The very next day, things got better. After the encounter with the shadow, I decided to name him for what he was, I slept through the night like a baby. I was eventually woken up by Sophia, who as usual was reprimanding me on being ill. Who even does that? Sierra was being a mother hen as usual. Today was Sunday so I knew River couldn’t visit me. He had to go meet his mom every Sunday. 

After being discharged I had requested the doctor to meet me. I already told Soph and Sierra to go back to the bakery. 

 With a knock, I went inside the doctors room after hearing a come in. 

“Good evening, Dr.Tyler.” I said with a smile, making my way infront of him and sat down.

“Oh, Miss Morris. Good evening to you too. I see you have been discharged. You are all better now.” he said with his crooked smile. 

“I am. Although my charges were payed before I could pay them. I wanted to talk to you about that and about the accident thing you told me other day.” I voiced my questions. 

“Ah. That. Well a Mr. James cleared all the dues and as for your accident, Miss. Morris, do you remember any accident you have encountered in the past? Or any head injury from biking or falling? There was a small scar infront of your head, just behind your hairline. It must have been from the accident I am talking about.” his questions were those I couldn’t recall any answer to.

I touched my forehead where the scar was. It was so small, barely noticeable. I remembered when I asked mother of the scar all she did was ignore me and planted a slap against my face. It was after my brother burial that I noticed a small scar and frequent headaches. 

“All I could remember was I used to have alot of headaches after my brother’s burial and this scar was there. I don’t even remember much of my brother’s burial much.” I told him with a shrug.

“I see. We’ll have to run some tests if you want. I’ll write you some painkillers for you and set you up for an appointment. Alright?” he asked while typing away on his computer.

“ That would be perfect.” and with that I went back home. 

After a long relaxing shower, I decided to go back to the bakery. It felt like a long time since I went in that bakery. I missed my heaven. Everything in my life seems like a big question mark, from meeting with James Dumas to meeting with the man in the shadow again. Everything that had happened in the past few weeks felt like a never ending puzzle. Nothing made sense anymore, nothing made me feel safe and I desperately wanted to feel safe.

With a forced smile, I made my way inside the bakery and came face to face with the trio hugging each other. 

“Ahm.” I faked a cough. All their heads snapped towards me and suddenly they were hugging me with so much force, it became hard for me to breath. 

“God I missed the fuck out of you. It feels as if the sweetness in our bakery got lost somewhere. Nothing tastes as it was.” River cried out. 

“well you must have been using salt instead of sugar.” I wiggled a finger infront of him, trying to scare him off. 

“Ahh. Well nothing can be as sweet as your baking, aside from that of Sierra’s of course.” He sheepishly said. 

We all laughed at his declaration. Sometimes River became a little boy. He was the baby of the group after Emily.

After closing the bakery for the day, the day was spend with me and others baking up a storm. Mostly because we wanted to celebrate me getting discharged and River getting the scholarship he has been trying for so long. Plus we all needed a time to chill. We baked all kinds of goodies; cakes, cupcakes, macaroons and all the cheesy goodness of pizza and lasagna. All of us chilled for the rest of the day at my apartment. 

It was around ten pm when the bell rang. River and Sophia was arguing over who would win the football match. Apparently there La Liga was on and the match was between Barcelona and Madrid. Sophia was a die heart fan of Barcelona but River loved Madrid. The arguing was inevitable. Sierra was cleaning the leftover dishes and Emily was already passed out from the sugar rush. 

I made my way towards the front door, opening it without looking through the peephole. The apartment was secure, I had made sure of that when I bought the building. 

Opening the door, I came face to face with a sweet smiling Rosemary, her hands full of flowers and a box which I knew were chocolates. With a smile I beamed at her.

“Hey Rosemary. How have you been?”

With a small smile she said, “Hey Scarlet, shouldn’t I be the one to ask you that? You were in the hospital and I couldn’t even come meet you. I am so sorry.”

“Awww. don’t worry yourself over trivial things. We have been neighbors for years. I know how busy you always are.” I hugged her with a smile on my face.

Something passed through her eyes, like she wanted to tell me something but decided against it. With a forced smile, she handed me the flowers and the box.

“I bought these for you. Hopefully you are all better now. Oh and there are about half a dozen flowers on the steps. I was coming up and tried to ask the delivery man but he said he will come up in a minute. Someone has an admirer.” she wiggled her eyebrows in suggestive manner. 

Hearing about the flowers, my muscles went stiff. Something akin to alarm surged through me. With a force smile I pushed pass a laugh that sounded more like a dying duck rather than laughter.

“I got no admirer, sweetie. Probably the company got the wrong address.” 

“Well they were coming up a minute ago. Its good to see you alright, Scarlet. We need people like you to survive.” with that puzzling statement, she bid me goodbye and went her way. 

I was thinking about what she said when a throat clearing drew my attention towards a delivery man with probably the whole flower shop behind him. 

“Miss.Scarlet Morris?” he inquired.

“Yes?”

“There is a delivery for you. Please sign the papers here so my men and bring in stuff in.” he said, gesturing towards the man behind him with dozens of flowers and boxes of all size, shape and color. I stood there, dumb folded, signed the papers and all the gifts nearly filled my living room to the brim. The delivery guy handed me an envelope and departed.

I could hear the commotion in the room but my attention was towards the envelope in my hands. I tentatively opened it, only to find tickets to what seem like an underground fight and a note with it, written in beautiful cursive writing from the man whom seems hell bent on making my life hell.

“Come to this fight. Its time you know the whole truth. You deserve the truth and he deserves a chance.”

-James Dumas.