Third POV
The school was dark as usual but Jake didn't mind for Emma's pink trial led him to where she was.
"You can't hide forever Beloved." he chuckled brandishing the bloody knife in his hands. "It's only us now Beloved. No one is going to stop us from loving each other. We can have a happy life like you always wanted. A happy ending. Isn't that exciting?"
The sound of her footsteps echoing through the dark corridor was all he needed. Grinning from ear to ear, he ran in the direction of where it was coming from and it lead him to the fleet of stairs where the door to the school's roof was.
"Jackpot!" he pressed his weight against the door but it didn't budge. Angry, he moved back and sent a kick strong enough to send the doors flying forwards.
"Beloved?" he called looking around. "Where are you? Come out, come out wherever you..."
Then he saw her, standing on top of the roof's railings with tears running down her cheeks and a lifeless look in her eyes.
"Beloved, don't move," he yelled dropping the bloody knife. "Stand still! I will save you! Don't move a muscle! Please!"
He wasn't sure if it was the tone of his pleading voice or the fact he dropped the knife but a smile appeared on her face. Still pumping with adrenaline from the brutal acts he committed earlier, he ran forward to grab her.
But he was too late.
The last thing he heard was a crash before looking down at his Beloved,s lifeless body. Blood slowly pooled underneath it and he still saw her lifeless eyes along with the smile she gave him before she fell. Clutching his head in agony, he collapsed to the ground and yelled as everything around him shattered to pieces.
Jake jolted awake hitting his head on the bed frame above him.
It had been a dream.
A terrible dream.
'But it felt so real!' he thought putting a hand on his beating heart. 'It was so real!'
Suddenly the door opened and slammed shut bringing Emma's feet came into his line of vision.
"Gosh! I am exhausted!" she said dropping the shopping bags on the floor. Pressure from the mattress appeared as she sat down and Jake was trying his best to resist the urge to grab her feet.
"I will say it once and I will say it again, whoever invented these shoes must be crazy." she kicked off her high heels and rubbed her ankles. "Who knew walking around in these would hurt so much?"
The temptation ate him alive for he hated seeing his Beloved in pain but he retracted his hand because if there was one thing he knew about his Beloved it is she was very sensitive to touch.
So sensitive that one touch could reveal his location.
'I have to be careful not to give away my position.' he thought balling his hand into a fist. 'And despite my best efforts, I can only get out from under this bed within five minutes but would give my Beloved enough time to escape.'
He heard her sigh, saw the increased pressure on the bed, and smiled knowing she was going to take a little nap, get up and use the shower. Within minutes, her silent breathing was heard and he reached out to touch the pressure where the mattress.
He wanted to hug her.
He wanted to hold her in his arms.
He wanted to bury his face in the crook of her neck.
The day he learned of his Beloved's plans to travel was the day he uncovered some vital information about her relationship with Sandra; her former lover and it was sad. The b!tch used up all the good well left in his Beloved by manipulating her to do terrible things, putting herself first all the time, talking down on her, and destroying any sense of self-worth she had. Despite all this, his Beloved remained a faithful and loving partner to her and the only crime she committed was not getting intimate with the b!tch who loved sex. When she couldn't get it from her, she got it from any girl who was curious about female intimacy starting a harem relationship in the school. When his Beloved discovered this, the b!tch manipulated her way out of the situation by giving her pills which his Beloved nearly got addicted to them and she got away with her crimes until the incident.
'Now she will never love anyone as much as she loved her and that includes me.' he thought as the pressure on the mattress shifted to another place. 'But what about her relationship with Gwen? She cried when that b!tch sent a terrible message to her. Does this mean there is hope for us after all? But what about the dream I had?'
Suddenly the bed creaked and Emma's feet came into view stuffing themselves into the hotel's slippers. As they shuffled away, Jake took a peek from under the bed and heard the sound of the shower followed by her singing.
"My prince my shining star,
where would I be without you?
My prince my shining star.
You are the one I love the most.
Without you, my heart is as empty,
with you I am happy.
I will fight to see you again,
My prince my shining star!"
Jake crawled out from under the bed and dusted himself.
'Dream or no dream, I am going to give her a happy ending.' he took out a cloth and a bottle of chloroform from his pocket. 'I am sure of it.'
After soaking the cloth with liquid inside the bottle, he walked slowly towards the bathroom and silently opened the door. Emma's body glistened in the bathroom light as the shower beat down on her unaware of the danger she was in. Still singing her favorite love song from her favorite fantasy series, she was combing her fingers through her slick black hair when Jake reached out and covered her mouth with a piece of cloth.
Emma squealed and struggled under him but the slipperiness of the bathtub along with the stinging substance made it impossible. Her head started to ache, her eyes which were full of fear began to water and before she knew it, her body went limp as her mind slipped into the abyss.
Jake held on for another fifteen minutes before letting go and scoping her into his arms.
"I hope you sleep well darling," he whispered placing a kiss on her wet forehead before placing her inside it. Then taking out a huge yellow box from underneath the bed, he wrapped her up in bedsheets, put her inside, and zipped it up.
"It's a good thing they gave me the biggest box they had," he said out loud as he packed her things. "It's a pity you won't be comfortable in it so I hope you will forgive me, my love."
The clock struck 7 PM when he was done. Taking out her things to his room, he called for room service and told them he was checking out.
"Wow sir, you have a lot of luggage." the hotel's porter said as he hauled Jake's luggage to the elevator.
"Yeah I know," he replied.
"It's a good thing you paid for the young lady in the next room," he said as they waited for the elevator. "The manager was furious when he saw she canceled the contract on her room and he chewed out Lou the receptionist for allowing that to happen. Can you believe that? Who books a room for two weeks and then cancels it? Who?"
Jake didn't answer for not only was the young man starting to annoy him, but the little piece of information also intrigued him for Emma was planning on staying at the hotel for two weeks before going home.
So why did she suddenly cancel?
The sound of the elevator's door brought him back to the present and it opened revealing the old hag and her hellspawn with shocked looks on their faces.
The porter however wasn't. "Good evening ma'am,"
"Go...good evening?" Ayano said while following her mother outside the elevator.
"Are you going to your room, Mrs. Yamada?" Jake asked as the porter pushed his luggage inside the elevator.
"No we are going to see someone," she replied earning a grin from him. He walked in without a word and only looked back when the elevator doors closed.
"Wow! They seem nice don't they?" asked the hotel's steward as they slowly descended to the ground floor. "It's a good thing they are nice. I have met a lot of entitled people during my work here. Heck. Some of them nearly made me quit my job!"
Jake could only nod as the porter started talking none stop about his day. 'From what I could recall, the 'mistake' was caused by my Beloved canceling the remaining days she was supposed to stay in this hotel without consulting the receptionist which is strange since my Beloved always follows the procedures.'
"Say, does your hotel have cameras?" he asked.
The porter stopped blabbering and looked directly at him. "Umm...yeah but they stopped working three days ago. Why do you ask?"
"Oh. No reason." Jake replied trying to hide the grin on his face silently thanking the two b!tches for making his work easier. "But you do have a computer system right?"
"Yeah, we do. The receptionist uses them at his front desk while the manager has one in his office."
"I see. Do you have a history of hacking?"
"No. No. we don't"
"But your Wi-Fi is working well right?"
"Why yes, it is!"
The door opened and they found themselves at the ground level. Jake quickly checked out of the hotel before making his way to the van parked in the parking lot. where the parking attendant was waiting. After loading up his van with his luggage, Jake gave him a hefty tip and whispered something into his ear which surprised the man.
"Are you sure about that sir?" he asked as Jake shut the door. "You should have told us that before you paid for that woman. We could have given you a refund."
"Yeah but it's just a suggestion." He started the car and winked. "You can take it or leave it if you want."
The parking attendant just gave a nod and waved goodbye as Jake drove out of the premises. Halfway through the journey, he parked to change the license plate of his car before taking off into the highway.
All this time Emma slept like a baby.
24 hours later...
Jake hummed a tune as he chopped the carrots to make meat pie; his Beloved's favorite foreign snack. It is not a traditional dish but after seeing his Beloved's eyes glow up when she tried it at a restaurant back in Tokyo City, he decided to make it for her before she wakes up.
That is if she wakes up for he drugged her the second time because of vision of her killing herself plagued him. To take his mind off it, he decided to think of other things.
Like the Oath Breaker Taro Yamada.
'A tall, baby-faced office worker who was a regular customer at the diner my Beloved worked in. I had been suspicious of him since the day he started complimenting her on her work, telling lame jokes, and even saying stuff to make her blush. He even went as far as to get her phone number from that idiot called Ral; the worker harassing her.'
Suddenly, he recalled seeing the day he told her something that made his Beloved chuckle with a slight hue on her face and when she told one of the workers, she suggested she'd keep up with the act to lure him into the establishment because he was paying good money.
'That day made me throw up,' he said as putting the meat mixture into the dough. 'I wanted to kill him right there and then but thanks to the police patrolling the place, I couldn't. So, I had an idea. Why not kill him in his home and make it look like an accident?'
The thought made him chuckle a bit as he folded the dough. 'Too bad. He would have been ten feet under if he didn't have a family.'
The kitchen was silent as he arranged the pastry onto the baking pan and he put it inside the oven.
'So, I had a better idea: steal the recipe of the meal he always orders at the diner and send it to his wife. After all, I did overhear her complaining about him not being home for dinner and maybe this would make him come home more often but it didn't work confirming my suspicions that he likes my Beloved. Luckily, she knows better than to involve herself with a married man like him but that boyish look and pity charm could make her change her morals. Since his flat chested b!tch of a wife is terrible at cooking, I thought it would be a good idea to just kill him in his office.'
He leaned on the kitchen island and took out his phone. 'That is until I found out the kind of woman he married.'
With the picture of Mr. and Mrs. Yamada on his screen, he tsked and zoomed in on Mrs. Yamada's face.
'Ten years of marriage, four kids, and meddling parents who always visit you, yet you can't keep a leash on your husband. I don't know if you are brainwashed or stupid enough to believe every lie he tells you but that doesn't give you the excuse to blame everything on my Beloved. It's not her fault that you are a stone-faced flat-chested b!tch who doesn't know how to keep her husband. Heck, if I knew the probability of him dumping me for another woman was that high, I would have tied him up and locked him away in a room or keep an eye on him at all times. You are a stay-at-home wife. You have a lot of time on your hands. So why? Why are you trying to kill my Beloved? First, it was that low-class assassin from the Yakuza gang. Then you tried to do it yourself. Then you sent the Yakuza gang on her and if I didn't get out of the labyrinth on time, my Beloved would be ten feet under because of the assassin you sent not to mention the guy you sent to kidnap her when she arranged a meeting with that...Oathbreaker.'
He tightened the grip on his phone. 'I stopped all your plans but you seem to be more determined than ever when I saw you with your b!tch of a mother in that hotel and after what I heard about that woman, I am certain she is the one orchestrating this.'
He glared at the phone, sighed, and look up at the ceiling.
'Out of all the nine bastards and b!tch, you are the only one proving too hard to kill. Destroying your marriage is out of the option since that would give you the opening to pursue my Beloved with no chains attached and I don't want to take any chances when you become desperate. I am tempted to expose you at your workplace but that would mean months and months of investigating and by that time, my Beloved would either be killed or find someone 'better' than me. Exposing the crimes your wife committed years ago might be a good idea but what proof do I have? I would be like that stupid Investigative Journalist who couldn't do his job right when it came to your mother-in-law."
He hummed in thought and sighed.
'I guess I have no choice but to kill you. Besides,' he shrugged, 'I am out of options on how to end things peacefully. It's a pity your children will go on without a father but you brought it upon yourself. Maybe death will teach you to be faithful to yoru wife in your next life but for now...'
The oven timer beeped and he opened the oven to a blast of heat and the smell of freshly baked pastries.
'I will work hard to win my Beloved's heart.'