Chapter 8
The darkness awakening
I’m staring at him with an unimaginable fury ruling inside me.
“Your boss? What do you mean by your boss?” I ask, and I can hear from my voice how angry I got about this situation. “And do not fucking say that you don’t wanna talk about it because it’s my life we’re talking about! I’ve been threatened, not you!”
I can’t hold myself from screaming the last part, not for how much adrenaline is settling in my blood because of the nerves that are paralysing my positive thoughts.
“Anmara…” he starts in a calm voice, taking my hands.
“Lucas, I’m not a freaking doll that needs to be protected!”
I retract my hands from his hold, and I go to the other room to dress up.
All of a sudden, I’m feeling far too exposed.
I take the first lingerie I can find, and I barely notice that it is red and extremely sexy. I put on some grey sweatpants, a red bra that was next to the lingerie, and a simple, tight, pink t-shirt.
“You can’t hurt anybody else if you start talking, so shoot!” I say to him once I get back to the room, already feeling like I’m treated too much like a child.
“I don’t know what your opinion about me is or what you thought about me before, but it’ll change if I tell you about my past. I…” he starts by saying, but a knock on the door stops him.
“We are not finished here!”
I go to open the door and almost knock over Blake, who comes with the food I don’t remember telling him to bring.
With all our drama, I forgot about the poor Blake, who is in a far greater danger than I was at the moment.
I let him in, still angry at Lucas and my short memory.
We go together into the room I was in before and close the door behind us.
Blake doesn’t say anything, but he takes off his suit jacket, and I can see on his back a device that is all over him.
And of course, the timer has to work. I freeze when I see the five-minute countdown.
4:59, 4:58, 4:57…
“Help me take it off, Lucas. I know you remember it all now. I can see in your murderous glare, so you can’t deny it,” Bake says in a distressed voice. “I don’t want us to die.”
He turns to face me and stays with his back to Lucas, who is now on his feet and much more furious than before.
“Why did he put it on you?” he asks in a voice that I can feel deep in my core.
Blake closes his eyes and puts his lips in a straight line, without wanting to face Lucas.
“Fucking answer me!” Lucas shouts abruptly, in a tone that scares the hell out of me and gives me goosebumps.
“Because he found me too, you stupid idiot! He let me believe for a full year that he lost track of me, until you came here and destroyed everything! Your plan was never going to work. We need another method to get out of this shitty situation,” Blake says with his eyes still closed and with a big frown on his forehead while breathing heavily.
“I knew that he would find us, but no, you didn’t wanna listen to me. ”
“And why do you think I’ll help you disarm the bomb? You can get pretty far in four minutes. We got your message, and you scared Anmara. You just needed to disappear!” Lucas says with pure rage in his voice.
“I would’ve loved to be a simple spectator, but I couldn’t stay put when you got her into it! Now let go of your repulsion and fucking do something!”
Blake opens his eyes when saying his last words, accentuating them.
I can’t react while Lucas growls and searches the closet.
He gets the strange device that didn’t do anything, puts it on Blake’s back, and then I hear a short sound, followed by white smoke coming out of the device.
The front part is next, opening up with a click. All in less than ten seconds.
Blake exhales with ease, quickly taking the device off him and throwing it in a corner.
“Was it that hard?” he asks, turning to face Lucas.
Lucas says something I don’t understand, some swear words in an unknown language, which seems Arabic from my vast knowledge. He then puts the device back in the closet.
I look at the two brothers, confused, waiting for an explanation. I am too involved in their discussion and I deserve an explanation.
Lucas sighs, then flies by Blake to appear in front of me. He wants to take my hands, but I hold them together against my chest before he gets the chance to.
He sighs once again, looks up at the ceiling for a moment, and then his eyes come to reach mine.
“Wake up from darkness, Anmara.”
A lot of memories appear before my eyes. The room starts spinning, and I can’t stay on my feet. I am waiting to hit the floor, but two strong arms don’t let me do that. Two voices scream my name, but the abyss surrounds me, flooded by my memories from the past.
?
I am looking at my phone and waiting. He said it was urgent. I’m already here, and he’s late. Nice one, Blake. Especially this late at night. I’m lucky with the low lighting next to the house. Otherwise, I would’ve stayed in utter blackness.
I look at the mansion ahead of me, knowing exactly where I am - at their house from childhood.
Now it looks abandoned, with the shutters closed, so I check the address once again.
The frustration gets the worst of me because I’m at the correct one, but Blake is being unpunctual.
If it was so important, he should’ve waited for me here.
I’m about to turn and leave, when I hear a strong engine getting closer. The car stops, and I see Blake getting out of the vehicle and apologising for letting me wait for him.
“You said you needed help, so I came. Save your excuses. You said you knew where Lucas may be.”
He licks his lips and looks at the house.
“Let’s go inside, and I’ll tell you,” he says, smiling. He gets to the door and unlocks it, letting me enter first. “Go upstairs. I’ll come in a second,” he says and goes to the kitchen on the right.
I start shivering, so I close the door behind me.
I look around and smile when I recognise the timeless walls, still full of the colourful paintings that faded a bit over the years.
I do have to admit that they remained really beautiful.
I go up the creaky staircase, much more curious if this house is the same as I remember than about Lucas’s situation, even though I miss him badly, and I didn’t know anything about him for three straight years.
I get to a narrow hallway with three doors. One of them is open, and I go there, already knowing that it is Blake’s bedroom, but I never got in until now. Inside, I find a sparkly clean room and a fresh set of sheets on the bed.
I also see something that immediately puts a smile on my face. A gift box with my name on it. I hear Blake’s steps getting closer, and I turn to face the door when he gets near it. My smile gets even bigger when I see the cake he holds with two candles: 1 and 8.
“Happy birthday, Anmara! Make a wish,” he says with a smile plastered all over his face.
I close my eyes for a second, remembering my awful day. A day when I felt more alone than ever, thinking about the very few people around me.
I have always dreamed of a grandiose party for my 18th birthday, but lately, I just wanted somebody to remember my birthday. That wish already came true through the man in front of me.
I open my eyes and blow out the candles. I take a bit of the whipped cream with one finger, putting some on Blake’s nose, making him laugh. He almost blinds me with his radiant, sweet smile. He puts down the cake on the nightstand, and the two blue eyes tell me to open my gift.
I sit down on the bed and get the gift box on my legs, while he takes a seat next to me. Our knees are touching, creating a little bit of electricity around us.
I push that feeling away, curious about what is inside the mysterious black box.
“I hope you’ll like it,” he winks in a sexy way, while I’m untying the big red bow, making me slightly confused at the beginning.
I open the box, taking aside the bright-red paper from the inside. What is under it takes my breath away. I didn’t expect such a gift from him. I mean, we got close since my grandfather’s funeral, becoming best friends, but this is still unexpected.
Especially after our last interaction, which resulted in a nasty fight. I haven’t spoken to him for an entire week.
I thought he had forgotten about my birthday, even more so after his last message from today, in which he said to meet at this house because he had some information about Lucas’s location. Nothing more to make me think otherwise.
It seems that he always wanted more. I have to admit that I was abstaining from kissing him many times before when he was laughing at my dry jokes. Or from wanting to jump into his arms when I saw him getting out of the gym, sweaty and toned.
I look at him, then at the present, trying to figure out if it was a joke, but from his smiling expression, I guess it’s not.
“Put it on. I’ll be back shortly,” he says, getting up and closing the door.
Inside the box is an extremely sexy set, which contains a bra, a pair of lingerie, and a semi-transparent dress with a plunging neckline. All of them are made of a delicate and soft lace. Underneath, it is a simple letter, but I feel like it holds a much deeper meaning.
Fully enjoy your life.
Live in the present, not in the past.
I know he means Lucas. I should really forget about him because of how much he disappointed and hurt me, but my child’s heart could never fully do that. But now I have Blake, and I am truly grateful for him, especially for all the time we spent together these past few years.
Besides, even though I wanted to buy something like this for a long time, I never got the courage to. The salesgirls would’ve probably given me long gazes since my face still looks like a child’s.