Carlton ✔

41| The Unfortunate Events

Something pricked my heart, and I clenched my fists. It was either out of hatred toward her for using me or toward myself for being a dumbass. I didn't know.

I urged Phil to go get her so we could leave. It took him a while, and every second was like a blow to my chest. Because it only meant that Breanna was pleading Phil to let her stay beside him for a while longer.

When Phil returned, he informed that she refused to leave his side.

Damien looked at me distressingly and I felt my soul slowly being consumed with embarrassment. What would they think? I had become a walking corpse for this girl, sacrificing everything I wanted to be, just for her to turn back to the man who shared a conflict with me.

I bit the inside of my cheek, forehead wrinkling with indignation. "Then we leave without her."

I didn't wait to hear what other's had to say about it. All I could do was storm far, far away from there, tears stinging the sides of my eyes.

Footsteps followed close behind me. "Sir, where are we going?"

"To Caden. To sort this shit out once and for all."

Stumbling into the outdoor parking space, I unlocked my car from far. I just wanted to run away from there before the walls of my heart folded into themselves.

I reached for the door-handle of my car and immediately paused.

Something was wrong.

A stifled ticking sound was coming from inside. My fingers twitched as a cold breeze washed over me. My first impulse was to look behind. Phil was only a few metres away. He had walked up too close.

It all happened so quickly. I yelled at Phil, my ears numbing in the process as I ran with all the vigour left in me. I grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed him back as hard as I could muster.

A loud, gut-wrenching explosion reverberated behind me. The immense force pushed me to the ground, the sweltering hotness of the flames scorched my back and it felt like my clothes were on fire.

Trying to shut my eyes tighter than possible, I tucked my face between my arms, holding my breath. For moment, it was as if time had stopped, my heart had stopped and all my thoughts that constantly gushed into my mind every fraction of a second, had stopped.

My inner ear pained and stung from the loudness. After I felt the surroundings around had eased down, I lifted my head up.

I was engulfed in hot, black smoke everywhere around me, making my throat and nose itch and burn. Coughing, I attempted to lift myself off the tarmac.

A figure approached me through the smoke and proceeded to hook my arm around his neck. The ringing in my ears was too intense to figure out what he was saying but he dragged me out of the smoke.

People were screaming and running away. Amidst the chaos, I turned behind to see my SUV completely wrecked and blackened, simmered to ashes, falling apart.

A version of that would've happened to me if I wasn't alert enough.

"Are you okay, Sir?!" Phil sat me down on a sidewalk further away. Ace knelt in front of me putting a bottle of water to my lips, to which I noticed just how dry my throat had become.