The Hunter and The Prey

Watching

Chapter 53

Watching

Images kept popping inside her mind even though she was deep in her sleep. Moving people on their fine suits clapping their hands while two people on wedding dresses dancing merrily. Everyone was tossing in celebration with the success of the wedding. Chasen’s face came into view looking at her with an emotion of longing. His smile was tantalizing, full of happiness and love. Natalie look back to make sure she was the only one he was giving his attention. Once she guaranteed that, she returned the gesture to him.

"I love you sweetheart," he murmured near her lips. There was an emotion inside that crave her to pull him closer.

"I love you too," she felt her lips brushed his when she spoke.

Chasen grinned was triumphant.

That expression was etched on her mind when she wake up in confusion. What the others has been telling her was as if confirmed by her dreams. In fact she felt her smile still on her when she looked at her self in the mirror.

"I was happy," she mumbled as another event came colliding her conscious. Dancing people somewhere where some kind of tribal clothes are the preferred fashion. In front of her was Chasen, he was contented, and there was something flickering in his eyes an expression that she had seen with Nate before.

"He was too," she continued.

The knocking on the door made her jumped in fright. She was so busy deciphering those images that the sudden noise breaking the silence of the surrounding threw her off.

"Natalie!" a guy shouted.

She stood up from the sofa she was laying on and walked to the front gate to see who the visitor is, although she had a good guess who, and she was right when she opened the door.

"Hi," Prete stuttered, the cold wind rattling them both.

"Come in," Natalie beckoned her friend in, she thought there was movement behind the trees. She squinted her eyes but no one step forward.

"So how are you still had that marital issue Alice said it was bad, she told us you might be planning divorce, I mean that was I heard," Prete look hopeful.

Since she arrived back in Alaska without telling her friends, they were shocked when she called them that she was back, but she didn't tell them the reasons or whatever happened to her for the past weeks. That information wasn't something she could share, afraid that it would put them in danger.

Yet hearing Alice spreading untruthful rumors made her raise her eyebrows, "no," she scowled.

Prete dropped his hopeful expression,"oh um so you uh came to visit your house? Alone?"

"Yes, that's right I came to...to um see the house. He will come um follow me though," Natalie isn't even sure if Chasen will come get her after the one month end.

"Well that's that's good to uh um hear, yeah that's really good. So um you don't mind me checking on you every now and then, right, since your husband isn't here um yet?"

"Of course Prete you are my friend," Natalie read the disappointment on his face but she couldn't really be entertaining any guys because she is married with Chasen even though she still have doubts to believe it herself.

From that day on, he visits from time to time asking her about her husband's arrival. Prete is more obsess with it than her. She was patient answering him even if events from her supposed to be past kept flashing in her mind.

And finally when she fell asleep after watching for the hundredth times her wedding ceremony, she dreamt of a cave where the only light shinning it is from a small cracked above her head. She looked up  when she felt breath hit her face, and saw Chasen looking at her intensely. Then he leaned forward and kissed her with so much passion, she clung to him tightly.

"Don't stop," she whispered in her sleep, actually puckering her lips to reach his, "Chasen kiss me, where are you?"

"Chasen? Chase?" she tried opening her eyes but her eyelids don't like to cooperate. "Chasen?" She didn't like the darkness so she kicks and move her hands, to make her wake up.

Blurry images came, her memories started showing the wreck house, the sound of explosion, waking up in the hospital up to the event of her watching Chasen getting loaded in the chopper, his shirt was soaking with blood.

"No no no," she mumbled, "Chasen Chasen CHASEN!" she woke up with the start, her head pounding in pain, but she didn't care. She at last remembered everything.

****

He stared at the crossed date on the calendar. First thing he always attended when he woke up in the morning, crossing the days since Natalie left for her one month solitude. The monitors in front of him was the next thing he attended; he watched her still curcled up in her bed in Alaska, still dreaming peacefully. He never told her that the house was full of spy camera he told someone to install some. Or the three men watching her from the shadows of the trees. He contracted them to keep her safe until the date he will fetch her. They charged him a thousand per hour because of the cold climate they were dealing. He didn’t care at all for the over charge. Her safety is his only concern. Beside, his bank account can accommodate the expenses he was spending. 

    A soft knocked interrupted his attention from the screen. His father entered his room carrying breakfast for him. "Watching her again, Chasen?" he sighed when he saw Chasen already back watching his prey.

     "One week to go, dad," he muttered and tapped the calendar beside him.

      "Why did you allow her to leave you from the first place when it just made you anxious?" he asked.

      "It's necessary, dad. I think she remembered everything now," he announced,  smiling slightly. Ten days ago when he watched her waking up in panic, calling his name all over the place. It took her minutes to realize that he wasn't there with her. After she recovered, she went to the phone and tried dialing his number. But she hanged up and thought of something. It made him frustrated a little bit that she didn't continue calling him.

     "Are you going to get her now?" the father asked hopefully.

     "After my follow up check up. The doctor needed to assess my wounds," he whispered. 

     "Oh," his father muttered, "right your wound," he said as an after thought; he almost forgotten his condition when he saw his son smiling jubilantly for the first time in a dozen of days now. "Eat your breakfast first before you go... and get her... I mean before you visit the hospital, " he dismissed,  patting his son's back in the action.