Terraformed Skies

by Anna Lewis

  “Sid.”

  She followed him to the bar, being extremely careful with her body language so that she wouldn’t give Sid the wrong impression. Even though there wasn’t anything serious between her and Andrew, it felt disrespectful to flirt with another guy in his building. She could almost feel his dominating presence over her shoulder. But she wouldn’t have anyway, not even to pass the time.

  “So, what’s your friend like?” Lori asked Sid as he handed her a glass. She figured that she might as well use this time productively while she waited. “He’s not like, a serial killer or anything, right? I just wouldn’t want to leave my friend in the arms of a psycho, you know how it is.”

  “Oh yeah,” Sid’s face was deadpan as he replied. “You meet all sorts in New York. It’s terrible, only last week I was drinking with a beautiful girl who turned out to be a diamond thief.”

  Lori laughed loudly, appreciating his joke. “You know what I mean then.”

  “Brandon is fine, a bit of a player but a good guy. I’m sure once he’s found the right girl everything will fall into place.”

  “Well, I don’t know if Rose is the right girl but I’m sure they’ll have some fun tonight…”

  Lori’s words trailed off as her phone vibrated in her hand. It was a reply from Andrew which had her heart pounding faster. Maybe tonight wasn’t going to be a total loss after all.

  ‘Groan, why do you have to look so damn good when I’ve only just gotten back from a conference? If I wasn’t half asleep I would be down there in a heartbeat, tearing that dress right off your body like I wanted to do the first time I saw you.’

  Damn it. Regret coiled through Lori’s body as she realized there was no hope. Andrew was nowhere to be found, and he wasn’t going to be.

  “Thanks for the drink, Sid, but I have to go.” She gave him a grin which he returned, clearly not bothered by her shooting him down.

  “Yeah of course, well it was nice to meet you, Lori.”

  “You too.” Maybe in another life her feelings would’ve been different, but this wasn’t another life and she needed to go home.

  She grabbed Rose and informed her that she was leaving, which she didn’t mind since she was so wrapped up in Brandon, then Lori took off home. The club was within walking distance so she didn’t bother to hail a cab. She simply stomped quickly until she was inside her apartment block where she could finally start thinking about bed and sleep. She’d been wired for fun earlier but knowing that it wasn’t going to happen meant that she could relax.

  Lori kicked off her shoes the second she got indoors and she rushed into the kitchen to pour herself a glass of water. It had been a fun night, she was grateful to have a friend in Rose, but she was glad to be home. It felt nice to be away from all those people.

  Pajamas and bed…she just couldn’t wait.

  Knock, knock.

  Lori spun around rapidly and stared at her front door, wondering who the hell that could be. Was it Andrew, surprising her in place of her shocking him? He might have guessed that she’d go home and he’d come to see her. A smile spread across her cheeks, this was awesome! All of a sudden her tiredness ebbed right away. Her body heated up and the excitement grew. At least she hadn’t put her flannel pajamas on yet.

  With a pounding, dancing heart, she stepped closer and prepared herself to let him inside.

  ***

  Buzz, buzz, buzz.

  Lori glanced desperately at her phone wishing that she could answer it. With Andrew’s name on the screen taunting her, the tug in her heart was intense.

  “Did you actually think that you could get away from me?” The unwelcome voice of her visitor dragged Lori’s gaze away from the screen. “Why would you not realize that I had a tracker on your phone? You’re mine, I would never let you escape. I only left it for so long because I thought you’d run out of steam with your tantrum and you’d come back.” His eyes flickered and flamed with rage. “But no, in the end I’ve had to come all the way to fucking New York City to drag you back.”

  Buzz, buzz, buzz. Andrew was still there, trying to get through.

  Lori’s eyes filled with tears. She couldn’t believe that her old life had caught up with her. Michael was her worst nightmare, and she never wanted to see his face again, but here he was looming over her, staring into her soul.

  They’d met in school, he seemed so perfect then. Lori had loved Mike from afar along with the rest of the girls in her year, and she was over the moon when he chose her. During all the time she had a crush on him she’d been so obsessed with his brooding dark looks that she hadn’t ever bothered to wonder what his personality was like.

  As it turned out, his personality was shit.

  Once school was done, and Mike learned that his best days were behind him he turned to drink. The alcohol led him to be nasty, which was what turned him into such a horrific shadow in Lori’s life.

  He was mean to her, then aggressive. He never hit Lori but he did cling to her, hurting her wrists, he did intimidate her to the point where she was too scared to do anything without his permission.

  He controlled her in the wrong way. Life with him was awful and there were no good points.

  “What do you have to say for yourself?” As Mike grabbed the neckline of Lori’s dress, she sucked in a panicked breath of air. This was all too familiar, but strange now too. She’d spent far too long away from him, she’d almost forgotten. “From the looks of it you’ve been whoring yourself around. I’m going to have to send you to the doctor to see how many men you’ve fucked while I’ve been waiting for you.”

  Buzz, buzz, buzz. He must’ve been worried, wondering why she wasn’t picking up.

  “I didn’t…I haven’t…” Lori’s face was soaking wet, she didn’t want to lie but she couldn’t tell the truth. If there was one thing that she’d learned from her time with Mike it was not to piss him off in anyway.

  “Don’t fucking whimper, you bitch. I will not have my woman slutting about in the city. You will come back home today. The fucking house is a state, you need to clean it.” His eye flicked over her home and the tension in his shoulders got worse when he spotted her work shirt lying on the side. “Have you been working?” Mike had old fashioned views about women, and that shone through in his words. “Is that why you haven’t come back home? Is that how you’ve afforded all of this?”

  Lori didn’t say anything as Mike stomped across the room. He grabbed her shirt, some scissors that she had left to the side and he watched her intently as he made the first cut.

  Lori visibly winced, which pleased Mike. He loved getting under Lori’s skin, it was all that he lived for. He hated every moment that he sensed her slipping away, he didn’t like the loss of power, so this gave him the adrenaline rush that he so desperately needed.

  “You don’t want to lose this?” he sneered, while making another cut. “Oh, why not? Will they fire you?” Cut, cut. “Then maybe you should just fucking give this up and you should come home where you belong.”

  “I…I can’t…” Lori was petrified of upsetting Mike, but she couldn’t go back. Not now, she’d seen a different side of life and she wanted that for herself. She loved the person she was in New York, she couldn’t give that up just because he’d found her. “I can’t, Mike,” she rasped, wishing that she could sound more confident. “I think you should leave now.”

  He dropped the shirt and scissors on the floor with a loud clatter and he got right back up in Lori’s face. Her heart hurt it was thumping so loudly, her throat stung because each breath was painful and cold, fear gripped her almost as tightly as his hand around her throat.

  Buzz, buzz, buzz.

  “I don’t know who the fuck you think you are, but you don’t ever speak to me like that. Don’t you know who I am?”

  Lori couldn’t resist, she needed to remind Mike that he had absolutely no legal claim over her. “I’m not your wife, I was your girlfriend once. Now I’m not.”

  “You aren’t?” he la
ughed mirthlessly. “You could’ve fooled me. I certainly don’t recall any break-up chat.”

  “Wasn’t me leaving you enough?” Maybe she needed to push him. Maybe that was what he needed to go.

  Buzz, buzz, buzz. The constant calls from Andrew were exactly the reminder that Lori needed to keep her strong. She might not have been able to speak to him, but he wasn’t giving up on her.

  Maybe, just maybe she could survive this after all.

  “You bitch!” Mike shoved Lori backwards until her body hit the ground with a loud bang. It hurt. Hot pain radiated over her entire body, but as he raced into her kitchen Lori knew that this was possibly her one and only chance to take action. Her cell phone had dropped earlier, and Mike was in such a blinding rage that he hadn’t seemed to hear it ringing. One answered call would be all it took for her to potentially get herself saved.

  ***

  Lori slid her body along the ground, trying her best to make absolutely no noise. Mike was ranting above her, mumbling to himself, which gave her some time to get nearer. The phone was still buzzing quietly, she needed to get there quick, but it was challenging with her body bouncing off the ground with every damn heartbeat.

  As her fingers wrapped around the cell phone and she hit answer, Lori rapidly slid it out the way so Mike wouldn’t see it and she pushed herself into a standing position. She needed to say something so Andrew wouldn’t assume that it was just a pocket answer.

  “Mike, I need you to leave,” she spoke loudly. “You’re scaring me now, and I don’t want you here. You weren’t invited. I don’t want to have to all the police.”

  “I don’t need to be invited, you belong to me.” Lori gulped, hating the way that probably sounded to Andrew. “So don’t fucking say that bullshit, and I don’t believe that you have the bollocks to call the cops. If you did, that’s what you would’ve done years ago. You wouldn’t have run away like a fucking pussy.”

  As Mike spun around, Lori screamed shrilly. He had one of her kitchen knives in his hand and a terrible glint in his eye. He’d never gone so far as to harm her before, but there was a first time for everything. All Mike seemed to care about was the control he had over Lori, and now that was gone there was no telling what he could do.

  “Mike, put the knife down,” she yelled, her eyes automatically flicking down to where the cell phone sat. Mike couldn’t see it, but neither could she. Lori had no idea whether or not Andrew was still there, she could only hope and pray. “Don’t do something stupid.”

  Mike ran his tongue teasingly down the knife, taunting her. “Do something stupid? What like put your sad little life out of its misery? Do you honestly think that it’d be a loss? No one would miss you. When was the last time your family even spoke to you?”

  That was a low blow and Mike knew it. He was the reason her family didn’t have anything to do with her anymore, and that was just the way he liked it. He drove a wedge between her and everyone else and it was almost irreparable.

  “See? No one would miss you. You’re better off dead.” He stepped closer to her, which made Lori back up. Unfortunately, it was a small room, a small apartment actually, and there wasn’t anywhere to go. She soon hit a wall which made it very easy for Mike to get too close to her. “You don’t even like your life, do you? You would probably prefer to be dead, right?”

  “It’d be better than being with you.”

  The knife grazed her cheek. Mike wasn’t fucking around. She probably shouldn’t have said that. Then again, if Lori was about to die then she wanted to ensure that she got her point across first. He tugged it until it cut her a little, and as the blood dripped down Lori’s cheek the panic intensified.

  She’d imagined her death at the hands of Mike a million and one times, but ever since she’d escaped her home she didn’t think about him. Trust that to be the time that he fully came at her.

  “You think you have any control over yourself?” Mike whispered into Lori’s ear. His breath on her skin made her feel violently sick to her stomach. If only Mike hadn’t locked the door and taken the key, she could’ve made a run for it. “I will always have control over you.”

  Lori squeezed her eyes shut, remembering all the times that wasn’t true; at work with the job that she’d gotten herself, at the bar when she had a drink with Sid, with Andrew when he was inside of her, with Andrew and Christopher, when they sent her body to another level.

  Mike could claim control over Lori all that he wanted, that didn’t make it the truth.

  “Mike, please just leave, it doesn’t need to end like this.” Lori tried to keep a strength to her voice but it was hard when her life was on the line. She was afraid that any minute now she would end up agreeing to go back with him just to keep herself alive. “Let’s just leave it here. People break up all the time, it doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “People like you don’t break up with people like me.” He pulled her hair and smirked when she cried out in pain. “You are an ugly bitch, a boring cow, a horrible twat. I am a fucking God. Did you see me in high school? Every slut wanted a taste of my cock.”

  High school…back to the best years of his life. It was a shame high school was such a short time. Now he had the rest of his future living as a shadow of his former greatness.

  “I don’t know why I picked you. I’m still not sure what drew me to you. Obviously, I was fucking blind. I could’ve had Courtney Spahl and I picked you. Fucking idiot.”

  “She might still want you,” Lori whimpered desperately. “Why don’t you find out?”

  And that was the moment that a blow came to the side of her head. Lori grabbed her ear, a hot pain radiating through her entire skull. Now that Mike had taken that step, she knew that he intended to kill her. This was no threat, this was real.

  This could be the day that she actually died.

  With that revelation, her heart fell out from her shoes and she collapsed to a heap on the ground. She couldn’t fight anymore, not when it was a battle that she had no chance of winning.

  This was it, it was over.

  ***

  With one giant bang the wooden door to her apartment shattered into a million pieces. Lori ducked her head lower, expecting it to be someone else helping Mike. She’d accepted defeat now, it was difficult to get her head out of that mindset.

  “Stop right there.”

  Lori only glanced up when she heard a gun cocking. Maybe this was the cops, maybe they’d somehow found out what was going on. But it wasn’t. It was two faces that she knew well.

  Andrew? Christopher?

  It seemed that Andrew had heard her yelling through the phone and he’d instantly leapt into action. This touched Lori deeply, she couldn’t believe how lucky she was. He didn’t have any obligation to help her, and it was wonderful that he had. That they both had.

  “Who…who the fuck are you?” Mike’s entire demeanor changed as he was faced with a man. Two men. He reverted to a small child, it was almost laughable if Lori hadn’t been so scared.

  “You don’t get to ask the questions,” Andrew snarled angrily back. “We’re the ones with guns. The way I see it you don’t have a fucking leg to stand on. So, we’ll ask questions and you’ll answer like a good little boy.”

  Mike’s lips clamped together, he didn’t know what to say. It was oddly cathartic for Lori to see him so shut down.

  “Who are you?” Christopher demanded.

  “I’m…Lori’s boyfriend.”

  “No, you aren’t.”

  “Ex-boyfriend.”

  “What are you doing here?” The questions fired off like bullets.

  “I’ve come to bring Lori home.”

  “And you need a knife for that?”

  Mike dropped the knife to the ground. “I wasn’t…I wouldn’t…”

  “Don’t fucking whimper. It’s pathetic.”

  Andrew moved closer to Mike and he pressed the gun up against his temple. Lori sucked in a deep, panicked breath. She didn’t want to see Andr
ew kill Mike, even if it would get him out of her life for good. He’d end up in so much trouble, it’d just be too messy.

  “So now what you’re going to do is this. You’re going to turn around, you’re going to go back home. You will delete any contact details that you have about Lori and you will forget her. If I ever hear that you’re anywhere near her again you will die.”

  Mike glanced at Lori and the sight of her enraged him tenfold. He puffed up his chest and switched things up again. “And who the fuck are you? One of the men that my girlfriend has been whoring herself around with? Or maybe she’s had both of you.”

  Lori couldn’t help it, her face flamed as Mike got too close to the truth for comfort. She didn’t like what she’d shared with these men to be turned into something seedy and disgusting.

  “Maybe she has had both of us,” Christopher snapped back. “Maybe one man just wasn’t enough for her. After you she obviously needed something to excite her.”

  Mike didn’t know what to do, he wasn’t sure if this stranger was telling the truth. The shock caused him to open and close his mouth a few times, making him look like a goldfish.

  “You’re going to fuck off now,” Andrew continued on his one-man intimidation trail. “I fucking mean it, do you understand?”

  Mike showed his true colors. Yellow cowardice flew from him as he nodded pathetically. Lori wasn’t sure if he was just saying it to shut these guys up or if he actually meant it, but she breathed a sigh of relief to know that at least he was going now.

  She stood up and moved into her bedroom, needing some space from the situation. The guys could deal with Mike now, she didn’t want to see what was going to happen next, she just needed it done. All she wanted to do was collapse on the bed, but she couldn’t sleep here. Her front door had been destroyed. She would have to use the little bit of cash that she had saved to stay in a hotel until it was sorted somehow.

  With a deep sigh, Lori grabbed a bag and started tossing random items into it. She couldn’t believe all that had happened today, it’d been the longest damn day of her life.