Message in a Bottle

Over (42)

Chapter 42

*Ciara's POV*

When we were revealed to Mike, I could do nothing but lay there. I was shaking uncontrollably and my body wouldn't follow my demands. My head was screaming run! But my muscles were screaming stay! I was expecting him to grab me by my hair and kill me right there, but he didn't. I tried to cover Mason's body as much as I could with mine, but it was pointless. I couldn't move, I felt Mike's eyes scanning me from head to toe, probably deciding what to do with me first. 

"I've been looking for you," he creeps down on one knee, his voice surprsingly monotone. He places his hand on my shoulder, my body cringing from his icy touch. I could sense that he was going to strangle me or something terrible without warning. I keep my forehead rested on the ground, my eyes shut tightly, I didn't want to see what happened next. If he was going to kill me, I wish he'd just do it now and get it over with. I couldn't see it, but I could feel that he was watching me. 

And watching me. 

And watching me. 

"Let me see your face," he roughly reaches underneath me and grabs my jaw, pulling me up to face him. I cry out from his tight grip, it feels like he's crushing the bones in my mouth from his forecful fingers. When I look at him, it wasn't even close to the Mike I knew. Or used to know. The blond hair on his head and his face has been grown out to a messy shag, which five months ago would have been absolutely unacceptable to have. His regular brown eyes were covered with purple colored contacts, which took me a minute to understand why until I realized he was on the run. On his body, he wore a ripped shirt with mud and a red liquid splattered all over the front. The breath catches in my throat, deep red blood stains. A devious smile spreads across his chapped lips. "Just how I remember," he pauses, "beautiful."

I grit my teeth together inside of my clenched mouth, his fingers are still grasped hardly on my jaw. "Why did you kill her?" I croak out, swatting his hand away from me. This is the only thing I've been wanting to ask him for the past three months, why would he do such a horrible thing to my best friend?

"Who?" He playfully laughs, obviously acting like this was all some kind of game to him. 

"Jordan!" I scream and push him off of me.

Without hesitation, he flings himself back onto me. I'm practically crushed against the floor when I hear his harsh words linger in my ear. "Don't do anything stupid," he slowly sits up, checking to make sure I won't try and fight him again. His eyes slowly drift down to his waistband, where I can see a knife neatly tucked into his pants. The breath in my throat catches and I do nothing but watch him, afraid that anything I do will set him off and cause him to use the weapon on one of us, which is my biggest fear at the moment. "Now who exactly are you referring to," he asks.

"Jordan!" I say, "Who else would I be talking about?" I attempt a scream but it comes out more weakly than I had hoped. I don't want Mike knowing I'm afraid of him, because that's what he wants. I agreed I am never going to give him what he desires ever again, and I'm sticking to that. What he wants is the satisfaction of knowing I'm afraid, and that's what he will not be getting.

He laughs. "If only you knew the real person you had spent four years of your life with," his smile arches in an evil way, which sends me into thinking he's some sort of devil trapped on earth. My thoughts are so jumbled that they don't make sense, all I know is that I need to escape safely. Then again, I need to know why he had taken my best friend's life. I'd love to hear him try and come up with an excuse for why he did such a horrible thing. "I had to Ciara, she was getting in the way of everything." He says calmy, but I'm becoming furious.