As the people filed in and out of the cheery Ice-cream shop, cool ice collecting around their lips and tongues, something unusual happened. A black Bentley with a murderous, arrogant aura entered the small town. Its motors stilling the cheerful tweets of innocent birds to a dull groan and making the street cower before it. Inside this vehicle, invisible to the eyes of the passers, sat two men. The look of murder and revenge etched onto the wrinkles and scars decorating their faces.
“Remember, we do nothing until we’ve got the girl,” the one husky voice declared to the other. “After we can cause this town as much harm as we please.”
A sneer played on both their faces, making anyone who saw it cower in fear.
*
They sat outside the ice-cream shop, the afternoon sun high up, claiming the sky its own. It was the first time she had been out properly without her mom. Another giggle escaped her lips as her ice-cream came up to meet it halfway. Kyle sat across from her, explaining the crazy antics of his family. She now knew all the names of his brothers and sisters. He made her recite it until she memorised it and in turn he visited her house almost every weekend. For a moment she allowed her eyes to sweep over the seemingly perfect landscape. They weren’t that far from the sea.
“I have a surprise,” he licked up half his ice-cream then pulled her to her feet.
“Is it a lamp post? Did you buy Benny the lamp post for me?”
“Benny the lamp post?” He laughed. “Close but no.”
“Aw. Damn I was getting excited for a second.”
“I think this is better than Benny. No offense Benny,” he shouted this last bit over his shoulder to an invisible Benny standing a few meters away.
*
She opened her eyes at his command and to her utter surprise and delight before her loomed the endless waves of turquoise and blue salt water. Her hands covered a smile etched into her face as she softly climbed out of the car. She hadn’t seen the sea in so long. How she had missed it though. With a swift movement she pulled off her shoes and ran to the sand, burying her toes deep into their crevices. She turned around to give Kyle an appreciative smile but found him standing behind her; instead she threw her arms around saying “thank you” over and over again. The world is perfect; she thought to herself, nothing can ruin this, nothing and no one.
But she was wrong.
As the sun slowly climbed down to touch once more with the sea, a black Bentley pulled into the parking lot. She froze. Out from the Bentley appeared two men, two men too familiar to be any comfort to her. She pulled Kyle behind a dune and crept her way back to the car. Once in the safety of the small broken down car she begged Kyle to drive her as far away from the beach as possible. His only clue to her distress was the continuous nervous looks over her shoulder at the two scarred men. She dropped her head in her hands, things had just gotten complicated and dangerous.