Yours Always Book 1

4

“Okay, everyone. It’s time for gifts!” my mother shouted.

Ozzy and I sat next to each other on the couch as mom handed us each a gift. My first one was from Dean, and I tore off the wrapping. I was excited. Dean always got me beautiful clothes or new electronics. Inside the box was a beautiful, strapless, knee-high black dress with a cute pair of red heels to match.

I thanked Dean, and we continued. Colin handed me a small bag, inside of which was a handmade necklace in the shape of a wolf. It was amazing, and I put it on right away. I hugged him, with a slight tint of pink on my face, and thanked him as well before moving on.

My mother handed me a big bouquet of red roses. “These came while you were at school. Is there someone, or something, I should know about?” Mom asked excitedly. There were a dozen of them with a note attached:

Baby,

I hope you enjoy your party. You are the love of my life; I can’t wait to be with you.

Yours, Always.

I blushed. “It’s not a big deal, Mom.” My hands started to feel clammy before I quickly hid the note, shoving it into my pocket. I wasn’t about to let someone’s stupid idea of a prank ruin my birthday.

I tried to keep a smile on my face for the remainder of the party but was grateful when most of the people left at ten, either to go home or off to more exciting venues without parental supervision.

I was sitting in my bed, and it was around 11:00 pm. I was thinking back on everything that happened that day. Oz and I's birthday party was a success, and I got a bunch of new things. Mostly new outfits with new shoes, and some jewelry from my mother. Danny had gotten me a new computer. He told me that Blake offered to help him pay for it, so it was a gift from both.

Some people were still downstairs, mostly just my mother and Dean’s friends that they had invited so they had people to talk to. I was happy about that because I could still hear Colin laughing, and I had come to realize I needed his help to set up my new computer. I didn't know much about computers except f*******: and other apps. I started making my way downstairs to ask Colin to come and help me.

I found him and Dean sitting in the living room talking to each other and watching a movie.

"Colin, can you come help me for a minute?" I asked.

"Yeah, Ivy. What do you need?" he asked.

"I need help with setting up my new computer," I told him. He nodded his head, and we headed back upstairs to my room. "Thanks for helping."

My face heated up after I realized that Colin was in my room, and I started to giggle like a schoolgirl.

"No problem, Giggles." Colin had never before made it upstairs to our house.

As soon as he saw me blush, he smiled. I looked down and decided to get changed while he set up the computer.

"It's there. I'm going to go change," I said as he took a seat at my desk.

I walked into my closet and undressed, putting on my red fluffy pajamas. Colin was still in my room messing around on my computer when I was done, so I went into my bathroom to keep myself far away from him. I brushed my teeth slowly in the hope that he would be done by the time I went back into my room; he was not. He was still there typing away on it.

"How's it going?" I asked, walking over to see what he was doing.

"About done. So, who were the flowers from?" he asked.

"Let's just work on the computer," I said. I hoped he wouldn’t want to push it, but of course, he did.

"Do you have a boyfriend now that I don't know about?” he asked. "Come on, Ivy. Secrets don’t make friends."

“Nope. No secret boyfriend. Just some birthday flowers and a few mystery emails which I sent you this morning,” I replied. I left out the part about me feeling watched. I didn’t want to add too much because I hadn’t told Dean about it yet. Colin was the only one who knew.

“Yeah, it worried me getting those emails from you today. Are you worried about them? Have you told Dean about what’s happening yet?”

"I just want you to drop it, Colin," I said. I was tired and just wanted to go to bed. “With me not replying, I'm sure whoever it was will stop emailing me.”

"If you don’t tell me what's been going on, Ivy, I will be forced to tell Dean about it."

I let out a huff; clearly, he was not going to do as I asked.

"It is nothing to worry about. I'm sure it is just someone playing a prank on me because it's my birthday."

“And if it isn’t…?” he said, raising an eyebrow.

"You know Daryl, he is always messing with me," I explained. I didn't want to think about it anymore because if it wasn't one of Oz's friends, that meant it was all real, and I wasn’t sure what to do.

Colin stared at me for a moment.

"Can I see your phone?" he asked. I gave him an annoyed look and shook my head. "If you are getting mystery flowers and emails from this person, maybe you have gotten a mystery phone call I could track," he said with a smile.

“We don't even know if the flowers, notes, and messages are from the same person,” I said, and he gave me a knowing look.

Colin clearly wasn’t going to let this go, so I went into my phone and found the emails from earlier.

“These are some emails I just got today. I got one before school and then one during,” I said, handing him my phone. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the notes. “And these are the letters,” I said, handing them over to him.

"Thank you," he said quickly, taking the phone and notes from me.

I watched him as he read the messages that came to me. As he was wasting time on my phone, I went and laid down in bed. It was now almost midnight, and I was so tired I just wanted to sleep. It was hard to sleep with Colin still in my room, but I managed to get there. "Goodnight, Giggles," I heard before I fell into a deep sleep.

Sometime during the night, after everyone had gone to bed and Dean and Colin left for work, I woke up dying of thirst. I got out of bed and made my way downstairs and into the kitchen. In the process of filling my glass, I thought I saw a shadow pass by the kitchen window. I quickly debunked it as a passing car, but then remembered that the kitchen window faced the tree line.

I quickly drank up my water and went back to my room. I was paranoid. That wasn’t like me, but the last few weeks had been crazy. I was sure there was a reasonable explanation for the shadow I had seen. I walked over to my window and looked in the backyard because my mind wouldn't settle. I saw a few deer standing at the base of the tree line. I looked further into the darkness, and my eyes widened at what I saw.

At the base of the tree line, there stood a man. He was dressed in black and had what looked like a ski mask covering his face. His eyes were so yellow they almost glowed in the dark, just like an animal of some sort. Mist surrounded him, making it difficult to figure out his height. I could tell that he was a very masculine guy, though.

After staring at him for a good minute, praying that he would leave, he started to walk closer to the house. I panicked. I screamed as loud as I could for Ozzy, who was the only person that I could think of to help me.

I heard a loud bang coming from the hallway and the thundering footsteps of my brother. He was running to me and soon my bedroom door opened with a bang when it hit the wall behind it. He looked at me and quickly scanned my room before turning his eyes back to me.

"What the f**k, Ivy? Why did you scream like that? You almost gave me a heart attack!" he said, grabbing his chest to steady his heart rate.

"Oz, someone is in the backyard," I said through my own heavy breathing.

"You were probably just having a nightmare, Little Sister. Calm down."

He pulled me into a hug. I was wide awake. It wasn't a f*****g nightmare.

"No, Ozzy. I'm sure of it, there was someone out there, and I want to call Dean to come and check it out," I said, wiping away the tears that were now rolling down my cheeks.

"Okay, give him a call. I'm going to go look around outside," Oz said. This worried me. Though Oz was a big man, he didn’t have the same training as Dean did when it came to fighting and taking down an assailant.

"Oz, please be careful. Here, take this with you," I said, handing him the foot-long Bowie knife I always had sticking halfway out the side of my bed. It used to be in my closet, but the past few weeks, I have felt safer having it close by.

"You keep this under your bed? That’s totally weird," he said, taking it and walking to the door.

I went to grab my phone to call Dean. When looking at the screen, I felt like I should check for any new emails, and there was one.

From: yoursalways102@gmail.com

To: ivyturner120@gmail.com

I’m outside. I wish I could see you. Come to the window.

I dropped my phone after reading the email, then picked it back up and fumbled with it, trying to call Dean. He would know what to do. He always did. I pressed the call button, and Dean answered straight away. “Hey, Little Red, what are you still doing awake?”

"Dean, someone was just outside in the backyard. I'm scared; will you come home?" I whispered into the phone.