Page 60 of A Lab Rat's Guide to Fated Love
He wouldn’t dare touch her in front of an audience.
“Happy birthday!” Sunny grinned, pulling her to him before releasing her quickly with a, “Sorry, just happy to see you again.”
Run,a small voice whispered in the back of her head.
“Thanks.” She took a step back. “Apology accepted. And congratulations on your wedding. I should head back now. My friends are waiting.”
“Oh no, wait! Will you talk to her once?” He pointed to his phone. “Tell her you’ve forgiven me? She won’t believe me otherwise.”
“Sure.”
“Let’s sit in the car.” He jerked his head towards the white sedan parked a few feet away. “We’re both going to fall sick if we keep standing in this darned rain. Don’t know what’s with the weather—it’s supposed to be snowing.”
“I don’t think so.”
Run.
“Please.” He fell to his knees, pinching his earlobes like a child. “I’ll keep begging till you agree.”
The spectacle attracted stares from passers-by. Some people even halted altogether to glare at Nori like she was torturing the poor, innocent man at her feet.
“Fine.” She ducked into the car. “Please hurry. My friends are waiting for me.”
In the split second it took for her to glance towards the restaurant window and back at Sunny, the door locks clicked into place. Her hands flew to the handle and pulled, but it didn’t budge.
Run,the fading whisper warned her for the last time, just as something sharp poked at her side. She looked down to find a sashimi knife pressed against her abdomen.
“Try alerting anyone, and this goes through you. You’ve seen me fillet fish, haven’t you?” Sunny beamed with such casual innocence, no one looking from the outside would ever suspect a thing. “But I don’t want to do that. I just want to talk. You wouldn’t have gone with me otherwise, so I had to be creative. You love it when I’m creative, don’t you?”
Inside the restaurant, someone brought a cake to their table—pink, with strawberries on it. Nori’s favorite. She wished one of them would look outside and notice her, but all her friends were busy chatting.
Sunny drove the car to her new apartment building. He kept the knife pressed to the small of her back as he pulled her out of the car, into the lift, and up to her apartment. He had a spare key that he used to unlock the door. And as he did, cold dread pooled in her stomach. Nobody had a spare key to her apartment. Not her family. Not even Ryan.
As he nudged her inside, Nori spun on the spot and shoved him with as much force as she could muster before making a run for the stairs. Right when she thought she’d made it, his arm went around her throat, jerking her backwards and dragging her flailing form inside.
He threw her to the floor and slammed the door shut, engaging the automatic lock.
She made a lunge towards the utility balcony across the room. It wasn’t low enough to jump from, but if she locked herself outside and shouted for help, someone might notice her from the street.
But her plan failed when something hard rammed into the back of her head, and everything went dark.
She didn’t know how long she was out, but when her eyes squinted open, Nori found one side of her face sticky and throbbing as if on fire. She groaned, attempting to prop herself on an elbow, and an immediate wave of nausea made her collapse again.
Sunny chuckled, sprawled in a chair a few feet away with one arm draped loosely over the armrest, while the other rested on his knee. He slowly twisted the knife between his fingers. And as Nori’s terrified gaze lifted to meet his cold, dead one, he began humming a familiar tune.
“You remember the song?” He spoke in barely more than a whisper, yet every word was sharp enough to pierce through her skull. “It was playing at the restaurant when I first asked you out. Our song. You were rude back then, too. But now… every time I listen to it, all I see is your audacity, Nori. All I remember is how you betrayed, assaulted, and disrespected me, and then ran away, as if I could never find you again.”
She opened her mouth to respond, but no sound came out.
“You’re smart.” He smirked. “It’s one of the things I’ve always loved about you. So, you already know who’s at fault here. But you also know that I’ll forgive you. Once I’ve made you pay. Use that smart brain of yours and tell me, Nori. How should I make you pay, so you’d never dare disrespect me again?”
His words seemed to register in her brain slower than they were leaving his mouth, but even as they did, her body remained frozen. She wanted to move, attack, run, yell, do anything other than lie there like a cadaver, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember how.
Sunny eventually stopped twisting the knife, and there was a brief pause, where he sat staring at the blade, contemplating. As his eyes lifted and latched onto hers, Nori finally remembered how to scream. She screamed till she had no voice left.
Sixteen
Fuck him and his Fake Feelings
