Chapter 5 Some Victory Don't Last

"Why did you do that?"

The stranger ran a hand through his tousled brown hair, as he searched for the right answer in his head to give her. That gesture alone made him look hotter. Lenora thought she was now immune to admiring men but this very one was already proving her wrong.

"I could tell you needed a rescue, couldn't have pulled off with a better one, could I?" His British accent and his husky voice were like lullabies in Lenora's ears. Was he even human? She slapped herself mentally to focus on the matter at hand.

"But it's not decent to kiss any woman without her consent. I might as well assume you go around kissing women like that." She spat, hoping to derive some sort of reaction from him but his demeanor was as placcid as a plain white paper.

"You are welcome," He surprisingly said. He didn't even try to defend himself, did that mean he went around kissing women? She thought to herself. His appearance was distracting, she couldn't even get angry.

"You should go home, and stay away from him. I don't think he's good for you."

With that said, he turned around and walked away to his car. "What's your name?" Lenora found herself asking, but she only got his silence as he left in a sleek black sport car.

Not so long after, the uber she had ordered arrived and she left. Inside the car, she kept thinking of what had happened at Lucian's birthday party. Lucian had kissed Megan to spite her. They had been cheating on her just like she knew already, but it was another level of pain to witness it happening again. It felt like it was over but she knew it wasn't over yet. The stranger kissing her meant Lucian didn't get the satisfaction he wanted to derive from her humiliation. He was humiliated instead.

Her finger raised to her lips that was still tingling from the mind blowing kiss she had just shared with the stranger. His lips tasted of mint and strawberries, even his quality and unique body scent had captured her like a drug. She had felt strangely safe in a stranger's arms. That wasn't the plan. "Get it together Nora," She smacked herself lightly on the cheek. She shouldn't be thinking of a common stranger, it was wrong in every way. Not when she was still seething with the need for revenge to fill the large hole that the betrayal had set in her heart.

Finally, the Uber pulled up at her destination, and she alighted. Her gold-colored heels clicked elegantly against the pavement as she walked toward the house she shared with her mother.

The night air felt unnaturally cold, sending a shiver down her spine, but she blamed it on exhaustion and the lingering effects of that unexpected kiss. She needed to clear her mind, maybe tell her mother about what happened today.

She was one who never kept a lot from her mother, because she always had the right words to make her feel better. Her mother had warned her severally in the past to stay away from Lucian but she had been adamant to her own choice, delusionally hoping that Lucian would change someday.

Fishing her keys out of her clutch, she approached the front door. That was when she noticed that the door was unlocked. Her breath hitched. Emily, her mother, was one cautious woman. She would never leave the door open if she was inside, not even by accident.

Lenora hesitated, before pushing the door open. The hallway light was on, just as it had been when she left. She walked deeper into the house. "Mum?" She called out but got no response. And that was when a faint scent of something unfamiliar in the air, like something metallic- rust even, hit her nostrils.

Fear began to seep into her skin at the suspense. This was strange. "Mum... are you there?" Her voice shook as the smell became thicker the more she walked in. Then she heard a soft creak, like someone was leaving through one of the doors.

Her heart slammed against her ribs in fear. All her senses were now highly alerted. Something was definitely going on.

She swallowed hard, forcing herself to move forward. The air felt heavier, as if the walls themselves were pressing in. When she finally reached the living room, she found it empty.

Her mother's handbag lay on the floor, its contents spilled out as if someone had searched through it. The coffee table had been shifted slightly, and the large blue curtain near the window fluttered, though the window itself was shut.

Someone had been here.

No, someone was still here.

Her breathing became more erratic, and she felt like she was close to panicking. She could only hope her mother was safe amidst all these.

Her instincts screamed at her to run, but before she could react, a sudden rustle came from the hallway behind her. The hairs on her neck stood on end. She turned around slowly, her pulse drumming in her ears. "Mum, is that you?" She asked with heightened hope, then she came face to face with the shadow at the same time she stepped on blood.

The shadow vacated like a breeze immediately she set her eyes on it, that she almost thought she had imagined it. Slowly, her gaze went lower to see what she had just stepped on-blood.

"No, no no no" She panicked. "Mother, where are you!" She had sunk to the floor and was now crawling around when she heard a soft whimper. "Nora, I'm here." It was her mother's voice, low and weak. She scrambled up and fled to the kitchen only to see her mother on the marble floor in a pool of blood. "God no!" She screamed as she clung her dying mother in her arms, separating her from the knife she had been stabbed with. She reached for her phone in her purse and called for an emergency.

"Please, your help is needed here! Right now at Eden street, no 83. My mother was just stabbed and she's dying. Please nothing must happen to her, be fast!" She cried on the phone.

Minutes later, the flashing red and blue lights painted the night in a chaotic swirl of urgency. Lenora sat in fear in the back of the ambulance, clutching her mother's trembling hand as paramedics worked swiftly around them.

Blood soaked through the white sheets, but Emily's eyes fluttered open every now and then, whispering weak reassurances that only fueled Lenora's desperation.

"Stay with me, Mom," she pleaded, her voice cracking. "Please, you're all I have in this wicked world."