Disappearing act

Up The Street

The day dawned to a lot of groaning. In fact, all the way from her bed, to the bathroom, to the kitchen and to the lounge with a warm coffee, came an almost constant rumble of a groan. Her groaning was momentarily interrupted by the vibration of her phone beside her. The display shows a text message:
Rai! Last night you went home in my jacket dude, I swear. She sighed and ran her fingers through her hair, thin and stringy and recently dyed. Cherry brown was what she thought the hairdresser said after she had asked for a 'reddy brownish colour'. She really wasn't in the mood for replying, nor did she think she had Alison's jacket at all. So naturally she replied with Lmao I don't have it. Ask Jen. Rai was not the kind to go out and party every night, nor to be in large groups with people, but somehow the people around her love these things. Unfortunately, this took a bit of a toll on her and all she wanted to do was nap. Luckily the holidays and just begun for her and the idea of returning back to university is long gone. Her coffee was drained, and her eyes were closing. Although she's comfortable and about to have a short sleep, her phone goes off again. Her eyes blink open and her gaze lands on it. Right...wanna get some coffee? She stands up off the couch and taking her phone with her, gets dressed. Meet you in ten mins at Patell's. Patell's was the café in the middle of town, one of Rai's favourite places in the world. It had staff with less than welcoming smiles at this time of the morning, but has a roaring fire and was where she met her favourite people. Slipping on a pair of boots, a denim skirt, a cream sweater, and a navy beanie, she grabs her bag and heads off with the reassurance that no shadows would be flitting under streetlights today.
She drummed her hands on her steering wheel as she hummed along to some ABBA, until Patell's catch phrase 'There's always time for more coffee!' was in sight.
"Rai!" Alison wraps her arms around me in a warm embrace.
After a short chat outside they head in, sitting at the table closest to the window.
"You know what I hate? Cold coffee. It's like drinking warm water, not right. Like, iced coffee is ok but..."
She nods, not really listening as she takes a sip of coffee.
"I mean; coffee was made to be drunk warm right?"
"Right."
"You ok?"
She blinks a bit a smiles "Yeah! Yeah I'm fine, I just feel a bit off..." her eyes drift to the window.
Alison eyes her suspiciously "we were up pretty late last night, I mean, did you see Jazz's face when you swallowed all that tomato sauce?"
She breaks out of her daze and snaps back in excitement. "I swear she went green, my gosh."

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As they made their way out, Rai sees it again. A man in a green suit looking straight at her.
"Hey Alison...do you see that?"
"See what?"
"That guy over there, in the green suit. He's been standing there the whole time we had coffee, just looking."
"Is that what you were looking at?" she purses her lips for a moment and then looks at her.
"I'll walk with you a while just in case, I mean no harm done if he's not doing anything right?" she then smiles, takes Rai's hand and they make their way down the street.
Having expected her to shake it off as nothing, a bewildered Rai follows her. They make their way, Alison happily window shopping and glancing behind her every now and then. She seemed happy in a slightly artificial way, while Rai was just confused and following along quietly.
Alison had always been her closest friend since she could remember. There were moments when she wondered if it could be more, but as was her custom it seemed, she had brushed it off as a silly thought and never pursued it.
"He's gone; I think we lost him."
Alison turns and smiles at her. "No harm done then yeah? It was nice going down the street anyway".
She nods and grins.
"Well I'm off anyway. Sorry, but I need to go to a meeting soon. Man I needed to see a friend this morning, pretty crazy you know? Anyway..." Alison drifts off slightly.
"I get it. It was nice to see you too."
"See you!"
And with that, she walked off, waving behind her shoulder.
Rai decided to enjoy the sunshine a bit and continue down the street, peering into windows as she went.
Well-dressed mannequins stood in stylish poses in windows of clothing stores, while cakes and pastries lay at the windows of small bakeries. However, no matter how much she looked through windows and tried to enjoy herself, she couldn't shake off the uncomfortable feeling of being followed and watched. She glanced behind her shoulder frequently, but she found nothing there. She turned slightly as she walked to look at more windows when there it was, a flash of a green suit right beside her, walking out of time with her stride to not cause suspicion. He was still there.
In a moment of fear, she veered into the closest store she could get into and moved as casually as she could to a rack of clothing, pretending to examine them. The salesgirl behind the counter was flipping a magazine while simultaneously giving her suspicious looks. She kept checking out the window, flustered, her cheeks slightly red. She turned towards the rack of clothing she was inspecting and realised suddenly why the salesgirl was giving her odd looks. The sign above shouted prices at her: Men's underwear, 30% off for a limited time! Her face went red as she attempted to move to another rack, but as she did, she bumped into a tall man and fell to the floor exclaiming her apologies.
"That's alright Rai, didn't expect to see you here".
And there he was, his green suit and all, smiling down at her. He seemed kinder when he stood this close to her, his bald head tilted downwards. He extended his gloved hand towards her to help her up. "I think we should head out of here, don't you?". She nodded, still feeling uneasy about the situation, feeling that there is no way out. Besides the fact that she has no idea where he is from or why he is tailing her, he could be violent or dangerous under this happy façade. He also seems to know her name, which is odd. Thoughts such as these were spinning through her head as they moved further and further away from the shop, and where her car was parked.
"Who are you?" she suddenly says and turns to him. He wordlessly keeps moving on until they reach the most populated area of the town, people bustling from all directions to get to their various destinations. The sun was bright in her eyes as they stopped in the centre of it all.
"My name is Clive, and I'm here to transfer you to a new place, much better than this one."
She steps back, free from his grip on her for a moment. After a moment of shock, she turns and does the only logical thing she can think of, and that's to run. She moves through crowds of people, until she breaks away down the street. Clive runs after her shouting, shoving people out of the way to get to her. She's never run this much in her life, and she feels her breath constricting and her sides burning. Her thoughts rush through her head over and over. Get to my car, get to my car. Her head pounding, she reaches its door and flings it open. A gloved hand grabs her around her waist and pulls her back. The distinct smell of fragrant perfume stabs her nose as she struggles, the street empty. He yells over her squeals. "He needs to meet you! Stop!" full of frustration he moves his hand to his pocket and pulls out something she couldn't see. Something cold pierced her clothing and into her stomach. Warm blood silenced her, redder than anything she'd ever seen before. He drops his grip and she falls. Her vision was blurred, her white sweater stained. Clive wipes clean the knife he used and sighed, impatient. Her body goes limp and falls, her vision black.