110

The sun had already disappeared below the horizon for quite a while, so that the sky and the sea in dark black created the perfect reflection of my inner turmoil.

I just sat there and stared into the distance, lost in my swirling thoughts, all I could feel was the warm sand beneath me. The rest of my sensations seemed numb. A void that seemed to absorb me completely.

Arco lay quietly beside me, making me feel reasonably safe, but now I didn't believe I needed any protection from the unknown, because danger was no longer a stranger.

It was me... and he... We really were monsters...

Could I live with that? I didn't know and thought about it, listening to the sound of the waves, which should have calmed me down, but the sounds unsettled me and instead of finding answers in the depths of the ocean, only more questions came up in me.

The biggest of which was who was this woman and what did she do to deserve to die like this?

"What was I thinking," I whispered into the silence, thinking about how short I had known Emilio. For others it would have been a blink of an eye... Ridiculously short days, but to me it seemed a lot longer. I thought I knew him, but these videos reluctantly opened my eyes even though I wanted to keep them closed.

If my feelings for him were that strong, was I really just blinded by love? Didn't I realize the darkness surrounding him?

Yes, I recognized her and made her mine. Why? Maybe to belong to him and to understand him better, but because of that I had only lost myself.

When Arco suddenly jumped up next to me and just ran, I was almost scared to death and turned with wide eyes towards the street, where I immediately recognized Hector and Emilio.

How did he know where I was?

"Isalie!" he admonished, striding quickly through the sand to crouch directly in front of me. His eyes spoke volumes and I could see how worried my absence must have caused him, which made me wonder how he could be so loving and yet so cold at the same time. It all didn't add up. The man from the video was not sitting here in front of me.

Maybe I just wish that...

"How did you find me?" I wanted to know and when he suddenly wanted to take my hands in his, I panicked a little and quickly pulled my hands away from my knees. He then looked at me in bewilderment, but I just couldn't bear to be near him now.

"I just knew where you are," he said, but that couldn't be at all. The beach in Alicante was anything but small and it was dark. It would have been sheer luck to find me here so quickly and I knew Emilio wasn't a lucky man.

"Emilio, tell the truth! Did you tell Hector to shadow me?"

I turned fleetingly towards the street and faced Hector, who was stroking Arco and watching us.

"No, really not!" Emilio replied apologetically and when I looked into his eyes again, I noticed his eyes wander over my necklace.

"You're not serious," I breathed in surprise, almost speechless at the thought that he'd put a tracking device on me.

"Isalie, listen to me," Emilio said in a trembling voice, but I frantically got up from the sand and put my hands on the clasp of the chain while the first tears ran down my cheeks.

"I thought it was a gift!", I got upset with a trembling voice and after I just couldn't open the clasp because of the chaos in my head, I angrily ripped it off my neck and threw it at his feet, crying. "But it wasn't a gift! It was just there to control me!"

I wanted to turn my back on him, but he jerked my arm back, so hard that I suddenly became afraid of him and put my hands protectively over my face.

He immediately let go of me and looked at me in bewilderment with wide eyes while I wiped my tears from my face and looked up at him in agony.

"What just happened?" he wanted to know in a soft voice and didn't seem to understand at all why I was suddenly like this, but how should he understand it!

I hated his father for turning me against him and I would have liked to tell Emilio the truth, but I knew what Ernesto was capable of and didn't want to take any chances.

"I can't do all this anymore," I breathed, shaking, carefully approaching him to put my hands on his warm cheeks while he almost completely destroyed me with his irritated looks.

It broke my heart to see him like that, but he would get over it, I just knew that. He was the strongest man I knew and I would rather leave him now than have his father punish him for continuing to be with me.

Surely there was an explanation for the video of the woman, but I didn't want to hear it. I just wanted a normal life again, without death as a constant companion.

"You're not serious," he suddenly said loudly and removed my hands from his cheeks. "Something happened! Tell me the truth!"

"Nothing happened!"

"Oh yes!? Now you suddenly want to leave but this afternoon you still wanted to fuck with me?!"

I looked at him with wide eyes and realized that he immediately regretted his words, but they were spoken and now I not only felt bad, but also like a whore.

"I'm going now before I say anything else that we both regret!" I retorted tearfully, turning my back to hurry across the sand back to the road...

And while I just wanted to get away from him, a part of me desperately wished he'd stop me...but he didn't, and it was selfish of me to be mad at him for that...

But that didn't matter now... He would get over it... He would get over me...