My phone vibrated in my pocket, making me jolt up to a sitting position. Pain shot through the side of my neck, and my hand rose, rubbing the spot. I didn't even know when I fell asleep. My eyes fell on Joseph who peacefully snored on the bed, and I hurried out my phone to silence it only to be silent myself. Even my breathing stopped as I gulped at the caller ID.    Dimitri was calling. He was coming back today. I looked at the time, and my eyes widened even more. He was already here.    Silencing the vibration, I put the phone on the bedside table and turned away in my chair. Every fiber in my body constricted from guilt, and the ache in my heart reopened. I could feel my face growing warm and eyes stinging. Placing both palms over my face, I leaned back on the edge of the bed and let out a silent cry. Gosh... how was I to face him? I was so not ready to take his wrath, his hate. I did not even go to work today. I could not prete

White sheets covered the body from head to toe, and a familiar wrinkly hand, so pale and lifeless, dangled from the side.    The next few seconds went in a blur as I felt a bulb inside me suddenly going off like my world just stopped functioning or came to an end. There was no more pain, no panic, no worries like they were numbed and long forgotten.    The stretcher passed by me, and I kept staring until they pushed it inside a staff elevator. I didn't even know if I blinked or breathed or even was alive in the first place to begin with, but I surely couldn't feel my soul neither my heart nor myself.    I was simply gone.    Like a tv when turned off, a candle when extinguished or a flower when dried.    "Hazel!" a distant voice called as I felt myself being shook. My head turned to the source, and saw Brooke observing me with wide, puffy, red eyes, conce

Climbing into my car, I revved up the engine. It sickened me, thinking about where I was about to go, but for my brother, I was ready to cross all the oceans in the world.   On the way, I passed the street that I had crossed five days a week for the past few months to go to work. But today as I drove away from it, it felt like I was driving away from my home, from a place that I had gotten so accustomed to that it physically hurt just from trying not to look that way. It was like my heart and mind was still there inside that fuscous cabin, only my body ran away, far away from that place.    My eyes darted to my phone, and I had to employ all my willpower to restrain myself from reaching it and calling Dimitri again. Instead I drew out the pendant from inside my dress and clutched on it. I wondered if he felt the same, if he thought about me, if that burning yearning gnawed at his chest as well. But then a shaky sigh escaped my lips, rem

Time seemed to slow down as we stared at each other. His eyes were blazing while mine probably showed hurt. I couldn't take the fact that he might have gotten back with Catherine. He perhaps replaced me already. But my thoughts came to a stop when the glass in his hand suddenly popped, and red liquid slowly dripped down his hand.    What was concerning was that the drink he was having, was ember in color, not red.    "Dimitri," I gasped.    His eyes lifted to glare at me one more time, before he turned and strode away.    "Wait, Dimitri." I was about to run behind him when a hand wrapped around my arm, stopping me.    "Nah ah, now where do you think you're going?" Catherine spoke in her thin, high-pitched voice, her nails digging in my flesh.    "He is hurt. He needs his hand treated," I gritted out.   

I tip-toed inside, closing the door behind me and making sure a certain someone suspected. But before he came, I glanced around, messed through the drawers and shelves, finally spotting the file I had given Montero on the day of my doom. My smirk broadened as I fished out the lighter, I snatched from one of the guards at the front gate and lit it.    That's when the door shot open and before me stood Montero's most loyal guard dog, Ryan. His eyes widened as I brought the papers in contact with the fire and they shrunk back, turning ashen little by little.    "You bitch!" he screamed, pulling the file out of my hand and hauling it at the floor. His foot stepped over the papers repeatedly until the fire came to a cease. Then his crazed eyes turned to me, and he launched towards me, gripping my neck, hurling me against the wall behind. My heart curtailed in fear in one corner of my chest, but I faced him head on, sending him the best