Sorry it's been forever! Here's a good chapter, I think. Although there's an itty bitty cliffy at the end :)
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Chapter Eight
Marcus stared at the picture of Her while he dug his bone handled blade into his stomach. The pain did not faze Marcus as long as he was looking into Her eyes, no matter if they were not the real thing or not. The grayish blue that circled around her pupils reminded Marcus of the pond outside his house in the winter. He remembered going out and playing with his younger brother when the pond was frozen and perfect for slipping and sliding along the slippery wet surface. Just thinking about his brother, made Marcus dig the knife into his skin even harder. He felt the tears forming in the corners of his eyes and held in a scream.
He finally finished the A and moved in front of the mirror to admire his handiwork. The jagged letters were barely legible behind the blood seeping down Marcus’s chest and pooling on the hardwood floor. But, he knew what they said.
The letters that were on Marcus’s mind all the time.
The letters that were etched into the back of Marcus’s eyeballs.
The letters he moaned during the night.
J E S S I C A
Lyndon was glad it was Saturday and that he didn’t have to go to school and deal with the dreadfully boring classes, teachers, senseless drama, and especially Tulip, who was a regular pain in Lyndon’s a$$. He wished he could tell her that he was twenty six, although he was pretty sure if he did tell her, she would just increase her conquest to get Lyndon to even look at her.
He peeked up from the covers of his bed at the window in which the cheery chirping of birds was keeping him from falling back to sleep. It looked like it was a nice day out. The sun was bright and shining and it looked like the perfect temperature for a nice run, so Lyndon, feeling like it was way past due for some working out, got out bed, pulled on a t-shirt, shorts, and laced up his running shoes.
Now the only thing he needed was to wake up Jessica and convince her to come with him, which he almost knew was going to be close to impossible especially after what happened the day before when Lyndon freaked out on Jess for purging up her pills. He stood in front of her shut and locked door and pressed his ear to it. He heard nothing but the quiet sound of Jess breathing. She was still asleep, but Lyndon couldn’t go on his run and leave Jessica at the house by herself. What would be the purpose of having a bodyguard then?
He took the key from the top of the door and unlocked it, making sure not to make a lot of noise and waking up Jess in the process. He opened the door and slipped inside. Jess was curled up in a ball on her bed, her long legs bent so they were pressed against her chest with her knees almost touching her chin, and her arms wrapped up in the pillow which was under her head. The comforter was flung on the floor so she had nothing covering her but the clothes on her back which were black, tiny, little short boxers with the word PINK on the butt in pink sparkles, which looked totally and absolutely wrong on Jessica, although incredibly sexy, and a black t-shirt which was way too small for her and showed about six inches of her stomach. Lyndon felt a weird sensation looking at Jessica in such little attire, a sensation which was maybe a bit inappropriate especially since he was supposed to be doing his job.
Lyndon walked over to the corner of the bed and leaned down. “Jess? Jessica? Please, wake up.” She stirred a little bit, but ended up falling right back into that deep sleep. Lyndon tried again, this time resting his hand on her shoulder and shaking her a little bit. “Jessica, wake up.”
Her eyes flew open. She looked sincerely surprised to see Lyndon in her room, waking her up. “What- What are you doing?” She asked, lifting her head from her pillow and stretching her legs from their compact position.
Lyndon stood up. “I want you to come running with me.”
She shot him and incredulous look with her sleepy eyes and ran a hand through her bed head which was sticking up all over the place, like black tentacles. “No thanks.”
Lyndon sighed. “Come one, Jess, please. I need to stretch my legs. It’s been weeks since I’ve worked out. Please, come with me.”
She slid out of her bed and raised her arms over her head, stretching, making her shirt ride up even more. Lyndon forced his eyes away. If she caught him checking her out, she would surely not go running with him. “Just go by yourself,” she said, walking over to her dresser and picking up her glasses from the counter and heading out the door of her bedroom.
Lyndon followed her as she walked down the stairs. “I can’t leave you in the house alone. Your parents are away for that wedding, remember? Please come with me. I promise to go slow.” He just wanted to go running and feel the wind whip against his face. Hell, he’d crawl if she wanted him too as long as she came with him.
She stopped at the bottom of the steps and turned around to look at Lyndon with her stormy eyes. “Are you saying that I’m slow?”
A smile formed on Lyndon’s lips. “I don’t know. Are you?”
She narrowed her eyes like a snake and smiled also, except her smile was more of like the smile the evil villain does when he thinks of a plan. “I’ll go get changed,” she said, going around Lyndon and bounded back up the steps up to her room and shutting the door.
Lyndon shook his head and went to the kitchen, pulling out two bowls from the cabinet and filling them with cereal. While Lyndon was almost done his bowl, Jess walked into the kitchen in a pair of black running shorts and a white t-shirt which had the letters RUSTIN TRACK on the front in purple and gold. Her hair was as it always was, just there. It was too short to put back in a ponytail. She looked at the bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios Lyndon had made for her. “Is this for me?” She asked, looking at him.
“No, it’s for Tulip,” Lyndon said, a smile playing on his lips.
Jessica rolled her eyes, flipped him off, and slid into the chair and started eating. “So is Tough Guy scared that he’s going to get shown up by a girl?” She asked, her face looking much more rested than usual. Lyndon had an idea that was because he had interrupted her before she could barf up all of the drugs in her system.
Lyndon smirked. “You wish, honey. You’re looking at the record champ at both the 1,600 and 3,200 meter. You don’t stand a chance.”
“Yeah? Well you’re looking at the 800 meter dash state champion two years in a row,” she said, a cocky smile on her face.
“We’ll see, chica. We’ll see,” Lyndon said, getting up and putting his bowl in the dishwasher, a concept which was completely new to him since he didn’t even own a dish at his apartment and used pretty much only paper plates and plastic cups and utensils which all never required washing.
Lyndon sat back down across from Jess, who was still eating. She locked eyes with Lyndon. “Do you really think that you’re going to win, pretty boy?”
Lyndon smirked and leaned back in his chair. “Oh, so now I’m pretty?”
Jess narrowed her eyes. “Yep. You’re one of those guys who can get any girl they could possibly want and act as if they are way too good for any girl out there just because their hot. Guys like you piss me off. I wish I could have been stuck with a fat, ugly bodyguard instead of you.’
Lyndon laughed long and hard, his eyes even tearing up a little. Once he was done, he took a deep breath, wiped his eyes, and looked at Jess who was glaring at him. Was she serious? “Look, Jess. You have no idea who I am and what I’m like. I have never hurt a girl in my life or said that I was too good for one. Most girls out there are too good for me. I can’t lie and say that girls haven’t thrown themselves at me, because they have and you’ve seen it first hand with Tulip and some of the other girls at your school, but still. I’m incredibly shy around girls I like and I’m almost always too late when I eventually do express my feelings for them. I’ve only had two serious girlfriends in my entire twenty six years of life and both of those relationships lasted over two years and ended in them breaking up with me because I was too intense or too boring or too un- spontaneous or some other shit like that. So, don’t go around thinking that I’m some sort of manwhore because I’m not, never have been, and never will be.”
When Lyndon was finished with his monologue, Jess just stared at him for about two long, awkward minutes until she spoke, “I’m sorry for judging you. I shouldn’t have done that. I hate it when people judge me, so I apologize.”
Lyndon was a little surprised. Had Jess just apologized for her mistake? He was pretty sure he needed to get his ears cleaned out or something because he simply could not believe it.
She sighed and threw her hands up in the air. “Don’t look so surprised! I apologized. So what?”
Lyndon laughed. “I don’t know. It’s surprising hearing I’m sorry come out of your mouth.”
She scoffed, picked up her bowl, and put it into the sink. “Yeah, well, I said it. Now can we go before I contract brittle bones and am too old to run?”
Lyndon nodded. He had a gun secured underneath his heavy, under armour t-shirt and a knife in his sock. He led Jess out of the house, resting his hand on the small of her back and locking the door behind him with the house key. He set the many alarms with the push of a button on his cellphone and made a brief overview of the house. Everything was secure. No windows were open, all doors and windows were locked, and if anyone tried to break in, they were toast.
“Ok, Mr. Spy, stop being all overprotective and start running with me. I think my hair has already grown down to my ass by now,” Jess complained, the toe of her Puma sneaker tapping on the asphalt.
“Alright,” Lyndon said, looking at the house one more time, before joining Jess at the end of the driveway, “Let’s go.”
They started running down the street, the hot, summer sun beating down on them, making Lyndon feel really stupid that he hadn’t made Jess put sunscreen on. Her skin was so pale, she was going to burn like a tomato for sure. Lyndon, well he was part Spanish, so he never really burned because he had a natural tan all year along, which only grew darker in the summer and in LA, although it was pretty much hot all year round, the summers were especially hot.
They started out with a light jog and Lyndon’s legs were feeling so tight from not being used. Going from working out hard core two hours every day to not working out at all had really affected his limberness, but eventually he fell into a steady rhythm, the light pounding of their feet echoing in their ears. “OK, chica, let’s get this show in the road. Keep up with me if you can, if you’re too tired tell me and I win, but if I’m too tired and you’re still going, I win. But, the number one rule is that you can’t stray too far from each other at any point in time because that would be against my job rules.”
“OK, but what should the winner get?” Jess asked her breathing surprisingly steady. She was a runner.
Lyndon thought about it. “I don’t know. What do you want if you win?”
“You have to do all my chores for two weeks.”
Lyndon hated chores. “OK, if I win, you have to come to my apartment with me one day and clean it from top to bottom. Until it shines like the Empire State Building.”
“OK, we have a deal,” Jess said, putting her hand out over towards Lyndon and they briefly shook, because it was kind of difficult when they were running.
Lyndon increased his speed as did Jess. They ran for about three miles at that same speed and Lyndon was really starting to feel it. His side hurt like a bitch, his entire shirt was drenched in sweat, his lungs hurt from breathing, his legs were burning like a forest fire, and his feet were pretty much numb inside his running shoes. Jess was looking fine, however. Her head was only just covered in a sheen of sweat, but that was it. Her arms swung at her side and her long stride moved at the same speed and length every single time and Lyndon was really surprised. He had thought she was going to give up maybe sometime around the second mile, but she was still going and so was he.
They had just finished their fourth mile when Lyndon’s cellphone, which was in a little holster attached to the waistband of his shorts, started making the sound an ambulance made when it barreled down the street needing to save someone’s life. Lyndon’s heart stopped and he stopped running, yanking his cellphone out of its holster and touching the screen so it lit up.
The bright red word INTRUDER was flashing on the screen and Lyndon could not believe it.
“What’s going on?!” Jess yelled out of breath with her hands on her head, “What’s going on, Lyndon?”
Lyndon looked up at her. “Someone tried to break into the house.”
Jessica’s eyes widened and she swayed on her feet. Lyndon caught her before she fainted, her long and fragile body draped in his arms. He picked her up and draped her over his shoulder with ease since she only weighed about a hundred pounds and started to run faster than he ever did in his life.
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Sorry! I hope you liked it! Please tell me if you did... didnt? I'd love to know! Thanks!
Love
Mel Bell <3