She dragged herself to her father, lying with his eyes wide open and his mouth half-open. She tried to shake him awake. She pulled out that awful blade that was pierced into his heart.
He was dead….no breathing...no heartbeat...no pulse….he was dead!
And she wasn't even there to see it. She wasn't there to see her dad, or try to save him, because she was too busy trying to taste the 'adult' life!
She was an unfit daughter. One who was so set on breaking her curfew that she forgot about other important things. It was her fault….entirely hers!
If only she wouldn't have stayed away at that wretched party. If only she had come home early. If only, she had..she had...been there. She could've saved him. Her father...he was dead and it's all her fault. Somewhere in the middle of the battle with herself, a heavy river of tears flowed down from her eyes.
Her father, the one who had raised her, the one who was there for her when her mother left them. The man who would do anything for his beloved; the man who had encouraged her to follow her passion. That man was just no more.
She stared at his pale complexion, threading her fingers through his brunette locks. That is where she had gotten her hair colour from. Though her senses were filled with sorrow, she did not fail to notice a sort of movement behind her. She quickly turned around to see a dark figure tampering with the front door, which she had earlier, left unlocked.
Now, aware of the dark presence in the room, Ally stood up to chase and stop the figure. A man about 6 feet tall was hovering over the door, silently trying to pull it open. The room wasn't well lit, she couldn't see his face, probably because it was well covered, but the blood stains covering his yellow T-shirt was enough to tell her who the murderer was.
Seeing that he had opened the door and started to make a move, her numb senses started to kick in. She chased the man in the yellow shirt, only to see him round around the corner of her street into a deserted alley. She started running behind him and despite the fact that she was a slow runner, she somehow caught up to him and pulled his arm and tripped him to the ground.
She noticed that he had a tattoo on his forearm that read FOREVER in cursive letters and some initials like 'P.E.R' or 'P.E.S', she couldn't figure out. She also realized that he had a mask on, but she would never forget the hazel eyes that peered back at her.
"Why?" was the first thing she growled at him.
He didn't hesitate to kick her down and take off.
But she wouldn't give up and mustering up all her strength, she dug her nails into his back so hard that he grunted in pain.
She had wounded him enough to cause a bleeding.
Unfortunately, he pushed her to the sidewalk and her head hit the pavement, giving her a painful gnash.
She wasn't the sort of girl to just give up, but she had lost all her vigour as she saw the man getting farther away. And that was when she began to wail. She was breaking down from all the horrifying things she had encountered in the past hour.
She had lost her father. She had lost his murderer because she was stupid enough to leave the door unlocked. She tried to chase him, but lost him again, because of her inability to run.
All her life, Ally had held her Miss Perfect title with pride. But today, she had messed up more than she had ever done and that's when realization dawned on her that she was but only a human. A terrible one - one who hurt people, one who makes mistakes.
She was scared. She, Ally Dawson was terrified. As, she lay on the pavement,numb, the barking of a dog brought her to reality. Even the sound of the bark made her shake in fear, but she was too weak to move. She tried to sit up. With the last wave of energy inside her, she sat up and buried her head into her knees, letting her tears fall.
She was so engrossed in her failure that she failed to notice the Black GMC Sierra that had stopped right in front of her.
Suddenly, she felt a hand brush against her shoulder and as if on instinct she backed away. She pushed away from the figure. As she looked towards the figure, her blurry vision along with the darkness surrounding her, only led her to believe that her attacker was back to get her and she tried to increase the distance between them. But the figure seemed to come closer.
"Stay away from me!" she yelled, her eyes glazed with tears, "What more do you want to do? Kill me?"
In her nervousness, she reached out to fiddle with her mom's pearls, only to find it missing. This caused her to loose complete control of herself.
Out of nowhere, two firm hands were placed on her shoulders, shaking her.
Her initial outburst had taken a toll on her voice and noticing that nobody could help her in the deserted alley, she started struggling and kicking.
Her voice now reduces to a whisper, "Leave me, please," she begged.
"Ally!" she heard from the figure, "Snap out of it, Ally."
The voice sounded familiar and that's all it took for her to latch onto him and release those terrible whimpers which had been stuck at the back of her throat.
She felt the man shift and then felt the pair of arms engulf her in a hug. She didn't hesitate to hug back and sobbed into his shirt.
The man seemed to be a frequent user of cologne, a very empowering and familiar one, in fact.
It would have been about an hour, when she realized that she was in the arms of a complete stranger, who seemed familiar.
Rubbing off the final few tears from her eyes, she looked up at him. The blonde hair, that shone in the moonlight gave her a fair idea of who her rescuer was.
"Austin?" she whispered through her raspy voice, "How did you find me?"
"Well, you see," he laughed nervously, while scratching the back of his neck, "After you left the party, I felt kind of guilty and decided to catch up with you."
She nodded in understanding, "But, how did you find me?"
"I drove to your house and found the door wide open, with the police running in," he stated, "I got worried, I mean it was the POLICE after all!"
"The police?" she asked, slightly confused. Then, she remembered the scream she had let out on seeing her father's corpse. The old couple, living nearby would have heard her.
"Oh no!" she wailed. Now, she would be convicted of the murder!
"I will be convicted of murder!" she exclaimed.
"Murder?" Austin asked, confused.
"My father..knife and..I saw him...yellow..ran" was all she could say as another set of tears fell from her eyes.
Austin sighed, not knowing what to do. He had never seen her so vulnerable, in-fact he had hardly seen her cry.
Completely unsure of what to do, he said without thinking, "Get in the car."