I put my hands over my mouth to suppress the frightened cry that left my lips. I was looking at him, I was looking at my mother's killer. I pressed my eyes closed to calm myself down, and when I reopened them, Jason was already making his way towards Frank with a kitchen knife. I didn't know what was going on in his head; was he about to commit murder? I turned to Antonio, he had his eyes fixed on Jason but he made no attempt to stop him.
"Jason, stop!" I screamed, going after him. Frank opened his eyes immediately and in a flash, he went for the knife, fighting to get it out of Jason's grasp. I stopped in my tracks, unable to do anything. I turned to Antonio, only to find out that he was gone! Gone to where?! I just couldn't imagine Antonio running away, more like fleeing and leaving me to deal with the situation myself.
Jason successfully pushed Frank away from him as he stood beside me, reaching for my hand.
"Clary? Who's this brat?" Frank was panting hard, making me guess Jason was stronger.
"Don't tell me you forget so easily." Jason growled. "Did you forget Taylor Devin?" I saw a flicker of surprise in Frank's eyes, but then he quickly masked it with a smirk.
"Now you mention it, I remember you, Taylor's little brat! What were you about to do? Avenge Taylor's death?"
"Shouldn't you be thanking your stars you were saved for another day?" Jason said with a wicked smile. They both stared at each other hard, as if ready for battle. I turned back to the kitchen again to see if Antonio was back, but he still wasn't there.
"Call the cops." Jason nudged me. I reached for my phone but quickly lost it when Jason pushed me back as he and Frank began to fight for the knife again. I crashed hard on my arm and it felt dislocated. I didn't bother about my arm; Frank was over Jason and was trying to press the knife into his chest.
In an instant, the door flung open and a loud sound boomed. I saw Frank yank away from Jason and quickly limped away through the back door, with blood oozing from his right leg.
I turned back to the door, a tall man stood there holding a gun. The horror in his eyes told me he had never shot a person before.
Antonio suddenly came out of the kitchen, looking as if nothing even happened. I wanted to shout and tear at him for leaving me and Jason to deal with Frank, but the pain in my arm increased and I had to press my lips together to keep myself from screaming in pain. Antonio came to me and picked me up gently.
"Don't worry, it's not a dislocation or anything major."
I used my good arm to push him away.
"How could you leave me all alone when Jason's life was in danger? Frank almost killed him."
"Hey! It's Nicholas you should be yelling at. He should have come in a long time ago."
"Yeah, you're welcome. I'm glad I was a lot of help." The man said sarcastically, going over to help Jason up; the fear was out of his eyes.
"You should have aimed for the head or heart, although it shouldn't end that way. What took you so long?" I suddenly lost my cool. I was done with the strange talk and weirdness.
"Just stop it! How did you know he was out there? Why didn't you come to help? Why do you keep saying strange things? What the hell are you?'
"Come on, you never know when you'd need my help and if Frank saw me just now, he would recognize me then. So, if you look at it from my perspective, I was helping by staying away... Woah, not good." My head swoon as I blacked out.
When I opened my eyes, the first thing I felt besides a raging headache, was a pair of arms wrapped around me. Slowly, I put up my head to see who held me.
"Argh!" I yanked away, falling to the floor, at the same time, throwing a pillow at Antonio.
"What the heck do you think you're doing?" He smiled, using his hand to support his head.
"Trying to calm you down. What were you dreaming about?"
"Why are you in my room?" He chuckled this time, waving his hand.
"Look around you, does this look like your room? Oh, wait! It is your room but not in your Dad's house. We're at your Uncle's house. We came here after you passed out yesterday, remember? Frank, knife, gun, black out?" That was when I remembered what happened at Frank's place. Yesterday?
"Wait a minute, why are we here? Don't tell me I've been unconscious for a whole day." I turned to the bedside clock, it was two in the morning.
"Fine, I won't. Do you plan on sitting on the floor all night? Come on, you need some sleep." He patted the bed, still smiling. I jerked off the floor but instead of going to the bed, I moved to the chair and sat, facing him.
"Why are you in my room?" I sent him a piercing look.
"I wanted to stay with you. You've been kicking and trashing about all night and I was worried. I had to hold you to soothe you." Wow! What do you know! Antonio actually cares about me. That warmed my heart.
"I'm fine now. Thank you." He shook his head.
"You're not, you need to sleep."
"Why aren't we at my Dad's house?" He shrugged.
"Maybe because I thought you'd lose James forever if he found out what happened at Frank's house."
"Thank you a lot, Toni. That actually means an awful lot to me."
"Tch! I said stop calling me Toni, whatever that means. You'd better hop on the bed now, it's the last time I'm asking." He took his eyes off me and relaxed more on the bed.
"And my Dad? How's he taking it?"
"Well, that almost caused a rift between him and Nicholas. He asked Nicholas to follow us and keep you safe no matter what, yet you ended up unconscious. It took a lot of 'No' to get him to stay away for now. He'll be picking us up tomorrow."
"Is Nicholas a cop?"
"Nope, a private investigator and your Dad's buddy."
"Well, it's not his fault. I had no idea my Dad sent him to keep an eye on me and I am grateful to him for coming in at that moment, or else, Jason would have been killed."
"Yeah yeah!" He snorted. "You ended up with a broken arm, Frank escaped and Jason is far from okay."
"What?" I was alarmed. Did Frank come back with a gun? Was Jason arrested for attempting murder? Was he stabbed? What...?
"None of those. I think he feels he should have pierced that knife into Frank's chest when he had the chance." I gave him a puzzled look.
"Did you just read my mind?" He grinned, looking away.
"Nope, it was obvious from the look on your face. Look, honey, I don't want to continue this chitchat, I need to sleep. The last bit of strength I had left went to calming you down."
"Honey?" It was gross to have my cousin call me that.
"Argh!" He moaned and turned his back to me.
"Get some sleep on that chair if you want. Oh, we got the pictures you wanted. Maybe you should..." He stopped as I laid down next to him.
"Antonio?"
"Mmm?" His back was still to me.
"Do you know why Jason wanted to stab Frank?"
"You should ask him yourself, I'm in no position to tell you anything."
"That means you know then. Please tell..."
"Claire, I have other things on my mind. Are you always so talkative? Go to sleep." I gave up and sighed.
"Claire, Jason wanted to stab Frank, because... It would have taken you those same amount of words to tell me what I need to know."
"Sleep!"
"I can't. I think I need to be soothed." He finally turned back to me and opened his arms.
"Come on in."
"Just a reminder, I'm your cousin, not just any other girl. You..."
"Shut it and come on." I smiled and wriggled myself into his arms.
"Antonio?" I was rewarded a groan from him.
"What is it?"
"When next I need you, don't run away." He chuckled.
"I was never running away. Even though I didn't see you get hurt, I knew nothing bad would happen."
"What..."
"Goodnight!" I exhaled and closed my eyes, letting myself feel Antonio's warmth.
I slept soundly this time.
MattIt was bad enough that I couldn't discourage Claire from going back to the murderer's house; I also had to deal with my jackass business partner Nathaniel, who just wouldn't stay away from Abigail. Don't get me wrong, I know she doesn't belong to me and she's a free woman; yet it's so annoying to see him all over her.Abigail doesn't even like him! I mean, she's definitely not entertaining his flirting.But, it would have been a whole lot better if she was speaking properly to me. Forget about speaking properly, she was clearly avoiding me; speaking formally to me, barely touching me. In fact, she only made physically contact with me when she pushed me out of Claire's room, every other time, she either looked away from me or spoke with monosyllables.I didn't know what her deal was and she also refused to tell me. I felt I did something wrong, but how do I apologise for something I don't even know about?
As expected, Abigail focused solely on James and I didn't get any chance to talk to her at all. I didn't want to say anything in front of James but I needed to know what her problem was. When she wouldn't give me even the tiniest attention, I left them alone and stayed in my study room burying myself in work.I called Antonio again and asked how Claire was doing. She was still unconscious. It worried me but since Antonio assured me she'll be fine, I had to wait for morning; no matter how tormenting it was. Usually, it's times like this I have Abigail beside me. Now, I'm alone and Abigail somehow hates me. We've never argued before so seriously, never. It felt as if we're just going around in circles.I couldn't remember doing anything wrong, so why did she want to break up? Why am I saying breakup? We're not dating, right? Do I want to date her though? Yeah, definitely. Forget about dating, I want to marry her. She's the only person I want by my side every second.
ClaireWhen I awoke, rays of sunlight were already peeking through the curtains. I sheepishly yawned and stretched on the bed, absentmindedly reaching for Antonio. He wasn't there."I might as well get up." I turned to the bedside clock, it was already past 7 am.I went to the bathroom to wash my face or maybe shower, but I didn't want to wear my old clothes on a clean body. Luckily for me, there were clean clothes on the bathroom sink with a sticky note on it. It wrote: 'It's a good thing we're the same size. You won't mind me lending you this, right? Tyler'. How sweet of him! I held up the tee-shirt and skinny jeans; definitely guy fashion but they would do. With little touch ups here and there, no one would guess they belonged to a guy.I took a quick bath and dressed up; I knotted the tee shirt at the side to fit me more and pulled up my hair in a loose ponytail. For all it's worth, I looked ready for a jog at the park.
I was so thankful when we pulled into my Dad's house. Dad stopped the car at the entrance and turned to me. "James believes you spent the night at your Uncle's because you missed Tyler. Nick dropped by with the stuff you got from..." He didn't finish that statement and turned to Antonio instead. "Lucy's here, she knows about yesterday. What did you see?" Antonio quickly put up a hand to his cheek, looking down. "She's in a bad mood, I'll definitely get slapped." "Then I guess I'll try to slow her down while you make a run for it." Dad said with a grin. I was like, totally confused. What were they talking about? "Too late, she's coming." I looked up at the entrance and Aunt Luciana was really coming towards us; James was behind her. That wasn't important; what I wanted to understand was, how could Antonio know that when he's been looking down?! "Seriously, Claire, not now." He snapped at me. Uhm, excuse me? "I didn't even say anything."
I decided to mind my business and finish my meal. Antonio did the same, although he had a huge frown on his face."What happened?" Aunt Luciana was by the door, looking disappointed."We had an argument about Dad." Antonio's reply was nonchalant."I've told you, don't indulge her. Jacey is fragile and this whole situation is not easy for her." Antonio threw away the egg he was about to eat and got up so fast, his stool fell over."You know, I feel like you care about everyone else more than you care about me. I'm a boy, I need to protect Claire, but you didn't think that I could have gotten hurt there as well. Rather than scolding Jacey for hiding important stuff from us, you want me to be less normal and do more. Now, Jacey is fragile and this whole situation is not easy for her, what about me? I'm an outsider, right? You don't think it affects me?" No one needs to be told how hurt Antonio felt; his voice was really pained. Aunt Luciana couldn't even say
Few minutes later, I had barely just finished brushing my hair and smearing lip gloss on my lips when Emma came in."Ooh! Someone looks pretty." She teased. I suddenly felt stupid. Why did I take Antonio's advice and dress up for Jason? He's definitely crazy if he thinks I can date my cousin and I'm more crazy to actually patronize him."Going somewhere? Because you have a visitor downstairs and he's so cute! Are you two going out? Is he your...""Cousin!" I shrieked. What the fudge is going on around here anyway?!"He's my cousin.""Aww, too bad. You two would have made a nice couple." Emma said almost sadly."Emma?!""I'm just saying." She laughed. "He's waiting for you though.""Okay, I'm heading down now." I took one last look at myself in the mirror before leaving my room to go find Jason downstairs. I forgot to ask Emma where he was and goodness knows I still don't know my way around the house yet."Claire!" That was Jacey; running up to me with a bi
"Did you forget you told me you were going to bring SM to the green house?" I shuddered. I just heard Jacey's voice in my head! What the actual crap?"If he leaves without seeing me first, I'm going to scream in your head non-stop!" What the..."Urh, Ja...Jason!" I grabbed his hand as he stood up to leave. "Maybe you should stay a few more minutes, there's someone who'd like to meet you.""Who?""My cousin, Jacinta.""Urh, okay..." I looked around to find the green house. Jacey said the fountain was by the green house, that would mean that the glass building with lots of plants in it was the green house. And here I was thinking it was a house painted green."How dumb!" Jacey said in my head."Shut up!" I mumbled."What was that?""Heh, nothing." I smiled awkwardly at Jason and let him to the green house. It was mostly plants and flowers but Jacey made a space for herself in the rose section; she had a little table covered with a dark quil
Matt It's two days before Lucy's divorce. She's been acting all calm about it but I don't need to be a psychic to know just how she feels, especially now she's had a big fight with Antonio and he's leaving her after the divorce is final.I don't know what caused the fight but it's the first time in all of Antonio's fourteen years he's angry with his mother. If it was Jacey, then I'd understand because she was more of the hotheaded one like her jerk of a Dad. Antonio has always been mindful of his temper and his words too; if he'd ever get upset, he would just walk away and after some time, he's back to his usual self.Maybe the divorce was getting him stressed out or maybe he'd just want his parents to remain together. I mean, who would want their parents divorced if they could help it? But I vote for them getting divorced;Thomas doesn't deserve my sister at all. He just wanted her for as long as it brought good publicity for him. Now that Ingrid is