Crashed Into a Gangster

42

Victoria

I can see my hands below, my palms upward as the mud showcases - slowly but surely dripping off my skin from the rain above. I'm soaked, drenched - I can feel it. I can feel everything...
Jack.
His body;
Twined in dirty plastic - bruised and beaten. I...didn't hesitate. I can see myself grasp onto the shovel, and eventually dig up my unmoving ex fiancé a grave. It's sick - the aroma of his breathless, lifeless body thickens the air outside.
I'd give anything for the rain to stop pouring; for it's making everything worse.
I just know I need to hurry.
Why?
Rio...he's waiting.
Do I contain the feeling of being rushed?
Am I digging too fast?

All I know, is that I need to get back to Rio -
The gangster that tied me up in all of this.
Yet I tame this twisted sensation to be around him. It's wrong. It's not me. But it is, right?
I keep being lulled back in.
His smile. His domineering ways. His low voice - it's ruining me - crushing me from the inside out.
Though, I did it, I buried my ex fiancé. Because he was already dead. Because my 'business partner' beat him, literally, to death.

I'm done now.
Jack is buried.
I see my knuckles turn white on the steering wheel; when my foot presses down on my gas pedal.
I rush to him.

...One side of me knows it's domestic - following behind the gangster and his criminal acts, suppressing the words, the criticism, of his wrong doing.
The side of me that knows I should leave...and end it.
The other side, keeps allowing him to break me, to lull me in. To break me...to break me. He knows the affect - he has it all jotted down in his wicked mind, I bet. He knows I feel I can't tug away. That's the side I know, deep in my heart, I need to escape from.

For this isn't me.

...Escape...

My brown eyes flutter open - the texture of his thin bedsheets are a bit cold under my back. I harshly wipe my eyes, and adjust my sight. Sunlight beams through the glass window over the head of the gangster's bed - canvassing a required light onto the rest of the room. I turn over in bed, my eyes face the gangster's rested own pair. Rio lays on his back - his bare waist and up uncovered by the low sheets barely clothing him.

I swallow, watching him a moment.
'It's me and you, sweetheart. Business as usual,' I remember him say...
'What if I asked you to be my business partner?' His low, deceiving voice replays in my mind - and I don't take my steady eyes off his sleeping frame.
'Looks like you need a shower...'

I shut my eyes, briefly. I know there's not a possible escape for him to leave my mind - but physically, I can.
I suck in a low breath, and sit up to kick my feet over the edge of his bed. After I come to a stand I throw on a clean t-shirt of his and comfortable sweat pants - hurriedly gathering my dirty clothes afterward to make my way outside. I run down the twisted, metal staircase with my clothes in hand.

This is it. This one side of me is going back to taking action. I'm turning away from him... And that other side demands for me to turn around, return to his side on his bed. But I'm stronger than that, I am. I rush outside to my car, and throw my clothes into the desolate passenger seat before I rush to the driver side. I swing open the car door, before movement appears in my peripheral vision. I turn to see Rio standing, with a black shirt and dark jeans now clothing his frame. He stands on the cemented porch, watching me with his hands folded. I part my lips, but don't sound a word.

Rio doesn't move. He purses his full lips, holding my gaze. But I don't allow him to hold my own for too long, and I swallow, getting into my car. I shut the car door behind me. I start the ignition, flicking my gaze up to his own from afar in the lot, as he still stands on the porch. I watch his jaw clench, hard, when my engine roars to life. My breathing tends to increase, while I steady my gaze on the gangster another moment longer, before I back up, and drive off, making my way onto the backroads.

--

"Whoa whoa whoa, you're leaving?" My sister's voice pipes with concern over the phone line when I throw another t-shirt of mine into my suitcase. I breathe heavily. "Is that so bad?" I toss in my hairbrush afterwards, stacking the second suitcase onto the other. I run a hand through my hair, pacing toward the bathroom. "I already told you, Ann. Something terrible, really terrible, happened. I just...need to get away from him. He's not...good. He's-"

"Who? Rio?! He saved your life, and me and Abby...how- what happened?! All of a sudden you're just-" I let out a humorless laugh. "Yeah, he saved us. But I- I just can't be around him!" I sigh against the phone. "Look, I have the money to take off, just for a few days! Or at least until I clear my mind, or..."

"Where exactly do you plan on going?" My sister interjects over the line. "I don't know, Ann. Maybe I'll stay with uncle Jeff. It'll be a place to sleep until I come back. I just-"

"Crazy uncle Jeff?!" Ann interjects. I roll my eyes, suppressing my chuckle. "Drunk uncle Jeff?!" She throws in before I can answer. I march up my porch to lock my front door. "The only uncle Jeff we have, Ann. And I said maybe. Or I don't know, a hotel." I say, getting into my car before starting up the ignition. I throw my head back on the head rest, a shaky breath escapes my lips.

"Think of this as a vacation I'm taking." I try to assure. "Literally every vacation you take never ends well..." My sister murmurs over the line. I furrow my brows, noting the unfortunate truth in Ann's choice of words. I take in a deep breath. "Right. Well then, take it as...an...escape?" I attempt to correct, hearing my sister breathe out a heavy breath in turn.

"Alright, OK...can you just call me? Like, as soon as you get to Narnia?"
My lips quirk up. "Will do. Love you." I respond. "Love ya, too. Call me!" My sister ends the call soon after, and I take a deep breath - plunging my cell back into my purse before I pull out of my driveway. I head down the road, and start my journey toward the beach, or wherever a decent hotel is outside of this town. I know what I'm doing. And I won't turn back, not yet.

No more crime, no more gang bangers.
That part I'm grasping onto feels a bit more free. I avert my gaze onto the back seat from the rear view mirror - to glance at the open duffle bag that showcases the $2,300 peaking out of the open end. I have enough to last a few days, or a week and a half, at the most - certainly enough to tug away from Rio, just as he probably didn't think I could do.

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Thanks for reading! Hope you all enjoyed.

Lots of love,

xx