Demanding Ransom

by Megan Squires

  My stomach somersaults. “Seriously?” I throw my hands in the air. “And you wonder why you make me uncomfortable? I thought I asked you not to make me get on that death-mobile again!”

  I realize my volume must be louder than I intend, because the slack-jawed stares from Ran’s colleagues kind of imply that I might actually be screaming. Just as I begin to feel the hot discomfort of embarrassment climbing up my cheeks, Trav jogs over toward us and wraps an arm around my shoulder.

  “I’ll drive you to Ran’s, Maggie. It’s on my way.”

  Ran swiftly nods toward Trav. “Thanks man. No detours. She’s mine tonight.”

  “No worries. Tempting, though.”

  There’s a beat-up Chevy truck parked just to the left of Ran’s Ducati that I assume belongs to Trav. Mostly because the license plate on it says TRVSTRK. Straightforward—something Ran is definitely not.

  “Hop in,” Trav instructs, holding the passenger door that creaks on its hinges like it’s the first time it’s ever been opened. “The seatbelt sticks a bit. You have to jiggle it to get it loose.”

  “Got it.” I climb up into the cab and do as he says, but it takes more than just jiggling; it takes me yanking with the strength of all of my body weight behind it before the seatbelt dislodges and allows me to slink it across my body. “Doesn’t get used much?” I infer.

  “Nah. I don’t quite get the ladies the way Ran does. No pretty passengers for me.”

  Trav slips into his seat and engages the key and the engine turns over loudly. For a moment I worry that something’s wrong under the hood when I feel the low vibration increasing under my feet, but then I look out my window and see Ran kick starting his bike and hear the purr of his vehicle combined with ours. Something about the way he turns that motorcycle on turns me on, and I force my gaze out the front windshield just as I see Ran’s helmet about to angle my way. Out of my periphery, I see him flick a wave toward us and then speed out of the lot.

  “So Ran’s cooking for you tonight?” Trav puts the truck in reverse and follows Ran’s bike down the street.

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  I try everything I can not to focus on the pull of Ran’s black leather jacket over his firm shoulders, and the way he slightly perches on the seat of his bike, yet keeps his weight balanced effortlessly as he cruises down the block. I try not to notice those things, but each time his motorcycle hugs the curve of the road when we turn onto a different street, I find my head tilting slightly to follow his perfectly fluid movements. It’s impossible not to notice how well he handles that vehicle and to wonder what other things he has such skilled control over, too.

  Trav looks over at me. “You like him?”

  Yep. Trav is straightforward all right.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Because he likes you.” The blinker ticks out a steady, metronomic beat. “And he feels awful about your accident.”

  “Why? He shouldn’t. It’s not like it was his fault.” The scar under my pant leg inches and I rub my finger over the denim covering my thigh.

  “Well, maybe you telling him that would be more effective than me.”

  I’m about to ask what on earth he means when Ran’s bike slips into an open garage and Trav guides his truck into the driveway behind it.

  “Have fun tonight, Maggie. And don’t keep him up too late. He’s got another night shift tomorrow.”

  “Thanks,” I murmur, still confused by his previous statement, but overtaken by a sudden rush of nerves that make me unable to find the words necessary to formulate a coherent sentence.

  Ran is in his garage, pulling off his helmet and shaking out his dark hair when he catches my eye. “And you think that old clunker is safer than my bike?” He settles the helmet on the handlebar. “Come on, let’s cook up some grub.”

  “I thought you lived in an apartment,” I say, trailing him in through the laundry room that is located off the garage. It fans out into a small family room with an attached dinette and substantial kitchen next to it. There is a row of stairs just to the left and a fireplace separating the living and dining spaces. “This is not an apartment.”

  “Okay, it’s a townhouse.” He lifts my jacket from my shoulders and I realize I’m still wearing the one from the ride along. “You don’t need this observer jacket anymore. I’m not going to let you get away with just observing me in the kitchen—as enticing as that might sound.”

  “You’re not making me dinner?” I say, binding my arms across me and pouting my upper lip. “I actually have to participate in this ridiculous food preparation?”

  Ran pulls open a kitchen drawer and retrieves two aprons from within it. He knots one around his neck and extends the other my direction. “Moments are better when they’re shared together.”

  “Did you get that from a Hallmark card?” I laugh at him outright.

  “Okay. I’ll give you that one. Not my best.” He clasps my hand—for the third time today—and spins me toward the fridge. “Go get all of the things out of the produce drawer while I preheat the oven.”

  “What are we making?” I ask. The refrigerator is fully stocked with more food than I’d expect to find at a bachelor pad.

  “Stuffed-crust pizza. Sound good?”

  “Yeah,” I say. My stomach growls in agreement. “Sounds amazing.”

  We spend the next half hour chopping up toppings, rolling out dough, and decorating our personal pizzas until they look like masterful pieces of artwork rather than dinner. Ran doesn’t let me do any of the actual cutting, referencing the unfortunate scissor-waking incident, saying I’ll have to work at gaining his trust with sharp objects. I feign offense, but quickly forget my annoyance as I watch the way his biceps flex under his t-shirt with each rock of the knife against the cutting board. Even his forearms pulse with each movement.

  “We’ve got twenty-five minutes until it’s time to dine.” He pulls at my fingers. “Wanna watch some Wheel of Fortune?”

  “Is that show even on anymore? Vana’s gotta be like my grandma’s age by now.”

  He gives me a sweet smile, not his typical flirtatious grin, and for some reason it affects me more than his usual, confident smirks.

  Though his living space is larger than an apartment, there’s still not room for a full-sized couch, and in its place Ran has an oversized loveseat. I glance toward it, realizing he’s going to take up more than his fair share of the cushions and I’ll be forced to sit nearly on top of him. I think the floor might be a good alternative.

  Just as we’re heading toward the chair, a shooting tingle slices through my leg and I fumble forward, lose my footing, and I slam onto Ran’s back so my cheek is pressed up against his shoulder blade.

  “You okay?” He spins around on his heel and steadies me with two firm palms on my shoulders. “You alright, Maggie?” His eyes sweep over me.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  “It’s your leg,” he says, glancing down at my thigh. “I want to take a look at it.”

  I shake my head quickly and the room blurs around me. “No. That’s not necessary.”

  “Yes it is,” he presses. “I’ve seen the way you favor it, how you won’t put your weight on it completely. It should be healed by now. Let me take a look at it.”

  “You’re not getting my pants off.” When I say it, it’s as though actually speaking the outrageous words paints my face with the red pigment of humiliation.

  “I—” Ran begins.

  “That sounded different in my head. You’re not taking a look at it. It’s fine.”

  Ran shakes his head just as vigorously as I did, but he doesn’t look dizzied by the act. He’s always so in control. “No. I’m looking at it.” In one rushed movement, Ran swoops me off the floor and lifts me into his arms, like I don’t weigh more than a feather. He takes measured strides across the room and when I see the staircase creep into view, I tense up noticeably.

  “We’re going to my room. I have some shorts you can change into and
I can take a look at your scar up there,” he offers, probably detecting my mortifying change in composure.

  I don’t fight him on it because I know I won’t win. It seems as though Ran gets his way in every scenario. I think it might be time I surrender to this well-established fact.

  Once in his room, he lifts me up over the bed and softly rests me on top of the duvet cover. Just the thought of being in Ran’s apartment coursed an unrealistic amount of nerves through my veins earlier today. Sitting here in his bedroom, draped across his bed, I’m fairly certain my entire nervous system is going to shut off. My dangerously fast heart rate can’t keep up like this for much longer without ceasing altogether.

  Ran opens his closet and tosses a pair of workout shorts my way. “Put these on,” he directs as he links his arms over his chest.

  Making a twirling motion with my fingers, I command him to turn around. He rolls his eyes, but grudgingly obeys my instruction.

  “I see a lot more than that on a daily basis, you know,” he calls over his shoulder, and I glimpse his head rotate ever so slightly my way.

  “Eyes to the wall, Ran.” I wriggle out of my skinny jeans and yank on his shorts. I have to roll the waist over four times before they agree to sit on my hips without slipping off with the slightest rustle of movement. “Okay. You can turn around.”

  “Wow.” Ran swallows. “You look hot.”

  “Yeah, I really look amazing in these ratty old basketball shorts,” I say sarcastically.

  “I agree. You look awful. Take them off.”

  “Shut up.”

  Ran eases onto the bed next to me, and I scoot to the right to accommodate him. His bed is big. Probably a king. I don’t like thinking about why he would need such a large bed, and I don’t like thinking about the other girls that have probably joined him in it. Not like that’s what I’m doing now, but still.

  “Let me take a look.” The mattress bows under his weight as he edges toward me. He’s on his knees, his legs tucked up under him, like he’s crawling over the covers to me. I’ve only seen one other guy slink toward me in this way and it was Brian. But while Ran approaches me cautiously, Brian was always ready to pounce.

  I don’t mean to, but I pull my head back, trying to gain some space between us. The borrowed shorts are long and hang all the way down to my knees. My legs are clenched together, and when he slides closer, I feel the muscles in them tighten.

  “Maggie, I’m not going to hurt you.” He stretches a hand toward me slowly, as if asking permission. Reading my hesitant, but approving, expression, Ran’s fingers skim the hem of the shorts and he cuffs them four times—just like I’d done earlier to the waist—to pull them back enough to examine my scar. When his eyes scan over the six-inch, light pink gash extending the length of my upper thigh, Ran’s shoulders sag. “I’m so sorry, Maggie.”

  “It’s fine. I’m fine. See?” I hurriedly unroll the shorts and smooth my palms over the fabric. “Let’s go back downstairs.”

  “No.” Ran lifts his eyes up from my leg to my eyes. “Let me look at it.”

  I surrender, knowing I’m not going to win. “Fine.”

  He pulls up the hem again, but this time after he does it he slides in closer to me, so we’re leg to leg, facing one another on the bed. When his finger meets the warm flesh on my thigh, I close my eyes to stop my eyelids from fluttering. When I open them, Ran’s crystal blue ones are locked with mine.

  He presses his finger on my skin, at the very base of my scar just above my knee. His touch hovers just over, almost so he’s not touching me at all, but the space between his finger and my skin pulses like there’s no other part of my body I can feel right now. Like everything else is numb except for the small stretch of space under Ran’s finger. Like he’s all I can feel.

  “Your laceration was very deep,” he says, more like a doctor than a college-aged boy trying to get past first base. It pulls me back down to earth. “The shard that caused this was a half-inch thick.”

  I nod, but not because I remember. I don’t really remember much from that night other than our embarrassing ambulance interactions.

  “It cut straight through all of your muscle and nearly severed your femoral artery completely.” His finger has stopped moving and rests about two inches above my knee. “Trav and I had just left the hospital after responding to another call and were there when it all happened.”

  “I’m glad you were,” I say, but it’s not enough.

  “Maggie, you can bleed out in less than three minutes from the type of injury you sustained.” His eyes drop from mine and he begins tracing up my leg again. The way his finger feels on my skin pulls up goose bumps all over my entire body, not just the area he touches anymore. Every part of me is affected by him now.

  I blow out a breath and try to quietly refill my lungs without letting him know how incredibly difficult he’s making this. How hard he’s making it for me to focus on doing something that I’ve spent the rest of my existence doing instinctually. Feeling Ran’s touch makes it as though I have to retrain my body on how to function like it normally should. Everything else has gone haywire.

  “It takes a while for that muscle to not only heal, but to regain its strength.” I look down at my scar, seeing it snake across my leg and seeing Ran’s fingers delicately trail along the once-torn ridge of flesh. “That’s why it gives out on you. Because it’s not as strong as it once was. But you’d be amazed how we can heal, Maggie.” I feel Ran’s palm press completely onto my leg and feel his fingers coil onto my inner thigh where the scar winds on my skin, touching me where no one other than Brian has. It shocks me, but I don’t allow my eyes to falter, though my breathing betrays me. “We have an incredible capacity to come back from trauma. To heal from the wounds that we sustain.”

  I’ve never heard any doctor or paramedic describe an injury the way Ran does, and I know he’s not just referring to my leg. And then the reality of what he’s doing hits me.

  I yank my shorts down over my leg and Ran draws his hand back swiftly. “Do not use my accident as a way to lecture me on being broken.” I taste the sickening sushi from yesterday’s interrogation on my tongue.

  Ran’s eyes emit a hurt that equals a backhand across his face. In fact, that might have been nicer. To slap him and pretend that I was mad because he was attempting to make a move. But he and I both know that’s not what he was trying to do.

  I swallow the lump that has swelled in my throat. “I don’t need you to talk to me about trauma and healing. I’m just fine.” I swing my legs over the side of the bed. “And my leg is just fine, if you actually had any real concern over it to begin with.”

  “Don’t do this, Maggie.” Ran pulls his hands through his hair and keeps them wrapped around the roots like he’s going to tug them out. “I do care about your leg. I care about all of you. Can’t you see that?”

  “Honestly Ran, it seems like all you care about is teaching me some life lesson on forgiveness and second chances. I’m beginning to think you’re taking your job as a ‘healer’ a little too far.” I tear off his basketball shorts, ball them up and chuck them at him, grateful for the long sweater I’d chosen this morning, because it falls down my legs and keeps some modesty in my act. I yank my jeans on and am frustrated when I stumble slightly, wishing to make my scene as dramatic as possible, but I’m sure I look ridiculous.

  “This is not my idea of a girl ripping her clothes off for me.” Ran tosses the discarded shorts onto his bed.

  “You’re not my idea of much, either Ran,” I spit.

  “First,” he says, calm and composed, “I’m not even sure what that means. And second, you said my job as a ‘healer.’ That’s not what we do. We don’t heal, we sustain. We make sure things don’t escalate and we patch things up until the real healing can take place later down the road.”

  “I don’t care what you do for a living. I don’t care about anything other than getting out of this apartment and forgetting this night ever happened.�
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  “Again, not something a girl has ever told me.”

  “Would you stop already?” I can’t keep my voice calm any longer. It thunders out of me without permission. “Stop doing that.”

  “What?” His eyes droop at the sides like a puppy dog.

  “Stop trying to charm me when I’m obviously furious with you.” My hands plant firmly on my hips, my nails digging into the bone that protrudes there.

  “Is it working? The charming?”

  I purse my lips bitterly. “Not in the least.”

  “Why do you hate me so much?”

  I throw him an incredulous glare. “Are you serious? Because you make me extremely angry, Ran.”

  He’s still sitting on his bed, his legs crossed one over the other, and I’m glad he is because it allows me to tower over him. I wonder if that’s his intent. To let me feel like I have the upper hand for once.

  “I don’t think that’s true, Maggie.” His hands are clasped at his ankles and a dark lock of hair slips onto his forehead as he slightly tosses his head to the side. “I think I make you think about the things in your life that make you angry. There’s a difference.”

  “You make me angry, you make me think angry things. Whatever.”

  “So the anger you have over your mom leaving your family,” he begins, and my mouth gapes open at his audacity. “Has no one ever challenged you to look at what it’s doing to you?”

  “We’re not having this conversation. You don’t get to know me, Ran. You don’t get to ride in on your white horse and pretend to be the hero.”

  “I believe it was a white ambulance, but—” he interjects.

  I talk over him loudly. “You don’t get to pretend to have this deeper sort of relationship with me because you may or may not have saved my life. I don’t owe you anything.”

  “You’re absolutely right. You don’t owe me a thing. I was doing my job. It was a matter of being at the right place at the right time.”