3 Chapter 3: After.

It has been years since then, to be exact, sixteen years since I had found Elizabeth's cold corpse on the forest floor.

I had been in and out of foster homes up until I was eighteen, after that, I was deemed homeless. However, after some time, I had made a few friends from a homeless shelter, where we all saved up whatever money we could and put it towards a shared apartment between the three of us, which we still live in to this day.

"Emilie~" One of them chimed, while skipping into my room. It was seven in the morning, and Tiff was already as awake as if it were midday. She was tall, tanned and a fit woman, with luscious blonde locks and bright green eyes.

"Tiff! Come on, you could have at least knocked.." My complaining was futile, as she did this every time, and had caught me creating a disaster that was my eye-liner.

"Oh, Em. Stop being so whiny all the time." She waved her hand dismissively, and wandered over to me, standing behind me and catching my eyes in the mirror. "Love the make-up, babe." Tiff winked and patted my tense shoulders, and we both couldn't help but burst into laughter, despite my nervousness.

"You need to loosen up, seriously. Your muscles are tightly knotted." She admonished.

"I'm just..." A long sigh followed. "I'm nervous about who's going to walk in and be the next manager. Especially seeing as the last one was savagely ripped apart."

"And the one before that." Tiff countered.

"Aaaaaand the one before that. It's as if the job is a bad luck charm." I commented, which led to more giggles. That would be ridiculous.

Once Tiff had left and I finished my small amount of make-up, that felt like forever to do, I left my room and sat down at the shared dining table. The others had already left for work, unfortunately, meaning that I had to eat my cereal alone.

My phone pinged while I was washing my bowl up, so I quickly finished that up, before I looked at the message. It was from Ezekiel, one of my roommates, who worked at a restaurant, with the other two, nearby my work place, the 'Newspaper Express'.

'Em, we need to work late, so we won't be home til' late. Cook us dinner?' His message read, and I knew I couldn't refuse.

With much disappointment, I agreed.

Taking the usual bus, I arrived at work at exactly eight in the morning. Opening the doors, I walked right on in and went to sit at my desk. Though, I found the other women whispering and giggling about something, and I was about to roll my chair back and ask, until the front door opened.

A man at the height of around six-foot-two walked in, having tousled, raven black hair and a lean build. His chin had a light stubble covering it, along with dark eye-lashed, icy-blue eyes and wore black-framed glasses. He was dreamy, sexy, even.

I found myself gaping at him, and he caught my eye. Shit! My gaze immediately diverted back to the screen in front of me, where I got back to work quickly, typing away for the latest article that I was assigned.

A shadow cast over my desk, causing me to slowly look up.

"Miss Alinsky, right?" The devilishly handsome man asked me, one hand placed on the woodwork, causing him to lean closer to me. I nodded in response.

"Meet me in my office in ten." He put bluntly, without even a smile, and walked towards his new office.

The hairs on the back of my neck rose, goose bumps prickling over my skin. He had a strange aura about him, and his scent... was extremely alluring, which was strange, considering I'd never found a man as attractive as I found him.

Now I knew what those other women were on about.