Shackles on the heart (Book #1)

22. Final tread

(RaeAnna's POV)

Lincoln was getting ready for his dad to pick him up, he was hesitant to depart from me, knowing the state I was in. I assured him that I would be fine, I lied straight through my teeth, but I would let him know what was going on soon enough. I hope he wouldn't feel differently about me after finding out my dark secrets. The only questions now was how I was going to tell him and when.

He finally left, reluctantly. It was now dinner time, to not worry my grandma I tried to force myself to eat as much as I could, knowing that it would only come back up later. I had to keep a calm appearance in front of them, or I would become suspicious. "Thank you for dinner. I'm gonna head off to bed." I tell my grandma. "Goodnight baby." I give Dakota a kiss on the forehead and go to my room, I know what I have to do, but I have to do it right. I read the letter over and over to make sure I have it down completely. I start pacing back and forth, adrenaline putting my body into overdrive. It was already 11 p.m., I wasn't feeling tired whatsoever, I had a good feeling that I would not get a wink of sleep tonight, it was pretty much guaranteed. I headed to the bathroom to throw up the food I had just consumed a few hours prior, splashing water on my face to try and calm myself down, even just a little bit, it doesn't help.

The usually quiet ticking of the clock now sounded like explosions inside of my head, taunting me, reminding me of what was to come. Tick tock, tick tock. It was now 12:15, I decided to get all my stuff ready. The apartments were not too far away, but I needed to leave in 5 minutes if I wanted to get there on time. I went through my window, just like last time, to not cause any alarm, or wake up my grandma with the noise of the front door. The moonlight shone down on me lighting the path to the trail of my undesirable destination.

On my way there I begin to feel the familiar feeling of being stalked, being watched, the eyes burning straight through my sensitive skin. I start to walk as fast as my legs would take me, which would probably divide the time I would be there in half.

I am almost there, only two more minutes. I hear the roar of a motorcycle somewhere off in the distance, is that him? I wonder to myself. I check my watch, it's 12:49, just on time.

I make my moves as stealthy as possible, making as little noise as I can manage. This is the last chance I have to back out of this. No, I can't. They are watching me, I can feel it. I'm just about to make it to the back of the apartments when I hear two men having a conversation. I peek around the building to see who they are. I see a black motorcycle and a man wearing a black leather jacket, with long dark hair leaning against it, which I'm assuming is Phillip. The other man has short brown hair, dressed casually. They seem to be in the middle of a heated argument. I lean against the wall to avoid being seen, then I eavesdrop. I'm not exactly sure who's voice is coming from who as they have their backs turned to me, but I can hear the conversation they are having clearly.

"I know man, but you can't be here in the back of the apartments like this."

"I told you I would leave. I need to meet with someone then I will be on my way, but you need to leave right now."

"I will be back out here in 30 minutes. If you aren't gone by then I'll have to call the authorities." Phillip nods, the man then leaves. Thankfully he goes to the opposite side that I am currently standing on. I wait a few minutes, then I begin to approach, coming from behind Phillip. You can do this.

(Blue's POV)

I have eyes on RaeAnna, I can tell the nerves are taking a toll on her, something in which I have no experience in. I've always been a killer, was brought up that way, would continue to be that way, and I would die that way.

She starts to go behind him, gun in her hand, her hands are trembling visibly, but she isn't making any noise. Let's hope for her sake, for her family's sake, that she doesn't screw this up. She steadies herself and presses the black gun to his back. I can see the confusion written on his face, then she tells him something, which I assume was what we asked her to say, she goes to grab something, right when he is about to turn around she sticks the syringe into his neck, he falls over, so far so good.

She drops to her knees, looking to be having some sort of conversation with herself, some kind of battle, perhaps to hype herself up. She puts her hands to her face, probably crying. "We don't have time for that princess, pick yourself up and do it." I whisper to myself. A look of determination comes to her face. She reaches to get something from her bag, but before she does anything she puts her hands together, starts talking with her eyes closed, is she praying? She opens her eyes then she does exactly what we asked her to do, she stabs him seven times. Four times in the chest and three times in the stomach. She lifts his shirt up and begins carving, the look in her eyes is different now, I think in this moment her innocence has disappeared. She does the rest of the deed, exactly in the way we asked her.

If I didn't know any better, I'd say she was a natural born killer. We could have very easily done this whole thing by ourselves, but taking peoples innocence is something we take immense pleasure in. She looks at the beauty of the art she has just created for us, the life clearly has left her eyes, by the look on her face, you would think it was her that just died. She picks everything up, puts the stuff into her bag and begins to make her way back with her head hung low, shoulders slumped. I then go to the scene to clean up any clues she might have left behind.

(RaeAnna's POV)

I feel numb, completely numb. It's like when I took that man's life, my feelings went along with him. I'm disgusting, a horrible, nasty human being. I killed someone, the thoughts in my mind are vile, what have I done?

I hope the sadistic devils who made me do this are happy, ecstatic that they stole the little last of my innocence that I had left. I don't know how I will ever be able to act like myself again. Am I really the victim here? Yes, I am doing this to protect those most important to me, but I had to kill someone to do that. Doesn't that make me just as evil as them? What did they turn me into?

I feel like a monster, I hope when I tell Lincoln that he understands I was forced into this, I would never do something like this on my own free will. Will he think I'm a monster, just like them? Will he hate me? They are changing me, little by little, bit by bit. I hope one day I can find my way back, to the person I was before all this started, for hope is all I have now, or did they take that away from me to?