HER SECRETS

Chapter 18

Alice's P.O.V

"come on GIRL it's getting late" Sam yelled as we were waiting downstairs for Kate "I'm coming jeez, no need to shout" she ran downstairs "damn girl, you took like forever" I groaned as ran to the car.

At college

"Sam where is Blake?" Kate asked her "him and Aiden are off to football match" she sighed "really? boys are up to something this time, I never saw them practice this hard before" Kate said.

Aiden's busy these days, at mornings he leaves before me and night he's too tired that goes to sleep early.

"let's go to spa today"Sam looked at us "okay, at least we can have some girls time" Kate smiled as Sam squealed and high-fives her "girls time" we laughed as we walked towards our class.

Evening at shopping

"my legs are hurting" I said for the nth time and Sam was still shopping, after spa we followed Sam for shopping, that girl literally shops twice thrice a month "come on let's grab something to eat please I'm hungry" Kate whined "okay okay" Sam sighed "FINALLY FOOD" Kate and I rushed to the food counter.

We ordered a pizza and some drinks then sat at our table discussing about the clothes we bought.

Suddenly a small kid walked to me "hello" he smiled"hey there kiddo" I smiled at him ruffling his hair, he handed me a paper and ran off.

I somehow have a bad feeling about this, Kate eyed me motioning me to open the note and When I opened the note, it felt like my life ended. All the troubles we went through to be away from my past came rushing to me in a flash. My hands started trembling, tears rolled down my eyes as I read the note.

Sam took the note from me and reading it "holy shit, I'm going to call Aiden" she pulled her phone from her bag and dialed meanwhile Kate helped me up and we started to move to leave the mall, Kate and Sam kept their eyes on our surrounding trying best to check if we are being followed or not.

As soon as we got in our car, Sam drove fast back to home where we are going to meet Aiden and the others. All the time back to home my body was shivering, all of my past memories came rushing to me, the blood, the fire, the screams of my family as I stood there helpless screaming for help.

Aiden's P.O.V

As soon as Sam parked the car, I rushed to get Alice who stepped out breathing hard, "Shit, She's hyper-venting" I quickly held her and tried to calm her down, Sam and Kate rushed behind me while I took Alice to my room.  She held me and kept on crying while saying "He's here" it was like she saw a ghost or something, she turned pale and her body was shivering. It took me a while but I managed to calm her down. Then she lost her consciousness due to exhaustion. "let's leave her here to rest" I whispered and we all slowly left the room and gathered in the living room.

After a while Nick came rushing inside and asked for the note, "That Bastard" he hissed clenching the note in his hands. "right now all I can do is assign some guards to her and also I've some of my men searching the CCTV cameras to track the man who passed the note to the kid" Nick explains and drops on the couch and signs in relief. "for a moment, I thought I'll lose her too" his clenches his fist trying to calm himself.

"Can you tell us what happened with her?" Kate asks him calmly while rubbing his back, "I can't tell you the whole story, I'll tell you what I know from my side". I nod at him "yes please".

"As you'll know we were family friends, Alice's brother Revin and I were best friends since childhood and she was our little sister whom we were very protective of. To be honest our two families were like one big family itself, Our dad's working together and mom's at home taking care of us. It was never like neighbors, for me their parents were like my own parents and it was the same for them too. Being the younger one, Alice was raised with utmost care and love, she was very sensitive, kind, innocent and caring. She would cry easily and also forgive and trust people easily, that's why Revin and I were very over-protective of her. Her bullies had a hard time to be honest and we were always given detention due to getting into fights for her, that was how we three were, but as we grew up, our dreams took us apart. I left for college while Revin chose a college near to home, though he was not near all the time, he was also home as much as he can. That year was hard for me to come home and Revin's parents used to say that Alice was behaving a bit weird. I spoke to Revin but he said there's nothing to worry and that he will handle it, We laughed and promised not to get into fights like when we were kids and I stayed back at college for my exams. Then one day my father called me to inform me what happened, but the time I came back, Alice was in bad shape, her parents and brother died in that fire accident, she didn't say a word, didn't shed any tears. She was totally different from what I knew her. We tried to convince her to stay but she left town and then never contacted us. All i know about the incident that a guy who bullied and tortured Alice killed her family, I tried getting to him but at that time I didn't have much power and later I never thought he'll come out like this. When I got to know about Britney's death, I tracked you guys down and came here because I somehow had a doubt that he will come to hurt her but I didn't think it will be this soon."

We silently listened to him until we heard a noise upstairs, I ran up with others following me behind,  As soon as she saw me Alice threw herself in my arms and hugged me tight.

"I'm here" I assured her calmly her frightened self, "Alice what actually happened back then, without knowing your whole story, we can't figure out his motives" Nick said, I know it's wrong of us to pry her for information, but after receiving the Note from him in which the words "I'm Back & I'll fulfill my promise to you" was written in blood, we can't wait till he attacks, we need to think of other ways to capture him before he can hurt her even more.

"I'll be here all time, Just let us know what we can do to help you, to protect you, please Alice" I say to her and plead her to tell us the truth.

She nodded at me and breathed out "okay".