CHAPTER 15
- A TRUE FRIEND?
Aurora wakes up with a huge jolt. Her eyes were still shut tightly, scared to discover what would lay ahead of them. Some incessant icy chills travelled through her body, as if she was completely soaked in cold water.
The sounds and voices around her were fade, distant. Like she was underwater, and the people speaking remained at the surface, above the liquid.
"No.. no.." a very familiar mutter resonates through the deep and dark ocean. The voice was scared, terrified, in correct terms.
"Dear,.. why be scared?" A masculine sound gets heard by the girl. Not even a moment later, her father, Daniel, bursts through the creepy and solitary liquid prison with a tender smile plastered on his face, he was in the water, yet completely dry, the way his position was maintained looked like he was levitating.
Aurora's laugh echos through the place, her giggles were heard everywhere.
But not even a second later, she realises that the smile on his face seemed plastic, fake, like a barbie doll. His eyes were way too wide for them to actually look like Daniel's and his usual messy caramel hair was slicked back with gel, which is something that he would've never done.
Her laugh immediately turns into a scream, a piercing scream, not because of the doll-looking face, but because of her father, suddenly morphing in a black shadow, everything was black and only black. She couldn't distinguish a single body shape, it was just a sort of oval darkness.
"It's okay.. I'm just watching you." The caressing voice trails, extending it's hand, which was covered with blood.
Aurora watches the body part, and suddenly, her head snaps down as she lets out another piercing scream.
Christina, her personal cook who was murdered at the ball was laying unconscious on the ground, with a hole on her forehead. Her mouth was open, and as soon as Aurora wanted to let out a cry, the woman opens her huge eyes, her face was now as fake as her father's.
"At least my injuries aren't as bad as hers." The sound that escaped from the cook's mouth says carelessly, pointing at another figure laying on the ground.
Aurora approaches the silhouette and feel a huge chill send down her spine, as if an iced bucket was dumped over her head. Fear waves through her body and as much as she tried to open her mouth to let out another scream, no sound would get out of it.
Her sister's head was cracked open and blood was flowing down her body.
Aurora's eyes jolt wide open as she sits up quickly at the same time, causing her head to feel extremely dizzy. Her vision blurs slightly and she shifts on her spot slightly to re-center herself.
"Thank God she's awake. You fuckers should've never gave her a sleeping potion, she visibly got a nightmare." An angry, growling voice exclaims loudly.
"We're trying our best sir." A helpless and clear feminine sound says.
She blinks a couple of times, which thankfully dusted all the blur in her eyes away.
Ahead of her was a television, but it didn't look like the one in the business class area, it was newer. She turns her head to the right and immediately notices a huge amount of coton-like hair, some matching brown eyes and tinted lips staring at her with pure worry.
"Romeo?"
The boy in question doesn't reply and simply executes a small, forced smile. She looks to the other side and sees at least five people dressed in red important-looking suits, and the women with matching lipstick, looked at her with a welcoming and warm smile.
"What happened?"
She watches a lady crouch beside her as she starts explaining, sometimes with some hand gestures, what had just occurred.
She didn't even have to finish her sentence that Aurora immediately remembers everything, the black shadow.
Seeing a silhouette that nobody had noticed before, and who is everywhere is something that iced Aurora's veins at the simple thought of it.
That blurry, dark person was stalking her, and she was sure of it. Maybe seeing someone, or something, a couple of times in a hotel is normal, but literally seeing it on a flight is what scared her the most.
'What if i'm hallucinating?' Aurora asks herself, not really reassured of that idea neither.
And the bad dream she just had only made things even worse.
"Where are we, Romeo?" She wonders, noticing that some golden walls were around them, as if they were in a room.
He smirks slightly as his long, veiny arm lifts up, while his finger straightens ahead of him. He was clearly pointing at something, so the girl in question turns her head and immediately notices a gold colour plate, the same colour of the walls, but perhaps shinier, with an inscription on it:
private class
Oh.
"Right after you fainted I immediately carried you and called the staff. The woman brought us here and before you opened your eyes, she said that we could stay here for the whole way til Rome."
The girl's beautiful, big brown eyes widen slightly as soon as he finished his first sentence. Her enemy helped her? But she didn't ask any further because another thought, which is way more important in her opinion, had just crossed her mind.
"What about Mateo? What did he do after.. you know.. I became unconscious."
She expected the boy to do something heroic, maybe even performing CPR if her breathing was not extraordinary, but judging by Romeo's immediate grim and dark expression, all her hopes vanished.
"Nothing. Nothing at all. That son of a bitch was mad at you for some reason, probably because of the little scene we had in business class, so the only thing he did was to peek over his chair and simply shrug when you fell on the ground."
Aurora furrows her eyebrows sadly and frowns. Sure, she was, and still is, mad at Romeo, but Mateo had no right to be angry if she got a tiny bit closer to him. And even the thought of your best friend not caring of her made her veins ice in a way the black shadow never did.
Her heart was aching, very badly, and she started thinking of what happened with Romeo before she fainted, and couldn't help but culpabilise herself. Mateo had every right to be mad at her, and the thought of it made her regret everything that happened with her enemy.
Even though she couldn't start blaming herself, a part of her wished that none of this happened, she wanted Mateo to be beside her just as she was when times were hard for him.
In effect, Mateo was in a severe and deep depression at Aurora's sixteenth birthday, at some point, suicide has crossed his mind multiple times but the girl would always stop his thoughts to turn into true actions.
The cause of all of his sad thoughts were because his mother passed away at that time, brutally murdered by a member of the Lions, in other words, Romeo's mafia, but the girl still didn't want to talk about this sensitive subject to him.
"We will.. let you guys be alone." The flight attendant lady speaks nervously as the rest of the team nods in relief.
Both watch them all awkwardly get out of the small room, and Aurora waits a couple seconds for the silence to be calm.
"Its my fault." She blurts out, drowned in regret and culpability.
A huff escapes the fluffy-haired boy's mouth while he shakes his head in disbelief.
"There she goes, blaming herself again." He speaks to himself, causing the girl in question to tilt her head in confusion.
"First of all, you look like a grandpa that lost his mind, and second, what do you even mean again?" She scoffs before folding her arms, trying to have a more serious look.
"Whatever." He mutters with a complimenting eye roll. His brown globes were beautiful and shiny, so seeing them move was as if diamonds were shifting in his eyes.
She then finally decides to look under her and noticed a double king-sized bed, and she was occupying all the place, which probably caused Romeo to sit on the uncomfortable-looking chair beside her.
"Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't see how much space I've been invading." She apologises, feeling more bad, if that was even possible, in effect, for some reason, it seemed like the girl had to think everything is her fault.
"Just shut up and move so I can be beside you." He suddenly blurts out confidently. It was not Romeo's type to say such things, but he hated to see Aurora culpabilise over every tiny thing.
'That dick will pay later.' He thinks to himself with fury as his fists ball together, causing his joints to whiten slightly, which Aurora noticed, so she furrows her eyebrows in concern, but she decides to shrug it off.
She moves to the side, leaving a pretty big space for Romeo to lay comfortably. She brings her hands to her chest and starts fidgeting with them nervously, pulling the skin around her nails. Romeo was too busy placing his bottom on the soft bed.
A moment later, his head rests right besides the young woman's one and he lets out a deep sigh. Aurora doesn't completely pay attention and decides to grab the controller to calm the odd and uncomfortable silence that was about to shift in the place.
She turns the huge television screen on thanks to the red button on the remote. Immediately after a couple display options pop up, Aurora searches for the familiar 'Netflix' logo, and to her huge relief and joy, it was among the various app subscriptions.
"Thank God they have Netflix on this television." She speaks to Romeo, excited to watch something, who turns his head to look at her, and winks right before straightening his head again to look at the screen.
A couple seconds pass and Aurora felt like she needed things to be clear between them.
"I didn't forget, Romeo. I'm still mad at you, even though you helped me today." She suddenly speaks, because she wasn't able to resist her twisting stomach as soon as he did something thoughtful towards her, she wanted to put him back in his place.
She watched Romeo's expression darken as his light and shimmering eyes fade. He opens his beautiful curved mouth to speak.
"Aurora, you have no idea why I left, I tried telling you, but you always ignored me." His deep voice lets out, and it was only after he finished his sentence that Aurora realised how attractive and sexy his sound is.
"I'm.. going to the bathroom." She immediately replies, placing a hand on the bed's arm rest for support to get up. Once her two feet touch the ground, she turns her back to him and starts walking the couple footsteps needed to exit the small room.
She almost reached the border that an icy cold feeling travels through her body, but it wasn't the familiar feeling when she notices the black shadow, someone was actually touching her.
Her head shifts downwards, only to see some very big, pale, silver ring-covered veiny hands that snaked through her waist. Some raging butterflies corrupt through her stomach and she turns around again, and immediately regrets her decision when her chest gets in contact with his.
He was probably a head taller than her. Out of surprise, Aurora's reflex was to grip his shoulders. Romeo's hand moves slightly lower, almost arriving to the end of her back, while the other one grips her jaw and forces her to look in his big, beautiful, sparkly maroon eyes. Romeo approaches his face to hers, just close enough for Aurora to be able to count his lashes one by one, but he doesn't get any further.
"I'm sorry Aurora. Maybe you'll want to know why I left so suddenly one day and you would understand. But I still did a horrible job ghosting you. I'm truly sorry." He whispers near her ear right before shifting his lips towards her cheek, and to peck it.
He lets her go, freeing her of his capture and stares deep in her green eyes. For a second, Aurora truly believed he was sorry, and was about to lean in to do the same, but this time, on his lips, but memories of her mental state when he left came rushing back, and Aurora immediately saw him as a monster.
She pushes him away harshly and starts running in the plane hallway, hoping to arrive to the bathroom as quickly as possible.
-
soo thoughts?
mateo is a walking red flag istg i just wanna punch him-
also tysm for 1K reads omg!! this chapter is longer as a thank you :))
2.1k words