SEVEN

"Don't hurt Anthony, it was my fault for asking him to meet..."

“Ssshhh… I'm not going to hurt him, baby. I'm just giving him a warning.

"Don’t, please don't!"

Brakk

"Let go of her asshole, that woman is mine."

Bugh bugh

"Kyaaaaa!!!"

"Let's go!"

"Let me go! Why do you always mess up my life?”

“Huh, because I was meant to do it. Let's go home, let's continue this fight at home."

"I hate you Ace!"

"I know and I don't care."

“You hurt my friends! You hurt Zyan."

"Yeah, because he was a bad influence on you..."

“No, you ruined my life! Zyan loves me! And I will marry him!!”

Eden woke up with sweat pouring from her forehead and also breathing that seemed to be ragged. The woman quickly reached for the glass of water beside her bed to moisten her dry throat from the nightmares she had had since she ran away from the man's house, the man who had claimed to be her husband, Aciel Lutherford.

Knock knock

"Eden, are you awake?"

"Yyya, I'm awake." Eden stuttered when Anthony knocked on her door several times.

The woman then immediately removed the thick blanket and walked to the large window in her room to breathe in the fresh, soothing morning air. The moment she opened the window, the sunlight shone on her face unabashedly and made her instantly squint in glare. She then looked at every passerby who walked under Anthony's apartment which looked quite attractive to her. From up there she could see the people looked happy and seemed carefree. In contrast to her who is always haunted by nightmares that make her sleep uncomfortable. In fact the longer she was with Anthony, the dreams were like ghosts that kept terrorizing her every night. And not infrequently she experienced insomnia because she could not close her eyes again if dreams about the man were always present in the midst of her deep sleep.

"Why does the dream feel real?" Eden muttered under her breath to the empty air around her.

The corner of her eye again swept across the state of the pedestrians below who could at least distract her from the nightmares she was experiencing. But from a distance she could see a man in a black suit standing under a lamppost staring at her intensely.

At first she thought the man was just having fun by looking at her randomly in the middle of her activities while waiting for the bus or whatever, but gradually Eden began to realize that the man was looking at her intentionally. The bespectacled man even gave her a hideous grin that made her palpitate with a pale face. She was afraid that the man was one of the spies Aciel had hired to find her. But after a while she stared at the man, suddenly the mysterious man lowered his glasses slightly and smirked at her with a terrible face that made her face pale.

“Aciel… No way!”

Eden took a few steps back while shaking her head to clear her mind which was starting to be poisoned by Aciel's figure that often haunted her deep sleep. She then ventured to look down again, but unfortunately the man had disappeared from his place. Now where the man was standing had been replaced by a young woman who seemed to be waiting for the bus to pick her up.

Eden then cupped her face in frustration while shaking her head many times so she wouldn't have to think about fears that might not happen. After all she had managed to live well these ten days without Aciel or his men looking for her, so she had to be sure that everything would be fine. The man couldn't have found her in Anthony's hidden apartment because Anthony had chosen to live in an apartment far from the downtown.

“Eden...”

"Hah!!"

Eden flinched in surprise when Anthony touched her shoulder and looked worriedly at her. The man saw a look of fear on Eden's pale face, then he pulled Eden into his arms to calm her down.

"Are you okay?" asked Anthony quietly to which Eden answered immediately with a shake of her head.

“I saw that man down there. He was looking at me with a very horrible grin and I was so scared. I was afraid that man would come and lock me up again in that hell house. Anthony, I'm scared." Eden said quietly while crying in Anthony's warm arms.

Anthony then poked his head down a little to make sure what Eden said was true, but unfortunately he didn't see anything suspicious down there. Instead, he saw a group of teenagers joking and shouting loudly with their noisy voices. Feeling that Eden has begun to dissolve in her fear, Anthony feels the need to straighten it out with Eden. He didn't want Eden to be haunted by the shadow of that bastard man and turn into a crazy woman who kept hallucinating something that wasn't real.

"Ed, look at me."

Anthony forced Eden to look up by pulling the woman's chin towards him.

“What you see is not real. Aciel couldn't possibly find you here since it's very far from the downtown, so you don't have to worry about anything while you're here. I'll always protect you, Ed. I promise," said Anthony earnestly, staring deeply into the caramel bead.

Anthony then brought his face closer and started to kiss Eden's lips gently. Meanwhile, Eden reflexively closed her eyes while enjoying every vibration that Anthony gave her lips. However... when she closed her eyes, once again the shadows that seemed to be blurry started competing to infiltrate her head to make her dizzy.

“I will name our second son Louise because he is like an angel who has come to illuminate our lives that have been filled with darkness for these few years. Thank you Eden, because you have given me something I have never felt before.”

"This is for you, I think it's your birthday because according to my men you were born on the thirtieth of May. Happy Birthday."

"Thank you, this is a beautiful gift."

“Eden, although I have never expressed my love like other men out there, but believe me I will always give my life and my loyalty to you. Please never leave me, stay by my side as my wife and mother of my children.”

“Eden and Ciara, you are very precious women to me.”

Eden suddenly pushed Anthony's body and forcibly cut the lips between them while looking at Anthony with a sad and guilty look.

"I'm sorry Anthony, I... I seem to be feeling dizzy." Eden said with a sad face that looked pitiful.

Seeing Eden again being depressed made Anthony want to embrace the woman in his arms again, but Eden refused and asked Anthony to leave her alone in the room because she wanted to clear her mind for a moment from the strange shadows that had again infiltrated her head.

"Please give me a minute Anthony, after that I promise to come out to have breakfast with you."

"Are you okay? You want me to get you a cup of tea?” said Anthony with a worried face. Eden shook her head weakly while cupping Anthony's cheeks with her cold palms.

"I just want to lie down for a while, I promise after that I'll be fine."

Anthony nodded in understanding while kissing both of Eden's hands in turn and immediately left the room of the woman he loved.

After Anthony left her room, Eden's body immediately collapsed beside the bed, burying her head between her knees. Even though she couldn't remember anything from the past right now, she was sure that all the images she had seen recently were fragments of events in the past that involved her. And after seeing it all, now her heart felt doubt. She doubted whether she would be able to live his life with Anthony if the image kept haunting her until she felt like she was on the verge of going insane. She couldn't possibly live happily with her lover, while the image of another man and his biological child kept dancing in her head.

"Argghhhh!!! Why does it hurt," said Eden in frustration while pressing his chest which felt tight.

Maybe she really shouldn't be hiding with Anthony. She should come out of hiding and work things out with him, or she'd be living the rest of her life suffering from such a heavy mental burden on her heart.