that this might be the last night I could be holding Gloria in my arms. Perhaps she was feeling it too. I didn't dare ask and ruin the silence. We stayed still and quiet, thinking that maybe by doing so, life and its misfortune would forget about us for a tiny bit longer. Her hand was on the scar of my bullet wound. Like a sorcerer, she was healing me. I would not have been surprised if, in the morning, the scar was completely gone. But it was still there, just like that premonition. And soon it made sense.

It is an early start, a few hours of sleep, and Gloria and I get up. We could not bear the stillness anymore. We shower, we eat breakfast, and we live normally but a sword of Damocles is right above us. I see in her eyes that she senses it too. She guesses it into mine too. But we don't mention it out loud.

I try to join Alan but I don't have any luck with that. It is weird and not like him at all to not respond and call back soon after. I sit on a stool in the kitchen, phone down on the counter right in front of me, ready to grab it and announce to Alan all I know. I am staring at it as if my thoughts could make it ring :

" Jake ? " Gloria calls me, entering the kitchen, holding her phone in her hand. The worry in her voice is easy to notice. She stands next to me, putting the piece of technology down next to mine.

I look at what the screen is showing and press play on the video waiting for me here :

" Another sad and gruesome morning for the Newfold's residents. A young woman, Samantha Lockhart, was discovered this morning at the Sunset Inn. Another hotel, another brutal murder but what is changing now is fingerprints found at the scene. We do not have any more details as of now but the police are moving quickly. Rumors say that a man has been already apprehended. We will let... " The video does not have the opportunity to go on any longer as the phone starts ringing. An unknown number.

Gloria frowns, her eyes catching mine to find an answer to her silent question. I nod at her. Leaving the phone down on the counter, she picks up and put it on speaker :