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I woke up with my face buried within Dalia's curls, and found myself suffocated within them. I sat up in bed, which managed to wake up my roommate who groaned behind me. "Next time go sleep in your own bed," I told her, wiping my face clean of sleep in attempt at waking myself up. Not going so well so far as my vision remained blurry.
I sensed Dalia get out of bed and pad her way over to the door in just her underwear, "Remind me how I got a hangover, even though we were at the club less then an hour?" She glanced over her shoulder at me, coming to halt at the door, eyebrow raised in question. She then just shrugged it off and continued making her way out of my room, "I'm making coffee. If you want some, you better start talking."
Talking. Great. I groaned, allowing myself to collapse back onto my bed, my head sinking into the pillow. I brought my covers over me and sighed heavily. I was in no mood to talk.
I tried thinking over the previous night's happenings. What I remembered was me taking shots, and then going onto the dance floor with Dalia. Then everything just stopped, as if there were no other significant memories from that night.
Guess I'd been stood up then. It wasn't exactly the nicest thing to hear, but I guess I felt relieved that I didn't have to go through with the whole dating process anyway. Definitely not my thing.
Dalia returned to the room, two coffee mugs in her hands. She placed one upon the bedside table, and brought the other to her lips, holding it within both hands now.
I sat up myself, so that I could indulge in the hot substance, most likely to get me out of my sleepy haze. When Dalia was done sipping, she gave a refreshing 'ah' before finally speaking up again,
"So. How did it go last night? Seemed like you were eager to get out of there."
She'd been far drunker then I'd been, yet she remembered w hat I'd been like towards the end of the night. What little sense this made. Perhaps I was more effected by alcohol due to my little experience in the state of intoxication.
I picked up my coffee mug, taking a long warm sip that reminded me of the fiery shot that had sent flames down my throat and warmed up my body. I shrugged.
"I guess he bailed on me," I replied, my expression neutral and subtle, "How about you? Any luck last night?"
Her face seemed to light up to the question, "Well, actually. I just checked my phone and was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd given that cute guy from last night my number. He texted me wondering if I wanted to go to coffee with him this morning."
I gave a subtle smile, genuinely happy for her, although I thoroughly doubted some guy she met at a bar had the intention to date her, rather then screw and ditch, but it wasn't like I knew anything about that sort of thing anyway so I shut up and smiled.
"So are you going to see him?" I asked, taking another sip of my coffee, my intrigue perked.
Dalia squinted her eyes, averting her gaze as she gave herself time to think the offer over, before finally coming to a conclusion, "Yeah. Why not, right? I have nothing better to do on a Sunday."
My smile grew, but not for long. Wait, Sunday?! I leaped out of bed, almost causing Dalia to spill coffee upon herself, "Shit. I gotta get to work." Getting up too quickly managed to hurt my head, but I ignored the ache and went straight for the bathroom.
It wasn't as if the coffee shop I worked at received a lot of business, but my boss was picky about punctuality, and I'd need a job reference if I was going to get that internship. I got in the shower and got dressed. I wore a dark brown polo with the coffee shop logo printed at the breast pocket, my required uniform, along with my usual skinny jeans. My apron was kept at work
"Good look today, Dee," I told Dalia as I rushed through the living room to try and collect my things, "Try and avoid coming to my work place unless you really have to."
"You got it."
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Luckily, two hours later, no sign of Dalia. I was half an hour late, but my boss didn't come in today, so everything was fine. As per usual, business was slow, so my co-worker Jen and I simply chatted about our week and other boring stuff to keep us occupied. Now that was the kind of conversation I could handle.
I was collecting mugs and such in the corner when the ping at the door occured. We usually only recieved one or two morning customers on a sunday. This was our fourth, but not distracting enough to grasp my attention.
I went over behind the counter so that I could put the used dishes in the dishwasher. But midway over to it, something caused me to come to a halt.
"Yes, to go please," An English accent mused. A familiar one. I stiffened to the mere sound of it. I only briefly glanced over my shoulder, but I regretted doing so within the instant.
Images clouded my mind, forcing my to return to the occurrings of the previous night. The alley way, the figures, the dagger.. and the eyes, the glowing yellow orbs. In took a sharp breath, quickly putting the plates back down. Oh god. I'd seen that man kill someone.
This couldn't have been a coincidence, that he just happened to be strolling by at the exact coffee shop at which the whiteness of him murdering another happened to work at. No. He was coming after me. I knew it, I felt it.
I put the dishes down and went through to the kitchen behind the counter area, slipping through the door discretely. I untied my apron and tossed it away. Shit. I'd left Jen in there with him. What if he'd kill her? Whether I escape or not, I'd be responsible if anything happened to her. Holy fuck.
I went out the back door. Maybe I should call 911. Oh god. My breathing became severely heavy. I was panting hard, to the point where I had to lean over to try and catch my breath. Get a hold of yourself and get out of there, Nolan!
I retrieved my phone from my pocket, although my shaky fingers were unable to remain still enough so that I could type in my pass code.
"Funny how we're back in this situation, aren't we Nolan?"
I almost screamed at the sound of the voice stealing my attention, catching my off guard. I should have gone back inside, ran for my life, but being in the other male's dominating presence caused me to not only tremble but freeze.
"You know you shouldn't be that surprised that I found you. Probably should have thought through keeping that app on your phone. All kinds of psychos knowing exactly where you are at this exact moment," The man wondered aloud, taking his time approaching me.
With each step forwards he took, I went backwards, until I could do no longer as I hit the front of a huge dumpster. I was shivering against, trying to swallow back my nerves so that I did not expose my weakness any more then I already had done.
"I- I promise you I didn't see anything.." I was meant to call out to him, in hopes that he'd stop in his tracks and keep that distance from me, but no, he kept coming forwards. My voice was weak, and stuttered.
He smiled to the sight of me failing to let out a verbal response.
"Well for your sakes I should hope not, otherwise we'd have to repeat last night's happenings and it would be a shame to get blood on my new jeans. I swear, it's a nightmare to get out."
I don't know why, but I braced myself for that dagger. I saw something poking out the other male's pocket, as the blade had done the previous night, but it remained there. For now.
"Or perhaps I shouldn't waste such a pretty face," The man mused, tilting his head from side to side, finally stopping to think over his decision, "Maybe I should just call my brother up and have him kill your friend instead. Daria, was it? Something like that. Actually, I recall them being together right now. Funny how things work out."
Dalia! My heavy panting returnemd once ore. I couldn't stop the panic from rising in my stomach and overwhelming me, "No! No- please don't hurt her. She didn't do anything wrong, I swear." Shit. My best friend's life may or may not be in my hands, her life or mine. I wasn't at all ready to make a decision like that.
"Oh, alright then. I'll leave your friend alone," The man replied, mocking a tone of surrender before letting his full red lips spread into a sinister smile once more, "In exchange that you keep last night's little.. accident, between us."
I heaved out a sigh of relief, tears that I hadn't been aware of flooding shown my cheeks now. "I- I won't tell anyone," I promised, shaking my head the best I could, "I s-swear."
"Oh, I don't doubt that you won't," His devilish look turned amused at the sight of me. "I suppose this is the part where you thank me for saving you?"
I furrowed my brows in confusion, "Uh- thanks you for n-not murdering me..?" I didn't think that choosing not to murder me in the back of my work place was exactly saving, but I made no comment of it and thanked him anyway.
"You're very welcome for that, but that's not quite what I meant. I believe you want to thank me for saving you last night? You're lucky I came before anything happened."
Wait, what? I had no idea what he was talking about. He did not save me! He murdered someone right before my very eyes! "W-what do you mean?"
"I would have thought you'd at least realize that I have some kind of a heart, considering I spared the life of you and your friend," He rose a brow my way before continuing, "That man I killed looks younger in photos doesn't he?"
I watched the as the other male retrieved a phone from the inside jacket of his pocket. What was this about? "Ah yes, here he is," He turned the screen my way and displayed upon it was a picture of my date from last night, "He looks rather young for fifty-three, don't you think?"
Shit.. no freaking way..
The screen was turned back the man's way for him to browse upon it, "Judging by his photos, it seems he likes to go clubbing..to the gym.. typical, football. I think I left out brutal murder on there somewhere.. Ah yes, here it is."
When the screen was turned back my way, an image of a corpse, the sex unclear. It appeared to be stripped of all it's upper body skin. The wrists were bound with rope, and the gruesome body was hung up like a piece of raw meet at the butchers.
Vomit rose up my throat, and I had to swallow the vile substance back down to save me from hurling over the killer's shoes. I'd only just gotten out of being killed, didn't want to provoke him any more.
"Personally, I think you'd look lovely skinned alive, but it's rather soon for a first date, don't you think?" He asked, a pleasant expression displayed upon his features. Only then did I finally allow myself to focus upon his eyes, that glowed no more. Pale eyes, not quite like my own striking blue ones. Pale brown, like a cup of English milky tea.
The man placed the phone back in his pocket, "Well, are you going to thank me or not?"
I swallowed back any last burning traces of sick, feeling as if the shots I consumed last night were lighting up my throat again. "T-thank you," I managed to come out with, easing my breath as realization hit me that I no longer had any reason to be scared of him, and every reason to be grateful, "Seriously.. thank you.. that's a pretty lousy way of thanking the guy who saved me from being skinned alive.. or whatever."
Luckily, the other managed to distract me from hurling again as the images of the corpse came to mind once more, "I'm sure you'll find a way of repaying me, if and when I need the favour returned. Now I'm sure you have things to be doing, like serving absolutely no customers."
If this had been any other situation, I would have laughed. He said nothing more until he reached the the turn he had to make to return to the side of the building,
"Nice to meet you, Nolan Parker."