Torn

Chapter 6✓

Carter 

I look down at my watch and see that I still have time before I have to meet Quinn at Johnny's Diner. After Xander left, I stayed rooted in place, looking out at the water, lost in thought. It had been such a heavy conversation with a roller coaster of emotions and now I'm mentally and physically drained.

I've been dragging this stupid bag around with me for hours now and I'm sick of it. I calculate how long it will take me to go up to the cabin and drop it off and I think it would leave me with a bit extra time to freshen up. The last thing I want to do is have dinner with a damn male model looking like I do in this moment. Goddess, I must look dreadful from crying nonstop.

I run my fingers under my eyes to clear any possible mascara trails and try to let go of this pent up emotion but I just can't seem to shake what had happened with Xander. I can't figure out how things had changed so drastically from him having his hands on me and looking at me like he was about to kiss me, to walking away and leaving me alone in the park so coldly. What could have changed his entire persona so quickly?

Though, if I'm being honest with myself, it's a good thing that he had walked away from me when he had. I've only been back in town and in contact with him all of three fucking minutes and I already was about to jump the poor guy. Talk about rushing into things. Damn. Stupid hormonal female.

Speaking of hormones, my brain is oblivious to my chastising as my thoughts immediately jump from wanting to slap myself in the forehead for skipping so many steps, to thinking of his lips and how full and soft they looked. Which then starts the thought process of how badly I want to know what it's like to press my lips to his, or how I can almost feel how his hands had felt around my waist, pulling me close. Or the way his eyes had looked as if they were slowly shifting to black, almost like he had little spots of molten silver shining in his eyes.

When I was staring into them all I could think of was how they looked like a beautiful representation of stars in the night sky. I'm pretty sure I could stare into his eyes for hours and not get bored. I want to let myself fall into them and never come back out.

Why do I feel such an intense pull around him? It's like my brain refuses to focus on anything but his touch and wanting to get closer to him. To surround myself with his scent. There has to be something seriously wrong with me. I need help. Serious help. Maybe even a mental institution.

I know that it's not normal to come back into somebody's life after almost a decade and want to skip all the friendly chit-chat and catching up so that I can jump right to ripping clothes off and throwing myself at them. Maybe I just really need to get laid.

I shake my head and start walking back down the same path that we had come down with my rolling back trailing behind me, when the little hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. I tuck my hair behind one ear and stop to look around. There are only two other people in the park; an older lady walking her little white dog and a younger gentleman jogging along the path going in the opposite direction from me. Not a single pair of eyes are even on me, but I still can't shake the feeling. You're absolutely losing it, you're going crazy Carter, I tell myself.

While the uncomfortable feeling fades away the closer I get back to the main street, I can't get rid myself of the cold chill for the life of me. I take another quick look around and try to stare deeper into the trees. Nothing. Well, if I'm not crazy, then I'm definitely paranoid. I mentally shake myself and keep moving.

By the time I get to the main street, I'm already dreading the walk to the cabin. It's only maybe a twenty minute walk, but it's down a very secluded dirt road. The thought of walking down that road by myself when I'm already feeling sketched out is not ideal, to say the least. I weigh my options, thinking that maybe it would be better to catch a cab, until the creepy driver's face from earlier fills my thoughts and I instantly change my mind. Better to not even risk it.

I turn down onto the next street and start to make my way out of town with my stupid bag in tow. As I take in the sights before me, I realize just how much I have truly forgotten how beautiful this little town is. The soft streetlights with the hanging flower pots attached, the quaint little storefronts with a few intimate iron tables out front for dining.

It breaks my heart to see a few of my favourite stores boarded up. I look at one of the shutdown stores as I walk past, the window is covered in missing person flyers, some have yellowed with age, while others look quite new. I can't help but think about what Xander had said about all these missing people.

I wonder if it has anything to do with what my dad had learned in the lab. Whatever he discovered, it was big enough to pack up and leave our lives without a word. Big enough that he turned a blind eye to how badly my mom had beaten me for trying to contact my friends.

My parents had never laid a hand on me before. They were always very distant, and they never really had time for me, but they had never been abusive. I had spent every waking second of my life in Spiritwood with my grandpa, or with Quinn and Xander. I had never felt so alone as I did after we moved.

I never bothered to make new friends either. My parents let me go to school when we settled in Trinity until the day she beat me, then I was officially on lock down. My mom started working at the new law firm, but dad stayed and worked from home. He was always shut in his office, but if I tried to leave the house he somehow knew immediately and shut the thought down.

When I turned eighteen, I left and never looked back. I had gotten myself a job at the local grocery store and rented a little suite above the store from the owner. I'm not sure how he knew I needed help, but the look in his eye as he offered me the apartment made it clear that he wanted to help. I would have been lost without him. I saved up every extra penny I had knowing that the moment it came for me to leave, I would never come back.

My parents died a few years later. They never really tried to see me after I moved out. After they passed away, I quit my job, took every little bit of my savings and the small inheritance my parents left me and have been traveling ever since. Not once did I have the courage to make it out this way. My heart aches. I never bothered to come this way out of fear, and now I realize that fear has kept me from ever seeing my grandpa again.

I remove myself from my thoughts so I can try and figure out my surroundings. I think I'm about five minutes from the cabin now. The sun is getting lower in the sky, dipping behind the tall trees and it's starting to get dark out.

I can barely see anything around me besides the road. I take my phone out of my back pocket and turn the flashlight on to try and light up the road by my feet. Anything to keep my clumsy ass from tripping over my own feet.

Dense trees line both sides of the road, the winds blowing gently through the branches. I used to think the woods were so peaceful, like they were my home, but right now, while I'm alone on this empty road, it seems more than a little eerie.

The sharp crack of a branch breaking to my left alerts my senses. I stop in my place, ears straining to hear something, anything, while my eyes dart around trying to catch the sight of something within the shadow.

Is that the sound of someone breathing?

Oh my goddess, what if it's a bear? My heart started pounding and my breathing increased. I strain to listen as hard as I can, but I can't decide if I'm losing my mind, if I'm completely paranoid or if I really am being watched.

It's impossible to hear anything over my ragged breathing and pounding heart and with another snap of a branch I gave up. I'm running as fast as my legs can carry me without a care in the world of my burning lungs.

Fuck this bag! The drag of the wheels in the gravel starts to hold me back. I lift it off the ground and into my arms. My lungs are engulfed in flames and I try to focus on not tripping over my feet as the cabin finally comes into view. Flying up the little porch towards the door I shove my hand into my pocket to retrieve the keys.

I'm fumbling to find the right one as my hands shake with the amount of adrenaline coursing through my body. As I slide the right key into the hole, I hear it. Footsteps. The sound of someone's feet pounding on the ground echoes in the air around me. Someone is running towards me and whoever it is, they're coming up fast.