Chapter 151 - In Shock

Lucy drew in a shaky breath, "I tried not to leave my house except it was absolutely necessary, like going to school. I avoided Sonia's house or anywhere else I might easily run into him..."

"You didn't tell your parents about it?" Tom asked with a frown.

"I wanted to, but what was I supposed to tell them? I just couldn't bring myself to tell them about it," Lucy said with a shake of her head. 

"And they didn't notice the changes in you? Like you not wanting to go out and stuff?" Tom asked since he knew changes like that would never go unnoticed by his parents. 

"Sonia was almost always in my bedroom with me, so it wasn't a big deal since I've been spending most of my time at her home," Lucy explained with a shrug, and Tom nodded in understanding.

"You are doing that deliberately, aren't you?" Lucy asked curiously as she looked into Tom's face.

"Doing what?" Tom asked innocently.

"Interrupting me at intervals," Lucy pointed out, and Tom's lips twitched in a smile. 

"Yeah. I don't want you reliving those awful memories. Go inside your head, get the information needed, and come back. Don't get lost in there," Tom explained, "It is working, isn't it?" He asked hopefully, and Lucy gave him a nod. 

"Yeah, it is."

"So tell me what led to his death," Tom urged her when he glanced at the clock and realized that they didn't have much time left to talk. He wasn't sure she would willingly want to talk to him about it after now, so he wanted to know everything so he could better understand her. 

"Hmm... It was our prom night, and I didn't want to go to prom. There was no way I could tell my family that I wasn't attending prom, so I pretended to fuss over my dress when the car came to pick us. I assured them that my date was coming over to pick me up, so Lucas left with his girlfriend, Rachel. Sonia knew I wanted to stay back at home, and she wanted to stay with me, but I urged her to go as I didn't want to ruin prom for the both of us, especially her boyfriend who had been looking forward to it. That day coincidentally happened to be the anniversary of my parent's wedding, so they were going out on a dinner date with plans of spending the night away from home," Lucy said with a distant look in her eyes once again. 

"Don't tell me you were left in the house all by yourself?" Tom asked with a concerned frown as he was beginning to get a horror movie vibe from her story.

"I was. I dressed up and let my parents take pictures of me. They wanted to wait for my prom date to pick me up so they could get pictures of us, but I urged them to leave as they had booked a reservation and they were running late already. So no one knew I was going to be home alone," Lucy explained.

"Sonia didn't know your parents were going to be out that night?"

"I didn't tell her. I knew she was going to want to stay home with me if I told her, so I kept it from her. It wouldn't be the first time I was staying in my house alone, so what was the big deal?" Lucy asked with a rueful smile.

"I saw my parents off and while I stood there waiting for them to drive off, I noticed someone dressed in a hooded sweatshirt, standing in the shadows just across the house. I tried not to make a big deal out of it as the person wasn't even looking at our house. I returned inside the house once my parents drove off, locked up the doors and windows, and turned off the lights before going back to my bedroom to take off the dress. Just as I was about to unzip my dress, I heard the sound of the doorbell, and I ran out thinking that my parents had probably forgotten something. I quickly turned on the lights and opened the door..." 

Lucy abruptly stopped speaking when the memory of that night flooded her senses and left her breathless and immobilized.

"Lucy breathe," Tom said, sitting up and pushing her forward so that her back was no longer resting on the couch when he noticed that her eyes were dilated and she was looking right ahead of her with her mouth hung slightly open as though she was trying to speak but no word was coming out. 

Lucy could see him standing there again, dressed with the hoodie over his head and with a creepy smile pasted on his face.

"Hello, Lucinda!" He greeted, waving his right hand, while his left hand remained behind him. 

Seeing the creep standing there, Lucy panicked and quickly tried to shut the door, but he was faster. It was almost as if he had been anticipating her move. He quickly grabbed her arm with his right hand and before she knew what was going on, her back was pressed against his body and he brought his other hand which was holding a hankie that smelled of chloroform, and placed it under her nose. Her eyes involuntarily rolled back in her head and she lost consciousness.

"Lu? Come on, look at me Lu. You need to snap out of it, Lu," Tom called out in a worried voice, cupping her face in his hands as he knelt in front of her, urging her to come back to her senses, but before he could do anything else, she gasped out loudly and her eyes rolled back in her head as she fell forward.

To anyone else, she might just have fainted, but Tom didn't need anyone to tell him that she was in shock. She was still very traumatized by the experience. So he quickly snatched up both his phone and the car key from the table and carried her out of the house immediately. 

He had no idea about what he was going to do about all of this, but one thing he knew was that Lucy needed help.. She needed urgent psychological evaluation and help, and his being in her life under this guise wasn't going to help either of them.