It was 5 to 12

Tick. Tack. Tick. Tack.

Sometimes seconds rush like the clock was on fire. Sometimes they drag their feet like they were after one lap too many.

I had my life planned second after second - dreamjob, boyfriend, happy twenties... Then one wrong step and everything's ruined. Before I knew it, I was up to my eyeballs in trouble. Just because I meant to do my new profession and this damn world a little justice.

It was eleventh hour to lift my hands in surrender and disappear. But sadly, that's not my spirit. The midnight stroke that day. My life took a wild spin and seconds started bolting for their life. The tick. Tack. Tick. Tack. It suddenly wasn't measuring my time, it was counting down before everything would blow up. I had a ticking damn bomb in my hand.

...

„Oh, hi..." I flushed. Hard. Like an idiot. "Laura, by the way."

„Nice to meet you," he raised his glass as if to drink to my washed brain.

„And, um, you are?" I asked shyly, half hidden behind my glass. He was making me nervous in the most chest-clenching way.

„I'm really interested in your job," he smiled with his bloody non-response.

And again this should have been a big red warning in bold capitals, three times underlined, for it was the second time that week a man didn't feel like sharing his name with me, and it never led to anything good. Nope, neither that time.

„And I'm really interested in your watch," I continued in what I thought was some kind of innocent flirt. „It's very nice." And expensive, I added to myself.

„I'm really interested in you," he leaned a bit closer and something wrong glittered in his deep brown eyes.

Tell yourself what you want, tipsy brain works on perfect instinct. Sometimes the more blurry the actual picture, the deeper we see in the heart of the matter. Given this man had a heart, it was dark and twisted. And I suddenly knew. Heartbeat or five later, I didn't consider it an innocent flirt anymore. But it was too late. I was already on my way to his