𝕃𝕚𝕗𝕖 𝕨𝕚𝕥𝕙 𝕒 ℂ𝕒𝕟𝕟𝕚𝕓𝕒𝕝

Chapter 20 - Italy

~2 Weeks Later~

I awoke to someone shaking my shoulder lightly. As I turned my head, I saw Hannibal smiling at me. I weakly smiled back at him, feeling regret from not doing more to try and save Will. I felt like that everyday, it made me anxious.

"Time to get up, dear," He kissed my forehead before walking out of the room.

    Where was I? Italy, of course. After Jack found out about Hannibal, along with a few others, it was time to flee the scene. Hannibal was a master of his craft and was quite intelligent as I was slowly finding out. He definitely had more secrets he wasn't telling me.

I slowly got out of bed and put some casual clothes on that Hannibal brought for me. As I brushed my hair I was reminded of what happened at Hannibal's old house. The pools of blood. Will and Abigail lying down, choking and losing tons of blood. Hannibal reassured me that it was surgical, they would quite possibly live. I tried to trust Hannibal and not to worry so much about it.

    I walked downstairs and saw Hannibal dressed up in a suit. I knew he was going out to find his next possible victim. Breakfast was laid out on the dining room table for two people, excluding Hannibal.

"I'll be back soon," Hannibal lightly kissed my cheek before leaving.

   The other person in the house was the woman with the blonde hair. Hannibal had started pretending to people that I was his daughter and the blonde woman was his wife. Which was weird because Hannibal and I were a thing. At least, I think we are.

    I wasn't told much about her, just that she used to be Hannibal's psychiatrist and in public I was to refer to her as mother. It was odd. But she kind of acted like a motherly figure towards me, I didn't mind. Though I feel like she keeps hinting at me to run away, afraid Hannibal might do something horrendous to me.

   Today my mother and I were going to go out shopping. After finishing breakfast and not seeing her, I made my way upstairs to change into some nicer clothing for the rest of the day.

    Once I was finished getting dressed, I headed downstairs and found a note from her saying that she had some errands to run but I could still go out and shop. The only problem with that was that I barely knew any Italian. Besides the basics I was clueless. Hannibal would speak Italian to me now and then so that I would be able to understand, slowly I was getting there.

    I grabbed my black, trench coat, left the house, locked the door, and started making my way to the market that was close by.

I didn't need anything so I just browsed. A young man kept glancing at me and so I left the store. I felt eyes watching. As I went to a coffee shop I saw the young man from earlier coming to the same shop.

Once I got my coffee and seated yourself at a one person table, the young man pulled up a chair and sat at the same table. I mentally groaned in annoyance, I knew this wouldn't turn out well. It never did.

"Hey, I'm Steven," The man had dirty blonde hair, wore casual clothes and looked to be in his late twenties.

I didn't want to talk to him and so I decided to speak some Russian so that he'd leave me along.

"Мне это не интересно, так что пошли," I smirked at the man as he looked at me with confusion.

It would be random but I could care less, I wasn't interested in whatever he had to say. I focused on my coffee until he started speaking again.

"Hold on, let me pull up a translator app," He pulled up the app on his phone and placed it in the middle of the table, "would you mind repeating that?"

I set the cup of coffee down and shook my head, trying to ignore the man.

"You understood what I said?" He lifted an eyebrow.

"Да," I got up and walked away from him.

   But damn, was he persistent. He caught up with me. Can't a guy catch a hint?

"Would you like to go out for drinks some time?"

"No."

Steven frowned and walked away in defeat, but his frown soon turned into an evil grin. He obviously meant trouble so I walked faster back home. I always had to pass an alleyway to get back, I never took the alleyway as a short cut and instead took the longer route. I'm not that stupid, though if that guy wanted to fight me I'd gladly return the favor.

   Out of no where someone kicked me to the ground and then dragged me into the alleyway. I let out an ear piercing scream to get someone's attention so they could call the cops while I fought him. I wasn't scared, not at all. The person stopped dragging me into the alleyway once we were both in the middle and I looked up to see Steven grinning at me like a mad man.

"It didn't have to come to this," Steven had a metal pole in his hand that he kept tapping onto the stone ground.

If this was a movie I would be having flashbacks of when Bill Jones did this. And I did. Except it was quick and got my adrenaline pumping.

"What're gonna do?" I mocked, "kill me, asshole?"

    Steven became angry in an instant and smashed the pole against my head. I felt warm liquid run down and I knew it was blood. My vision was wonky and my thoughts were all jumbled as I couldn't think straight.

"You're gonna wish you never did that," I chuckled darkly. Heehee, motherfucker.