One Year To Die (Flip Zimmerman x Reader Fic)

Chapter 10 - The Promise Kept

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Authors Note: Firstly, thank you so much for your patience! Almost two weeks late for this update, but I got there in the end! A lot has been happening for the last few weeks in my personal life recently, so writing was forced to take the back seat to accommodate that. Unfortunately there may be a few more delays with future chapters until I'm entirely caught up with everything happening. But hopefully, I'll be back up to my somewhat normal Wednesday upload routine soon.

So I hope this chapter will make up for it all. It's the longest I've written in 'One Year To Die' thus far, and the features a major turning point in the plot and with the main characters. I sincerely hope that you enjoy, and please let me know what you think - any and all feedback is appreciated for me to improve my writing!

Anyways, on with the main show...

Much love always,

- mads x.

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50 WEEKS TILL YOUR MURDER

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Convulsing violently, you emptied what was left of the contents of your stomach into the toilet. Hot bile rose in your chest, burning your throat as you spat it into the bowl. Gasping for breath, your entire body ached from your throw-up session.

Flushing, you wiped your running nose with the back of your hand, getting to your unsteady feet. Anchoring yourself either side of the sink, your mind was reeling as you forced yourself to look up at the mirror.

Blinking away the tears in your eyes, you saw her painted on the backs of you lids, and in the reflection, you saw yourself: the woman that let her down.

The body of Annabelle Walker was discovered in the woods late on Saturday night...what was left of her anyway. Of all the Butchers victims, her injuries were the worst you'd ever witnessed.

Having seen photographs of her only days ago, dressed in her wedding gown and displayed pride of place in the home she had built with her scummy husband, to see the polaroid's of her stripped naked and discarded like trash on the forest floor, carved from navel to neck with her heart missing from her chest and corpse broken and bruised- you couldn't bare it.

You'd never vomited at the sight of a body before. If anything, it was always the smell that sickened you the most, but never to the point where you were physically ill.

But Annabelle was something different entirely. She was so sweet, innocent and undeserving of the end she met...all because of you; all because you'd failed to catch her killer before she was even murdered.

It made the reality of your failure all too real - to pin the picture of her body to the wall, to write down her name as a confirmed victim of the Butcher...you were sick almost immediately.

And almost every time looking at your backwall since, something twisted in your gut: the guilt, the shame.

Even now, two days after her body was found by some kids, you were left heaving at the sight of her.

You'd taken yesterday off work to take it all in - to grieve Annabelle and collect yourself away from the prying eyes of the rest of the world.

Billy was understanding enough as you lied and said it was due to your injuries sustained last week. Meg said she'd drop by some more of Jan's delicious homemade meals. Flip spoke to you over the phone, but despite the events of the night before in your hallway, flirting with him felt out of place and wrong as you mourned another victim of the Butcher.