Chapter 6: Chapter 6

Getting out of the car, I ignored Monic’s protests and questions. I remembered what Preston told me and it was enough to convince me that this wasn’t the Adam that we knew.

“Jake, drive and don’t look back,” I told him sharply. He looked at me as if I was crazy.

“What about yo-” I shut the car’s door before he could ask another question and I shot him a look that made him turn the car and drive away.

This man wasn’t my Adam and I won’t let him hurt anyone I love.

He was after me so I knew Monic and Jake would be safe as long as they weren’t anywhere near me.

I narrowed my eyes at him, glaring at the man before me darkly.

“What do you want?” I asked into the night, knowing he could hear me loud and clear.

I was hurt and if he was going to pick a fight with me, I would lose in a nanosecond. But Bryant has always told me that if I’m going to go down, I should go down with my head held high and I should fight until they bring me to my knees.

So that was exactly what I’m going to do. Fight him even if I knew the outcome wouldn’t be pretty.

He had an advantage over me. He was wearing the face of the man I love. Even if I wanted to hurt him, my heart wouldn’t let me because all I’m seeing is the guy who I care about.

But he doesn’t remember me. To him, I was the person who killed his mother; and that certainly won’t be stopping him from hurting me.

He started walking closer but I didn’t move from my spot. My feet remained rooted to the ground; partly due to shock and partly due to my injury that was preventing me from moving freely.

One wrong move and he’ll notice. Not that anything indicated that he didn’t spectate my earlier fight. That would make my efforts in hiding my injury futile since he would’ve witnessed my side being kicked twice.

Would he really hit you though?

It sure looked like it during dinner. Adam wouldn’t have the heart to lay a hand on a lady but then again this wasn’t Adam and I wasn’t exactly a ‘lady’; which was unfortunate because I was obviously in the losing end of this fight and that completely sucks for me.

He kept walking forward until he was only a few feet away from me, watching me with an indescribable gleam in his eyes.

“How long have you been here?” I answered coolly, as if I wasn’t about to be beaten up by my own “boyfriend”, if I could even call him that.

He didn’t answer. He finally stopped inching closer when the distance between us was small enough to allow us to see each other clearly.

It was painful, looking at him like this. At first glance, you could’ve missed that tinge of hatred in his eyes but if you look closer, you would see that it was practically burning through him. I could feel my body urging me to take a weary step backward to create a safe distance.

With this proximity, it wouldn’t take much for him to land a blow. With my whole body throbbing in pain, one abrupt move would cause me more pain than I could hide.

I was praying for some of that adrenaline to come back but I couldn’t gather enough energy to will it to come.

“Why did you do it? Why did you kill her?” I shook my head at his questions.

“That’s the thing, I didn’t!” I shouted in aggravation. The whole ‘accuse Casey of committing murder’ was getting on my nerves real quick. This is stupid.

“Don’t you dare lie, I saw you!” He yelled at me, his fist swinging. My eyes widened before I quickly ducked, gritting my teeth to keep myself from whimpering in pain.

So much for not laying a hand on a lady, don’t you think? But I guess there could be a valid argument here. No lady would be in this place, fighting in this God-forsaken competition in the first place anyways.

“I don’t know what you saw or how you saw something that never happened but I would never, within any lifetime, hurt your mother. I respected your mother.” The words about our relationship before the crash were right on the tip of my tongue but I bit it in. It would do no good even if he came to know about it.

“Well you didn’t respect her enough to not kill her.” He roared, his hands flying and his fingers wounding themselves around my neck, cutting my air supply.

I gasped in vain but gave up not a second later. I gathered spit in my mouth and spat it out onto his face. When his grip loosened in surprise, I hit the insides of his elbow to fight out of his grip.

I fought against my instincts and held myself back from elbowing him in the face and stumbled back instead. My hands gingerly touched my neck that was already bruising due to the force he used to choke me.

By the rate I was fighting back, which is close to none at all, I would certainly end up in a body-bag. I needed to do something but I couldn’t bring myself to hurt him. Deep inside, he was still Adam; the boy who was there for me and who stood up for me against Maddison on his first day of school; the pesky dude who wouldn’t stop tailing me around.

He was the guy I fell for, blanketed with a layer of hatred and lies.

While he was wiping the spit off, I calculated my next moves carefully. It would be a waste of energy in running because he would catch me faster than I could scream bloody murder.

But I can’t fight back even if I wanted to; it wasn’t like I was in any state to fight off someone twice my size.

If I keep on playing dodge, I would tire out eventually tire my self out. So, the only thing I could actually do right then was pray for a miracle and try to gauge out a memory out of him to stall my unpreventable death.

You can’t say I’m overreacting because he wouldn’t kill me. Remember the last time we thought he wouldn’t lay a finger on me?

About minutes ago?

No?

Well yeah, if you skipped a few minutes, you might’ve missed the part where he almost choked me to death.

He didn’t even waste a minute to stalk towards me.

“Give it up, Cassandra. I know you’re injured, you know you don’t stand a chance in getting out of this one.” He coaxed with a menacing smile. So he does know about the bruise. He was watching the fight.

I smirked at him faintly.

“You clearly hit your head pretty hard when that car crashed into you because the Adam that knew me would’ve known better than to try and convince me into giving up without a fight,” I said aloud spreading my hands apart in a ‘come and get me’ motion.

“It’s just not how I roll,” I winked before charging forwards, ignoring the screaming pain on my side as I pumped my legs faster to try to make use of the element of surprise.

I brought him down swiftly, using my weight to hold him down. I doubt it would keep him nailed to the ground but it was worth the try.

I almost missed the loud thud afterwards in the midst of releasing the war cry but Adam’s grunt of pain was sharp and abrupt. I immediately got off him, anxiety coursing through me.

I wanted to save myself but I didn’t want to cause another amnesia. God knows what it would be this time, Casey being a cannibal cow that ate its non-existent uncle? Who knows? The accusation was so ridiculous it could’ve been funny if it was Peter the Leprechaun that I ‘murdered’ instead of Carla.

“Yo dude, you okay?” I asked him in blind panic. He was clutching his head as he rolled to his side. My own side wailed in pain in reminder that it was probably had a huge black and blue bruise forming.

I started feeling light headed, worrying for Adam’s well- being.

Reaching out, I hesitantly placed my hand on his shoulder and when nothing happened, I started shaking him lightly. His body had gone still and his muscles were tense under the shirt he was wearing.

I shifted into a crouching position in case I needed to flee the spot the instant he starts screaming bloody murder at me again. But the sight that greeted me the next second made my legs turn to jelly, causing me to flop onto the ground once again, dumbfounded.

“Case?”

His voice was so soft and the look in his eyes looked sincerely perplexed but I quickly shook off the temporary shock.

No. This is not Adam. It’s some psycho dude who thinks I killed Carla. I should not fall for his tricks.

I quickly stood up, taking the chance to walk away and leave. I stood up as gingerly and quickly as I could so that I wouldn’t cause so much pain to my side anymore. It was starting to get unbearable before I sobered up and shot him a glare.

I limped a few feet away until a hand grabbed my shoulder and spun me around. I braced myself for a punch. I didn’t know where he was going to aim so I tensed all the muscles in my body and flinched.

When I felt no pain, I peeked through an eye, face still scrunched up in horrid anticipation, but all I saw was hurt.

Hurt in Adam’s eyes.

“You thought I was going to hurt you?” Now this is tricky. I laughed nervously and uncertainly.

“I know where you’re getting at here, you sly bastard. Don’t play coy and if you think you could use the face of my boyfriend just to fool me, you’re up for some serious reality check. It’s enough that you’re wearing his skin, I never thought you would stoop so low as to pretend to be him,” I snorted.

That was a low blow.

But the next words that came out of his mouth gave me the biggest shock of the month that had my heart skip a beat.

“What are you talking about, Case? I am your boyfriend. I’m pretty sure you made that clear when you asked me out.” There was a slight teasing tone underneath the uncertainty.

No one could’ve known about that little detail except for Adam himself.

The urge to jump into his welcoming arms, to cave into the familiar warmth was tempting but I diligently held back and watched him cautiously, eyeing him closely.

“So who killed your mom?” I asked him while scrutinizing every shift of facial expression that flitted across his face.