I'm doing another dedication today 😁 You know how much all your support on my stories means to me! So today's chapter is dedicated to @TheRelationshipQueen for her constant votes and support on this new story! Thank you, sweetie 🥰😘💕🌠

'You've been cooped up way too long

It's obvious you're jaded

Couldn't just leave you all alone and risk your colors fading'

"Are you okay?" Rachel's question stopped me in my tracks, and I still had no idea about the answer.

I took in everything around in a rapid glance: the crowd all around, the music band taking a breath, the large sign indicating '0-3', the players all back on the field in the scrimmage, including the number 2, Diane's high-pitched voice chanting 'Go Spencer', and the late-afternoon sun peaking through the clouds and making this atmosphere more suffocating.

"No," I blurted out, shoving my pompoms in Rachel's hands. "I'm a little dizzy. Can you replace me?"

It wasn't totally a lie, and my head was spinning more and more as I realized what I was doing.

"Are you sure?" If I'd had a shadow of doubt before, the shine lighting up her blue eyes like I'd just given her the best present dispelled it.

"Yes, you go!" I said as I was the one rushing back towards the exit, not throwing a second glance around, even if I still felt eyes on me.

This time, I held my breath as I turned the corner, and I only let it out when I saw the tall silhouette leaning against the wall. I hadn't dreamed it. He was there, his hand still held out for me. 

This hand that had intrigued me so much, had he used it to take a life? This question crossed my mind as my fingers hovered over his palm, yet my decision was taken.

I didn't listen to the gossips, what I'd heard and seen, and I trusted what I'd felt. He had been the one to realize my birthday wish, making me forget while making this day unforgettable, and he was there again, offering me another escape that I desperately needed no matter how many times I'd pretended I was fine. So who was I to deny it?

I was probably 'reckless' or 'crazy' as rumors would say when I laced my fingers with his, but I left them behind as Blade led me away, and the light sparks invading me with his touch burned any question, except one.

"So where are we going?"

I had glimpsed his motorcycle since the start, and I couldn't wait to find back the freedom of the wind in my hair and the magic of another ordinary place.

"How about you decide today?" His answer froze my movements in front of the motorbike.

Once more, he was offering me an infinite of possibilities, yet most of the places that came to my mind were imprinted with Spencer's mark. As for the diner and park we'd gone last time, I feared it wouldn't be as magical; I preferred to keep the precious memories we'd had, and we probably weren't welcome anyway. There was also his secret place he'd talked about, but was I ready to see it?

"Trust your instincts." He probably guessed we would still be standing here in a month if I kept hesitating.

Though my lost eyes only grew bigger. My instincts, where were they in all of this chaos?

"Come here." He let out a chuckle through his nose, pulling me to sit behind him on the bike, and I at least knew it was my instincts that led me to wrap my arms around his waist. "You close your eyes."

I was instantly met by his cocked eyebrow as he turned his head to me, and after a second of hesitation, I resigned myself to close my eyelids before I could get lost in blue.

"And then you give me the directions."

"What?!" My eyes were open wider than before as I tried to check if he was serious.

Yet except for the devilish glint in his gaze, nothing in the way he blinked at me or the almost straight line of his lips indicated the contrary.

"I'll ask you at every crossroad, and you just trust your guts."

"But it could get us lost anywhere. We won't know where we'll end up."

"And? I think that's what we did last time."

He had a point, and he knew it as his devious smile grew larger.

In a way, it was what I'd done for this past week: avoid knowing. But while I was just standing paralyzed, Blade, he, was moving into the unknown, quite literally when he started his motorbike before I could even agree.

"Close your eyes," he repeated, not averting his gaze from the road as my wide ones were roaming all over his features from the faint one-day stubble I was close enough to see to the length of his eyelashes, and without moving his eyes, he still waited for me to close mine to add, "Trust your instincts."

My instincts were slightly disturbed as his hand was resting a little too high on my thigh – which luckily, was covered today – and creating statics on the way near my guts.

"Where?" He already stopped at the exit of the parking lot.

"Right." It was easy for this one, as I'd arrived from the left, and I tried to visualize the streets I knew.

"And now?"

"Right... in front." I grinned as I could hear his mouth had opened, ready to protest.

I wouldn't make him go round in circles, mostly because I didn't want to go back to the stadium; otherwise, it would have been tempting.

I refocused on the road I pictured in my head as he slowed down again.

"Still straight ahead."

We must have been by the row of jasmine and rose bushes separating the sidewalk from the road – I could smell the heady scent of the flowers from there. Then, there would be the founders' statues and the exit of Subrose. The air was already stronger in my hair.

However, with the speed, the images behind my lids became blurrier, and after a few more stops, I was lost for his next 'where?'.

"Um..."

A large building on my right, and on my left, two blue...

"No peeking." His tone was flat, but he still had his crooked smile, and I knew it because my eyes were half-open, and I opened them wider to retort,

"But how will I know you're following my directions?"

"I followed them so far. You gotta trust your instincts... and me."

A possible murderer. His arguments were really inspiring trust along with his devious grin, and I was questioning my sanity, eyes open or not, as he leaned closer, and I stared at that crystalline expanse of mystery and bad intentions.

"Or do I have to blindfold you, Shooting star?"

His arguments were really convincing – no irony this time – and I closed my eyes tight. It was better than to see him a hair away from my face, and I wasn't exaggerating. By way of example of the little space between us, his chuckle vibrated straight to my lips, and it was already enough without glimpsing the dimple going with it.

Besides, what was keeping my eyes closed was my nickname; it seemed that every time he pronounced it, it silenced my brain in a magic streak, and like the burning meteor, it surely headed for disaster. The worst in all of this was that I was going headfirst with my eyes closed and no point of reference because, in the short time that I'd had my eyesight, I hadn't seen anything but blue.

However, it didn't matter as I focused on my five other senses.

Tobacco and vanilla were invading my nose, with the same hint that I couldn't place and that was stronger today as if he had been more pervaded in the scent, intentionally or not.

I could hear the distant sound of metal grinding over the motorcycle's purring, so the big building I'd glimpsed must have been a factory, while the loud roars of a few trucks passing us by made me jump.

Finally, what was taking all my senses, despite how much I tried to ignore it, was him, all of him, his presence and his warmth engulfing me from my thighs glued to his to my fingerpads, paralyzed on the line I felt under his shirt, and even my lips, which were grazed by the even tickles of his hot breath.

I didn't even need my eyesight to know his penetrating gaze was still on me, probably watching the smile slowly forming on my features as I let all these sensations come to me, along with the tingles following them on my skin. I appreciated the steady and loud thuds of my heart and the peacefulness of this moment. There was nothing else than this exact moment, and that's when I felt it.

"Left."

Some would say it was biased and based on the fact that Blade was on my left side as he was turned to me over his shoulder, or because of the factory I'd caught sight of on the right. But for me, it was my instincts, not what I'd seen or heard, only what I was feeling.

"Which one? There's two roads there," Blade asked as I could sense the movements of his muscles to steer the motorbike.

"The more on the left." There was no wavering or cracks in my voice, and each time he inquired, I replied faster.

After a while, I didn't even wait for him to stop, instructing him when my skin was less tickled by the wind.

The more I was feeling, the more confident I was, and the more I was relaxing. I even risked to put a hand up in the air like on my first ride, and I was snuggling closer and closer to Blade, my chin resting on his shoulder because it was more practical for him to hear me, and also because I felt like it, because it felt right.

I couldn't say I felt safe with him, as I didn't know him, and no matter what I trusted, gossips or guts, he was dangerous. Yet it was like a fire, an abrupt cliff, or a knife, the longer you stayed close, the more you got used to the shivers of adrenaline down your guts, and the more you were drawn to the fierce heat, the dizzying height, or the sharp blade. For a moment, you could even forget there was a danger, generally the second before there was a burn, a crash, or blood.

"You take the next road to the right," I told him, my hand pointing blindly in the direction as I continued to follow my instincts. "And then, the next exit, we're arrived."

"You're sure? 'Cause there's no turning back after." I could hear his cocked eyebrow in his drawling voice as he slowed down the motorcycle, and the movements of his head that made mine pull away from his shoulder were bringing a shadow of doubt.

But no, I was listening to my instincts, and nothing else. The warmth there was telling me it was our destination.

"Yes, stop here."

"Okay, as you wish." The engine's purr stopped just in time for me to catch the underlying amusement in his tone, and there was no other sound around to cover it.

Was it a good sign? For my guts, it felt right: the silence and peacefulness, the warmth of a few rays of sun on my skin, and still all of Blade's presence, who was turned to me again.

"You can open your eyes, Shooting star."

I didn't need to be told twice, and I instantly complied, blinking my eyes to see... nothing. Of course, I saw nothing but black dots as my eyes had been closed for a long moment, and I needed a few seconds to adjust to the mild lighting of the clouded sun.

Then, I saw... nothing, a beige nothing more exactly. My eyesight was clear, yet there was nothing worth seeing, just the beaten-up tarmac and a desert all around.

I turned my head in search of a trace of life other than the few dry bushes and sandy rocks here and there, but except for a dilapidated building with only one wall and abandoned scrap metal that must have been from another century, seeing how brown and perforated the pieces were, there was nothing. Even a junkyard was too good for this place; that was saying everything.

"Your instincts are shitty."

I turned to the only sparkly things in the landscape as even the sun was hidden behind white clouds, and it made his deviously clear eyes stand out even more.

"Hey! You're the one who got this idea, and I followed you."

I got off the motorbike by myself, ignoring his held-out hand and my instincts to stay safely on the bike. He wouldn't drive me somewhere else; he'd said it himself, and I was too proud to ask anyway.

"Yes, that's what I said. Your instincts are shitty."

I stopped in my tracks to turn to him after barely a few steps in the direction of the mount in front, which was my only hope to prove that my instincts weren't 'shitty', although the state of the road growing narrower and more battered that way wasn't in favor of a miraculous hidden place.

He was offering me his Cheshire cat's smile, full of bad intention and no shame, the one that had appeared so inviting a few days ago. Yet today, I averted my gaze away as a breeze seemed to cast a chill between us and down my spine.

I suddenly became aware of the creepy atmosphere of this place as the only thing moving was a tumbleweed rolling by our feet. The road was deserted; there was not a living being around, not even a bird chirping, and the sun was peeking through the clouds just enough to create eerie shadows and a gloomy lighting. 

It was the perfect place... to hide a corpse behind a bush or in a ditch, as no one would ever come here to find it.

So when my eyes went back to his dark and tall silhouette, I couldn't ignore what I'd heard anymore. It was echoing deafeningly in the silence.

"About that..."

It was surely not the wisest to talk about it now, lost somewhere in a desert with no one around. Yet the question was eating my guts and all my insides, and even though I wasn't ready for the answer, I couldn't keep turning a blind eye.

So I lifted my gaze to meet his piercing one, and I didn't even try to search for the right way to put it as I took a breath and said,

"Is it true that you've been in jail... for killing people?" My voice was so faint that anywhere else, it wouldn't have been heard, but here, my last words resonated too loudly with something that must have been a deadly echo, and it switched everything around, even in Blade.

If I had blinked, I wouldn't have noticed, as his smirk didn't falter, yet something wavered in his eyes like a wave disturbing the calm expanse of water. Would it let me glimpse more of the mysterious floor, or would it blur everything? I wasn't sure, but I was front row to see it as he leaned closer.

"Why are you interested in my talents for your ex-boyfriend?"

"No!" The gasp came straight from my protective instinct; there was no doubt, just like the jump I made to pull away.

"Right, you don't need my help for this, Shooting star."

"No! I could never... take a life." The words could barely come out, and seeing him talking about it as casually as chatting about the weather or his next Sunday plans only confirmed the allegations.

"I could never hurt someone like that," I repeated quietly, twiddling my fingers. "Even less Spencer..."

That was the truth. No matter how mad I was at him, no matter how much I wished he could understand the heartache he'd put me through, I couldn't stand the thought of him being hurt. I'd noticed it too clearly at the game.

"Before being my boyfriend, he was my best friend, and..." My breath and my words hitched in my throat as I lifted my eyes to his.

It was impossible to describe, and could he even understand what it was like to have someone who was your everything, growing up and growing the shared moments, the memories, the care...?

"And I still love him." Here, was the revelation. All the gossips, the 'heard' and 'seen' couldn't compete with what I felt, and although it was faint and shaky, it echoed how much I'd tried to hold it down.

Why was it surfacing now? In front of a possible murderer? I didn't know, and as I realized this fact, I cleared my throat.

"That's not the important. I asked you a question." Really convincing for an interrogation with my cracking voice and the tears I tried to blink away.

"It's true." His tone was casual, 'it's going to rain tomorrow'-like, but it was enough to outweigh all the cracks, emotions, and turmoil of my precious revelation.

It was the moment I understood why my parents had always told me to never follow strangers, even less, strangers from the East Side, and who were rumored to be criminals.

Yet could I still call him a stranger when it was the third time we'd met and when we'd shared so much closeness from our lips to our imaginations? Surely yes, because the tattletales knew more about him than I did, and all the gossips were proven true one by one.

He was a murderer, and I was the broken and reckless girl who had followed him.

CLIFFHANGER!!! Please, don't kill me! 😬🙈 (I hope you caught the pun 😉😈😅)

Now, tell me what you think about this revelation: the one about Blade who has killed people, and also if you want, about Dorothy who still loves Spencer! 

What do you think will happen? Will Dorothy end up buried somewhere in this desert because of her shitty instincts? It has started well though, who wanted to follow Blade blindly on a road trip? 😍😉

That's why you should never follow strangers! Now, you gotta wait for next chapter, but in the meantime, don't forget to vote ⭐ and comment if you liked this chapter! 

And add the story to your library/reading lists to be the first ones to know what will happen to the reckless Dorothy who has followed blindly a murderer 😏🤔😘