by A. J. Downey
“Okay,” he said in an almost sing song timbre and he went to work, tearing the denim with an almost wet, sloppy sound. I marveled at the strength he possessed, I mean, he made it look so easy.
Within moments, I sat in his passenger seat in a brand new pair of cut-off shorts that were so short, they made my legs look long. An amazing feat on my five foot four frame.
“Was that a smile?” he asked me, and let his fingertips graze my leg. I nodded and tried not to think about the sensations that little, seemingly unintentional, touch left behind.
“Let me get you some socks,” he murmured when I said nothing. He got my bag out of the back and rummaged for a pair. He propped my heel on his knee and stretching the sock wide, took care to get it on my foot without hurting me further. I swallowed hard.
“Why the change of heart?” I asked.
“What?” he asked, distracted by the act of getting my new running shoe on.
“You haven’t been worried about hurting me up to this point, why are you worried about it now?” I asked.
He looked up at me, gaze intent and fixed on my own and arched a brow, “You’re cooperating. You try, I can try too,” he said solemnly and I nodded faintly, not sure of what to make of that. I sniffed and flinched as he slid my heel home into the bottom of the first shoe.
“Sorry,” he said, consternation in his voice. I let my bottom lip go from between my teeth.
“It’s okay,” I murmured and just like that, I think a small, and I do mean infinitesimal, truce had been declared.
It didn’t stop him from waiting right outside the bathroom door for me to come out, nor did it stop him from ordering for me when I perused the menu a touch too long, but that was okay. I really wasn’t hungry and my mind was just purely out of any decision making skills.
Our food came, William watched me for several moments as the waitress set down many, many plates and finally, he ordered me gently, “Eat,” adding a belated, “Please,” to the end. I nodded and picked at my food while he watched me, eating ravenously. He finished well before I did, but leaving, well it wasn’t an option until he was satisfied I’d had enough. I was struck by the thought, even in prison they can choose how much and how little they eat… but again, I didn’t want to argue or complain, he wasn’t being rude, or mean, or harsh today, I wanted to keep it that way as best I could.
“Come on, we can’t stay, we have to keep moving,” he said quietly and guided me out of the restaurant by a firm grip on my elbow. Firm but not hurting. I stumbled along beside him anyways. My feet hurt, so did my stomach where he’d shoulder checked me while taking me. God, I was in such a mess.
He started the car and returned us to the highway, I didn’t even know where we were, what state we were in anymore. I suppose it didn’t really matter. I wondered vaguely if anyone was looking for me. My dad must have been out of his mind. He’d always been so over protective of me since mom had died, so demanding. Not loving, not my dad. No, no and did I mention no? That wasn’t and had never been his style. Who knew? Maybe he was relieved I was gone. I’d never been much of anything except a disappointment my whole life.
I stared sullen and silent at the passing scenery while William drove, startling when he turned on the radio. I stared at it as he surfed the channels looking for something he liked and I realized, it was because I was curious. I mean, what did he like?
“What do you like to listen to?” he asked as if he’d plucked the thought right out of my head.
“I was just thinking the same thing about you,” I told him truthfully.
“Rock, metal… sometimes blues or jazz depending on my mood. I even like a little bit of country from time to time,” I blinked, I hadn’t expected him to answer me, at least not so stark and honestly.
After apparently not finding anything that interested him on the radio he popped open the small compartment hidden in the center console and reached blindly into it, fishing around for a moment before he came up with a rewritable CD. The word ‘Happy’ was scrawled across it in messy writing with a thick, black marker, and he popped the disc into the CD player.
A moment later the music started and he started bobbing his head and tapping his fingers on the steering wheel. It wasn’t until the chorus that he started singing along.
“Peel me from the skin, tear me from the rind,” he sang. “Does it make you happy now? Tear me from my home, tear me from myself–” he cut off and turned the radio down when I suddenly started laughing.
“What?” he asked, sounding offended, “I’m not that bad a singer you know!” I couldn’t help it. He seemed so hurt and offended that it was just hilarious and I burst out into even more uncontrollable laughter. He sat in silence and waited for me to get myself under control, which took a while. When I finally did I held my stomach, sore from my bruising and the laughing and looked over at him.
“No,” I admitted. “You’re not a bad singer, you just don’t know the lyrics.” I laughed a little more and he blinked, surprised. He looked at me, then glanced at the radio as if it held the answers he sought, then back at me again.
“Huh?” he asked, oh so eloquently.
“The song. It isn’t ‘tear me from my home.’”
“It’s not?” he asked sounding surprised.
I shook my head. “No it isn’t. The line is ‘tear meat from the bone’.”
“You’re kidding,” he reached out and restarted the song and cranked the volume up a bit more, head tilted to the side slightly while he listened. When the line he screwed up arrived again he listened intently and there was a dawning look of wonder on his face that almost sent me into hysterical laughter again.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “You’re right. How the hell did I never notice that before?”
“Couldn’t tell you, but now I’m almost afraid to hear you sing more.” He gave me a sidelong, confused look. “I’m not sure my stomach could handle it if I laughed like that for much longer,” I sputtered and giggled for a bit while he cracked a smile.
“Alright, message received, Princess.” He turned the music down as the cd changed from Mudvayne and moved over to something by Bruce Springsteen, definitely an eclectic mix, and for a few minutes we just listened, our truce seeming to grow ever so slightly in a sense of shared amusement.
“Why did you kidnap me?” I asked a minute later, figuring I might as well go for broke. I mean he did answer when I asked what kind of music he liked, and he didn’t bite my head off when I laughed at his expense so maybe…
“I told you, your father killed mine and there’s a debt that must be paid for that,” he said and that muscle along his jaw began to tick, beneath that pale scar. I frowned and tried to remember if I’d really touched it or if that had been a dream.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing,” I lied, and he let me with a careless shrug of his shoulders. We lapsed into silence after that and he drove, leaving me alone with my thoughts, for which I was grateful.
Morning crept into afternoon, afternoon brought the sun in our eyes and a pair of wraparound sunglasses out of the little cubbyhole meant for such things above our heads. He slipped them on and it was very terminator-esque. I kept my smile secreted inside. I didn’t know if it would pitch him back into being an asshole or not. He may have let me get away with laughing at his expense once but the mood was much more somber now. I tried the sun visor but I was too short for it to do much for me and so finally, I settled on closing my eyes against the glare, but I didn’t sleep. I hurt, and I was tired, but I couldn’t sleep.
Eventually, the sun sank below the horizon, the glasses went back into their spot and William hit his signal to get us off the freeway. I perked up as he traversed lanes towards the next exit.
“We’re stopping?” I asked hopeful. I was sick of the car, sick to absolute death of it.
“Yeah, you’ve been good Little Huntress, I figure we can stop, and if you behave while I fill up, then I might consider stopping for the n
ight,” he flashed me a smile and I sighed inwardly, it looked like William the Asshole was back in part.
“Can I use the bathroom?” I asked sullenly as he pulled up to the pump.
“Yeah, let me get this started and I’ll take you in,” he said.
It was better than nothing so I waited while he got the gas flowing, listening to the clack of the nozzle going in and the subsequent rush of fuel in the tank did absolutely nothing for my bladder, but he quickly popped my door and I slid out. I shivered in the cool, autumn evening air and he was at my back, he radiated warmth and stayed close, by all accounts for the other patrons of the station he was just my overly protective and affectionate boyfriend keeping me safe in unfamiliar surroundings. Gag me with a spoon.
He waited outside the bathroom for me and walked me back to the car, but he let me stand and stretch while the tank finished fueling. It’d been a very long day and we’d gone God only knows how many miles.
“Get in,” he said, pulling the nozzle from the tank and what could I do but comply?
He took us back onto the highway and I felt discouraged, I’d really been hoping we were going to stop for the night as he’d said, and just when I was about to open my mouth and say something about it, he hit his signal again and drifted off the next exit. He pulled into the lot at a roadside motel and all I felt was grateful. He reached over me and cuffed me to the inside of the door.
“Really?” I asked and it sounded exasperated even to me.
“Fool me once, shame on you, Princess. I don’t give second chances,” he searched my eyes, my face from inches away, so close we could kiss, before he pulled back to his side of the car, “I’ll be back in a minute,” he professed and then he was gone, the door clicking shut and I watched him make strides for the little glassed in lobby that held the front desk.
He spoke to the attendant, an older gentleman who looked past him curiously and nodded. He ran through the check in process and activated a key card for William and within a few minutes time he was back behind the wheel and steering us towards a room at the other end of the motel.
“Good girl,” he uttered as he pulled us into a space and he shifted the car smoothly into park, shutting it off and regarding me.
“I really want a shower,” I said and he nodded.
“As soon as I check the bathroom for windows it’s all yours, wait here.”
“Like I can go anywhere,” I muttered and jerked ineffectually at the cuff holding my wrist to the door. He took my bag and another bag or two from the trunk up to the room. I huffed out a sigh the longer and longer he took, growing impatient with waiting. When he came back down he had a bag he replaced in the trunk of the car, wore fresh clothes and his hair was wet. Asshole.
He got into the car and leaned across me to unlock my cuff, he smelled clean, like men’s soap and I swore there was nothing better than the smell of freshly showered man, which put me into an even fouler mood that I could and would even think along such lines about him, after everything so far.
“Come on, got fresh towels and things waiting for you,” he said and came around as I got out of the car.
“Didn’t have any place to chain you up there,” he said softly, “Sorry for the wait, Sugar.” I nodded, I mean should I really be surprised?
The inside of the room was a single queen bed, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised by that either, except the sight of it made my mouth suddenly dry. The main light source was a dimly lit bedside lamp and what light poured from the bathroom.
“Laid your stuff out, go ahead. When you get out I want to change your bandages and have a look at those cuts.”
“Sir, yes Sir,” I mocked and gave him a snappy little salute. He snorted and laughed a little. I shut myself into the bathroom. My nightgown hung on the hook set in the back of the door. I didn’t know if I liked that but I was almost too tired to argue. Truthfully, I’d about given up. He was going to do whatever he was going to do and damned if I could stop him. I mean, he’d proven that already so yeah. William in a decent mood was better than William the Asshole so I could live with the nightgown.
I pulled back the curtain to start the shower and froze. My body wash, I mean the same exact stuff I used, shampoo and all was neatly lined up waiting for me. I felt this odd and bizarre mixture of both touched and chilled. I glanced at the sink and yep, there was my usual lotion too. It scared me how well he’d had me researched if he knew these minute and intimate details.
I sat on the closed lid of the toilet and scrubbed my face with my hands. I sat for a good few minutes while the bathroom filled with steam before I carefully began pulling and picking at the bandages, taking them off, swearing softly and hissing every few seconds. A light knock fell on the door.
“You okay?” he asked, a quiet note of concern in his voice.
“I’m fine! It just… I just hurt,” I said irritably.
“Take your time,” he called out.
I took a long and luxurious shower and tried valiantly to beat back the lingering question, would it be my last? To keep it from ruining the whole experience, I mean, when things were this bad it was good to focus on the little things, right?
Finally, I was as clean as I would ever be. I’d gotten all the dirt out from under my nails and I was a prune and I guess it was time to face the music to a certain extent. I wrapped my hair in a towel and carefully patted myself dry with another. Swiping a hand through the steam on the mirror, I took stock of myself.
I was deeply bruised from just under my breasts to just below my navel. I had bruising around my wrists here and there too. My feet were battered, pathetically so, and I was pale, almost ghostly, my wet hair framing my face like spun garnet. I picked up the new hair brush with the tags still attached to the handle and pulled at them, discarding the paper bits in the trash.
I used the hair dryer on the wall that the hotel provided and took my time brushing and drying my hair. If I slept on it wet it would be untamable and I was just vain enough that if I had the time to do something about that, I would. Finally I couldn’t stall exiting the bathroom any longer. I slipped on my nightgown, wished it covered more and gathered my dirty things, clutching them over my chest before I let myself out into the room.
William was standing just the other side of the bathroom door, as if he’d been waiting the whole time. He took my things from me and said, “Go sit, let me have a look at those feet.”
He’d set the first aid stuff he’d need out on the bed with an almost military precision bordering on straight up OCD and I went over and sat down next to it, putting my feet up and leaning back against the headboard. William shoved my dirty things away and packed up the bathroom while I watched from the bed. He piled everything neatly by the door and turned to look at me.
“Stay here, I’m taking this shit down to the car, you try to run and I’ll…” he trailed off and I heaved out an irritated sigh.
“Save it, please? I’ve learned my lesson,” I said somberly and he searched my face, nodding.
“Good,” he said before he went out, closing the door firmly behind him. He’d left some clothing out on the table, had gone through my things apparently and selected what I was going to wear, tomorrow. Awesome. Just freaking great. I pressed my fingertips into my eyes and lowered them just as he returned.
He looked after my feet, dabbing antibiotic ointment on the cuts and using fat rectangular Band-Aids on them. The good kind. The ones made out of cloth with the super adhesive. He’d probably bought them along with my shampoo.
“Take this,” he said and held out a half of one of the pills from the day before. God yes, it may not be a whole one, which knocked me on my ass the day before, but I would do just about anything to sleep, to forget, even just for a little while. I took it, washed it down with the proffered bottle of water and turned on my side, away from him. Curling up, curling in on myself. He settled behind me on his back and I just couldn’t help myself.
“Not afraid I’ll bolt in the middle of
the night?” I asked. He sighed and turned onto his side, one of his arms curving around my middle, he dragged me back into the curve of his body, except he was right over the bruising so I yelped. He immediately stilled.
“Sorry. Is that better?” he asked, his breath puffing warm against the back of my shoulder, along the curve of my neck. My breath stilled in my lungs.
“No,” I was such a liar. There was something comforting about this, which was just so sick and twisted, I knew that. I mean I really knew that. He’d kidnapped me!
“Sleep, Chloe,” William murmured and my eyes closed, the drug kicking in, though not as brutal as the day before. I closed my eyes and warm, held fast by my captor, I slept.
Chapter 7
William
It’s interesting what the body will do while the mind is unaware. Some people walk, talk, or eat in their sleep. Some even have sex in their sleep. But while your conscious mind is dead to the world, your unconscious mind can, and will, find ways to tell you what’s what.
When I woke, in the very early hours of the morning, it was to the feeling of something soft and warm pressed against me. I didn’t open my eyes at first. I was still far from rested. I’d had almost no sleep the night before, choosing to drive as much as possible while Chloe still slept. I’d figured the more ground I managed to cover while she was unconscious, was just that many fewer miles that I would have to fight with her which had been a plus, but not without its own cost because fuck was I tired…
Maybe I could just keep her hopped up on pain killers until we got there? I thought to myself idly, but no, that would never work. I dismissed the idea and turned my half coherent thoughts to the first realization I’d noted upon rising into a state of semi-consciousness… Something soft and warm was pressed against me. What could that be? The scent of peaches that seemed to be a part of her told me the answer easily enough. Chloe. The smell of her was everywhere, surrounding me like a delicate cloud.