Heartless Betrayal

Chapter 26

PLEASE READ THE NOTE AT THE END, IT TALKS ABOUT A SEQUEL AND GIVES YOU INFO AND TIES UP SOME LOOSE ENDS.

Chapter 26

Ari's POV

Guess who!

I must admit I was surprised to see you still alive, you really did have me fooled. I would never have known had you not crashed into me earlier. Too bad you ran away.

I ran into one of your boy toy's too, though truth be told he came to me. It seemed you figured out what I had planned for you and he wasn't having it. Though I must applaud him on his right hook, left me with something of a shiner.

But since you won't seem to die, I guess I'll have to resort to plan B.

You or him.

You have until 11pm to make your decision.

Silence can be deafening.

It corners you, traps you in your own mind. You can see everything around you moving and going on as usual, but for some reason your ears aren't picking it up.

Then suddenly it comes slamming into you, and you're pushed back into the world of sound, and for a moment everything seems louder and busier and it's almost unbearable.

Then it comes flooding back, the thing that made the silence in the first place. It crashes through your entirety, consuming your feelings until you break down.

For me, that's what real pain is. The sort where it aches through your entire body, the sort where the tears won't come because you physically can't move a muscle.

I've never lost anyone. I had resented my father when he left, so I didn't count that as a loss. Most of my life I'd only had my mother, and even when I'd been taken, she had still been safe. This feeling was new, and it consumed me.

I had been toying with fate and I knew it, by going out in the open I was just daring Toby to find me, and he had. And because of my recklessness, he had taken Keegan.

I stared down at the photograph I still had between my fingers, it was almost 9pm now, which meant I had two hours to figure out how to get Keegan from Toby.

               "Ari? Who was it?" Alex appeared beside me by the door. I quickly hid the photo from his view.

               "Uh, no one, must have been some teenagers playing ding dong ditch." I forced a smile on to my face, he didn't need to know. I'd find a way to get him back.

I had to.

I quickly walked past Alex and straight to my bedroom, where I threw the photo into my bin and collapsed on my bed. To say I was terrified would be an understatement. I had no idea what Toby was going to do when I got there, but I knew this time he would make sure he killed me.

Toby's POV – an hour earlier

I had developed a rather liking for this city, everything was so busy and even at 8pm there were still people moving around the town centre and going about their day. Everyone seemed to mind their own business too which was something else I liked about this place, there was a sort of 'don't ask, don't tell' kind of atmosphere, which I was not complaining about.

After disposing of Ari, I had considered leaving the country, but I'd been interested to see the city that she'd created her new life in. I could see why she stayed here, it was a nice place. And with over a million people living in it, you didn't have the annoying community feel.