Blood Flower (girl x girl) [COMPLETE]

chapter 2: A Root

After squinting down at her phone, Lara glanced up at the street name that the car was passing by. She looked back down at her phone, before turning to Keith, who was staring blankly at the wheel, waiting for the red light to turn green. He looked like he was deep in thought. Lara checked one more time before tapping her coworker.

"Hey, I think you missed the right turn," Lara said, showing him the GPS on her phone. Pointing at the sign for the next right turn, she continued, "It's okay. We can get back on the right street with this U-turn."

Keith's eyes darted to her phone, before he let out an embarrassed chuckle. The officer scratched the back of his neck, shaking his head. He seemed to realize his own mistake and flicked on the turn signal for the right and started to change lanes as traffic started moving again.

"Sorry, too tired," he sighed.

Lara laughed and relaxed. Understandable. Half the time after work she made it back home on auto-pilot, with barely any memory of how she had gotten there. Must be a work hazard now that the station has been overworking them.

Her eyes returned to her phone screen, relieved to see that they were back on track. The blue dot representing their car was now following the right path on the GPS. Lara glanced at the time. Well... She was probably going to be a little late to the date. Hmm. She should give Vella a quick text just to let her know in case her date got worried. It shouldn't matter too much. Lara was probably going to be about only 5 minutes late due to Keith's wrong directions. Oh well. While it certainly wasn't the pristine first impression that Lara had wanted to create for Vella, she was barely frazzled. 

At the end of the day, as long as she reached Rose Pasta safely and managed to finally have this date with Vella, Lara was satisfied. With the evening crowd, all of which were rushing to go home, she was grateful to be able to have Keith's comfortable car to ride to her date. It saved her the hassle of joining the crowd via public transportation. She was tired after work too. Keith was very nice to offer her a ride when he was surely thoroughly fatigued too.

Lara saw the correct street name appear. She grabbed her bag, prepared to get out of the vehicle.

To her surprise, Keith parked the car.

"You're getting off too?" Lara blinked in surprise, expecting that he would simply drop her off and drive back home.

"Er, yeah. I was thinking of buying some food back from here," he laughed, getting out of the car quickly.

Lara paused. She glanced at him with a raised brow. Keith closed the car door and looked back at her still sitting in the passenger seat with a shrug. For a moment there, it looked like his smile had dropped briefly, but all she did was blink, and found that it had returned once more. Lara looked away. She was thinking too much into this. Heavily overworked, for sure. She really needed to give her brain a break instead of overthinking about the most redundant things. What was weird about Keith buying food from here? There was a grocery shop just around the corner. This made sense.

"What are you going to get?" Lara asked him, shutting the door after she got out of the car.

"I'm... going to look for some pizza. Anyway, good luck with the date, girl. Tell me about it at work next time," Keith muttered, locking his car and walking away briskly. 

Lara didn't have time to say bye. It took only a few seconds before he was engulfed by the crowds on the street of people trying to go home or get food. She watched him leave, wondering why on earth he was in such a rush. Lara stood on the tips of her toes, trying to spot his dark hair among the crowd but he was already too far to be seen. Scoffing, the officer brushed a loose lock of hair away from her face.

Damn.

Poor Keith. He must be starving.

Hopefully he can get whatever pizza he is craving for. Maybe next time she could buy some pizza for the office so that Keith wouldn't have to starve like this at the end of the day. Turning back to her phone, Lara walked along the unfamiliar street, following the directions carefully to ensure that she wouldn't be too late to the date.

She walked briskly, with her eyes darting around the bright signboards around her.

It did feel a little strange to be out doing something so casual while her work was in chaos. Reports had said that less people were going out at night after the Duct Tape Murderer started going around, and the way in which they described the town's situation sounded extremely dire, almost as if they were mere seconds away from going into an emergency shut down.

Here on the street, however, things felt... pretty normal. People were just going about their daily lives. Lara could hear people chatting, people discussing dinner options. The birds calling for one another and the sound of city traffic. She took a deep breath. This was a much needed break- away from all the madness of chasing after a serial killer. Yes. Lara ought to fully enjoy the couple of hours that she had away from the police station.

"Number 101... 102... Ah, 103! Rose Pasta," Lara grinned. Nice. She checked her watch. Currently, she was only 5 minutes late, just as she had predicted. All was good. Not too late.

Pausing in front of the store's window, the police officer took a moment to check her appearance. She was in a basic plain shirt with jeans, nothing too fancy but still presentable for a dinner date after work. Lara patted down her windswept hair. She was looking... kind of sleepy but otherwise alright. Okay. She was ready.

Oh wait.

She had promised Keith that she would turn on her phone's location so that he would always know where she was. Yeah. She would do that now. Lara clicked a button on her phone, before tucking it back into her pocket. The officer had no idea why her colleague was so concerned over tonight's date in particular, but didn't give it much second thought. She slid her phone back into the pocket of her pants. Okay, she was really ready now. 

"Hi, a reservation for two?" she said, approaching the waiter at the door.

"Name, please?"

"Vella Johnson."

"This way, please," the waiter said, leading her into the new restaurant.

Lara walked in after him, admiring the aesthetic of the Rose Pasta. The walls were painted a pretty shade of baby pink, its color still bright and clean since the restaurant was fairly new. Private dining booths lined a side of the restaurant, with a thin black curtain obscuring the people from outside from peering into the booths easily. Lara eyed them, wondering if the table that Vella had booked was one of these private ones. It was cute; the officer liked the idea of granting the customers privacy even in a bustling noisy city restaurant. She grinned as she saw the waiter stopped beside a curtained booth.

Hell yeah.

"When you are ready to order, you may tap the button here," the waiter instructed, holding the curtain up for her to enter.

Lara paused to take a deep breath. Her heart was racing inside her chest, but she knew that it was now or never. She had no clue when was the next chance for her to take a day off again. There was no time to waste. She grinned and patted her hair down again. Lara readied a smile. 

She took a step in.

"Hi-"

Her smile dropped immediately as she entered the booth. The rest of her greeting died in her throat.

There was no one sitting there.

Just a white flower. And a note.

***

Written on: 18 Nov 2022

Edited on: 25 Nov 2022