Kill The Innocent

Chapter Twenty-One

This one is different than the rest, this one starts out in a bar, rather than my house. It's the bar my High School friends took me for my birthday. I immediately see my 21 year old self in the crowd of people dancing.

I stand there watching for a moment, before I see a slightly younger looking Declan walk up to me and say something to me. I smile, he smiles, we start dancing together.

It goes on like that for a few minutes before he kisses me, and I kiss him back. I'm clearly drunk, and Declan pulls away from me, asks me something, I shake my head, his brows furrow, and he walks away.

The video comes to an end.

Holy fucking shit.

I turn around again, taking the rest of the room in when I see something I didn't notice before. Hung on the wall are newspaper clippings. I take a step closer to them, and read the headline.

New York Couple, Lucas And Betty Arrow, Violently Killed In Times Square

"What are you doing?!" I'm startled, I jump and turn around to see Declan at the bottom of the stairs.

"What is all this?" I ask him, looking around the room again as if something else might jump out at me that I didn't see before.

"Valerie..." Declan says, his tone completely changes when he realizes everything I've seen. He takes a step closer to me, I take a step back.

"Why do you have tapes of me in my bedroom? And the one in the bar...Why...Why do you have newspaper cutouts from when my parents died? Did you kill my parents?" I say the last thing without thinking, but when I see the look on his face, I realize I was right.

"Oh my fucking god." I whisper. "You fucking killed my parents. And then you fucking stalked me for five fucking years."

He doesn't respond, he just stares at me, his chest rising and falling and guilt painted all over his face like a fucking mural.

"I thought you fucking loved me!" I shout.

"I do love you," He speaks, for the first time.

"Then what the fuck is all this!"

"I've loved you for a very long time." I get chills down my spine when he says these words.

"Oh my fucking god." I say, then take long strides toward the stairs. "I'm fucking leaving."

"No you're not." Declan says, stepping in front of me.

"Move." He grabs my arms and pins them to my sides.

"I can't let you fucking leave." He snaps at me, tears in his eyes. "I love you, I can't-"

"Don't fucking say you love me!" I say, trying to wiggle out of his grip.

"I'm sorry." he says, then he shoves me so hard I lose my balance and fall to the floor. He runs up the stairs and before I'm able to stand up, he's shut the door.

I run up the stairs after him, but the door locks, and I can't push it open. Instead I band on the door. "Let me out!" I scream, but there is not sound, and I hear the bedroom door open and close again.

I'm locked in this fucking room for god knows how long. What the fuck am I supposed to do.

I drop to the floor and start crying. I don't know how long I stay there, but the emotions in my body catch up to me.

The man I'm in love with has been stalking me for five years.

The man I'm in love with killed my parents.