Trishia stood out from a wheelchair.
The only woman who was in a wheelchair among the guests was none other than Damien's mother.
Due to her infection, her face was covered in half with a thin brown flowery-designed fabric.
Loose full brown gown not too catchy and easily blended with the crowd.
Arabella clearly saw what she saw.
Damien was with that woman whoever she was.
Not to be embarrassed by her condition, Arabella personally informed the head of security about the additional guest.
It seemed that, she made a huge mistake.
A terrible mistake.
It was clear to her now that the woman in a wheelchair was Trishia all along and not Damien's mom.
Damien tricked her but why?
It was her biggest question to her old long friend.
Why he had to break her trust in him?
What happened to Damien?
His reason was so blurry but it was so clear that he connived with Trishia's evil plan.
They deceived her by using Damien's mom as a ploy.
She didn't even know if that woman was his real mom or just an actress he rented to act as his mom.
With her good heart, she was deceived again if it was the matter.
They seemed to plan this beforehand.
After connecting all the dots, Arabella was in a great mess now.
She didn't know what to do or where to start.
She could not just spill to Damien everything she had known just now.
It was next to impossible that Damien would just admit it and they would still be friends after everything he did.
With her thoughts, the cold air inside the room chilled all over her body.
Instantly, her tiny skin hair lifted.
Goosebumps… lots of goosebumps appeared all over her.
Petrified, she was quickly taken aback.
Her eyes were heavy but it didn't stop her from wandering around her room.
Arabella became vigilant and suspicious.
Then, this was the only time she realized that the overall fixture of this room wasn't the same as Damien's house.
It was totally different.
Meaning, she wasn't in Damien's house after all.
Then her suspicious eyes landed on the drip hanging beside her.
Her heartbeat pumped faster.
She felt nervous and scared.
She could not trust Damien anymore.
Anything inside this room was already suspicious to her.
Without wasting any time, she quickly took off the needle which pierced deeply into her skin.
She bit her lower lip, "Ahhh!!!" and creamed silently in pain.
Then she quickly moved in the door's direction.
She tried to twitch the doorknob but it was locked firmly.
"You have to regain your strength, Arabella. That's the only thing you need to do first before going out there."
"See? You cannot even open a door?"
"Get rest and get ready to leave the country."
"We are going together."
Damien's words suddenly rang in her ears.
When she thought, she was just too weak to open this door but the truth was Damien locked it outside.
It made her want to slap him directly on his face.
He clearly deceived her.
He took advantage of her weak health condition and her miserable situation.
Damien betrayed her.
He had his intention but at that moment she didn't want to know it nor did any plan to understand it in the future.
She didn't have time to think about his reasons and all she could ever think of was to get out where ever she was.
Arabella was so confused and felt misled by her trusted friend.
Cold sweats appeared on her forehead and fingers.
To avoid hearing Damien's voice in her mind, she blocked her ears with her palms and closed her eyes trying to make his betrayal voice disappear.
She hated his words and she hated him so much that her heart wanted to explode and her soul cursed him repeatedly until her door suddenly opened.
The dim light in her room suddenly went bright.
Fortunately, Arabella jumped inside the thick quilt on time and got the long hose inside it.
She quickly closed her eyes trying to breathe easy and not to be suspicious.
Her heartbeat was so fast and drumming heavily and loudly.
One could easily hear it if she could not control it.
"Breathe, Arabella... Breathe calm... " She kept on repeating this in her mind to stop her shaking.
Her body was trembling inside the thick quilt while she was pretending to be asleep.
She could not give any hint that she knew everything.
She still had to make a plan to go out and get away from the place.
Whatever it takes, she had to escape from the place.
She had to escape from Damien.
The good memories she had with him, they shattered like a broken mirror.
Never would she think that a good friend of hers was going to be a dangerous one.
Damien was her once-trusted friend.
He helped her a lot.
How could he do this to her?
Arabella slowly opened her eyes to sneak.
She clearly saw Damien holding a cup and walking to the bedside table.
Arabella closed her eyes quickly when he got closer to her.
She held her breath.
She was very nervous and even her eyes close, she could feel Damien was staring at her.
His footsteps stopped for a while.
She could not move as her nervousness was eating her up.
She had to breathe fine to avoid him from getting suspicious of her but it wasn't that easy.
The only thing on her mind now was to see Adam and Bill again and with her determination, she could do everything.
Arabella breathed silently and controlled in a deafening silent room.
After a while, footsteps were heard again going away and away from her until they disappeared.
Next, she heard the closing of the door, and silence was once again invaded inside.
That was the only time she opened her eyes along with a heavy sigh.
She moved up, sat on the bed, and looked at the steaming cup where smoke blended in the thin air.
Looking at the suspiciously, memories of her drinking the hot coffee or tea from Damien immediately flashed across her mind.
She wracked her brain trying to remember anything but she failed to remember a single thing of what happened after she drank those.
It was merely impossible that she could not remember.
She could not remember being sleepy but she always woke up from a dream.
She woke up with a drink on her bedside table that Damien had prepared.
At first, he didn't mind it.
Coffee or tea would not hurt.
She drank it when she felt thirsty and dizzy hoping to cure her body but it seemed it worked more than curing.
And now, Damien served her another cup.
He seemed to have reserved this before she woke up.
Quickly, she reached for it carefully.
She looked at it trying to examine the hot liquid.
It was like a normal green tea.
However, she could not drink it anymore.
Then she smelled it closely closing her eyes.
The aroma of the tea traveled through her nostrils regaining some of her memories.
"Crack!!!" She was sure that she heard this shattering sound every after she sipped the liquid inside this cup.
She knew something was broken on the floor.
She suspected that the cup she held fell on the floor.
Then, her vision began blurry.
After that, she would wake from a dream.
With her new realization, she felt her heart had stopped beating for a while.
"How many days did I sleep?" Her question to Damien suddenly popped out.
"Four days..." Damien answered.
"You sleep for four days now..." He added.
Arabella could not move but her body was trembling.
Her brain was restless.
If she was right, Damien was lying to her.
The things in front of her started to give answers to her questions.
Quickly, she put the cup back on the table and stood up.
She had no time to waste but she was well aware that she needed to be careful.
A little sound could wake up Damien.
She could not let him know that she knew his betrayal.
Arabella needed a calendar in this room or something that could tell her the date as she believed that Damien keeping her away from Bill and Adam for more than a week.
Maybe a month or months already.
She wasn't sure about it and this was bugging her mind so restless.
She could not be missing in Adam and Bill's life for that long.
She needed to find them and come back to them.
Whether his intention was good or not, Damien had no right to lock her there and kept her away from her family.
"My phone," She muttered along with her nervous breath.
She looked at the drawers soundlessly but she could not find what she wanted to see.
There were no gadgets nor a television inside her room.
Damien seemed to design everything according to his plan of imprisoning her.
She wanted her phone so badly.
She needed to ask for help from her friends.
Farrah, Eric, Rosy, she was sure they would come and rescue her quickly but Damien had already gotten rid of her mobile phone.
She gritted her teeth trying to breathe fine or she would lose all her sanity.
She needed to relax and think of a good plan to escape from Damien.
Damien had gone too far.
He killed Trishia and she saw this with her own eyes.
Damien, for the first time, killed someone.
At first, she thought, he did it to save her from Trishia but now, she could see some different reason behind it.
Damien had planned this.
He was the reason behind the fall of Trishia but he also played a dirty part in it.
Arabella carefully moved and soundlessly opened the huge glass-grilled window.
It was quite tight but somehow she made it after using all her might to slide the bar on the side.
The cold wind quickly entered her room and swept her face.
For her, it was the feeling of freedom she wanted.
She suddenly felt jealous of the wind that it could be wherever it wanted to be.
At that moment, she desperately wanted to be a wind so she could easily visit Adam and Bill without getting permission from anyone and without any hindrance.
She raised her face up to give more access to the cold air sweeping her face as she close her eyes until she grasped a sudden idea.
The surrounding was still dark.
From her window, she could only see a silhouette of a mountain.
If she was not mistaken, the house was far from any residential houses as she could not see any home lighting from afar.
And since she could just open the door that easily, she didn't need to see how high or what floor she was at.
The pressure of the cold wind said a lot.
Slowly and gently, she tiptoed to get the chair.
The only loud thing in the room was her heartbeat and nothing else.
She knew she had to escape and she had no time to waste.
When she successfully, got the chair next to the window, she gently stood up on it to look at the ground.
To her shock, she could estimate more or less that she was much higher than she was expecting.
If she was not mistaken, she was on the highest floor of an old mansion.
On a third-floor distance from the ground.
Jumping was never an option.
She could break her bones and die.
She could not see anything that she could use or step on to go down.
Not even a ladder could help her right now.
She felt hopeless but she was not going to surrender.
Arabella was full of determination and she would do anything to get out of the place and Damien.
She had to have a plan.
With the silent and chilly atmosphere, there was a big possibility that Damien was sleeping right now.
She had to take advantage of it.
Arabella was desperate.
She could not go out using the door.
Then she could use the window instead.
But how?
The time is ticking along with her fast heartbeat.
She was nervous but she was going to thrive.
She would not let Damien keep her there forever or whenever he wanted.
Arabella resented him.
She didn't want to see Damien anymore.
As she thought of ways, her eyes suddenly landed on the quilt.
Her eyes widened along with her idea.
She went back to her bed and got the quilt.
In a hurry, she tied the edge of the quilt to one leg of the bed.
The quilt's length wasn't enough to drop her down so she needed more fabric.
She got the bedsheet.
Making big knots to every measured distance where she could hold and step.
Then her eyes landed on the curtains.
She got it carefully and tied it to the edge of the bedsheet fabric.
When she was younger, she did this when she purposely escaped from her mom to party with Farrah but at that time, she was just on the second floor too different from the present situation.
She grabbed more fabric everywhere in the room and tied them all until she made all the fabrics like a long rope.
Slowly and carefully, she threw it down.
It gave no noise which gave her a bit of relief.
She climbed back on the chair holding the rope fabric in her hand.
More cold sweats appeared on her forehead and fingers.
She was shaking tremendously as she held her belly.
"Baby... mommy says sorry. This is the only thing I can think of for us to escape from here and be with your brother and father. Please be strong for me." She muttered sincerely.
She had to be extra careful for her baby.
As the wind blowing so cold, she had to bear with it.
She prayed hard before starting to carefully went down her body on the rope she made.
Her heart was so fast as the fabric was wiggling and was blown by the wind.
She was hanging and her weight was relying on her knots and the fabrics.
She wanted to undo everything.
She wanted to crawl up and go back to the room but it was too late.
She was already outside and she could only put all her hopes on the fabrics along with her prayers.
The wind seemed to find the fun of blowing her.
The fabric swung back and forth.
She could feel her hands were going to surrender.
Her body was getting heavier.
She could not hold it anymore.
She would not make it as she felt her body was going to drop.
Tears came down her eyes.
She felt weak and tired.
"Mommy! I love you, Mommy! You are the best!" She could hear Adam's voice everywhere.
"I love you," Bill's voice too.
Though she knew, it was all her imagination, their voices in her head gave her the courage to continue until she miraculously reached the ground.
Amidst the numbness in her body, she felt a great relief.
Without no time to waste, she quickly ran in no definite direction but then she halted in abrupt motion.
In front of her, not too far, a silhouette of a man standing appeared.
The smoke from his cigarette blended with the cold air.
Arabella didn't need to see his face clearly to know him.
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