Rain

The clap of thunder woke Darlene with a start.  Pictures rattled on the wall and lightning flashes cast eerie shadows across the room.  She turned to check the clock:  1:15 AM.  The fiercest monsoons often rolled through the city in the middle of the night, but Darlene’s nerves couldn’t handle the jostling.

Darlene had been on edge for the three weeks since she fled her burned out cabin and left her father’s ex-business partner, Jeff, for the police.  She still scanned online local news sites and faithfully watched the 9 o’clock news, but still saw nothing about him.  Wouldn’t the live capture of a man dead for eight years be a big deal?

In her heart, Darlene knew:  somehow, Jeff had eluded the police.  She thought for sure him being twenty-five years her senior, with wrists bound by a shoelace, that he couldn’t have gotten far.  A week after she let him live, she came home to a disheveled office and a black shoelace on her living room floor.  It didn’t take a detective to figure out Jeff left it on purpose.  That’s when Darlene understood she underestimated the will of a man with secrets to keep.

Darlene shuddered as thunder shook her house again and fat raindrops pelted her window.  She sat up in bed and her heart thumped faster when she heard banging at her front door.  Her unease heightened when she realized it was the screen door being blown by the wind.  She always kept it locked.  Her mind amplified every noise, and terrifying scenarios began to rain down on her like dollar bills in a strip club.

Lightning illuminated a figure several feet away.  She blinked, thinking her imagination went too far.  Before she could scream, a gloved hand clapped over her mouth.  Hot breath tickled her ear.  Darlene shivered despite the perspiration on her skin.

“You have something that doesn’t belong to you,” the intruder said in a hoarse whisper.

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This is my response to the Trifecta weekly challenge, which is to write a 33 to 333-word response (mine is 325) using the following word/definition:

RAIN (transitive verb):  to take a lot of money in bill form and toss it up in the air. This is most effectively done at a strip club for the effect of raining one dollar bills on the dancers (and it makes them feel so pretty), or to snub a hater by throwing money into their face that then falls to the floor like rain (use this when paying a debt to a punk bitch who keeps asking for their money to the point that they are ruining your friendship or when dumping someone who has been bankrolling you for a while now that you’re making money).

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This continues Darlene’s story (if you haven’t read the other parts and are curious about what has transpired so far, here are the links:)

First Part (Dead Flowers)   Second Part (Investigation)    Third Part (Unknown Path)

Fourth Part (Missing)    Fifth Part (Facing Memories)   Sixth Part (Hunted or Hunter?)

Seventh Part (Indecision)     Eighth Part (Ties That Bind)    Ninth Part (Skeletons)

Tenth Part (Truth or Lies)