Zoey POV

I placed the last of my bags on my bed and stood back.

I hadn't realized how much stuff I had taken from my house and brought with me to Rose's until then.

"Wow. I have a lot of crap." I muttered aloud, already unpacking clothes. I wasn't even through unpacking the first bag when a wave of nausea hit me.

Immediately, I dropped the clothes and ran into my bathroom, doing the only thing I seemed capable of doing lately. Throwing up.

"Ugh! This is miserable." I flushed the toilet and began brushing my teeth in the sink.

* * *

I drove my car towards the beach, windows rolled down and enjoying the breeze that blew through them.

Everyone else had to go into work so I had been left at the penthouse by myself. Back when Ian had left for those two weeks, I had made the decision to quit my job at Delilah and Dan's office. It had just been too hard to go back after everything that occurred the last month.

Parking my vehicle, the aroma of the ocean filled my nostrils. As I climbed out, the sun warmed my skin and gave me that familiar joyful feeling I always had whenever I was at the beach.

A smile on my face, I grabbed the beach bag I'd packed from where I sat it in the back seat and then made my way down into the sand.

Since it was still early in the day, the beach wasn't very packed so I was able to find a place near the water.

After laying out the towel I'd packed and placing the umbrella I stashed away in my bag into the sand, I pulled my bottle of sunblock out and began applying it all over my body.

Stretching out across the towel, I began relaxing, enjoying the breeze coming off the ocean and smell of seaweed in the air.

The sound of the waves hitting the shore filled my ears, along with the familiar squawking of seagulls above me. I was at peace, laying there in the sun, the stress of the past month seeming to fade away, if even for a short while.

I had been laying out for a good half hour when the familiar sound of my phone indicating I had a new text message filled my ears.

I dug through my gigantic teal and white striped beach bag, searching for the electronic device.

After finding it, I pulled the message up, seeing that it was from a number I didn't recognize.

Hey, baby. It's Ian. My phone died and I don't have access to a charger so I borrowed a coworker's phone. Let's meet up for lunch at the diner we used to go to. Say in about twenty minutes?

Not thinking much about it, I sent a reply, saying I'd be there and then I began gathering my things.

After I had everything packed back up, my phone beeped again with a new message from the same number Ian apparently was texting from.

See you soon, baby. Can't wait! 😚

I smiled, making my way back towards my car after reading the message.

Soon I was driving away from the beach and towards the mentioned diner, giddiness feeling me.

It was only after I'd been sitting at the diner at a table by myself for nearly an hour when that giddiness went away and was replaced with disappointment.

"Zoey?" I recognized her voice before I saw the familiar blonde hair pulled into a ponytail.

I began standing up, wanting to get away from the woman who had only a month ago slept with my boyfriend while I was just upstairs and asleep.

"Zoey, wait!" I had almost made it to my car when Naomi grabbed my arm, forcing me to a stop. "Can we talk?"

"No." I responded, pulling out of her grasp. "I have nothing to say to you."

"Zoey, I know you're upset, but I really need to talk to you." She pleaded.

"Why would the girl who slept with my boyfriend need to talk to me? Come to tell me you're sorry? That you still want to be friends?" I snapped. "You're pretty stupid if you think that can happen."

"That's not what I need to talk to you about." A deep frown crossed her face and for some reason, I decided to hear her out.

"Then what for?"

"It's Ian. . ." At the mention of his name, I stood up straight. "He's in trouble, Zoey."

"In trouble? What kind of trouble? Is he hurt? Where is he?" I went into full on panic mode. "What do you mean?"

"Just follow me back to my house. He came there when it happened." Naomi's voice became panicked and her eyes grew wider. "Zoey, you have to hurry!"

I don't know why I believed her in that moment. Maybe it was my hormones and the fact Ian seemed to be in trouble, but I found myself climbing into my car and driving behind her as she led the way to her house.

Her house was in the middle of nowhere, miles of forest surrounding it and not a neighbor in sight.

As I climbed out of my vehicle and waited for Naomi to get out of her's, an eery silence filled the air and caused goosebumps to form on the back of my neck.

"Just follow me this way and mind your step." I should have noticed the sudden change in the blonde's attitude right then and there, but I was so worried about Ian that I was blind to it.

She led the way towards the right side of the large almost mansion-like home where there seemed to be a sort of path. The path was overgrown with weeds and unlevel, making it difficult to keep your footing if you weren't paying close attention and on either side us, trees grew and twisted into shapes that created frightening shadows on the ground.

Suddenly, Naomi jutted off to the left, leaving me struggling down the pathway and towards where I thought she had gone. I was disappointed to find myself facing a dead end and almost complete darkness that was caused from the thick growth of trees above me.

Straining my eyes against the darkness, I tried to make out my surroundings and find where Naomi went to.

"Naomi? Where are you?" I called out, but got no reply. "Naomi?"

The grass rustled behind me abruptly before I sensed a presence behind me.

Cautiously turning around, I squinted through the darkness at the figure standing in front of me, trying to make out their face.

"Naomi, is that you?" I took a hesitant step forward, trying not to trip over the twisted tree roots growing haphazardly out of the ground. "What are you doing? I thought Ian was in trouble? You said he was here."

As soon as the words left my mouth, bright light immediately lit the pathway.

"Ian isn't here, Zoey." Naomi stood a few feet ahead of me, hands shoved into her pockets and face set in an emotionless expression.

"What do you mean he isn't here, Naomi? The reason we came here was to help Ian." I furrowed my brows in confusion.

"Yeah. I lied. . . Ian never was here." The blonde suddenly smirked pulling out a black cell phone from her pocket. "Oh and he never was meeting you for lunch."

Even more confusion filled me as I tried to decipher her words.

She stepped closer, holding the now lit up phone towards me, a message from a very familiar number displayed on the screen.

I read the message with widened eyes.

"You were the one who texted me?" My thoughts raced as she pulled out another phone, holding it out to me. Displayed on this screen were messages that I had seen months ago and that had plagued me with worry and guilt. "You're my unknown number. . ."

A smirk formed on the blonde's face as she walked past me towards where I now noticed a small wooden shed.

"Yep. I thought it was so ironic that you thought it was Vidia texting you. That girl hadn't had your number since the day you stopped being friends." A sickening laugh came from her and filled the air before she disappeared into the shed.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose as the blonde reappeared, holding something behind her back that had my natural instincts to run away kicking into overdrive.

"You know when I met Ian he was whining over you. He was so depressed that you were going out with another man. Ugh! Made me want to strangle you and I hadn't even met you." Naomi stepped closely to me and before I even had time to think, pulled a gun out from behind her back and aimed it at me. "He has always had such a weakness towards you and you never even realized it. Ugh!"

I stood frozen in fear, not sure what the blonde standing before me was capable of.

"You know that night a month ago when I came over? I was coming over to convince Ian to break up with you." I felt my heart break a little at her words. "Then you came downstairs and pranced into the kitchen, looking all hot and sexy for him in those short shorts and tight tank top. It enraged me, but I kept my cool and smiled in your face. Then when you went up to bed, I knew I had an opportunity. So, I suggested to Ian that we have a few drinks. Well, you know how that went. . . I almost had him after you left too, but he made me leave and banned me from ever seeing or talking to him again. All because of you!"

Her voice boomed through the overgrown pathway and caused me to flinch a little.

"Every chance I almost get to having Ian, you come and ruin it! You stupid bitch! Well, if I elimnate you from the picture, then my problem is solved. I'll comfort him and show him that I'm there for him and he'll start falling for me again." She let out another sickening laugh and I took a step backwards towards the way we had come.

"Ian will hate you if you kill me!" I don't know what possessed me to shout, but it had Naomi seething with rage as she put her finger on the trigger and fired.

It was like slow motion as the bullet flew towards me, my body frozen in place.

It wasn't until the bullet made contact with my stomach that I screamed out in pain and dropped to my knees, clutching the wound.

"Damn it! I missed." The blonde rushed towards me, holding the gun directly against my forehead. "I won't this time."

I braced myself for the pain and immediate death, but it never came.

Naomi was tackled to the ground, the gun flying out of her hand and landing somewhere between the overgrown roots of the path.

A struggle could be heard, but I couldn't make out who my rescuer was as my world faded to black.