Masked//Roman Reigns Love Story

40. Don't Look Back

Tuesday, February 4, 2014

The loud thumping of my heart bled into my ears as I finally woke up. My eyes flew open and I made an attempt to jump up, but I was flung back onto something solid and cold. My vision was going in and out as I tried to make out where I was. There were four even walls painted a crisp shade of white. Looking behind me, there was a window. It was completely boarded up with wooden pieces, and I couldn't tell what time it was just from looking there. I nervously peeked down to find myself perched up in a bed with my hands cuffed to one side of the headboard. 

I glanced around the room again and my heart nearly leaped out of my chest when I noticed that Noah was collapsed on a twin-sized bed next to mine. I immediately saw that he was wearing the same clothes from when I confronted him at my physical therapy appointment. Those black sweatpants and the tight-fitting blue t-shirt haunted me for what felt like forever. I could only see one side of his face and it didn't look good. I felt like crying once I got a good look at his bruised eye and blood-stained face. His cheek was almost deformed and extremely swollen. What the hell happened to him?

"Noah," I whispered, trying not to alert anyone in the house that I was awake.

Had he been abducted all along? Was this my fault? I'd been so adamant that it was him, how could I have been so wrong?

"Noah," I called out again, but this time I shifted myself off the bed as best as possible to kick the side of his.

My legs flopped while trying to hit the side of the mattress, and I'd never wanted to be taller until now. I had refused to believe he was dead, so I just kept kicking. Three minutes had to have gone by before I noticed him stir from his sleep. Noah's body shivered as he regained consciousness. When his vision focused, his hands instinctively tried to cover his face before he remembered they were cuffed, so he groaned out in frustration. Noah looked utterly shocked and broken when he saw me. For the first time in a long time, I was sympathetic towards him. He didn't deserve this. 

"Noah, what— what's happening?"

"Maria, I didn't attack you after your birthday. It wasn't me, you have to understand. The person who did it took me to make it seem like I was running away from the police, but I wasn't. I just needed space because I know I didn't do anything wrong, but you were so set on accusing me. Please, you have to believe me. I don't know what's going on, or who these people are. They want to hurt you, and we have to get you out of—"

"Oh shut up you snitch," a woman's voice cut him off from the doorway.

The doorknob spun, and the creaky door flung open and slammed back against the wall. The remains of my heart flew out of my chest when I saw those skinny, long legs come strutting into the room. Curly hair bounced with each step, and her perfectly made-up face and carefully plucked eyebrows were taunting me. 

Jessica. I'd severely underestimated her.

"Let me go," I tried my best not to sound needy.

"Nah, I'd rather not. I can't have you running around telling the world what I've done. I've got too much to lose," she insisted. 

"If you were smart, I wouldn't be here at all. You're fucking sick doing this. Noah and I, we're getting out of here whether you like it or not," I assured her. 

"I can't let you go, not now."

"You've got me all cuffed up over a spot in a company? What are you going to do? Kill me? You won't get away with it, we both know that. And then everything you worked for is going to go down the drain and it will have been for nothing. You let Noah and me walk out of here, and we can act like this never happened."