Pretty When You Cry ୨୧ Rafe Cameron

twenty six

Today would be the day Rafe left. Isla had been keeping an invisible countdown in her head, she didn't know if anyone else knew he was leaving, not even Sarah, until of course they kidnapped her. The Pogues were worried sick. Where were they going?

The worst part of all was that the Pogues were taking another shot at getting the cross, only this time by stealing it back. Rafe and his family were bringing it on the cargo ship with them as they headed wherever.

The thought of seeing Rafe made her sick. In her situation, how could she bear his chiselled face and his ice-blue eyes looking back at her? She just decided she wouldn't be seen. She would be as minimally involved as possible.

As they hid in the cargo box as it got lifted shakily onto the ship, Isla tried to take deep breaths. It hit the ship with a clunk.

'Jesus, that was scary,' Kiara said.

'Now what?' Isla asked.

'We wait as long as we can. Then Isla and Kie go find Sarah, and the rest of us try and get the cross to the lifeboat,' John B explained.

The plan was going semi-smoothly until Isla searched the corridors of the ship for Sarah and found the one person she did not want to see.

'Isla, what the fuck are you doing here?' Rafe yelled.

Isla tried to run away through a door she thought led somewhere, but turned out to just be an office of sorts, a complete dead end. Rafe followed her and closed the door behind them. His eyes wandered over her face, the fear in her expression. He picked up a pocket knife from the table and her heart dropped as he fiddled with it with his fingers.

'Rafe, you can't be serious,' Isla gulped as Rafe moved the knife towards her face.

'No, you listen here bitch! You're here for that fucking cross, and you're not getting it. God, I just can't believe you. You and those Pogues, you think you can just come steal from me!' Rafe said as he talked with his hands, the knife moving around her face in a nerve-wracking closeness, each move threatening a blood bath.

'Rafe, you stole it from us,' she murmured, trying to find a glimpse of the Rafe that she understood, the kind Rafe, the one uninfluenced by his father. She hadn't considered the possibility that this could have the opposite effect on him, striking a chord and making him even more violent.

'Just— shut up! You don't get it!' Rafe held the knife closer to her neck, the air between her and the blade thinned.

'Rafe, I know you're not gonna hurt me,' Isla said, but even she didn't fully believe these words. She was trying to convince him, but also herself. He was so close to slitting her throat. Her chest closed in, and all her attention shifted to the blade, then Rafe's eyes. The eyes she once found so endearing, had now gone cold. Would he be the one to end her life? After she held him so tight despite his mistakes?

She knew who he was. He wasn't a good person, and he had killed before. The urge to kill ran in his bloodstream, through each vein. He was his father's spitting image. She'd spent too much time holding hope in her heart for him. He never deserved it, and she didn't realize that till he held her life in his hands.

His hand holding the knife to her throat shook uncontrollably. He wanted to do it. A sick voice in his head told him she deserved it. He thought of her lifeless on the floor, the way her blood would spill out of her.

And he came to a realization; he didn't want that.

'Fuck, Isla,' he pulled the knife away from her neck, throwing it back onto the table. He felt instant relief wash over him and he couldn't understand the cause. He put his hands on his head and paced in place. He couldn't believe he'd almost killed someone so... important.