He’s late.

Across from me Cassidy is panicking, fidgeting with the flowers in her hands. I meet her eyes and give what I hope is a reassuring smile. She takes a deep breath in and visibly calms down.

It’s funny to think that I had to have my life threatened before I was able to properly connect with her. That night, she had come to my hospital room in a panic and had flung her arms around me without a word.

Even though it hurt my shoulder I said nothing.

I let her release all those tears onto my shoulders, I let her cry it out, for the first time not annoyed at her high crying voice. For the first time letting her cry and even crying with her, because this time I knew.

Those tears were for me.

It wasn’t until that moment that the thought that maybe she loved me too in way I hadn’t expected crossed my mind. I sat there crying in a way that I hadn’t in front of anyone before in my life.

Later on Jin said he’d come back and saw us there, but hadn’t come in scared that if he did he’d ruin the moment and we’d go back to hating each other.

I waited across from Cassidy for my brother, my best man’s suit making me sweat. It really was the suit, not worry that my brother might be late.

We were waiting in the antechamber across from the one where my brother was supposed to enter. He wouldn’t be able to see us but we’d see when he entered the chapel.

He still hasn’t.

Cassidy was in full out panic mode, her control freak tendencies making her snap at anyone for the simplest reasons. I smiled, knowing that not even three months ago I would have been one of the many guests that found her unbearable. Now though, she has become like a sister I hadn’t knew I wanted and I was the one glaring at those that looked at her funny.

Even though on any other day I might’ve told her off, today was her day.

She was finally getting married.

To my brother.

And he still wasn’t here.

I feel a slight moment of panic that maybe my captor, Aleksandr Brakënvic, had gotten to him. Even though it’s impossible, it still frightens me.

When the police had conducted their investigation on Aleksandr, they had found his numerous plans to kill my brother. Most of them were claiming to have been the idea of “Brendon”, but all of them were equally terrifying in their detail.

One that stuck with me was the one that described my brother’s nightly routine of locking the doors. That he had been watching us till that late at night chilled me to the bone. Apparently he had planned to murder Jin before he kidnapped me.

No one is exactly sure why he didn’t, but those murder plans added to his list of ever-growing crimes.

Besides me they had found proof that he had abducted seven other girls, and all that evidence coincided with what the police already suspected. Even though his trial is still going on, I have no doubt that he won’t be getting away lightly. The families of all those girls he had murdered will make sure of it.

I check my watch again.

Almost ten minutes till the service is supposed to start.

And Nam-jin is still nowhere to be found.

Just then the front doors open, and Jin comes running in his shirt untucked, my best friend Benjamin trailing behind him. Cassidy releases a sigh of relief, smiling broadly.

I smile at her before going over to the other antechamber, standing at my brother’s side where a best man is supposed to be. I tuck in his shirt fixing his tie, not bothering to ask where he’d been. Knowing my brother he had probably forgotten something important. Like the wedding rings he placed into my hands right then.

I nearly laughed out loud at the absurdity of it but the look of fear on my brother’s face stopped me. He was more terrified than Cassidy. I punched his shoulder hard, using all the strength I’d gained from the Muay Thai classes I’d enrolled in as soon as my shoulder healed.

It hurt, I could tell. He looked down at me, fear replaced with annoyance as he shoves me away.

“What’s wrong with you?” He asks, rubbing at his shoulder.

I smile and shake my head, saying nothing.

He turns and walks into the doors of the chapel to get married.

After the service I am outside avoiding all the socialising that is going on as people get into their vehicles and head to the reception venue. I had to get out of there, annoyed at all the people that came up to me. Instead of talking about the newlyweds they all wanted to know about my traumatising experience. What pissed me off weren’t their questions but the way they acted as if they could understand what I’d been through. As if any of them had ever been kidnapped by a schizophrenic artist with a knack for killing.

It’s as I’m standing on the front steps that I notice something across the street. When I look closely it’s gone, but I’m pretty sure I’d seen someone standing there. They had been standing under a broken streetlight. I look back into the building knowing my newly wed brother and sister-in-law were still going to be a while.

I walk across the street to the broken light wondering if I was going crazy. When I’d attended therapy, my therapist had said I might see Aleksandr in crowds and places he couldn’t possibly be. She said I might become so frozen with fear that I might go into a panic attack. She also said that the I had to confirm that it wasn’t real so I wouldn’t drive myself crazy with paranoia.

So far this is the first time I’m experiencing those symptoms.

I stand under the broken light, fear subsiding.

I hear Jin call out to me, and it is only as I turn back towards him across the street that I notice it.

There, on the lamppost is grafitti.

It seems new.

The ink still wet.

I lean closer to read the words.

Wait for me, my angel. Soon we’ll be together forever.