Maybe she’s right, but at this moment, it’s as if my whole life is spiraling out of control around me and I don’t know what to do to grab it back and make it my own again. I might not be hooking up with him anymore and I don’t intend to again, but I don’t think Rae will care if I tell her that. She has her mind made up already.
“Yeah, okay,” I cave. I’m sure it doesn’t matter that much anyway. “You do whatever you want. I’m going to see if the police are coming yet…”
My living room fills with bright headlights, I assume. They are here, the police have come to solve this. I just hope that they get all the answers tonight or the anticipation might just kill me. Whoever Shane is I want him to be safe, I just can’t help myself…
Chapter Sixteen – Shane
My head bumps and bangs, I don’t know what it’s hitting against but it hurts. Somewhere deep in the middle of my psyche I decide that I’m dreaming and the pain in my head isn’t real, which means I don’t need to worry about it. It isn’t the nicest dream that I’ve ever had though. If anything, it kinda sucks.
Wake up, I tell myself angrily. What’s the point of staying asleep when it hurts so much?
But I can’t. Something is blocking me from doing so and it’s really irritating. I’m pretty sure there is something extremely important that I need to wake up for but it still isn’t happening. I remain in the dream for far too long…
But then, as if from nowhere, the bumping and banging stops. I don’t seem to drag out of the dream but my head doesn’t hurt any longer. I try to pry my eyes open but they don’t want to do so. At least, not until a slither of light flickers into my vision and gruff voices fill my ears, dragging with them a tiny bit of memory.
Guns! Men and guns were threatening me. Tia! Tia was there too. I rack my brain desperately trying to work out what happened to her. Did something happen to her? I will never be able to forgive myself if she ended up hurt. There were definitely gunshots, I can still feel them now, ricocheting through my system, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be here now if she had been harmed by the guns. I would have died for her first. I would’ve thrown myself in front of the bullet to make sure it didn’t slam into her chest.
God, I would have died for Tia. Someone I barely even know really. What is with me? How the hell have I changed so dramatically in the short time since meeting her? I already knew that she was special, but this is another level. She’s fundamentally shifted something inside of me and I cannot change back.
She better not be hurt. I try to move but find that impossible. I will go on a rampage if she is.
But no, the more that I think about it, the more I can see her closing the door behind her, locking herself away from danger. Tia must be fine which is at least one thing. It doesn’t matter so much what happens to me.
“Get him out,” someone yells. “The boss wants to see him right away.”
The boss. This has to be with regards to me. Whoever ‘the boss’ is, and I’m pretty sure I should know that by now, he wants to see me right now which can’t be good. Especially due to the way I was brought here.
Before I can do anything, a pair of hands curl around my ankles and I’m yanked down. I feel like the foundation of the world has been whipped away underneath me, creating intense panic. Danger swirls around me and I don’t like it one bit. My hands reach out and I try to grab on to something but I can’t. There is nothing there.
“Take his blindfold off,” the same voice growls. “The boss is going to be pissed off enough when he knows what happened. Let’s not make it even worse by having him look like a freaking kidnap victim.”
As the blindfold rips from my eyes and I’m left staring into a white light too bright for me to really see anything. I don’t know why these guys are so concerned with me looking or feeling like a kidnap victim because up until this point that’s exactly how they’ve made this all look. This is utter insanity.
“What the fuck is this?” I croak. “Why the hell have you brought me here?”
There’s a brief silence followed by a chuckle, then someone pats me on the arm. I twist my head as my vision starts to improve to see the eyes of the man who spoke to me while I was surrounded by a circle of guns. The balaclava is gone now so I can see all of his nasty, gnarly face. He doesn’t look the same as before, he’s much less threatening now in this artificial light, but I would know those eyes anywhere.