CHASE
9

I pressed my toes into the soft carpet of the floor, trying to find a way to distract myself from the endless amount of thoughts running in my head. A pang of hurt was lurking in my chest as I thought back to the information I was given when I went to visit Chase three days ago. He was under investigation and wasn't allowed visitors. He'd raped and killed a patient from Whitley Psyche Hospital. I sighed for the millionth time this morning. Not sure what to make out of this situation or how to feel. Why would he do that? Specially now that he was getting treatment? Why did he have to go and do that? Was I stupid to think that I could save him? Was he just going to turn out like Becca and fight every time I tried to make him feel human again?

'Bella, snap out of it sweety.' I looked up into mum's concerned green eyes. I had came over to my parents house to distract myself yet it seemed to make it worse with dads every so often 'I told you so's' and mum's constant need to try and feed me better. They weren't helping and quite frankly, I felt sick to my stomach about the whole thing and I just needed them to be here without actually doing anything but being here.

'This is what happens when you don't listen to me.' Oh here we go again. Dad was about to start his rant and I wasn't down to hear it all over again. 'Didn't I tell you? I told you that, that damn psycho is dangerous! That could've been you Bella! That girl he did that to... I don't even want to think about it.' I felt disgusted, I didn't want to believe that Chase was capable of such things or that he would ever do something like that to me. I just didn't want to accept it.

'What your dad means is that, we're glad you're safe and won't go back there anymore.' Mum rubbed my shoulders, attempting to soothe me. I knew what they were saying was right, but I just didn't want to be that person, that person that only see's one side of things, that person that only see's the obvious side. Yes, clearly Chase had issues. Big ones. He was a psychopath without a doubt, anyone could see that he was dangerous and deadly but not anyone could see underneath all of that, underneath that layer of psychopath once used to be a infant that grew into a young boy and that young boy transformed into a man, a man that he is today. That young boy was hurt, he was abused, it didn't make what he did ok, it didn't justify it one bit but why could no one see that he needed help too? He needed communication too, he needed to be treated like a human too.

'Stop sitting around feeling sorry for him. That's probably what he wants you to feel. He's smart. He tried to get in your head and that's exactly what you allowed him to do.' Dad watched me carefully, clearly questioning why I even felt a pang of concern for someone so cruel and evil.

'He didn't do anything to my head.' I didn't know if I was trying to make them believe it or myself.

'But he did! He made you feel sorry for him, he manipulated you Bella it's as real as it gets!'

'Why do you keep acting like you know him so well? You don't know anything about him! All he ever did was try and show me what he's capable of, he tried to scare me off! He didn't want me to feel sorry for him Dad. He really didn't.'

'Look at you baby, you're stressed out over some guy that you don't even know. We shouldn't even be having this conversation right now. He's not important.' He was right. We shouldn't even be having that conversation. Chase was no one to me, he wasn't anyone that I really knew yet I felt like there was a connection between us. I felt like it was my duty to understand him, to make people see that he wasn't just a patient at Whitley, that he was more than that. I didn't understand my need to justify him, what he did was unforgivable, it was sickening to a point where I didn't even know if I believed he was even worth the trouble but at the end of the day, he was still only human.

I opened up the laptop and set it on my lap, sitting out in the garden, I let the sun warm my skin while my mind drifted off to the depths of Chase. For the first time I decided to search him up, to look into him, to look into the victims that were killed by his hands and what I came across just confused me even more and left me at a dead end. Every single victim excluding his parents were from the same orphanage. The same orphanage he was placed in, even the girl he killed recently at Whitley was from that orphanage. That changed things, that gave his killing spree a pattern. Four males and five females. All from the same orphanage. What could that mean?

Turns out, after he murdered his parents he was taken into a Psyche Hospital at the age of fifteen until the age of sixteen where he was under supervision and had tests done to him. After he turned sixteen he was released and sent back to the orphanage where all of his victims were at. I wondered if something happened in that orphanage that made him come back years later to hunt down each and every single of them.

'Victims'

He had mocked me when I referred to them as that. Had they had done something to him to make him see them differently to a normal persons eye. So many questions, so many dead ends. I was going to drive myself crazy trying to figure him out.

I don't know how long I'd fell asleep out here but when I woke up to the all too familiar voice of the person I didn't want to see I realised that I must've been out here for quite some time seeing as the sun had disappeared and was instead replaced by the start of the darkening in the clouds. 'Hello Bella.' I didn't bother turning my head to know it was Luke. I felt angry that my parents had let him in even though they didn't know about the incident at the coffee shop, unlike Chase, they bought the story about me falling down the stairs, although that was after they accused Chase of being the one who put the bruise there yet I skilfully made them believe that I really did fall down the stairs.

'Before you start kicking me out I just wanted to apologise for what happened and that it won't happen again.' I let out a small laugh, getting tired of his meaningless apologies, it wasn't the first time he'd hit me but it sure as hell was going to be the last. 'That's funny, I think I've heard that somewhere before. Oh yeah it was when you said the same thing last time you hit me.' I closed the laptop and stood up to walk past him but he grabbed my arm, holding me still.

'Just hear me out.'

'Let go of me or I'm going to scream.'

'You wanted to hear that loony tune from Whitley out so why can't you hear me out?'

'Stop calling him a looney tune.'

'Alright, alright. But hear me out.'

I knew that even though Chase was more dangerous I was still giving him a chance and it seemed that I wasn't giving Luke a chance but Luke had all of his chances, I gave him plenty, I tried to stay with him for so long, to try and help him become a better person but Luke was never going to change, he pretended like he was sorry when I knew damn well he wasn't sorry in the slightest, whereas Chase never acted like he was sorry, he never faked things to come across a better person and that's what made him real. Real enough to deserve a chance to be understood even when he didn't want to be understood.

'I love you Bella. It gets to me when I see you so involved with a guy like that. It got to me at the coffee shop, you want to be friends I know that I agreed to that but I can't see you as just a friend and I can't help getting angry when your life is revolved around a guy that can't give you anything when I'm here willing to give you everything.' He let go of my arm and instead held my face in his hands, his grey eyes looked sincere but I could sense his dark aura without him having to show it. His brown tousled hair had grew a little along with his facial hair, almost as if he wasn't taking care of himself, as if he was losing himself instead.

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I looked up at him, he wasn't as tall as Chase but he was still way taller than me. 'My life doesn't revolve around him. I feel bad for the guy and that's that, some us, actually have a heart and actually want to help others out, like I tried with you, remember?' I pulled my face away from him. 'You told me to hear you out and I did, now please leave.' I headed back inside, laptop in hand. It was going to be a long night and I wasn't sure if I was ready for it.

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