The red-eyed monster
A series of murders against young and innocent's women put in check the police and the society. Without clues or any links to lead the police to the whereabouts of this cruel monster, can Hinata Hyuga be saved in time before her name join the list of the victims of the so call red-eyed demon?
Disclaimer: Naruto and its characters don't belong to me, but Masashi Kishimoto.
Sorry for my english, it's the first time I write in english. I beg your pardon for my grammar errors.
Chapter IV
Hinata had experienced many embarrassing moments in her life, most of them when she was a teenager, when feeling slighted was a common sensation in her day to day. She had thought that college was going to give her the perfect opportunity to put aside that painful past and appreciated herself, and be appreciated, by what she was, but that did not happen.
Never had she thought, even for a second, that after all her words of support, that she was going to put aside the shell of the shy Hinata to wear the mask of a stronger woman, that also in college the nightmare of being besieged, insulted and hurt would attack her again, and in the same way as it had happened during her high school years.
At the same moment that Sakura had showed to her those shocking pictures, she had knew that something terrible would happen because of them, but what had happened was worst of what she had imagined. As they were published in certain known social network, the photographs spread like powder through all the university. There was no one who did not have the graphic reproductions in their respective smartphones, so the images became viral; and since, and since, unlike the high school, the academy was bigger and most populated, the news echoed more than what she liked.
If until then Hinata's university life had been almost a paradise, in a few hours it had transformed in a total hell.
The short relationship she had had with her new boyfriend was the first thing that broke. The young woman had heard with the eyes full of tears his refusal of being in a relationship with a person as false as her (resolution he had taken after the matter with the photos became viral).
There was no place where the Hyuga could go without being insulted and abused by any person she found in her way. Go to class, return to her residence or visit the library were painful activities for the young woman; and even though she covered her ears and closed her eyes, she could not stop perceiving the lewd comments and the railleries directed against her.
"Hey, beautiful! I have a "friend" that want to play with you!"
"Anytime you like you can go to my room, baby doll, and we can have a little fun!"
The harassment was such oppressive that Hinata, who normally liked to study and acquire knowledge, seriously had begun to think to lock herself in her room and never more show her face in the campus.
But she had to admit that everything was very confusing. She knew that the one who was in the pictures having sex with that group of male was not her, but how could she really prove that if the woman in the photos looked so much like her? Even she was confused; and she found difficult to defend herself under such incriminating evidence.
The same confusion had taken over her friends. No one who really knew Hinata could seriously think that she was the one who was in the pictures, but still their convictions were not so strong to take her out of the threshold of doubts. The only people that truly supported her in those dark moments were Ino and Sakura, and this one had drawn Sasuke to the group of the convinced one of the innocence of the young woman. He had joined in the defense of the Hyuga more for blood issues than of being sure of her guiltlessness: for an Uchiha family was the most important thing, and it would be defended no matter the sin it had committed.
"We believe in you", Sakura said an afternoon after class, when the four of them were gathered in the residence Hinata shared with her friend.
Even though at the beginning Sakura had been surprised, even hurt, the first time she had seen the photographs, soon she had confessed that regardless how imposing the proofs were she was sure that Hinata was incapable of doing something like that (she knew her friend was not of that kind of person that like publicity; if Hinata had had sexual relations it was more than logical that she was not going to publish her intimacies in the internet).
"The important matter here is to demonstrate your innocence", Ino said. "Whoever did this to you really wanted to make you to suffer. Can you think of someone who wants to hurt you?"
Hinata could have brought to her mind in the past many names, the names of the people that had teased her without end in high school. But in college she had not won the enmity of anyone, at least she knew. Who could wish her bad?
The only person she could think was Patrick, and his promise that he would make her pay for not letting him have sex with her. But the remembrance of her ex-boyfriend brought the interest of her friends, so Hinata told against her the secret that until then she had kept so furiously locked in her heart. As expected, the tempers of the three that were listening to her grew up, especially Sakura, who, with her fists rose in the air, promised to make that damn Irish to pay for almost rape her friend.
It took a long time before Sakura's fury decreased. Sasuke was trying to calm her when Ino said:
"If we accept that this damn Patrick uploaded the photos to the net, we have to prove it. If we do it, we even can charge him for defamation."
"But how we will do it?" Hinata asked.
"Actually is pretty easy. We just have to look for the internet direction from where the photos were uploaded to the net and demonstrate it match with Patrick's direction", the blonde answered, as if what she was explaining were the most natural thing in the world.
"Are you talking about to hack or hire a hacker to do that?" Sasuke asked. "If that is what you are talking about, we have to do it within the biggest legal framework. If we go to the police with information taken by force they can put us in jail."
"And what do you suggest?" Ino asked.
Sasuke scratched his chin before answering, frowning with a reflective aspect.
"The first thing we have to do is to see a lawyer. Since I suppose you do not want that uncle Hiashi know about this", he said, looking at Hinata; she shook her head at such horrific possibility, "I suppose that my father would not mind if I hire the services of one of the lawyers of the family. Then we have to do what the lawyer says. Denounce this Patrick, or anyone who had uploaded the photographs, of defamation is a good idea, but if we do not advise well we could spoil everything."
The three women accepted that what the man had said was the most correct decision to follow.
"Also, we always can break the face of that Patrick. He will see what happen with the people that hurt my friends!" Sakura exclaimed.
"Later, darling, later", her boyfriend said in a comforting tone.
Hinata had begun to feel a glimmer of hope in all that despair; but what Sasuke confessed to her in that moment ignited a small flame in her heart:
"Naruto does not know anything about this. That silly does not even know how to use his smartphone; but it is better in this way, do not you think? I will make sure that he does not know what is happening."
"Thank you", the young woman said.
Knowing that Naruto was not still aware of the terrible things happening to her made her very happy. Even though Hinata had confidence in the judgment of the blond, it would be horrible if by the misconduct of someone her relation with the Uzumaki would get hurt.
Meanwhile, with her friends, she had begun to walk through the first steps to demonstrate her innocence, and in that way clean her name, Hinata discovered with horror how far had arrived the impact of the pictures when her younger sister contacted her. Hanabi, even though she was very impressed, entrusted immediately in the guiltlessness of her older sister, and promised her that she was going to put all of herself so Hiashi could not know what was happening. Hinata thanked her with her eyes full of tears, in one hand thankful with her relative for her support, and in the other for helping her to keep her father out of this. She had barely won the trust of her progenitor; the worst thing that could happen was that he to learn about the pictures, in spite of their falseness.
But Hinata did not only count with the support of Sakura, Ino, Sasuke and Hanabi. It would have been really heartbreaking to lose Krupal's confidence for such misdeed committed against her, but even though the man had learned the juicy rumor circulating the college without end, he believed firmly in Hinata's innocence.
He showed to her how much he trusted her an afternoon, during a class in which Hinata felt especially tired and sick, with the increasing sensation that she was going to pass out at any moment. While she was being assisted by Sakura, some seats ahead of her one of the woman of the group of Krupal's fan girls said with a mocking tone:
"I am sure she is tired of doing so much oral sex to so many men!"
Her words reverberated in the whole room, causing the gabble of ones and the laughs of others; but in the moment the classroom became a real hotbed, the onomatopoeia of a hit was heard everywhere. Krupal was standing in front of the desk of the woman who had talked and had crashed the palm of his hand against the surface in a fierce and resounding blow. His eyes were sparkling with anger; and everyone who saw him got scared.
"I want this to be the last time that someone says in this classroom comments such perverse as what was just heard! If I listen to you speaking in this manner again, I will tell the rector, do you understand?" he said to the woman, making her nod firmly, while she shook from head to toe. "And this goes for every one of you!" Krupal added, addressing to the rest of the classroom.
The entire classroom remained in the most resounding silence.
Then he came closer to Hinata.
"Are you okay?" he asked, while he put his hand in her forehead. "You have some fever. Do you not prefer to lie down in your room for a while? I can accompany you."
Hinata was reluctant at first: she did not want to leave the class.
"Do not worry, go", Sakura said to her. "After class, I am going to pass to you my notes."
Between the comforting words of Sakura and Krupal, after some seconds she decided to accept the man's invitation. While she picked up her belongings, Krupal informed professor Blunt about what was happening. Then he returned with Hinata to escort her out of the classroom; and no one, not even a single person, dared to show the slightest expression of amazement.
Hinata soon discovered with admiration and happiness that it was a clear advantage having the trust of the red-eyed man. It was just enough for Krupal to nail a furious look against anyone who ventured to say a dirty word to Hinata for that person to think twice before opening it mouth. For the first time since the matter of the photographs had begun, the young woman arrived to her residence without receiving a malicious comment against her.
Once in her residence, Hinata lay down in her bed by Krupal's instructions, closing the eyes with tiredness, but also with certain pleasure sensation while the man wet her face with a towel drenched with cold water. When he put the cloth over her head, the malaise of moments ago began to disappear slowly, but progressively.
But when she was feeling better, Krupal inquired her about what was happening, and a small amount of pain returned over her. Hinata hardly (because she feared losing the friendship of the teacher as soon as he knew the truth) told him what was going on. She was surprised upon learning that Krupal was in knowledge of what was happening more than what she had supposed.
"I heard about the photos and saw them", he said. "Really, anyone who believes that the woman in the pictures is you is crazy."
Hinata's eyes sparkled when she heard that Krupal firmly believed that the woman in the photographs was not her. Led by the curiosity, she asked him how he was so sure of her innocence, and he answered that by strong and logical reasons. First, he trusted in her account of the facts. She herself had said to him that Patrick and she had not had anything serious, as well with her last boyfriend. Second, the woman in the pictures never showed her eyes, covering them herself or hidden them by the physiognomy of her lovers. If the person who had wished her ruin really wanted to destroy her, he or she would have sought that there were no doubts about Hinata's identity. Why the woman that appeared in the photos covered the only thing that would link her definitely to Hinata?
"You have told me that it was a hereditary and unique trait in your family to have the eyes like you. That woman always covered her eyes. Why? Simply because if she had shown them it would be clear as water that you and she were two completely different persons."
She had to admit that Krupal was right; and she mentally registered the detail: it could be very useful to tell that to the lawyer Sasuke had promised to hire to help her clean her name.
"And what are you planning to do? In the case that really this Patrick, as you say, was the one who has ridden this circus", Krupal asked.
"Some friends and I realized that if really is him the one who is harming me we can charge him for defamation. Sasuke, do you remember him?, the boyfriend of my friend Sakura", Randhawa nodded. "He promised to hire one of the lawyers that works for his family. He said, and I agree with him, that we have to see the lawyer before following an action plan."
"That is a great idea. I will be also happy to help you in anything I can do. If you need my help, you just have to tell me."
Hinata thanked him for his desire of helping her.
A few days after this event, Sasuke informed her that the matter with the lawyer was ready. The head of the Uchiha family, his father, had suspiciously accepted the request of his son, who had tried keeping the most amount of detail aside for the sake of Hinata. He said that the lawyer wished to see her the next day.
The lawyer hired by the black-haired was as Hinata imagined: a human being intelligent and cold, who, as a raven in the dark, surely must been waiting patiently for his opportunity to help to get out of the mud to an Uchiha.
When the young woman informed him of what had happened, the man rose with the tip of one of his fingers the square glasses framing his shrewd eyes, and said:
"The idea of to electronically intervene in the account of this man is not a bad idea, but, as mister Uchiha pointed out, it must be done within a legal framework. Actually you can employ the services of hackers that work directly to the police and that are endorsed by them."
"I can handle it", Ino said.
"But it would be even more beneficial to obtain a confession from the subject", the lawyer continued. "If this man admits that it was him who has sought to defame miss Hyuga, it will serve more than any proof brought by a hacker."
"I will make him speak!" Sakura said, raising her fists.
"The confession must not be taken by force", the lawyer warned.
"Then, how can we obtain it?" Hinata asked.
"You can set a trap against him and record the exact moment in which he confesses his crime. I will make it to look as legal as possible before the judge."
Hinata thought that the lawyer had a spectacular cold blood; for what she knew about her Uchiha relatives, the man had absorbed very well the customs for which the powerful family was so recriminated.
"Once the proofs are gathered, I need that two of you, if you have twenty-one years old or more, to sign a letter ensuring that you trust and represent miss Hyuga faithfully. Miss Hyuga is still under-age, and opening a trial for an under-age is more difficult than for an adult."
Sakura and Sasuke pledged to it.
In the moment they were leaving the room where the reunion had taken place, Hinata remembered the conclusion that Krupal had made respect to the woman who was in the photos. She told it to the lawyer and he smiled with a sharp smile.
"That is an excellent point, miss Hyuga, and it will help you very much in your favor."
During the next days the four of them gathered to trace an action plan. Sasuke guaranteed to put how many money was needed. Ino had a friend whose father had an acquaintance who worked in the local police department, and who could help her to find a hacker approved by the police to make the dirty work. Meanwhile Sakura and she would take care of getting the confession from Patrick.
Hinata could not think any good excuse to come closer to her ex-boyfriend after everything that had happened between them. Her relationship with him had not finished in good terms; and even though she wanted to ask him the reason, if it was really him the culprit of what was happening, of his decision to ruin her life, she was not sure to want to see again Patrick.
Since the last time they had spoken with the lawyer, Sakura accompanied her everywhere with a recorder in her pocket. Her friend assumed that any time they could encounter Patrick, and when they did it she was going to be ready to record his confession. But the campus was a big place, and even though the redhead studied the same career of Sasuke and Ino, finding him was almost a feat. Hinata only had two or three chances to get a glimpse of him, but as soon as she turned around to tell Sakura about the sighting, he disappeared. How they could reach Patrick without him suspected he was being subject to a trap?
And suddenly Sakura had the best idea that her mind altered by the rage could elaborate. They would seek for Patrick with the excuse to give him an alleged beating for finding out that he had tried to rape Hinata, and she was going to give him such a fright that she was sure the words would come out of his mouth by their own. She had confessed that while bending her right arm, clenching her fist, making that the muscles of her arms were seen in a threatening way, and Hinata, despite her, felt little sorry for Patrick.
Carry on the plan took a few days, but when they finally found Patrick, Sakura turned on the recorder she had in her pocket and launched herself over the redhead in a threatening way. For more far-fetched than it seemed, the strategy worked out.
"You dirty damn Irish!" Sakura shouted out while grabbing Patrick by the shirt collar, shaking her fist in front of his face. "You are going to find out what happen to the people who mess with my friends!"
"Let me go, you bitch! I am going to incriminate you for violence! My family has money!" Patrick exclaimed with a frightened voice.
Hinata tried not to laugh from the hideout in which she was observing the scene. After everything Patrick had done to her, seeing him suffer was funny.
Sakura shook him without giving him rest, forcing Patrick to become every second more nervous. In the moment she mimicked nailing all the force of her fist against his face, he asked her to stop. He exclaimed that she could go to hell, that Hinata had deserved to be raped by him for being a bitch, and that he had done even more, making she looked as the whore she was with the help of some friends. When Sakura asked him what he had meant by that, he confessed that he had participated in the matter of the photographs: he had hired a prostitute to represent Hinata and took photos of her with his friends in different sexual position, and then that he had uploaded them to internet. Poor Patrick! He had confessed everything and without knowing that he was being recorded. The only thing that hindered the moment was when Sakura, in a real rage, hit his face hard, breaking his nose.
"He attacked me and I had to defend myself", Sakura said a few hours later when she, Patrick, Hinata and Sasuke were in the rector's office.
The university rector, a woman of early forties named Vivian Williams, observed Sakura as if she could not believe her foolishness.
"She is lying!" Patrick exclaimed, who had received emergency treatments in the college infirmary and now had an ugly plaster supporting his broken nose.
"Mister O'Beirne is from an important family", the rector said thickly, making honor to the comments that said that she praised highly the students from richest families over the others, and since Patrick met this requirements and Sakura did not it could be guess well enough to where the scales were leaning.
"Sakura is my girlfriend and I will not allow that this dirty whippersnapper, who has hurt her, continue harming her", Sasuke said with cold voice.
And Vivian Williams's balance of riches changed from direction as quickly as it had decided to support Patrick. The Uchiha family could control the whole world if they wanted, and the rector was that kind of woman who valued such power.
The main proof was ready. When the lawyer who was representing Hinata received the recording from the young women he looked very happy.
"We just need to make a few tweaks to make it look anything but aggressive. Let it in my hands", he continued, winking.
Hinata reinforced her opinion about him. That man was a lawyer without scruples.
Ino came with the rest of the proofs the next day. The harvesting had been successful: not only had the hacker she had hired found out that the IP direction from where the pictures had been published was the same of Patrick's computer (the idiot had uploaded the evidence, that would serve to incriminate him once they were exposed, from his own computer), but also had found the name of the woman who appeared in the photos, as well as the names of Patrick's friends who had helped him build the farce.
"This is excellent", the lawyer said while he studied the evidence Ino had gave him. "With this we have enough to build a good case for defamation and make mister O'Beirne to pay a good sum of money."
"I do not need the money, only that my name remain clean and the pictures that are circulating in the internet to be deleted", Hinata said.
"We will obtain everything you wish, miss Hyuga, but money is also important", the lawyer said. "At least you can donate it if you do not want to have it."
Hinata accepted the proposition.
"Give me some weeks to organize all this and we will begin the trial", the lawyer continued.
"If we win the case I will tell my father about your excellent job", Sasuke said, shaking hands with the man.
The lawyer retired; and for the first time since all that trouble had begun, Hinata felt the tranquility that the hope that everything was going to be fine produced.
The last months of the year poked their noses in the calendar, and the university had begun to cover with cold weather and the promise of the coming winter. Everything appeared to go back to normality. Hinata had a way to clean her name. People looked like they had forgotten about the scandal of the photographs, because she did not receive any obscene comment while she walked through the campus. Even she had recovered the happiness to focus on her studies; and when she reunited with Krupal in that very moment when she was so happy that he said to her with emotion:
"You look much better!"
Really Hinata felt very happy. She had survived the wave of horror that had attacked her life and she had done it unhurt. Could something bad occur now when everything was improving? She thought she had received enough grief, that she had tolerated her share of pain.
But she was terribly wrong.
One of the things that characterized Naruto was always being late to what was going on. Until then the blond Uzumaki had kept away from the social networks and had escaped unscathed of the obscene photographs, but either by causality or because someone had led him to make that decision, when everything looked good for Hinata, he found out the horrible reality which had been orchestrated against the Hyuga. And what he saw did not cause him the slightest dash of humor.
Everyone who knew him knew how annoying he could be upset. The Uzumaki's fury was famous in the world; and Sakura was the one who had to pay with it. One day, after the classes finished, Hinata had been away from her with the excuse to go to the bathroom, leaving the pink-haired alone. When Naruto approached her, there was not a person in the university that would not have heard the conversation – if that could be called a conversation – which the two had maintained.
"Can you explain what the hell this is?!" Naruto cried out, out of control, almost smashing against Sakura's face the screen of his smartphone.
At the beginning Sakura did not say anything, completely impressed.
"How…? How did you hear about it?" the woman asked, surprised.
"It is not important how I hear about this! What really important is that you tell me if this one who appear in the photos is Hinata or no!"
As the tempers of the Haruno had been tested for so many days, she resisted very badly the shouting of the blond. She answered, crying out too:
"Do you really think that she is Hinata?! You are a moron if you think like that! Someone made a trap and wanted to make see like the one who is in the photos was Hinata!"
"To me she looks a lot like her!"
"I always thought that this girl had a perverse side inside her", Vanessa added, Naruto's girlfriend, who, behind him, extolled everything her lover said nodding with her head.
"Respects Hinata, you damn bitch!" Sakura shouted.
"Do not insult Vanessa!" the Uzumaki demanded.
Hinata had come out of the bathroom in the same time Naruto and Sakura exchanged those words. Shy, she hid behind a wall, not sure to want to face the Uzumaki's rage. But no wall could protect her of the next comment the man would throw to the air:
"Maybe I was wrong to think that Hinata continued being the sweet girl I met in school! Now I realize that she is one of the heap, one of those whores you can find everywhere!"
The immediate second those words escaped from Naruto's mouth, Hinata's heart broke into million pieces. How he could? The love of her life had insulted her in a horrible way! The love of her life had hurt her with the most deadly knife nobody until then had stabbed in her chest! Why Naruto, among all the people, was the one who had done her more damage? She felt as a part of her had stopped existing.
While her face became full with bitter tears, through all the campus was heard the slap Sakura gave to Naruto. If it had not been for the intervention of Sasuke, the woman would have continued inflicting damage to the other man. She was in a rage, and writhed like a furious animal between her boyfriend's arms, at the same time she had a finger extended to Naruto and was insulting him:
"You will regret your words, you damn bastard! I thought you had brain, but I was wrong! You can go to the damn hell, Naruto, you and your stupid girlfriend! Do not ever come near me or Hinata! Do you understand, you moron?! Because if you do it, I will kill you, I swear I will do it!"
Hinata had her mind confused between so much pain, but one only thought was crossing through her brain with insistence: get out of there. Trying to pick up what little remained of her, she ran away as soul pursued by the devil, without seeing where she was going, without worrying about what the others would think watching her in that state.
Since she was running without seeing where she was going it was not a surprise that her steps took her to crash against someone, and the person with whom she had struck was nothing less than Krupal.
For the first time since she had met him Hinata felt ire against the man. If it was not for Krupal and his brilliant idea to encourage her to find a lover what had happened with Naruto would have never happened!
"This is your entire fault! This is your entire fault!" she exclaimed achy, desperate, striking with all the force of her fists the strong chest of the man.
At the beginning she had begun to hit hard, but then the frequency and the force of the blows she was directing against Krupal's chest were slowing, until moments later Hinata was hugging firmly his body, and began to cry desperate, wetting with her tears the man's shirt. Krupal sustained her alongside him, letting her cry.
Some minutes later Sakura came closer to her. Her face was completely red because of the rage. Hinata separate herself from Krupal to go to hug her friend.
"Did you have to hear it all, did you not?" Sakura said with preoccupation in her voice, while she caressed Hinata's hair in a heartwarming way.
"I am very sorry", Sasuke said, who was behind his girlfriend. "I did not know he had known the truth."
"Surely was that bitch of Vanessa who showed him everything", the pink-haired exclaimed.
"Can someone explain to me what is going on?" Krupal asked, bringing over him the attention of the couple.
Sakura promised him she was going to explain what was happening, but she preferred to do it in not such public place. She decided to tell the professor what had happened in the residence the two friends shared.
Hinata, either by the pain or for the tiredness that had caused her all the misfortunes she had experienced, had rested so strongly on Sakura's shoulder that she was about to reach the floor because of the weight. As much as they called her by her name, she did not respond to any call. Krupal offered to carry her. The man lifted her until she was resting in his strong arms, and Hinata, as reflexively, hugged his neck, surrounding it with her two hands. That was the last thing she remembered doing before she fell asleep.
During two weeks Hinata did not move from her room. Naruto had achieved with his awful words something that none of whom had despised her before had obtained: he had taken her will to live. By more than Sakura tried to take her out of her room, by more than Ino ordered her to remount again on the train of life, by more than Krupal sat down beside her and whispered words of support to her ear while caressing her hair, Hinata had lost all desire to move forward. Neither the good news of the lawyer, that the trial against Patrick would be held in a pair of weeks, could provide her a moment of joy.
She had been insulted many times, slighted, taken by less, but never had it been a person as important to her as Naruto. In spite that during a month she had done anything more than try to erase momentarily of her mind what she felt for the man, Hinata had never stopped loving him. Even though he had moved forward and had given his heart to another woman, she did not stop loving him. In many aspects he was her reason of being as she was. He was her example of life, from who Hinata had felt from an early age the happiness of living. He was the first person who had given her his friendship, the first love she had had in her life, and still had. And in just one minute all that had been ruined, trampled mercilessly and thrown in the trash.
Hinata would have never expected that the love of her life would be the one who caused her more damage, but it had been so. Why none of the people who wanted the cheer her up could see how much her heart was broken? How was that the people that desired to see her smile had not the cure for the pain she was feeling?
But with whom she was angrier, even more than with Naruto, was with Krupal. Maybe she was being unfair accusing the man for something he had not done, since Krupal was not to blame for what Patrick had done, but she could not take out of her mind that nothing that had happened would happened if it was not for the man.
It had been Krupal who had incentivized her to find a boyfriend, that her life did not have to rotate around Naruto, and if someone had to see for her happiness was her. If she would have never listened to his advice nothing would have happened. Maybe Hinata would continue having her heartbroken seeing as the Uzumaki followed a path different of the one where she was, but Naruto would have never insulted her as he had done. Krupal was largely the culprit of what had happened.
She hinted that conclusion one night, when Krupal had visited her. Sakura had gone out to have dinner with Sasuke (after much insisting of her part to ask her to accompany them, and many negative from her part, she had left her alone), so surely Krupal had considered a good idea to get together with her, but what he found was a Hinata flatly denied of his presence.
"Maybe you should leave", she said in a sulky, hurtful tone, very rare in her.
"Is that what you really want?" the man asked, surprised by her attitude.
"Yes! How do you dare to show up here after everything you have done?! It was you who incited me to be bolder, to stop seeing as my life rotates around Naruto! And now he hates me!"
Hinata felt much better with herself after she had released all those angry words, but after some minutes her happiness turned into astonishment. She knew how felt to have the heart broken into million pieces after some harsh words, but she had never thought to see that same symptoms in another person, and more that she was the cause of that expression. As soon as the declaration of her ire had reached Krupal's ears, the man's face had overshadowed, and a manifestation of pain seized his striking red eyes.
"I… Forgive me for hurt you so bad", the man said with a hurt tone that harmed Hinata profoundly. "Maybe I should go out of here…"
He got up from the armchair in which he was sitting, that was beside Hinata's bed, and began to walk away with his head down; but in the moment he had put his hand in doorknob, the young woman stopped him, embracing the chest of the man that almost had been about to leave her life, perhaps forever.
"I am sorry!" she moaned between tears. "Forgive me for what I said to you! Please, forgive me!"
They stayed like that for a while, without in the room was listened nothing but the crying of Hinata. The young woman began to worry seriously that with her words she had hurt the good relation she had with the professor. How could she be so stupid to say to him all that horrible things?! Certainly Krupal had encouraged the curiosity in her, but he had never met Patrick before she had spoken about him; it had not been he who had presented Patrick to her. Hinata had experienced a series of unfortunate events in which Krupal had not intervened at all; and now, because of her great stupidity, she had insulted the man only for the pain Naruto had occasioned to her.
But in the moment she least expected Krupal smiled to her, and Hinata's eyes sparkled as a night sky studded with stars.
"How can I be angry with you?" the man said with a sweet voice.
Hinata had never heard words so beautiful in her life.
Krupal left her for a moment to embraced her again, now both surrounding the back of the other. Hinata had not stopped crying, so she had put her face against the man's chest, and he, releasing one of his hands, had begun to caress her hair and face with soft movements. The Hyuga admired his courage to touch her hair, because since various days, motivated by her desire of not wanting to continue with her life, she had stopped washing it, and now it was matted and greasy.
She was so focused in this thought that she had not notice the moment in which Krupal had put his lips on hers. That kiss was different of the one they had the first time, with the excuse of his part to teach her how a real kiss felt. This time their mouths stayed together, motionless, only concentrating in the feeling.
As suddenly it had happened, Krupal separated his mouth from her, with an ashamed expression.
"I am sorry!" he exclaimed.
Hinata shook her head, to show that there was nothing to regret.
"I behave in a really stupid way when I am near you", he said, scratching his head. "Sometimes I feel like I am not as me when I am with you. You make me feel something… special…"
The young woman's cheeks turned red immediately. Krupal's confession had taken her by surprise; and even she had identified perfectly the symptoms the man was describing, because she had felt them firsthand. Was it possible that Krupal was feeling something for her that did not belong to a simple friendship?
What he said then surprised her:
"Why do not we go out? The night is beautiful; and it is time for you to see the world."
"But it is not too late?" Hinata asked with a nervous tone, watching the clock.
It was a little more of eleven o'clock.
"Does it matters? It is Sunday and the night is beautiful. Nothing is going to happen to you, I swear, and we will be back here before someone can miss you. Some weeks ago I have found a small café that has the most delicious cinnamon rolls I have ate in my life. When I retired from there I said to myself: "Surely Hinata will like this place"; and now I am asking you to accompany me. Will you reject my invitation?"
As soon as Hinata heard the words "cinnamon rolls" her mouth began to water. That was one of her favorite sweets; besides, the lack of food of the recent days took its toll in that moment. She accepted with pleasure the invitation of Krupal.
He got out of the room to let her prepare. Hinata returned to life in that instant. She came out from the shower rejuvenated, and when she put on the clothes that identify her so much, after submitted herself of dressing week after week of in the way Ino had proposed, she felt again as her.
When she came out of the room she said with happiness to Krupal:
"I am ready!"
Krupal took her to the café, which he had talked, in his car. After more than two months studying there, Hinata had never been interested in what was outside college walls. She marveled with all that small world had to offer beyond the campus. Night clubs, cafeterias, concerts halls, libraries, parks, outdoor presentations, restaurants of all kind, there were for all tastes and needs; and she promised to herself that henceforth she was going to take advantage off her weekends to go out to have fun in those places that offered to college students some hours of pleasure after the stress of the studies.
The café which Krupal had talked was a place extremely beautiful. It had an air that remembered the restaurants of the seventies, and all inside it had a theme of the era.
Instead of stay there to savor the promised sweet and have a good time, Krupal convinced her of ordering to carry and enjoy the meal in a place he swore she was going to find spectacular; so Hinata ordered a tea and the man a coffee, with a paper bag full of cinnamon rolls.
They went back to the car, and Krupal took her even further, where the hubbub of the city began to be behind them and everything was transforming into growing green. When he stopped the vehicle, the car was parked in a sort of natural terrace, covered it all with a layer of greenish splendor.
"We just have to climb a little, and you will see how beautiful is up there", Krupal promised, while opening the vehicle door.
The man took what they had ordered; and Hinata tried to follow the pace he had while climbing the hill to the promised place. Krupal arrived sooner than her. When she finally got to his side, panting, the man said to her in a mocking way:
"You have to do more exercise, miss Hyuga!"
"Do not bother me!"
When she finally caught her breath and she could concentrate in admiring what she had around her, she was speechless. From that point the entire city could be seen, with its small points of light bathing every corner, mixing in the nightly horizon of the sky.
Really the sight was amazing, dazzling, and she mentally thanked Krupal for letting her to see it.
"This is my favorite place in the city", Krupal said, surprising her, since she was distracted with the scenery. "It can be seeing everything from here. It is beautiful, is not it?"
"It is", Hinata answered, smiling to him.
After admiring the sight for a while they decided to eat those delicious cinnamon rolls they had bought. Sitting down near the edge of the terrace, so their legs were suspended in the air, they ate with pleasure. Hinata had never tasted cinnamon rolls as delicious as what she was eating. They were a real treat!
While they were eating they spoke about trivial, personal things, often pointless, only with the excuse to make the other smile. They not once touched the issue of college, what had done Patrick against her or what had happened with Naruto, and the young woman thanked it. For the first time since all those horrible events had happened they had been far for her mind.
During those talks Hinata learned more things about Krupal of which she had learned thru the two months she had known him. She knew more about the man's life in India, his country of birth, about how his parents, his grandmother and how he had to leave the country for political reasons, finding help in the United States. She also listened about his motive to undertake the medical career, and how he had met August Blunt, and the recommendation he had made to the rector so he could begin working with him.
Taken by curiosity, Hinata wanted to know if he had a girlfriend or was married. Krupal responded to this negatively. Even though there was no lack of women in his life, no one had stayed the enough time for a stable relationship to form between the two. Knowing he was single made the young woman very happy.
She too talked about herself, like she had a younger sister, that her father was the head of an important financial company, that her mother had died when she was a child and all the efforts and troubles that had brought to her to grew alone, under the incessant yoke of her father; who, lest he misinterprets the intent of her words, she loved very much. She also confessed her motive to study medicine. She talked about the longstanding friendship she had with Sakura, and how happy she was to count with the help of the pink-haired, especially after all she had been through for her fault.
She had not realized that hours had passed faster than she had imagined, and when she asked Krupal, frightened, what time was, and he answered that one o'clock, she was extolled. She had class tomorrow! Besides, tomorrow in the afternoon would take place the trial against Patrick! And Sakura should have arrived to the residence, and after not finding her would be nervous!
"We should go!" she said to Krupal in an emergency tone.
He nodded. They went to the man's car and he drove to the college.
Krupal was even so kind to escort her to her residence. When they arrived to the door that gave access to the building, Hinata said to him after some seconds:
"Thank you for asking me out."
"And thank you for accepting go out with me", Krupal said to her, smiling.
An uncomfortable silence was built between them after that. After a while Krupal broke it, saying:
"Well, have a good night."
But when he was starting to walk away, Hinata stopped him:
"Krupal!" she called.
The man came closer to her again, with a curious expression in the face.
Hinata said to him with a voice affected by the shame:
"Could you accompany me tomorrow to the trial? I would like to have the support of a friend."
Krupal saw her, surprised.
"If it is what you want", he answered after some minutes.
"Yes, I want it!" Hinata exclaimed.
"Then we will see at the court", the man said, smiling to her once more.
Hinata gave him the direction of the court and the hour in which the trial was going to take place. The man said he would be there.
When she reached to her residence, as she expected, Sakura had already arrived. She was waiting for her sat down in one of armchairs in the living room, still wearing the dress she had worn that night to have dinner with Sasuke.
"Is this the hour to come to home, miss Hyuga?" Sakura said, with a feigned voice of complaint.
"I wanted to go to get some fresh air", Hinata lied, putting her best smile of innocence.
"At one o'clock?"
She nodded vigorously.
Sakura came closer to her with threatening movements, but suddenly she stopped the charade of being angry and hugged her.
"I am very happy to see you are better", she said.
Hinata made an effort to not start to cry.
The afternoon of the next day arrived quicker of what she had expected. As he had promised, Krupal was waiting for her in the steps which gave access to the courthouse. Hinata presented him to the lawyer, saying he was a friend of her, and while the two men shook hands, Sakura took her apart of the group to say to her:
"I did not know that professor Blunt's assistant is your friend."
Hinata did not like the contemptuous way in which Sakura had said "professor Blunt's assistant".
Hinata, alongside the lawyer and her companions (Sakura, Sasuke and Krupal), went to the anteroom of the courtroom where the trial would take place.
The trial was scheduled for two p.m., but the clock above their heads marked two o'clock and kept moving forward for various minutes without Patrick and his lawyer or the judge showed up all the group looked at each other with worry. When everyone were asking to themselves was going on, a police came close to the group, talking with the lawyer:
"Are you here for the trial of two o'clock?"
"Effectively", the lawyer said.
"Well, something unexpected has happened. The mister who was being processed, Patrick O'Beirne, is missing."
"What are you saying?!" Hinata and Sakura exclaimed at the same time.
The police nodded.
"As are you listening. We have had a report of some friends of mister O'Beirne that he has not been seen by more than forty-eight hours. We asked his relatives, but neither his parents nor his brothers claimed to have seen him. We believe that he disappeared while he was someplace out of the university in which he study, or in the same campus. The most logical answer is that he escaped once he knew about the trial. Do any of you know where he is?"
All who were there shook their heads or murmured a negative sentence.
"Alright. Thank you for your comprehension. As soon as we have news about mister O'Beirne we will tell you."
The lawyer shook hands with the police and thanked him for his help.
Meanwhile Hinata could not help her astonishment. Patrick was missing? In the moment she was about to incriminate him? It was a terrible coincidence!
Krupal provided again his support in such fateful moments.
"You will see how everything is going to be okay", he said, giving her a comforting squeeze in the shoulder.
Hinata really hope so.
Two days before…
The people who knew Patrick knew that one of the characteristics that defined him was the bad humor that took possession of him when the matter he had between hands went out of control. When the man reached such mood, the people who were with him preferred to stay away. That was the case of the three persons that in that moment were with him in that small motel room, where the man was walking like a caged animal, moving from right to left and from up to down, beating or kicking everything that got in his way.
These three people knew very well the reason of his rage: just hours before Patrick had received a letter, a citation, asking for his presence in a trial for defamation Hinata Hyuga had opened against him. Such was the ire of the man that he had begun to desecrate the name of the woman who was accusing him; but instead of staying to defend his name and face that "little bitch", as he had called her, he had took the worst decision his mind monopolized by the frustration and rage could take: flee from there. Now the police of the entire county was chasing for him and his three companions for just having made a little joke to Patrick's ex-girlfriend.
Because yes, Patrick was the culprit of all the commotion that had originated those photographs. Everything had been funny at the beginning, as to build the plot in which a false Hinata, represented by one of his good "friend", who looked a lot like the Hyuga, gave herself with open arms to the pleasure, offering her body to two of Patrick's best friends. Certainly everything had been very funny initially, but none of them would have imagined that the shy and stupid Hinata would have the guts to open against Patrick, as well as to the other three, a trial for defame her good name.
Now they were fugitives from justice, without a possibility of salvation. But Patrick's irritability, as well as the rest of his companions, was not only for the trial opened against them, but also for the presence of a fifth person in that small room.
All they knew him (at least of sight), all they knew about the participation he had had in the matter of the photographs, and all they, especially Patrick, were sure that no one than him had the greatest part of guilty between them.
It had been that person, and not Patrick, who had asked them to think up a good plan to hurt Hinata Hyuga. It had been that man who had taken advantage of the pain that the woman had caused Patrick to tempt him to commit revenge against her. It had been him, and no one of the four, that had even put his money to achieve success in the plan. Because of that same man, who in that very moment was sitting down comfortably at the table while smoking with a carefree expression, Patrick and his friends had the noose in their necks.
Patrick was observing him as if he could not believe his impertinence. How he could be so calm when the police were chasing them? How he could be so calm when was him the culprit of all his problems?
"You are the one who got us into this! You are the cause why the police are searching for us! Get me out of this hole or I swear I will drag you with me!" Patrick threatened, his friends no longer knew how many times, the man.
But as always happened when he tried to intimidate the subject, he remained imperturbable, smoking his cigarette and throwing away the ashes in the ashtray with an irritating parsimony.
Finally Patrick got fed. He came closer to the table where the man was seated in a sudden manner, and, exerting all the strength of his arms, he struck the surface with his two fists.
"Are you listening to me?!"
"Yes, I am listening to you", the man answered, after throwing the smoke of the cigarette, "but since you are not saying anything useful I prefer to think that I did not listen anything."
"What the hell are you saying?! You were the one who got us into this! Fix it!"
The man laughed, and his laugh was cold and sarcastic.
"I got you into this? As far as I know I only asked you to bitter Hinata's life, not to do the whole show you had done. Really, who could anyone think to build so cheap assembly, as you and your friends did, and pretend that everything was going to be fine? Only such morons as you could think in that way!"
Patrick stepped back, as if the words were bullets hitting his chest.
"I want my money", he said between teeth.
"What money?"
"The one you owe me!"
As if Patrick would have needed more incentive to help him with the work (as if he really had needed it!), the man had offered to him three thousand dollars for the job, one thousand and five hundred at the beginning and the other one thousand and five hundred when everything would have been done. Patrick never had need for money, but how he could decline to such amount of money, even more when it came so easily?
He had received the first one thousand five hundred (with this he had constructed the farce, and had spent the rest celebrating his successful), but he had not obtained the rest of the money, and Patrick was looking for it especially because that money could help him to escape once and for all of the police.
But the other had a surprise for him:
"I told you I would give you the other one thousand and five hundred if you were able to obtain success. If we are fair, you have done the job at the beginning, but then your whole plan has fail. Besides, I do not want to be involved with a fugitive from justice."
Patrick clenched his jaw in such way that his teeth chattered against each other.
With his fists clenched, he asked:
"So, are you not going to give me anything?"
"Not a dollar."
The jaw tightened even more.
"Fuck you!" he said. "I told you: if I fall, you are going to fall with me! Do not think you are going to get away from this, you moron!"
The man smiled.
"There is no need to be so aggressive!" he said, leaving what remained of the cigarette in the ashtray, rising up. "Maybe I do not have the money, but I have something better: a ticket to freedom!"
As soon as the last words passed through the ears of the four of them their eyes began to shine, showing how excited they were. Patrick, especially, began to dream. Freedom! Where was he going to take them? Hopefully out the city! Or even better, out of the country! He could begin his life wherever meanwhile the horrifying thought of facing the law would not be more than an illusion.
He was going to ask the man where he was going to take them when what he saw left him speechless. Instead of a friendly hand, the man tended toward them a gun; in the free hand he had a knife.
"What the hell?!" one of Patrick's friend said.
"What is the meaning of this?!" Patrick shouted.
"This is your ticket to freedom: death!" the man answered, smiling.
The only female of the group, the one who had impersonated Hinata, approached to the man and crouched before him, embracing his legs and begging for her life. She was the first to die. Merciless, the man had targeted the gun against her head and shot directly to the skin. Her body fell to the floor immediately.
While the man shook her legs, so the woman's body could detached of him, one of Patrick's friend, the same who had the audacity to shout to the killer, launched himself over him and tried to hit him, but quickly the man bent down, so he was below him, and with an upward movement he cut his chest with the knife, causing that the blood sprouted in all directions. The wounded moved backward, shocked by the attack, before dying.
His third friend received a shot in the heart. He died immediately.
It only remained Patrick. Fear had gripped him by witness the easy and brutal way in which his friends had been murdered. The next was going to be him!
The man saw him with an evil smile. Because of the second attack, he had the left side of his face and the left hand soggy with blood, as well as the shirt he was wearing, which was painted as a canvas by the vital fluid. When he saw him, Patrick felt even more fear.
He began to beg for his life:
"Please, do not kill me. I do not know your name, not where you live, I do not know anything about you! I will not tell the police we have met, and when they find me, and they see my friends dead, I will lie, I will say it has not be you. But please, let me live! I will give you whatever you want! Do you need money? I have a lot of it! You have only to put your…"
He shut up immediately. The man had shot to his chest, and the pain the bullet had produced to him had been so strong that his lungs lost all their capacity to breath.
While he was torn by the grief, the man picked up what remained of his cigarette, put it into his mouth and approached Patrick, moving the gun to his head.
"Ready to say your last words?" he asked, smiling.
Patrick never had seen a smile such frightening as that. It was the smile of a demon.
The sound of the trigger being squeezed arrived to his ears before everything put dark in front of his eyes. Patrick O'Beirne had stopped living.
Sarah Black always had had high aspirations. From an early age she had dreamed in big, seeing herself as an exemplary woman who highlight in all the areas which she proposed, being beautiful and flashy for a big number of men, married with a good husband and with lovely babies calling her "mom". But at her twenty-eight years old her life could not be more contradictory of what she had aspired to be.
On one side, even though she had dedicated five and stressful long years of her life studying Economy, her job was far of being related with the economic sphere. Day after day she went to work in her position as a phone assistant in a cellphone franchise, and nothing seemed to indicate that her job position would amount to best deals. In the other hand, she was not married, and she had had few engagements (every one of them had ended very badly), and she had more than enough fingers to count how many friends she had.
But the most painful aspect in her life was the wound her soul had after the social relations she had had during her existence. Faraway of being the popular woman that she had aspired to be, she had been treated in a very derogatory way by a lot of people, more than anything when she had shown openly her desire of being important. Because of that she got used to be reserved.
It was not like Sarah did not like that reserved aspect of her personality, but definitely being like she was brought her many problems, especially at the time to defend her rights. She had worked very hard in her life to have the little things she had; and never, in spite of her aspirations, she had raised her voice to complain of what was happening, conforming to the bad sentimental situation she had and with the undignified job she performed.
It was as if a part of her had got accustomed to everything, burying forever that Sarah who aspired to have good things and a life to boast, and that reality made her feel defeated, extremely depressed; and drove her further in being reserved. All this until she met him.
Even though her high aspirations Sarah had never imagined that so handsome and solicitous man as Ferdinand Daniels could join in her life, but it was that happen.
The first time Ferdinand approached her it had been a bad day for Sarah. While she was deploring her luck, seated down in a staircase, which got access to a kind of amphitheater she liked to visit, a red rose, of a scarlet so profound that she had never seen, appeared in front of her, and with the flower she observed the face of the subject that was holding it, and she marveled. It was the first time that someone of Ferdinand's appearance came closer to her; and that part of her, which still clung to her aspirations, felt comforted. At last something good had happened in her life, something that encouraged her wishes!
Ferdinand was not only the most handsome man she had known, but also the most attentive. Immediately, during the following days since they met, he had made her feel special, as if she had a big importance in his existence. While the days went by, and Sarah and he became closer, she had opened her heart completely to him, telling everything about her, her desires and fears, without leaving anything inside her, desirous that a part of her essence impregnated the man forever; and Ferdinand had listened to her attentively, without judging.
But Ferdinand was not only a good looking and attentive man, but also a very good lover. The first time they have a date, in a style of not formalized couple, he had made her feel extremely special, taking her out to dinner in a pretty restaurant, and accompanying her to her house after the evening as a gentleman. Whenever they encountered he gave her flowers, most of the time roses, of the same beauty and tonality of which he had given to her the first time they had met. He had details tremendously beautiful and romantic with her, as to offer to her a seat at the table when they dinner or listening to what she said mindfully, without appear bored or uninterested.
When they had their first kiss, after some weeks of dating, Sarah felt like she could fly. Nobody ever had kissed her in that way! Ferdinand had something special, something that no man possessed, and Sarah was the benefactor of that wonderful aspect. She did not missed a moment to link her lips with his when they were together, and soon she had become addicted to his kisses, wishing to be more time hugging Ferdinand, beseeching to never leave his side.
If anyone was responsible that the relationship arrived to a more serious point was her. Sarah was the one who asked him, rather begged him, for him to be sexually with her. Her only sexual relation had been very dreadful, a memory for oblivion, and Sarah wanted to see if Ferdinand was a good lover as kissing, and he did not disappointed her.
Could exist a man as perfect as Ferdinand? Sarah had won the lottery with that man, and that man was all hers.
She gloated in that thought in that very instant; surrounding herself as she could between the quilt in that night of late autumn. She recently had made love with Ferdinand, and she was under the sheets completely naked, enjoying the shadows of the caresses her lover had left in her skin.
While she was enjoying those memories, Ferdinand was a few meters from her, having a shower. Sarah could hear from the bed the sound of the water hitting the floor tiles. She thought, with some mischievously, that it might be a good idea joining the man in the shower, but a cold air steam made her desist, and think that it would be better to wear something warm. She rose from the bed, picked up her night gown over one of the chairs in the room and put it around her body, tying the belt as firmly as she could, thanking the soft fabric of the clothing for providing her heat.
She saw the clock on the nightstand: it was four o'clock. She said to herself that maybe she also should take a shower, because she soon would have to meet her work schedule.
She was picking out the clothes she was going to wear when the water of the shower stop running. Some minutes after the bathroom door opened, and she heard a man's voice saying:
"Do you know the night is darker before the dawn?"
She turned around, surprised. The voice who had spoken did not belong to Ferdinand, but a sarcastic and sinister one. Frightened, she observed that the man who had come out of the bathroom was not the same who had entered. Ferdinand was tall, tanned skin, brown eyes and black hair. The man that was now standing in the threshold of the bathroom door did not have any of those characteristics. What most impressed her were his red eyes, which shone in the dim light of the room as two lighthouses of perdition.
"Who are you?" Sarah asked, scared.
"It is not important who I am", the man answered with a melodious voice. "You can call me Ferdinand if you want."
Sarah put a surprised expression in her face and her companion laughed, with a cold, cruel laugh.
"How can you be Ferdinand? You do not look like him…" the woman babbled.
The man dedicated her another of his cold laughs.
"Poor little silly", he said. "Can you not believe it is possible for a person to have two identities? Ferdinand and I, we are the same person, darling."
"You are lying!" Sarah shouted. "You are not Ferdinand! I am going to call the police and…!"
Sarah was interrupted immediately, and in very surprising way. The unknown had put his lips on hers, making her stop talking; and even though everything around her was saying otherwise, she had to recognize that kissing that man and what she had felt kissing Ferdinand were similar sensations. It was not only that, but also other details that the woman saw, as the form of his face, which were the same in both man, or the exquisite fragrance she had identified in Ferdinand and this man also had.
Maybe she was hallucinating, but the only logical reasons she could think to justify the man's presence was, first, that he had entered by force in her apartment, hiding in the bathroom and waiting for Ferdinand to tie him up and impersonate him, or second, that this unknown man was really Ferdinand. Sarah leaned towards the second option, more than anything because the man had under his arm the clothes Ferdinand had worn that night; besides a white towel (that she had given to her lover), where it could be seen traces of corporal makeup, a wig of black hair, and, in the hand, a small case for contact lenses. Maybe, as he had said, he had represented the role of Ferdinand, but, with what objective?
When they separated Sarah felt tired, but rapt. The man had left in her a sensation of kissing someone prohibitively exciting, as if she had been kissing a demon. Besides she had to admit that in the proximity that unknown looked extremely sensuous, with that provocative sensuality that is so characteristic of the evil. Whether or not he was Ferdinand she not regretted his absent. That unknown guy was much better than his lover, and Sarah wished to have again the opportunity to kiss him, for more surprising that was his presence.
But her wish was not fulfilled. The man smiled to her, revealing his white teeth, that glittered so much as his eyes, with an almost animal appearance, and Sarah blushed to the roots of her hair.
He walked away from her to go to the bag Ferdinand had left in a chair when he had entered the room, and while he was putting inside it the things he had in hands, he said:
"Now do you believe I am Ferdinand, although I am not really him?"
"You look like him" the woman confessed, blushing at the same time. "But why did you represent Ferdinand when you could be like this, as you are? And, what is your real name?"
"You do many questions, darling", the man said, laughing. "First, I took the personality of Ferdinand because in that way it was going to be more easy be near you; besides, I do not want to give the police any advantage over me. Second, I told you, my name does not matter; but if you are interested some people call me monster, others even demon. I am really surprised that you yet do not have recognized me after everything that have been said about me!"
Sarah saw him, surprised. What was he talking?
"These are pretty good", the unknown said, raising his hands in the air; and since he was back Sarah could not observe what was he talking about.
But it did not take long to see what he was referring. He turned around moments later after saying that phrase and when he did it the edges of two fairly large and long knives shone, which he had in hands. When Sarah saw them frightened, and, as if she had hit her head and in this way allowed that clarity entered her brain, everything began to match inside her. That man was the red-eyed monster!
"Why me?!" she screamed. "Why me?!"
"Come on, Sarah! Do not you want to pass to posterity, being famous and recognized?! I am going to do such an artwork with you that the newspapers and the police are going to talk about it for months! You will be famous thank to me!" the red-eyed monster answered madly.
The man had been approaching her slowly, cornering Sarah to the back of the room, where the bed was. The woman fell in it, finding herself too late surrounded by the murderer, who, with his knees at each side of her body, prevented her for escaping. He leaned over her, putting the edges of the two knives dangerously in her neck, increasingly pressing them until he made Sarah feel lack of oxygen. The man had left aside his striking appearance and had transformed into a real monster, smiling in such way that his sharp teeth stuck out of his evil smile. His red eyes sparkled like crazy.
Definitely at the end of her life Sarah had obtained what she wanted the most: being recognized by the world. She had become the sixth victim of the red-eyed monster; and no newspaper, no people stopped talking about her.
Sorry for the lenght of the chapter.
I hope you like the chapter. If that so, please leave me a review, it would make me very happy. See you soon!