XI

She was walking across the campus toward the dorm rooms when she felt them on her it was more than a pair of eyes that she felt watching her. She wondered if whether it was Turner with reinforcements, just about ready to pounce again. Then she thought of Deacon, she wasn't stupid enough to not know that it he had revoked whatever hold he had had over Turner, 

considering he had mentioned him last night, it was glaringly obvious he had planned something, but what? she didn't know.

However, the fact that he knew what his friend was capable of and he set him on her either way stung her, and she thought him to no longer care for her as he had made it seem he did, if he could subject her to such danger. Then a thought struck and she couldn't help but give a hollow chuckle to nothing but air shaking her head, 'unless he thought I would come running to him for help', she couldn't help but scoff then, because she wasn't so helpless and she would never allow herself to be ever again. She had lived through years of being nothing but pathetic and helpless and she didn't feel like repeating the experience.

Manipulative and cunning, those would be the new paints she would use to paint who Deacon was, nothing but a stranger to her she would soon forget. She rushed toward her room, incapable of no longer ignoring how her skin was crawling and she wanted to do nothing but scrub it raw just to get rid of the Turner's smell that still clung to her. She felt disgusting as she unconsciously scratched at her forearms with a force that would have had her bleeding if it weren't for the long sleeves of her jacket that protected her arms from her.

Emily sat wide awake on her bed and Bella simply shot a short hi her way before she marched toward the bathroom like a woman on a mission and locked the door behind her. And for hours she sat beneath the water that poured through the shower head, having scrubbed even her lips raw for they had tingled at the memory and her bottom lip that had felt swollen from turner's violent bite. As she sat on the cold tiled floor with her hair clinging to her skin as if to protect it from the harshly turned cold water, Emily no longer knocked on the door, seeming to have given up, and Bella hoped she was gone.

Alas, she wasn't as Bella walked out in nothing but a towel around her body and the young woman looked at her concerned and in question, there was also slight annoyance within her eyes. Bella wanting her out because her presence was delaying her departure, she snapped.

"Don't even ask Emily. Besides, don't you have your crew to hang out with rather than being up in my business?" she snapped walking toward her closet, pretending not to care for her reaction at all, and her plan seemed to work as the concerned look on Emily's face but faded and she retorted with a scoff

"You know what? whatever" grabbing her jacket and cell phone she marched out the door. 'Well,  that was easy, too easy.' She thought narrowing her eyes in the direction of the door.

Letting out a sigh with a slight shale of her head, Bella changed into some black skinny jeans with a white turtleneck and her yellow jacket, only to finish off with her favourite yellow sneakers. After tying her laces, she took a pair of scissors from her desk and marched toward her bed, discarding the scissors on it, she took her scrunchie from it and tied her hair in a bun, only to grab the mattress and moved it to an awkward side away from the wall until a certain corner was exposed.

Lifting the blankets that were still on it and the sheet as well, she reached for her scissors and tore away at the thread that sealed a hole she had made. With the hole open, she shoved her hand in only to retrieve her passports, five to be exact, and only one had her real identity and one she hadn't used in a long time and wouldn't for a long time. Next came her credit cards and fake id's and she shoved them in her back pack.

And as she stood from her leaned position, her hand held the last item, a picture of a man cradling a bundle in his arms, a happy serene expression on both parents' faces. She closed her eyes then at the familiar sting in her eyes and her heart gave a painful clench. 'I'll keep my promise mom and dad, no matter what, I will.'

She pushed the mattress back against the wall in place, making sure everything seemed just as it had been, for she didn't want to alert anyone of her abrupt departure. Because all she would take with her were the clothes she wore and bag on her back.

Casting one last look into the room, she closed the door behind her. Her phone deserted on her desk but her laptop with her. Now all she had to figure out was how to ditch the eyes she was certain still waited to keep surveillance of her every move. She would have to lose them and she loved that they were in the big city then, for it would make it all the more easier for her.

She walked as if oblivious toward the cab in the parking lot. She made one by the lamp post a distance away from the bus bench, and another stood across the street. Inconspicuously eying the cars around her, she noticed one that stood out of the college student's cars, one that had a shadow in it, a shadow that remained stock still not bothering to even hide should she spot him.

Alas, she knew they would tail her and she scoffed at the idea, wondering if Deacon was responsible for this, or Luka, for she wasn't that stupid to not know that he was behind the video after all. Getting into the cab, she told the driver the address to the diner that was ever over flowing with students and it was their famous hang out spot. Having been there a dozen times, the employees didn't bother to stop her as she headed straight for the kitchen, they could only watch confused.

"See you later Clive" she said her farewell to the cook she had come to be acquainted with in the many times she had come to the diner.

The middle aged man barely muttered a word before she had disappeared through their back service door that open up to an alley. Seeing no one there, she shook her head at the fact that they had really underestimated her, whoever they were. She walked in the opposite direction to where they were parked, hoping there would be none of the on the other side.

As she broke through the end of the alley she all but raised her hand to hail a cab that stopped minute it saw another customer to drive, wasting no time, she entered and told the driver to just drive straight for a while. To which the driver surprisingly complied, and she looked through the back window to see if anyone was following her. Aside from her gut telling her otherwise, she knew she wouldn't make the mistake of underestimating them, hence she wondered if they were that stealthy to not make themselves known in this case.

However, knowing that her gut had never led her astray, she had really ditched them. 'Suckers', she scoffed under her breath, eliciting a look from the driver through the rear-view mirror, and she offered a smile and said

"To the airport please" Still tense, she sat in the cab on her laptop and she got to work.

Bella Greneda would be no more, and in her place would be a Delilah Ray, a name she hoped they wouldn't search for should they actually look for her, and besides, she found comfort in knowing that it was a common name therefore, they would have to go through many names before they could find her, and she would be damned if she let them.

She turned her bank account into nothing but a decoy that would trap them into a cell of many decoys, a dead end that would lead them nowhere, and she erased everything that was attached to her name along with the name itself and it was will like she never existed. A fault she seemed oblivious to for it would only raise more questions than she would come to appreciate.

Alas, now Delilah, she placed her passport aside, and shoved the rest into a secret pocket of her special backpack, having been through this procedure before, she knew customs wouldn't find her counterfeit documents, and Delilah Ray would be a legit person, a young 23-year-old trust fund baby.

When they arrived at the airport she paid the cab and walked through the busy airport where everyone seemed to be hurrying somewhere. She was nothing but a bundle of tension as she kept a vigilant eye out. And as she stood on the que leading to the counter where she would have to buy a ticket, her eyes flitted up on the lit board that had many places and the times the plane would take off.

It was in that moment she picked at random again, despite how it had turned out the first time, she thought there was no way it could be worse. A spontaneous decision that was also urged by her urgency to leave the city as soon as possible.

Hawaii, that was where she was headed as she leaned against the comfortable seat of the plane. She let out a sigh dreading the 15-hour flight but found it would be worth it being that it would place her about 4963 miles away from the treacherous city, 'okay perhaps the city wasn't bad, just a few people were.' She thought to herself. In that moment she finally gave into sleep.

Sadly, nightmares clutched to her like leeches do to skin, and sucked just about every peace she had and had hoped for. Waking up with a start, she thought she should have known better, after all when one closes their eyes, all they ever see is darkness and literally so, except where others' void is nothing but mere empty blackness, hers raged with endless shadows after her very soul, demons that sucked her life up bits by bits.

"Can I assist you with anything mam?" the flight attendant queried as she glanced down at her sweat ridden figure. It took Bella a few seconds before she could gather herself together and respond to the woman.

"Can I have a water please, and some almond nuts if you have any" she said softly seeing as everyone else in the first class section were blissfully asleep ignorant to her suffering. The woman nodded and walked down the aisle only to disappear through a door.

Bella thought had she not been in first class, then she was more than certain that by the time the plane reached Honolulu, her entire body would be giving her terror, therefore it was just so she lay on the adjustable seat that could fall back enough to give you an illusion of you lying atop a bed somewhere, a rather small barely comfortable bed but a bed none the less.

Knowing there were still a couple hours left to fly, and that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep, she retrieved her laptop and some ear pods and classical music was all that blasted through her ears only to calm her enough. She wondered then if they would really seek her out, and if so, why, because it wasn't like she was anything significant to them, Deacon had made that clear and she barely knew Luka. Shaking her head off, she hoped they would just leave her alone and in peace, and this time she would make no mistake of landing herself anywhere near Mafia, gang or Mob territory.

For if she were to keep her promise, she would need to keep a world distance from such organisations. She was yet to think of just what she would do then, having cut her music studies short, she no longer felt like placing herself in such an environment anymore, and so whatever she would choose, would bear no reminder of neither her past nor the city, she just hoped she would find something with no such connection, else she'll always be incapable of forgetting it all as she deeply wished to.