by Edwina Fort
However, when I pulled my phone out of my purse, I saw that I didn’t have a signal. The farther east I walked, the stronger it became. I hadn’t realized I’d gone a good distance from the ballroom till it registered to me that the music now sounded muffled.
“So, are you trying to make me jealous, showing up here with Tucker? Tucker?! Really, Free?! How low can you go?”
With my back to him, I chuckled, shaking my head. Leave it to him to think I was here with Tucker to make him jealous. The fact that he thought he could hold a flame to Naphtali was laughable.
Dear God, give me the strength.
I was getting ready to tell him to get over himself, but when I turned to look at him, he had that crazy look in his eye. Once again, he was giving off those creepy vibes, like cut my body up into little pieces and hide them under the floorboards vibes.
I looked back toward the ballroom, now regretting wandering away so far. On this end of this massive house, nobody could hear me scream.
“It’s not what you think.”
He took a step toward me and I took two back. “What? Are you going to tell me you’re not sleeping with him? I saw him kiss you. He can’t keep his hands off of you! For God’s sake, Free, he bullied you all through high school!”
The fact that he was now raising his voice was a little scary. Oh, my goodness! When did Dillion become Norman Bates? Or has he always had the tendency and I’d been too blind to see, which makes me want to examine the motives behind me not seeing it—You know what?! Now was not the time, I’ll revisit that later.
However, one thing was overwhelmingly clear, I made horrible choices when it came to men.
“I guess this explains why you haven’t returned any of my calls.”
“No, Dillion! The small fact that you left me for my sister is the reason I haven’t returned any of your calls.”
Like the lunatic he is, he shifted right in front of me and went from being a big angry man to a little pussy cat… Yep, definitely psychotic.
“But whyyyy? I told you nothing has to change between us. We can still comfort each other.”
“What!? Do you hear yourself? Did you really think I was so desperate that I would be your side chick while you wife my sister?!”
His nostrils flared as he turned back into angry man. Uh oh! Maybe I should have played it cool.
“Is it because of him you don’t have time for me, because you’re giving it all to Tucker?!”
I laughed. “Please, you know better than that. Me and the muscle brain have nothing in common. The only reason I agreed to come here is because he’d spoken to a group of children for me about the dangers of drugs, what with him working for the DEA and all.”
Dillion thought on my words and nodded. “That makes sense.” He chuckled. “For a minute, I thought you’d been abducted by aliens. The Free I knew fantasized about killing that douchebag.”
I chugged his arm playfully. “I can’t believe you thought I would actually have feelings for the guy that bullied me.”
He laughed, relaxing his shoulders a bit. And I exhaled, so glad he was buying it. If I could just get within reach of another human being, I will be okay.
“So, what about us?”
I blinked, biting my tongue to keep from cursing him out. “What about us, Dillion?”
“You know we were meant to be together. Everyone knows that. It’s always been us. I just need to stay married to Laureen for a year, and then I can divorce her and marry you.”
What-in-thee-hell? I always thought Dillion was smarter than this. But in order to get away from him right now alive, I placed a smile on my face.
“Maybe…”
He smiled. “That’s good. I can’t really talk to you here, but I’ll come by your office next week. We can do lunch…maybe we can go back to your place. I miss your honeypot.”
My honeypot??? Wow…
I opened my mouth to respond to him, but something crashed loudly down the hall. The noise caused Dillion to slink into the shadows like the creepy man he’s turning out to be. I took that as my cue to hightail it out of there.
Without looking back, I made my way back to the ballroom. As I walked down the hall, I found what the loud noise was. It looked like someone had crashed into one of the locked doors, completely shattering it. Probably somebody that had too much to drink or smoke. The smell of marijuana was so strong it was choking me.
Poor Tucker… he’s going to have to stay sober while all his friends get high. If I wasn’t so angry with Dillion, I would have found that funny. Can you guys believe that guy? When Rachel first said he was going to try and have both me and Laureen, I thought she was just being silly. Nooo…That idiot actually thought he was going to be able to have us both.
It reminded me of something Papa C always said, Baby, pimping ain’t easy, but somebody got to do it. Chuckling, I shook my head; I tell you who can’t do it… Dillion.
I weaved my way through the dancing bodies, heading toward the VIP area where Tucker now stood with a small group of his friends, that included Layla and Laureen. It was something about the way they all stood watching me approach that gave me an eerie feeling.
The smile left my face. There was something off with Naphtali, and he was smoking weed. The deadly eyes that stared at me through the smoke caused my steps to stall.
How could none of the people standing around him tell that he had changed? When he saw my response, he lifted one side of his mouth in an evil grin.
Oh My God! I couldn’t tell for sure, but I think that is his other personality. He didn’t seem as cold as when I’d saw him in high school, the day those guys came to the school to beat up Tucker. Yet, he felt different from the Naphtali I’ve been hanging out with for the last couple of weeks.
I turned to look back toward the door, thinking about making a run for it, but right then, Dillion walked through it and I quickly changed my mind.
DAMN IT! I was surrounded by predators.
“Stop being weird!” Layla yelled at me.
Of course, that caused the groupies surrounding Tucker, or who used to be Tucker to erupt in laughter. But I didn’t care, my focus was on the killer staring back at me. He casually passed the blunt he was smoking to Layla’s date.
I looked back toward the door and Dillion one more time before deciding against that direction. I hate to admit this, but I’d rather deal with the killer than the crazy mama’s boy, Norman Bates fella. At least I was still attracted to the killer.
Is that bad?
Wow! It is something wrong with that line of thought, isn’t it?
Balling up my fists, I slowly approached the Beautiful Ones and their deadly king.
“Hey,” I squeaked, coming to a stop next to Layla.
Yeah, I was being a coward. I didn’t care. No way was I standing next to that… that thing! And Layla and Laureen…the stupid fools that they are, were so focused on me, they had no idea they were no longer dealing with Tucker, at least not fully.
“Where have you been, little sister?” Layla asked with a smirk on her face that made me want to slap her. Just for that, if Tucker decided he wanted to go on a killing spree, I was going to escape and leave her dumb butt here to wonder what was happening.
His gaze felt like hot metal against my skin. It was so intense, I couldn’t look at him. I didn’t care that I was making a fool of myself. Everything about him felt deadly right now, I can’t believe they couldn’t feel it.
“I got a call from Rachel,” I told her, trying to study the entity out the side of my eye. Goodness, my grandmother would have loved to have had him as a patient, she and her Dr. Baxter, who she completely sold her soul for.
“That’s funny…Dillion disappeared too,” Layla continued. I wanted to swat her like a fly for rambling in such dangerous times.
She looked at Laureen. “Have you seen Dillion?”
Tucker’s fists balled up and the muscle started ticking like crazy in his cheek. Oh my God! He was trying to
fight it. He was trying to fight whatever it was from taking over him. Something had happened to upset him.
“You’re smoking…” I finally said, but I doubt if he heard me over the music, because I whispered it. This was scary. If he lost the battle and his other personality took over, what would it do? Stupidly, Layla and Laureen were cackling about something and didn’t have enough sense to be afraid.
He took a pull of the blunt before exhaling a mouth full of smoke. “I am.”
Oh man, guys, my heart was beating so fast. I don’t even know why I was so afraid of this other personality, besides the fact that I was positive it killed people.
“Why?” I whispered.
His gaze fell to my lips before coming back to my eyes. A shiver went through me. Death looked back at me. I gasped when he moved suddenly, circling my waist with his arm, pulling me against his hard body. Before he lowered his head, blocking them from my view, I saw Layla’s mouth pop open in appalled shock.
His lips brushed my neck and a shiver went through me so strong it took my breath. Oh my God! There was something wrong with me. No way I should be turned on by whatever it was going on with Tucker right now.
When his mouth came to my ear, my eyes drifted shut as I bit down on my bottom lip.
“You should run…”
The Bully/ Naphtali
Whenever I’m in danger, the Bully takes over my body automatically. I can’t stop it…and I can’t control it. But then there are times when I’m not necessarily in danger but have been blinded by rage when I'm neither Naphtali nor The Bully…but an equal combination of both. Our thoughts, desires, and needs combine to form one entity. I hate these times…because I enjoy them the most. And I’m always tempted to stay this way.
It’s the best of both worlds.
But I don’t ever want to be like this around Free. It’s not safe…she’s not safe. I can’t control the Bully any more than he can control me.
Why the hell are we still concerned with her safety? Let’s have her the way we’ve always wanted. Let’s devour her. I want to taste her so bad. Safety be damned!
I clutched my head, trying to shut that bastard up! Damn, Free! How could you do this to me?
"Please, you know better than that. Me and the muscle brain have nothing in common. The only reason I agreed to come here is because he'd spoken to a group of children for me about the dangers of drugs, what with him working for the DEA and all."
Her words were on repeat in my head, causing the bastard to laugh at me.
Damn right I’m laughing. You been acting like a p*ssy with this girl ever since we came back. That’s why she just played yo’ ass. You know what need to be done. Be yourself mutha f*cka, and cripple her ass. Put some sh*t on her that will make it impossible for her to ever doubt who the f*ck she belong to. Stop holding back, buddy.
“Hey, Nap, you alright man?” Koby asked. “You got a headache or something?”
I dug my palms in my eyes, trying to fight my impulses. I didn’t want to hurt Free. I didn’t want to hurt her because I love her. But she’d hurt me so deeply that there was no way the Bully was leaving until I got control of my emotions.
At first, I didn’t want to believe her chicken head ass sisters… But they wore me down.
“You’re just going to let it go like that?” one of them said. I don’t know which one it was, Laureen or Layla, sh*t they look just the f*ck alike.
I frowned at her, irritated that she was standing so close to me, when she was clearly here with my boy, Koby. “What you talking about?”
“Free… isn’t she here with you? You going to let her just creep off like that and run to her ex?”
“Beat it...” I went back to talking to Koby. But the chicken head’s words had struck a nerve. Hell yeah, I wanted to smash that bastard Dillion’s face when I saw him step off the helicopter. I hated that mutha f*cka.
In school, she always had time for him, laughed at all his jokes, ate lunch with him, did everything with his p*ssy ass! When I found out she was dating him when I got back, I wanted to drive right to his house and make his b*tch ass disappear.
I can do it…I can do that sh*t, EASILY!
But then I found out that his dumb ass had left her for one of the chicken heads and I felt like I was on top of the world. But now her sister was making it seem like my girl still loved that punk.
And it didn’t help when the other sister joined her and asked her had she seen Dillion.
“He went to the washroom about ten minutes ago. Oh! And so did Free.”
“Hey, man, I’ll be right back. Imma grab another drink,” I told Koby.
I ain’t gon’ lie. At that point, I had a bad feeling I was about to kill a mutha f*cka. My emotions were such a wreck that I could feel the Bully beating at my soul like a f*cking silverback gorilla.
That’s the only way yo’ ass hear me…
Shut up, man, Damn! I’m trying to tell the readers what the f*ck happened.
Go ‘head, sh*t. You gon’ let Free escape. Look at her over there at the bar, checking her phone for a signal. She looking for a way out. And look at that b*tch ass bartender flirting with her! If he touches her, he’s dead! She’s so sweet, Nap. We need to make our move…I want to taste!
Like I was saying, as soon as I walked out of the ballroom, I can see Free all the way down at the other end of the hall. And who do I see walking behind her? You got it! B*tch boy!
As I followed them, I tried my best to fight the rage that was flowing through my veins. I did…But by the time I got to the end of the hall, I was not alone.
“Please, you know better than that. Me and the muscle brain have nothing in common. The only reason I agreed to come is because he’d spoken to a group of children for me about the dangers of drugs, what with him working for the DEA and all,” she told him, touching the bastard’s arm.
For a moment, I saw red. It took every bit of strength I possessed in my body to keep the Bully from snapping both of their necks. Naw…I take that back. I just now realized that I love Free. That is what kept the Bully from killing her. My love.
“That makes sense.” The asshole chuckled. “For a minute, I thought you’d been abducted by aliens. The Free I knew fantasized about killing that douchebag.”
At that point, even I wanted to kill him. The only thing that held me back is the fact that the Bully’s bloodlust is unquenchable. What’s to say he would stop at Dillion and not reach for Free?
She rubbed his arm. “I can’t believe you thought I would actually have feelings for the guy that bullied me.”
“So, what about us?” ass face asked.
“What about us, Dillion?”
"You know we were meant to be together. Everyone knows that. It’s always been us. I just need to stay married to Laureen for a year, and then I can divorce her and marry you.”
What-the-f*ck?! I was pissed for her. The f*ck he think he can step to her like that? Free the kind of girl that you snatch up. You don’t let her slip through yo’ fingers…Ass face!
Maybe if I had been kinder to her, she could love me back.
Oh Damn! Would you shut the f*ck up with all this whiny sh*t? You killing me, man! This girl playing both of you goofy mutha f*ckas! She need somebody to grab her ass and let her know who the f*ck is in charge. She need somebody to f*ck her right. You two p*ssy ass niggas with all yo’ making love sh*t ain’t doing it. Can’t you see that? You need to lay it down on this girl! Make her scream yo’ name, boy!
I clutched my head, needing this nigga to shut up so I can think straight. Normally when I get like this, I just enjoy the ride. But I can’t afford to do that with Free. One mistake can cost her life. And that was a price I was not willing to pay.
“Maybe…” Free said, agreeing with his bullsh*t ass request. My heart turned cold. Her sister was right. Free was still in love with this b*tch boy.
He smiled at her and I balled up my fists, wanting to smash his f*cking face. She’s mine! How dare he sm
ile at what’s mine! For that he will die. Now just wasn’t the time.
“That’s good. I can’t really talk to you here, but I’ll come by your office next week. We can do lunch…maybe we can go back to your place. I miss your honeypot.”
Honeypot! The rage inside of me had reached a boiling point. The Bully’s voice no longer sounded human, or maybe it was mine. At this point, I lost track as to who was who.
That’s my honeypot! Nigga!
Not being able to take anymore, I turned away. Now was not the time to deal with Dillion…. Nooo… I needed to deal with Free first.
After tonight, she’ll never question who she belongs to! When I’m done with her, there will be no doubt.
The Bully was right… It was time to stop pretending!
Free
After a margarita and three shots of tequila, I had worked up enough nerve to go and find a signal. And I think, I’d worked out a plan as well to get myself down off this mountain. Once I found a signal, I will Google my location, then I will find the nearest town and go from there.
Yes, I am a little tipsy, but whatever. I was ornery enough to make it all the way to the nearest town on foot.
“One more for the road…” I told the bartender, who had also been that really nice server that made sure my wineglass stayed full.
“Anything for the prettiest girl here,” he said before he poured me another shot of tequila and slid me a lime on a beverage napkin.
“You are the best bartender in the whole world. Don’t let anybody tell you different,” I told him as I chugged my shot. I meant it…He’d sat here and listened to all of my problems while serving this rowdy bunch.
“Thank you, love. And if you don’t remember me after tonight…remember my words. Your sisters are extremely jealous of you. There isn’t a woman in here whose beauty can hold a candle to yours. When you stepped in here in that golden dress, every man, including myself was ready to lay it down for you. But then they saw who you came with and got scared. But baby…” He put his hand on his chest. “I don’t know the mutha f*cka, so I ain’t scared of him. I wish I wasn’t working. I would whisk you away right now.”