This Is England » Freddie Highmore

99.

"YOU DON'T have to go back," Freddie suggests as we drive to the train station. I'm numb, I can't get over the seering pain of losing my baby, and the one thing I want right now aside from my child is the ability to continue my school work. "I can help you take online courses - that's what I did after everything went down."

Surprised, I look over at the man who was both my biggest distraction, and take in this information. "I didn't know that," I reply. "I thought you were just a drop out."

Freddie scoffs. "I may be one of the biggest gang leaders in England, but a drop out is rather an insult, my dear." He turns to an intersecrion, and soon we would be at the train station.

"I'll grab your bags," Freddie says as he parks the car over in the parking lot. He makes his way to the trunk, then opens my door for me. "d'you need me to help you out?" He asks.

I managed to get out of the vehicle with ease, though my heart still panged at the memory of being told I had miscarried. Freddie hands me my bags.

"Thank you." I reply. I look at him quizzically as I realize that he wasn't following me up the steps to the ticket booth. "Aren't you coming with me?" I ask.

Before he could reply, a sinister voice chuckles from behind me. I turn around and jolt at the sight of Damion, the head honcho of the Devil's Convicts.

"Why would he be going with you?" Damion asks, slithering his index finger underneath my chin. "Highmore has some unfinished business to take care of."

Freddie pushes hard against Damion at full force, causing me to topple back against the hood of the car.

"You're damn right I have unfinished business to take care of," Freddie snaps, "and it's starting with me having your head. You fuckin' killed my child, you bloke!"

Damion blows a whistle. Surrounding us now were his henchmen. Freddie looks at every one of them, then at me, and mouths the words, I'm sorry and takes out his phone.

As if with just a push of a button, all of the members of LFOUR began to shoot fire.

This wasn't just a rumble.

The way that these young men were shooting at each other was an all out war.

And this war was just the beginning.

I couldn't go into the ticket booth because bullets were flying everywhere, punches were being thrown and somehow I was stuck in the middle. I managed to sneak back into the car and hide in the backseat, crouching like a child while waiting for her dad to come back from the store.

A bullet hit the car window, then another. I prayed to God that I would survive this. As much as I loved Freddie, I knew that I wouldn't have the confidence or security to feel safe with him right now. The person he was forming into was his carnal self; a beast in the making; a monster I didn't recognize. I placed my suitcase on top of my body, and wedged myself lower to the floor, in between the driver's side seat and the back seat.

The screams, the gun shots and somehow the smoke from a fire consumed my ears and mouth. Why have I not escaped? Was I waiting for Freddie to end his childish ember?

I slowly and carefully bring myself to see the scene at hand. Freddie is pushing against one of the henchmen for the Convicts, and they keep pushing each other until Freddie is at full swing. The man he punched topples to the floor, and then a gun shot is fired, but Freddie isn't the one holding the gun. I'm not even sure how anyone got a hold of guns, as they are considered illegal here in the UK.

As I'm watching all this happen, I look down at the ring Freddie had given me, and then back up at the scene. Did I really want a life like this for myself? Was I ready to be married to man who chose violence than the safety of his family?

As much as it hurt, I knew what I had to do. I know Freddie was trying to bring himself peace with this war somehow, but I needed my peace too.

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