Chapter 11

Zak refused to speak to me after the incident at Nick's. It made me sad that I had lost a really good friend, but at the same time I also realized that I should have just come out and told him when I found out. I threw myself into working out and my job. I made sure that I was too exhausted to do anything by the time I got home so I wouldn't have to focus on my nonexistent social life. Nick, Aaron, and Billy all tried to get me to hang out with them, but I just couldn't bring myself to face them after all the drama I had caused. This went on for about a month when all hell broke loose.

I was just getting home from a two- hour workout session. When I noticed my front door was partially open. My adrenaline started pumping. I could have swore I locked the door. I pushed the door open the rest of the way expecting to see the place trashed, but nothing looked amiss. I searched the entire house, but as far as I could tell nothing had been taken. I calmed down a little bit and walked back into the front room, shutting the front door. I sat down with Angel on the couch about to turn on the television when I saw it. It was just a regular piece of paper sitting on the coffee table. I picked it up and began to read. With each line that I read my body would became more and more paralyzed with fear. It was a letter. From Luke.

After a few minutes, I shakily put the letter in my purse and grabbed Angel's leash before running her out the door and into the truck as fast as I could while constantly looking around for any sign that he was still here. I drove to the only place that I considered safe. I parked as close to the building as I could before getting out and running through the front door and to the elevators, ignoring the hollers at me telling me to slow down and stop running. Once the elevator finally reached the fifth floor I stepped out and practically jogged down the hall to the guys' office. I tried opening the door, but it was locked so I knocked hastily, checking behind me to make sure I wasn't being followed. As I raised my hand to knock again, the door opened to reveal a very confused Zak.

"Lynn?" he asked.

"Uh… Can I come in?" I begged with my eyes before scanning the halls again. He stepped aside to let me and Angel inside before shutting the door.

"What's going on?" he asked.

"Nothing. It's just—uh, is Nick here?" I asked pressing a hand to my forehead to wipe the sweat away.

"No he took Veronique out to dinner."

"And Aaron?"

"Home. Are you going to answer my question or not?"

"No. No. No. No. No. No," I said sitting down on the couch, shaking my head, trying to breathe.

"What do you mean no? Lynn what the hell is going on?" Zak asked, his voice rising in concern.

I shook my head, trying to gasp for breath. My body was shaking with the fear and anxiety. All I could see was Luke beating me until I was dead. I heard Zak say something, but I couldn't make out the words due to the ringing in my ears. That was the last thing I remember.

Beep… Beep… Beep…Beep. Where the hell is that beeping coming from? I tried breathing in, but felt like something was blocking my nasal passages so I inhaled a little deeper to try and breathe around the blockage in my nose. It worked, but my nose still felt weird so I lifted my hand to see what was in my nose. Before I could get my hand all the way to my face something grabbed my hand. The beeping accelerated to match my accelerating heart rate. I quickly opened my eyes to see who or what had a hold of me only be blinded by a bright white light. My head turned to the side as an automatic reflex to shield my eyes from the light.

"Lynn, it's me. You're okay, but you have to keep the oxygen on." A voice that haunted my dreams said to me. Oxygen? What are you talkin' about? This time I cautiously opened my eyes to see a heart monitor and an IV pole running. Well that explains the insane beeping. So if the beeping was real then that means—my thoughts trailed off as I turned my head to the other side to see a pair of beautiful electric blue eyes not two feet away from me. I looked down to see his calloused hand holding mine before returning my gaze to his face.

"Zak?" I asked, my voice groggy from being unused, "What's goin' on?"

"I could ask you the same question. One minute you were asking where everyone was, the next you were on the floor having exorcism style convulsions. You scared the living hell out of me you know that? I didn't know what to do. I was so worried that you were—" he shook his head unable to finish his sentence, "the doctors had to strap you to a gurney and sedate you before you would calm down. They said it was an extreme case of an anxiety attack."

Anxiety attack? The last time I had an anxiety attack was when—memories started flooding through my brain: me working out, coming home, the door open, and a note on the coffee table. My heart monitor started going crazy as my heart started racing. I turned my head away from Zak.

"Lynn? You okay? What is it? What's wrong?"

"Luke," I managed to whisper as my body started shaking. He's here. He found me. He won't stop until I'm dead. Or worse. "Oh God," I breathed, tears rolling down my face.

"Lynn? Lynnette look at me." He waited until I looked back at him to continue. "What's wrong? Is it me? Do you want me to leave?" He started to stand up and scoot his chair back to the wall.

"NO!" I half screamed, tightening my hold as best I could around his hand, not wanting to think about what could happen if he wasn't here. He stopped moving and looked at me, "Please? Don't leave." He stared at me for a moment before sitting back down.

"Okay, but you got to tell me what the hell is going on. Deal?"

I slowly nodded. I examined his face, half my brain wondering why he looked like he hadn't slept in three days while the other half trying to figure out how to best explain what was happening.

"You remember when I told you that I moved here from home to leave an abusive ex?" I asked, looking at the IV in my arm, not wanting to meet his eyes.

"Uh huh."

"Well I wasn't entirely honest with you. Las Vegas wasn't my first relocation from home. More like my seventh."

"And this is what has sent you into a massive panic attack?"

"Yes. No. You don't understand. I started out at Georgia, living with some relatives. He found me and tried to drag me back home. Then I went to New York. He found me again, this time roughing me up a bit for escaping, but that didn't stop me from leaving him again. He found me in Florida, Minnesota, and Arizona too. Each time getting a little meaner and a little closer to killing me. Last time he managed to stab me in the back. Thank God he has crappy aim." I said recalling the feel of the knife being pulled out from my lower back. After a few moments of silence I dared to look at his face.

"Go on," he said, his anger showing through his tightly clenched teeth.

"Yesterday. Or I guess it was yesterday I don't know for sure I came home from the gym to find my door opened. You know me. I always double check to make sure it's locked. So I started freaking out thinking some burglars were there, but I looked around and everything was as I had left it so I calmed down, shut the door back and sat down with Angel on the couch. And that's when I saw it. At first I didn't think nothing of it ya know? It was just some random piece of paper so I picked it up and started to read it." I released his hand to wipe the tears off my cheeks and my nose. I looked Zak square in the eye before I finally said, "He's found me Zak. I don't know how, but he has." I looked down at my twiddling thumbs, "I don't even know why I went to the office. I was just trying to get somewhere safe and the only thing I could think of was you guys, but then nobody else was there and then yeah, " I let the sentence trail off.

"Why were you asking for Nick and Aaron instead of just telling me then?"

I looked back at him, confused by the question. I could see the hurt in his eyes that I did not trust him with this information before now. "Well, you and I haven't exactly been on the best of terms lately. I mean it just seems like every time that we start becoming close friends something comes up and drives a wedge between us and then you stop talking to me, then I get all sad and quit hanging out with you guys because I don't wanna drive a wedge between you guys' friendship and it's like—"

"Wait a minute. That's why you haven't been going over to Nick's or going with us to guy's night out anymore?"

"Well yeah," I admitted, "'Cause I mean it's all like you guys were best friends way before I came along and I didn't wanna ruin that 'cause like that's a total douche move and I'm not like that. I mean I know Nick and Aaron are like totally my friends too, but I couldn't make them chose between us when we're fighting and then I felt all bad for not hanging out with them so then I stopped hanging around all together because I felt bad for lying about why I couldn't hang out."

"Well just so you know, your little plan has backfired on you." I gave him a confused look. "They all blame me. At first they would only nag me about apologizing to you for yelling at you, but then you stopped coming around completely and so they started jumping on me for you leaving and telling me that was an asshole among other things, but then Nick tells me that you told Veronique that you sent me an email about Courtney right before everything went down. Of course, I didn't believe him at first, but he kept nagging at me about it until I pulled up my inbox and showed him that it wasn't there, but then I got to thinking that I'd deleted a lot of stuff since then so I started looking around and sure enough there it was in the deleted folder so I opened it up and discover that it wasn't a letter at all, but a video."

I started blushing and looked away from his eyes, trying to remember what all I had said on that video diary I sent.

"After I finally watched that video I felt like the biggest asshole on the planet. You tried to tell me what was going on the best way you knew how and I blew up in your face for it. For that I am truly sorry. So I had Nick and Aaron try to get you to come hang out with us so I could apologize to you and try to make amends somehow, but you were always busy working or had other things to do. I figured you had moved on; that the damage I had done was irreversible, but then out of the blue I hear a knock on the office door and I open the door to see you in sweaty clothes with a terrified look on your face."