CHAPTER 3 (ISABELLA'S POV )

"Isabella Rhodes?" The young guy behind the ordering counter called my name loudly.

I quickly rushed out of the booth me and my friends were seated at and made my way to the counter to grab my coffee order. I said 'thank you' to the guy and took the warm styrofoam cup back to our booth. I noticed immediately I slid in that Melissa and Marvin were both giving me wide smirks.

"What's up with you guys?" I asked with raised eyebrows as I emptied a packet of sugar to pour into my coffee.

"Oh nothing." Melissa giggled, flipping her waist length blond hair behind her neck. "Just noticed how that barrister was totally staring at you with interest." She said, dragging the last word.

I turned around in confusion, and noticed that the guy was indeed staring at me. I turned back to my friends and shook my head. "That was definitely not interest." I said.

Marvin let out a loud snort and stared at me in disbelief. "You know, sometimes I wonder what world you come from." He sighed dramatically. "Do you not see that he's totally checking you out?"

"No, he's not. And even if he is, what the hell am I supposed to do? Go back there and drop him my number?" I hissed quietly, glaring at my friends.

My reaction caused the twins to burst out into a bout of loud laughter. I shushed them quietly, all the while still glaring at them.

"Don't look now, but I think Mr hot barrister is making his way over to our table." Melissa whispered, staring far back behind me.

Oh no.

I felt sudden panic immediately come over me at Melissa's words. It wasn't like I was scared to talk to guys or anything –okay, scratch that, I was definitely scared to talk to guys– it was a heart wrenching experience for me. The first and last time I had ever been in a relationship was around my final year of college, and things had ended pretty badly. It had brought me to the conclusion that maybe relationships wasn't meant for everyone, I was too busy with work anyways.

I felt the looming presence of the barrister behind me and I slowly turned around to face him, ignoring the shit eating grins on both my friend's faces.

"Uhm... hi...?" I squeaked out.

The guy gave me a small smile as he dropped the small plate of sandwich on our table. I stared at him in confusion since none of us had ordered a sandwich, but before I could speak, he was already talking.

"The uhh... the gentleman by the corner paid for this." He explained as he pointed to a booth that sat at the far corner of the cafe.

I looked up at the direction he had pointed at and saw a young man seated there. Our eyes locked and he offered me a small nod, which I reciprocated with an awkward smile. I had no idea who this man was and why he was buying me a sandwich, but I figured I had to be polite.

"Oh wow, Izzy, look at you grabbing everyone's attention with your magnificent beauty." Marvin chuckled loudly, not even minding that the barrister was still standing there.

Embarrassed, I gave the barrister a thankful smile and he nodded before going back to his station at the counter.

"It's too early for this." I sighed, eyeing the sandwich that laid untouched on the table. "I don't even know who he is and he's already bought me a sandwich." I whispered lowly.

"He's offering free food, you don have to know him to accept it." Melissa giggled. "Plus, you can take it as a birthday present from a stupidly attractive stranger."

"A stupidly attractive stranger that you should totally slip your phone number to." Marvin added, backing up his sister.

I stared at my friends in shock. "Are you guys crazy? He could be a serial killer for all we know." Call it old fashioned, I didn't care. I wouldn't exchange personal details with a total stranger just because he got me food, It was absurd.

"Calm down, we're just kidding." Melissa chuckled, digging into her plate of fries on the table.

We spent the next few minutes eating our meals and chatting time away. The conversations we were having had been fun, until Melissa brought up a topic that had been going around town for a couple of days. It was believed by the locals they the forest was haunted by some supernatural force, u didn't personally believe in anything supernatural but even I had to admit that strange things had been happening lately.

"What do you think, Izzy?" Melissa asked, dragging me out of my thoughts.

"Uhm... about what?" I asked, giving her an apologetic smile since I hadn't been paying attention.

"About the weird wolf sightings around town." She said. "Don't you think it's bizarre? I mean, Mercury Hills doesn't even have wolves, so how the hell have there been multiple wolf sightings around town? And let's not forget the strange howling sounds every midnight too. That forest is definitely haunted for real."

I honestly didn't know what to say. On some fronts, the locals were kind of right. Mercury Hills was never known for housing wild creatures like wolves, but all of a sudden, it was like they were everywhere. I had never had a personal experience with the animals, but a few colleagues from work could attest to the fact that they were indeed present in our forests.

"Or what if the wolves just simply migrated to our town? Not everything has to be paranormal and supernatural." Marvin said with an eye roll directed at his sister.

Marvin was never one to believe in conspiracy theories, he was a 'facts' kind of guy, where his sister was the exact opposite of him. It was amazing how they could look so much alike, and have completely different personalities and interests.

The shrill sound of my phone ringing put our conversation to an abrupt stop. I apologized and brought out my phone from my purse and saw Naomi's contact staring back at me. I excused myself from my friends and quickly darted outside to take the call.

When I had gotten a few feet away from the cafe building, I swiped my finger across the green part of the screen.

"Hey, what's up?" I spoke softly into the mouthpiece of the mobile phone.

"Izzy, where are you?" Naomi's voice rushed out in a panic. From the background noise, I could tell that she was not in the house.

"Uhm... I'm at Coffee Express with Melissa and Marvin. What's going on? Did something happen?" I asked in confusion.

"Just stay right there, Izzy, okay? Please don't go anywhere. I'm coming for you, just stay right there."

I didn't know what was going on, but I was already starting to panic at the tone with which she was talking to me. "Naomi, you're getting me worried. What's going on? We're just having some coffee."

"Just wait for me and don–"

All of a sudden, the call abruptly ended. I tried several times to call her back but it wasn't going through.

Taking her advice to wait at the cafe for her, I turned around to head back to the building, but immediately bumped into somebody.

"Ow! Sorry..." I started to apologize, but was soon cut off when I saw that the person I'd bumped into was the strange man from the cafe. Before I could say anything else, however, the man pulled out a white cloth from his back pocket and pressed it flush onto my face, covering my nose.

Somewhere behind me, I heard other muffled voices as I struggled against the man's hold, but it was no use. I felt multiple hands on my body as they dragged me away from the view of anyone inside the cafe.

What the hell was going on?

I tried to claw and scratch at the man, but he was much stronger than me. I felt my body slowly going limp and black clouded my vision as I inhaled whatever had been laced with the cloth and slowly fell into unconsciousness.