Author's Note: hey guys! Here is a chapter. I am thankful for all of you who have stayed with me till this far. I have loved and felt saddened by a lot of comments but I hope that will all change at the end of the story. Thank you all so much for voting and please keep voting till the end. Love you guys so much. : )

Chapter 17

I walked into the house feeling completely like I a stranger in my own body. I don't know what got into me, whether it was desperation or distress. Either way, I shouldn't have punched Kongpob like that. I certainly wasn't thinking that I should punch him. I just wasn't thinking at all.

When I spotted Pete at the balcony window looking none too remorseful that he had obviously been watching Kongpob and I, I exploded in anger.

"Why did you do that, Pete?" I railed.

"You saw why."

"I told you that I don't want to do that to Kongpob, I don't want TO hurt him like that so why, without my permission, did you kiss me like that. "

"Listen, P'Arthit—"

"No you listen. Don't ever do that again. Do you understand me?" I held his gaze for one sharp tense moment, and then I dismissed him and walked to my room.

Before I could get there though, he said, "I'm sorry. I didn't know you would hate it that much. I just saw an opportunity and I took it."

I sighed, feeling some of the anger fall from me like old strands hair. I shook my head and tried to find the words to explain things to him but he wasn't done.

"Is it wrong though?"

I turned around and looked at him. He had a face like he was hurt. I knew I was a bit harsh but not that harsh enough to hurt him. "What?"

"Nothing," he exhaled, "just tell me what I can do to make this better."

"Don't," I paused, guilt crumpled my retort. I didn't want to feel guilty, I wanted to be annoyed. I sighed as all my annoyances were completely gone like dust in the wind. "It's alright, Pete. I'm sorry I yelled at you."

"I thought Kongpob would be a good witness to my father that something was going on between us, I wasn't thinking of making you angry or going against your wish."

"I know," I nodded. But I really didn't know and even if I did, would I have been able to let him do that? I'm not sure. Kongpob had look so hurt, and a little crazy. I realized now that I did not like the look in Kongpob's eyes. The fear and the possessiveness. What is happening to him?

From that day on Pete was a second presence in my life after my own shadow. We didn't do anything romantic, just ate out, went places together, and Pete spent the night at my place sleeping on my couch.

I felt a little anxious at first, expecting Anya's father's retaliation with the same way someone would expect a tsunami. It didn't come. Not for weeks, and then a month was about to float by.

Another thing that didn't come was Kongpob. He was silent, never called me and never came to see me. I told myself I was glad, that this was good. if we never get back together I was going to be okay with it. But every day I look at my phone expecting to see a missed call or a message. When I am coming back from work I stand in front of my house for longer than necessary to catch a glimpse of him. I stayed by my balcony window all the time waiting to see his car.

I was starting to feel tortured when the fourth week went by. I began to see fault with everything Pete did, and I found reason to get annoyed. I just wanted to do something to distract me. I wanted to focus on something to hide how wretched I felt.

I couldn't take it sometimes. I would hold my phone and press dial and then end the call before it could ring. I was unable to bear it at all. But then our not-dating-dating paid off. Pete got a message from his father threatening to destroy him if he continued to disgrace the family.

It was a well worded message, filled with gruesome details of what those threats meant. Pete looked at me and declared that we needed to provoke him more and what better way than to throw a party.

The party took place at an event center a little distance from Kongpob's house. It had nothing to do with Kongpob except that it was a party to celebrate my fake engagement to Pete. So when Kongpob showed up at the party, I wasn't surprised to see him.

Our eyes met the minute he entered, almost like magnets. We looked at each other in silence. Kongpob looked thin, like he lost some weight. To my dismay Anya was also with him. Once I see her in white and blue dress hanging behind Kongpob, I turned away.

I needed air. I needed to get out of the suffocating noise of the music in the party, the cheering of strangers that we invited and everything else that caused me pain.

I wasn't even out for a minute when I hear the sound of a click. I wanted to turn, but a voice I recognized said, "Don't move, and just walk."

I knew that had been a gun. Anya's father was pointing a gun at me. "Why are you doing this sir," I asked.

"You are like a parasite that spreads. From my daughter to my son. I feel it is time that I take care of you once and for all." His voice held silent severity. He meant every word.

I swallowed. "Why did you come after me?"

"Don't talk, just move," he didn't have any moment to answer my questions. I did as he asked though I wanted to resist. This wasn't how we planned it; we were supposed to record everything and were supposed to have the police on speed dial, but I was so caught up in finally seeing Kongpob tonight after so long without him, I forgot all we planned and was careless. I didn't even have my phone on me to call Pete or anyone.

When I asked him a question, he did not answer. Pete had been certain his father would come after him first, but I guessed not. He must not want to kill Pete; he was his father after all. So I was going to be a warning to Pete.

He led me to a place I didn't know was around this part. It looked like an abandoned construction site, or maybe not abandoned. I could still make out through the light presented by the moonlight barrels of what could be chemicals.

I kept my body facing front as I walked and I could hear the crunching of his feet on graveled ground.

"You don't have to do this sir," I said. "You don't have to dirty your hands." I was sure he has already killed before and was just saying that to stall for time enough to come up with a plan.

The site provided a series of hiding places shadowed from the moonlight and if I could run to one, I could hide. But if I moved too fast he, a former army man with a pistol pointed at me, could shoot me before I even make it to the corner.

"I told you not to talk," he said. "When I kill you today, all my troubles will end. "

"Pete is not going to stop being gay simply because I am dead," I said. "Will you kill everyone he wants to date?"

"If I have to teach him a lesson."

My heart trembled with the first trace of fear. He really will kill anyone he needed to kill to get his way.

"Why can't you just let him be who he is," I said, inching a little closer to the direction that seemed easier.

"Stop walking," he said and my breath hung in my throat. I turned around gingerly and he didn't say anything to stop me. I would have to beg him for my life. If I can't get out then I have to beg otherwise I will really die here.

He was framed by the incandescent light streaming from behind. We were halfway inside the building which had a wide entrance. Behind him were high grasses that likely shielded us from the road. I could hear the sound of cars zooming by on the highway.

"Sir, don't do this." I have never seen anyone more frightening. His eyes glinted and his mustache looked even blacker, his face blackened by the darkness. "Don't do this, Please."

"Do you think I am doing this on impulse," he asked. "I calculated everything and finally realized that you will have to die for peace to reign. Don't take it personally."

"no." his finger moved on the trigger and I crouched to escape the shot. Of course I was too close for that to matter. I heard a loud crunch.

"P'Arthit run!" it was Kongpob's voice. He was holding a short iron and Anya's father was on the ground holding his head. I stood to my feet and began to move towards Kongpob just as he ran into me.

"Kongpob," I said.

"No time," we looked down and saw that Anya's father never let go of his pistol.

I dragged on Kongpob but he pushed me to run one way while he another. I ducked to the corner and crouched just as a shot pierced past me with a loud bang. Then I heard more shots and then a powerful explosion. So hard was it that it shook the building and dust fell all over me. I instantly smelled burning tires.

"Kongpob," my heart skipped and I looked out from the corner and saw that Anya's father was on the floor, something heavy had fallen on him. A very long thick pole. It must have shook off the ceiling and came down on him when that thing exploded.

I walked out carefully over more such poles, "Kongpob?"

"P'Arthit?" I turned to the entrance and saw Pete standing there. He looked at his father in silence for a minute and ran to me. "Are you alright?"

"Where is Kongpob?" I asked a little dazed. I heard more crunching steps and turned, expecting Kongpob but it wasn't. Two police men and Anya entered the building. The police men tried to stop her from rushing in with a scream at the sight of her father but she didn't listen and was crouched next to him, crying. I heard one of the police man calling an ambulance and looked behind me at the side Kongpob and ran to when we were being shot at and my heart sank.

What had exploded had to be one of the chemical barrels there and although it didn't catch on fire, it certainly blackened the walls... and pulled down the roof.

"Are you two alright?" a police man was asking me. Pete was holding me as if I couldn't stand on my own. Maybe I couldn't because my chest was hurting with how hard my heart was beating.

"Kongpob," I whispered. "Kongpob ran that way," I said.

"What," Pete said beside me, "Kongpob was here?"

"He ran that way." I stepped forward and then began to run but a strong hand caught me before I could enter the crowd of irons poking out. My chest trembled with my breath.

"You can't go in there sir," the policeman who had stopped me said.

"But Kongpob is in there!" I yelled.

"Someone is in there? All the better that you don't go. You might cause more of those things to fall and if the person is hurt then" I whimpered and shook my head. "You don't want to do anything that could hurt him even more. So wait here."

After saying that, he walked past me and took a look at the mess of poles on the ground. I hoped he would turn and reassure me that there was a chance Kongpob had not fallen victim to those heavy irons, that he was not right now being crushed under their weight while he bled.

He had no expression on his face and nodded to Pete, "take him outside, we've got it covered."

I pushed Pete's hands off and walked forward. "I am okay, just let me help. "

I knew he didn't believe me but I wasn't going anywhere.

"well, " he said, "it would be a little while for an ambulance to get here so we have to make sure that the person is given as much help as can be. And we would need help lifting these things."

I nodded. Pete and I were soon pulling out heavy poles and pushing them to the side. We always checked to see that Kongpob wasn't there before we touched anything as warned by the policeman, but I was beyond myself. Frantically, I wanted to get to the end of the mess and find that Kongpob had found some way to escape.

Soon other men joined us and the work became much easier and I could see a light at the end of the tunnel. Kongpob wasn't anywhere around the sight. By the time we were done, the ambulance had already come and taken Anya and her father.

Kongpob was all that was left to find and every time we couldn't see him under any pole as four of us lifted them off, I let out a breath I was holding.

As I turned to smile at Pete, to tell him that Kongpob escaped, the policemen working in front of us called out," found him. It's bad, we need medical assistance right now."

The paramedic on the scene rushed past us with tools and I stood there in complete shock.

They were talking and working around the pole so didn't notice me walkup behind them and looked down at Kongpob. He wasn't under a pole, but something else iron was poking out of him. He was covered in dust and unconscious. My first thought was thank heaven he is unconscious. He lying in a pool of his blood and his face had cuts and bruises. He was lucky because none of those thick poles had fallen on him but he had been bleeding a long time due to how long it took us to get to him. I was nearly standing on his blood.

The paramedics spirited him away as soon as they could pry the iron rod from his abdomen and took him away. I rode with them as they worked to make Kongpob's heart beat again. It stopped twice before we got to the hospital.

End note: so in an effort to fit this story into twenty chapters, you may notice that it seems a bit rushed. Let me know if this is okay for you guys. Thanks for reading.