The Day Sara Lost Everything: Chapter 26

Anthony was walking up the long, elegant staircase. Sara had left his front door open and there were wet footprints in the foyer. He went up to her room, surprised to see the bathroom door wide open. There was broken plastic and blood all over the floor. The stupid idiot probably left a trail of her blood. There was no way he could clean all this up before Jim came. She was going to be like a wounded deer, easy to track and even easier to kill.

Sighing he set about cleaning what he could. When he heard Jim walk into the house, he had gotten all of the plastic picked up and thrown away. There was only a faint stain of blood on the floor, but hopefully Jim wouldn’t notice. There was nothing he could do about any blood she had trailed out of her room. The best he could do to help her now would be to keep Jim distracted as long as he possibly could and hope she had the common sense to get as far away from him as possible.

Anthony climbed to his feet and began the long journey down the stairs. Jim was seated at the kitchen table. His clothing were soggy with water and blood. He smelled like a barn and looked even worse.

“What the hell happened out there?”

“I shot that slut Betty, but her little tramp of a daughter noticed me before I could get rid of her too. I’m not one for dead bodies, but damn, she would have left a nice one.”

Anthony managed a weak smile as he thought to himself, “I did everything I could for them, to keep them away from him. But its so hard to live a double life, to make Jim think I’m on his side, to keep Betty and Sara safe…”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Sara had heard voices in the house and immediately scrambled to her feet. She was no longer running now, she figured in a sleepy little town it would draw more attention to her than just walking at a brisk pace. She had been out of town for a few minutes and just as the outter most building was disappearing beyond the horizon, a swarm of gray rain clouds hovered above her.

“Talk about having a cloud above your head,” said Sara.

She blew a whisp of hair out of her face and turned onto a muddy side street. It wasn’t uncommon for people to randomly walk the back roads, so no one driving by gave it a second thought. Except one particular hunter green, double-wide truck. The driver was attractive and seemed somewhat familiar. At least from what Sara could tell. She didn’t think about it until she saw the same truck heading back towards her. It stopped maybe fifty feet from here and she froze. Her muscles tensed, ready to flee at the first sign of trouble.

The driver got out, slammed the door, and made his way over. As soon as he was close enough, Sara took one look at him, and sighed, almost in relief. Ian.

“Are you ok? I’ve never seen you this far out of town on your own. You used to shudder at the idea of ‘being that far away from civilization’.” Ian chuckled.

Sara tucked a piece of hair behind her ear, “Yeah, of course I’m ok. I guess I just felt like getting away from it all.” She crossed her arms over her chest, hoping to keep him from seeing the blood stains on her shirt. The open would on her neck was hidden by her hair, but the last thing she wanted was to have to explain things to Ian. But when did things ever go her way?
“Sara, why the hell is there blood on your shirt? What the fuck is going on?”

“I…um…”

Ian put his head in his hands, “How could I do this to you? I left you alone when you needed me most. I’m so sorry Sara. Please forgive me?”
“Ian. I have too much going on right now. I can’t even thing about a relationship or what happened.”

“Fair enough. But at least come home with me? I’ll get you some clean clothes and something to eat. Hell, you can even take a shower and I’ll promise not to peek,” he joked, elbowing her in the ribs.
She couldn’t help but crack a smile at the reference to last summer, even if the jab in the ribs did hurt a little. She had been over at his house. They were up in the barn, goofing around, laying in the hay, cuddling. Occasionally Ian would “accidentally” graze her bikini clad breast with his hand but nothing too serious. She was so filthy afterwards that he offered to let her take a shower. Throughout the entire thing he would try to see through the crack in the door. She smiled to herself. If only she could go back to that time when the most important thing she had to worry about was telling Ian “no”.

Sara hadn’t even realized that she had climbed into the truck, she was too busy with her flashback. They had pulled up in front of Ian’s house. It was a large white farm house with a red barn behind it. They didn’t have any animals anymore but it was still full of hay, they sold it to help pay for Ian’s insurance on the truck. As she climbed the old familiar front steps, she felt Ian’s arm encircle her shoulder’s guiding her up the steps.

Once inside, he directed Sara to the bathroom. He handed her towels and a set of his sister’s clothes. He closed the door and went downstairs to clean up a bit and make some lunch.

Sara took her time lathering in the shower, being careful of the slice in her neck. She wasn’t sure how long she could hide THAT from Ian. But she didn’t want him to get upset with her again. They had only just started to mend things. Or did they? She was so confused. Nothing in her life ever went the way she wanted it to, and they certainly never worked out in the long run.

She pulled on the grey Central Michigan University sweatpants and the somewhat loose “F*CKING RAY OF SUNSHINE” t-shirt, “Of course. He didn’t give me panties or a bra. Oh well. Its not like I’m a virgin anymore. Thanks to that fuck wad John.” She laughed at her own irony. She really was a fucking ray of sunshine these days wasn’t she? Oh well, its not like she didn’t have a reason to be.