My Heart's Always With You Now.

“Matt”

I stirred in my sleep, trying to ignore whoever was talking to me. I wanted to go back to sleep because I wasn't in the mood to see anyone or do anything.

“Matt!”

“What?!” I groaned turning onto my back and opening my eyes to see Brian looking down at me in panic. I sat up instantly making sure the bed covers were secure around my waist to ensure I didn't end up flashing him.

“A letter came. The girls are panicking and the guys don't even know what to do”

“Well who's it from?” I asked rubbing the sleep out my eyes and letting out a yawn. I was certainly expecting something a lot more than this. A letter? It better be a bloody good one to be getting me out of bed at this time.

“We don't know. But you're not going to like what's with it”

“Turn around while I get changed” I ordered, he nodded his head and faced away from me, “so what came with the letter then?”.

“A box. A couple of pictures”

“And what's in the box?” I asked, his body visibly tensed and with that he walked out the door expecting me to follow. I fastened my trousers round my waist and grabbed a t-shirt to put on while walking downstairs. I followed after him, allowing him to lead me down the stairs and into the living area where the girls and guys were all huddled round, fear on all their faces.

“Matt” Jimmy spoke, his hand came down to rest on my shoulder. That's when I knew it couldn't be a good sign. Jimmy and I hadn't spoken for a little over a week since he had announced that he was claiming Lauren as his own and this had been the first time that he had even acknowledged my existence since then.

“What is it?” I snapped, I was starting to think the worse and I knew that if they didn't tell me soon I would start to get angry. I was already growing increasingly concerned, especially when the guys were at a loss for words and the girls looked startled.

“I am so sorry Matt” Bethany whispered, my eyes widened and I turned to her. Why wouldn't they just tell me? Or show me! She stood directly in front of me, a small box in her hand and the pictures in the other. Slowly she placed the box in my hands and took a step back allowing me to open it.

I pried the box open, my mouth becoming dry and my hands shaking. I could instantly feel them becoming more damp with nerves. I tried to act calm and collected, not wanting everyone in the room to understand how I was truly feeling at this stage. “Why would I be bothered about this?” I mumbled. I took the ring out of the box and threw the box across the room. It had been the ring that I had given to my former 'whore'. We had rescued her when she had needed help most. We picked her up from the depths of hell and I had given her everything; including my heart. We were suppose to get married two years ago but it never came. She couldn't go through with it because she didn't want the life that I had. All the violence and the fear. I couldn't fault her for that and it wouldn't be fair if I had forced her into it, so instead I allowed her to leave. Last I heard she had moved on with a new man and was studying law. But I never stopped loving her.

“Matt, it's not that so much” Bethany whimpered, she had been close with Catherine. Bethany came here nearly a month or so after Catherine and they had instantly bonded, making it impossible to ever get them apart. She lifted my empty hand and laid the pictures in it.

I placed the ring on the table and started to flick through the pictures. Tears sprung to my eyes and I fell to the floor feeling my heart break, “who did this?!”. I started hitting the floor with my fists, trying to damage anything I could get my hands on. It wasn't fair, how could anyone hurt her?

“Matt” Bethany cooed, she bent down beside me and wrapped her arms around me. I instantly fell into her arms, crying my heart out as I felt every little piece of me break and fall apart.

“How could anyone hurt her? How could they kill someone so precious?” I cried, Brian quickly picked up the pictures to stop me having to look at them again.

“I don't know sweetie” Bethany said, her fingers started to run through my hair trying to calm me down. I couldn't remove the images from my brain. They stuck in the back of my mind. The look of fear on her face, the look of pain. And then the look of emptiness as they took her life away from her. I would make them pay. I would find them and I would kill them.

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

I felt numb. Nothing else even mattered to me any more, whether it was my health or anything surrounding other people. I couldn't care what happened in my life or anyone else's for that matter. I felt like I could have prevented it some way or another, I could have had people watching her – in fact I did. But they were clearly not doing their jobs properly and somewhere in my mind I had fears that they had encouraged her murder. That they had caused it. Now they would pay for it.

I started to feel uncomfortable, they was watching us. They had done the one thing they knew would cause me to become weak. They had no reason to hurt her, she had never done anything to them. It was a personal attack; an attack that would make me vulnerable leaving everyone else in the house to follow in my footsteps and also become a target.

Guilt overtook me. She had left this house because she didn't like my lifestyle, she couldn't live with it and she wanted to be away from it. In the end it killed her and I was to blame for that. I took her life.

“BRIAN!” I yelled, “house meeting now”.

Everyone started to scramble around the place, making sure everyone knew to be in the main room in 15 minutes. House meeting meant everyone was to be there – including the girls. Meetings like this were rarely called unless something was seriously wrong. Panicked faces were seen running down the stairs before sitting around the main room in a random assortment.

I walked in, my hands clasped. “We're in danger” I spoke, everyone looked over at me asking for more attention, “I've been thinking more about Catherine's death and I don't think it was a coincidence”.

“Matt you can't put yourself through this!” Jimmy cried, his faced showed sympathy yet his voice had a stern tone to it, “you can't over think something like this and make excuses for what happened”.

“I'm not Jimmy! Hear me out before you start questioning me!” I shouted, he sighed and nodded before listening like the rest of the people in the room. “They sent pictures to us, they wanted us to see it. She had never done anything wrong and never got herself in any trouble so why would they target her?” I asked.

“It's a personal attack” Lauren muttered, I look over at her and gave her a small nod. She was a lot smarter then I'd given her credit for. She may not have known Catherine personally but she clearly knew the amount of love and respect I had for her. “If you want my honest opinion, I think they want you to let your guard down. In the letter they said that Catherine was the first but by no means the last, they're going to keep doing it and I don't think any of us are safe” she shrugged, she didn't seem phased by what she was saying which disturbed me a bit. Our lives were on the line and she appeared calm.

“Precisely. I think they're going to attack us and they're going to kill us. They're only going to stop when we're all dead. They killed her because they knew it would make me weak, they knew I wouldn't be my normal self and I wouldn't be capable of fighting back. But I want them to pay and I want them dead” I growled, a chorus of 'yeah' echoed through the house.

At least everyone was on my side, even the girls seemed to be agreeing with it. “I'm not being funny though, but you guys can handle yourselves, what are me and the girls suppose to do?” Bethany asked, I bit my lip trying to think of a suitable solution.

“I'll train them” Lauren suggested, I let out a quick laughing without meaning too. I instantly reached up and put my hand over my mouth sending her an apologetic look. “It might seem funny Matthew” she spat, “but I can look after myself. I had self defense lessons and I've been trained to use weapons, I'm not completely useless so don't treat me like I am”.

“Zacky” I said completely ignoring what Lauren had previously said, “I want you to work with the girls eight hours a day and make sure that they're prepared for what could happen”.

“Matt, I'm not being funny but we need to be focusing on other things” Johnny piped up, I groaned with annoyance, “We should aim to go out and find these people before they find us, surely if Lauren says she can do it, we should give her the at least the chance to prove herself”.

“But that's more time we're wasting” I reasoned, Lauren shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, “I just think it'd be a lot easier if we had Zacky doing it from the start”.

“But I'm capable of doing it!” Lauren shouted standing up, “it's not fair that you won't even give me the chance to show you. I am probably just as good as you guys are, if not better”.

I chuckled loudly becoming more and more amused at her persistence. “Show me what you've got then princess” I smirked, I knew she wouldn't even bother rising to the challenge. At least if I gave her the opportunity now she couldn't bitch at a later point for me not allowing her to prove herself.

“Fine” she smiled, she rose from the chair and grabbed a pair of scissors from the cabinet in the far corner of the room. With a deep breath and concentration she threw it at a picture of myself and the guys getting it straight through my face. The guys let out a gasp along with the girls, “still think I'm not good enough?” she asked.

I rolled my eyes, “it's just a coincidence sweetheart, don't go getting big headed over that”. She stormed over to the picture grabbing the scissors, she turned and instantly threw it in my direction making the scissors land in the wall a couple of cm's away from my head.

“I can be quite deadly when I want to be Matthew, just bare that in mind”.