Falling in Love Again: A Valentine's Day Proposal

Second, the weapon becomes clear, almost in an instant. It’s a knife. One with a very long blade and the potential to do some serious damage. I reach my fingers out, wanting to grab it before it can do any damage, but I’m too far away, it’s too late. The knife pulls back in one of the guy’s hands and flings forward into the other’s body. Right into his chest where I know his heart is. Blood spurts everywhere. It’s almost cartoon like, but in the most disgusting way possible. Vomit swirls violently in my stomach.

Thirdly, Raelyn yells out. I think she screams ‘no!’. I don’t know if that’s because of the stabbing that we’ve just witnessed or because she doesn’t want me to get in the middle of it, but it shifts everything badly. Our identity is no longer a secret, as the man with the knife now knows that we’re here and he’s spinning around to look at me.

Fuck. My heart pounds furiously. I dart my eyes back between the killer and Raelyn. I need to protect her; I’m going to have to do it right now. I can’t help the guy who’s been stabbed, not that there’s a lot that I can do for him anyway if he’s been stabbed in the fucking heart, but I can save her. I can ensure that the same thing doesn’t happen to Raelyn, since she definitely really doesn’t deserve it.

This is a nightmare, the worst possible way to end this confusing, dreadful, amazing day, but here we are. Witnessing a God damn murder. I need to get out of this moment of being frozen and take action. It’s up to me to somehow ensure that this becomes much less dreadful.

“Come on!” I spin on my heels and turn back to Raelyn. “Let’s get the fuck out of here now.”

She takes the hint, she needs to go, so she grabs my hand quickly and we race together. Our feet pound on the concrete as we take off as quickly as we can manage. I’m sure I’m hurting her arm as I tug her behind me, but that’s not as important as keeping her away from him. The killer with a knife and bad intentions.

He saw our faces; my addled brain reminds me. He knows that it was us.

It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t know our names, he can find out who we are if he really wants to. There are plenty of men like Lee in the world who can discover anything about anyone. There are all sorts of things about me on the Internet. About me and my business. I could be in serious trouble here.

“Where are we going?” Raelyn screams behind me. “He’s still behind us.”

I glance backwards to see the guy with the knife waving in my direction. He wants me dead, I can see it on his face. He doesn’t want any witnesses to what just happened.

“We need an ambulance,” Raelyn continues to yell, all of her thoughts spewing hard and fast out of her mouth, “We need to take care of that guy, he’s going to die if we don’t do anything about it.”

He’s already dead, I know that. I saw enough to know for sure. That knife pierced his heart with too much ease. I really don’t think that there is even the slightest chance in hell of him surviving. It might make me sound a bit like a dick and go back on everything that I thought earlier on about helping out a stranger, but I need to keep us alive. That’s my main priority right now, to keep us from losing our lives.

“Come with me,” I call backwards. “Don’t lose me no matter what.”

I take different directions, trying not to glance back to see if he’s gaining on us, and I eventually hear the noise of traffic which floods me with relief. If we’re out in public where people can see us, then there’s much less chance of us losing our lives. We need to be around as many people as possible.

It doesn’t help that I can feel Raelyn flagging too. If I don’t get her away from that guy, then she might fall down. So, I tug her harder, pushing her a tiny bit more and we burst out onto the street. We’re by a bar slash night club where people are already drinking and dancing outside. Some of them look like they’ve been partying for days, so won’t be any use to us if we need witnesses. Right now, we are the witnesses and that’s bad enough.

“What are we doing?” Raelyn shouts at me. “Where are we going? We need the cops.”

I tug her close to me so that only she can hear what I’m saying to her

. “Do you trust me?”

“What do you mean? Why do I need to trust you? We need to sort this out right now.”

“I need you to trust me, Raelyn. I need to keep us safe.”

The word ‘safe’ sparks something in her. She nods fast knowing that she needs to make a decision quick. She wants to be safe above all else. Her survival instinct kicks in and she just wants to live. She saw that blade too;, she knows as well as I do the damage that it can do. She’s scared, and that affects her answer.

I’m afraid too. That’s why my eyes keep flickering everywhere. I think that we’ve lost him, but I’m not about to let my guard down anytime soon. I won’t get stupid and die because of it.

“Okay, good because right now I’m getting us in a cab and getting us out of here.”

I don’t specify where we’re going because I don’t think that she’ll like it. We’re going home, to my place, so I can work out what we’re going to do next. We will go to the police, once I’ve worked out how much our lives are in danger. I’m really frightened that Raelyn and I could die too.

“You hail a cab; I’m going to call an ambulance.”

This works for her too, so she nods and agrees with me. “Okay great. Yeah, let’s do that. Help him.”

I find a drunk person to borrow their cell phone, someone who looks nothing like me so cannot be mistaken for me if there’s any tracking done to hunt me down, just thinking ahead. Right now, I want the least to do with this crime possible. The guy saw my face and I don’t want to also be seen as a grass. I don’t say that I know what happened, just that someone is hurt and I give the exact location so they can find him.

I know they’re going to find him dead, I’m certain of it, but I’ve done all that I can. I don’t want to think about what will come afterwards because it makes me really sad. I haven’t lost what’s happened here tonight. A man has died. I don’t know what the situation is surrounding it, that’s really sad.

I find Raelyn already in a cab, her leg wobbling fast with anxiety and stress. I slide in the car beside her and reel out my address for the driver to take us there.

“What are you doing?” Raelyn hisses. “We need to go to the police station.”