This Guy Kills Me

by Anlyn Hansell

  He was wearing a tight fitting tank that accentuated his hard body, loose fitting sweatpants that clung to his hips and his hair was drenched. Actually, his whole torso was drenched.

  “Did you fall in the creek?” she blurted as she eyed him up.

  “Went for a run, clears my head,” he muttered absently. “Did you sleep well?” For some odd reason a slight smile lifted the corner of his mouth as if he were privy to some inside joke.

  “Ummm…sort of? Could you, you know…” She lifted her arms to indicate her bound state.

  He walked over to the bed and sat next to her, angling his body to look at her closely.

  “I need to take a shower. You’re going to have to sit tight for a bit longer. Are you hungry?”

  For real? He was going to feed her again. This was so damned weird…

  “I could eat. Sure,” she stated before he stood up abruptly. “Wait!” she forced out as he turned.

  “What?”

  “What’s your name? I mean…I can’t call you Mr. Kidnapper Guy, right? I mean, you know my name, what am I supposed to call you?”

  He seemed to think about that for a second. “Call me…Pete.”

  “Your name is not Pete,” she stated with confidence.

  “No shit. What do you want to call me?” he asked before quickly adding, “Wait! Don’t answer that…” He gave her no opportunity to respond before turning and descending the stairs. She watched his body gradually disappear from her view.

  One thing was for certain. He might be psychotic, he may possibly be the death of her, but he sure was nice to look at…

  *****

  “So, what would you like for breakfast?”

  “Bacon?”

  “Pfft. No bacon. Are you kidding? Bacon has absolutely no nutritional value whatsoever. Try again.”

  “Sausage?” she asked tentatively.

  “Ugh,” was his only response.

  “Ok. Pancakes and syrup?”

  “Really?” He gave her a slight eye roll before cracking two eggs in a glass.

  “Well, what do you have? I don’t…ewww, what are you doing?” He picked up the glass and gulped down both eggs – raw. Gack.

  “Protein. Good for you. Wanna try?” He raised the empty glass toward her.

  “I don’t think so. Do you have cereal?”

  “I do. What do you like?”

  “Fruity Doodles?”

  “What’s a Fruity Doodle?” he asked, placing the glass in the sink and leaning his weight on both hands on the island surface.

  “Flakes, fruit flavored marshmallows; they’re like rock hard but then you put milk on them and they get all mushy. They’re really good, cheap too,” she rambled as her mouth watered at the prospect.

  “I would never allow a Fruity Doodle in my house or my body,” he replied with a certain amount of graveness in his tone. “How about Shredded Wheat?” he supplied.

  “How about dry grass?” she shot back with a grimace.

  “How about nothing?” he retorted with a frown. She ignored it.

  “How about eggs? I mean, cooked. You obviously have eggs.”

  “Eggs. No problem. You sure you don’t want a taco?” he asked with a slight grin as he turned toward the refrigerator.

  Was he being funny? I don’t get it…

  “Why would I want a taco?”

  “Never mind. How do you like your eggs?” He placed the carton on the island and opened the top before shifting his eyes up to hers.

  “Scrambled with cheese.”

  “Scrambled, no cheese,” he corrected for her as he grabbed a frying pan from below the cabinet under the island.

  “What do you have against cheese? Cheese is calcium. Calcium is good. What the hell?” she huffed out.

  “Drink skim milk, eat yogurt. Cheese is fat disguised as a good source of calcium so boneheads like you can say stuff like, ‘it’s a good source of calcium,” he mimicked in a pompous professor type voice for emphasis before taking the frying pan to the stove.

  She watched his back for a second, her eyes moving down toward his jeans. He has good taste in jeans.

  He has a nice butt.

  What?

  She immediately squeezed her eyes shut. “Pete?”

  No answer. Her eyes opened again. “Hey, Pete?”

  “Huh? Oh…yeah…” He turned toward her and waited.

  “I’ve decided to help you find Rick,” she stated.

  “Wow, Jane. You were going to help me anyway, but thanks for letting me know,” he stated sarcastically.

  “No, I mean I’m going to cooperate,” she added a head nod to seal the deal.

  “You were going to cooperate anyway.”

  “How do you know? I mean, I could’ve refused – you don’t know that.”

  He turned from the stove and took two steps before leaning his weight on the island and peering into her eyes.

  “You would’ve cooperated. I have the footage of you beating poor Mr. Peterson, excuse me…Patterson and taking his money. I filmed you removing the panty hose from your head. I have a very clear shot of your face. I would have sent it to the Police and you would have gone to jail. You would be extremely popular in a women’s prison, I assure you.”

  A slight gasp escaped her throat at his admission as her stomach pretty much dropped to her feet.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I’m not. Wanna see it?”

  “NO!” she stated vehemently.

  “Very well, then. Can I get back to making your eggs?”

  Her only response was a stunned nod.

  *****

  “So tell me how you met Rick.”

  She swallowed the last bite of non-cheese, no salt, flavored with pepper only scrambled eggs cooked with no oil, butter and/or bacon grease. Chewing quickly, she swallowed before shifting her gaze toward him.

  “I’d rather not say.” She placed her fork on the plate and pushed it toward him before grabbing her mug of coffee and taking a sip.

  “I’d rather you did. Where’d you meet him?” His probing gaze was unnerving to say the least.

  “See? This is…you’ll just…you know, you probably already think I’m…Ugh. Can’t you just go with the fact that I knew him and leave it at that?”

  “No. If I knew where you met him, it might give me a little more insight to this jackass. Where did you meet him?” His tone of voice was impatient and becoming harsher with every word he spoke.

  “AA Meeting.” She blurted before pressing her lips together.

  “Nice. So you’re an alcoholic as well as a drug mule, a bully and a klepto?”

  “No!” She shifted uncomfortably on the stool. “I just go for the snacks,” she admitted quietly. Why not? He was already thoroughly impressed with her. Why not go for broke?

  “You…wait. What?”

  She let out a breath as she pushed her plate toward him and crossed her arms on the counter. “Tuesdays is AA – they usually have chips and dip and someone is always bringing a dessert. I met Rick at one of the meetings. He took me to a bar on our first date, which is weird, right? Looking back on it now, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t there for the right reasons either. I think he was trolling for women. He walked right up to me, started chatting me up – he can be really charming when he wants to be. He’s also kind of handsome; but you probably already know that…” She finally took a breath, waiting for his reaction.

  “I don’t know. I don’t really check out other guys,” he replied with a furrowed brow. “So, do you do this kind of thing often?” He appeared fully engrossed.

  “What?”

  “You said ‘Tuesdays’ was AA. What’s Wednesday?”

  “I thought you wanted to know about Rick -”

  “What’s Wednesday?” He ignored her and pressed on. She took a deep breath.

  “Wednesday is the grief counseling group – that one’s pretty tough to sit through. I bawl my eyes out but there’re usually a couple buckets of chicken and
mashed potatoes or sometimes Rhonda whips up her pot roast – oh my god, it’s good. Thursday night is the Parents Without Partners group and you never know what you’re going to get, but you always get something. Monday and Friday night are still open and no one meets on Saturday or Sunday, at least not that I know of…”

  She took a breath finally and waited for his reaction. He didn’t disappoint.

  “You’re pathetic.”

  “Tell me about it,” she admitted casually.

  “You go to these meetings for food.”

  “I do. I admit it. I’m not particularly proud of it, but there you have it. I need to eat; they have food…”

  She watched him process the information before he finally spoke. “Why don’t you just go to a Soup Kitchen?”

  “No way. Too many people, I tried, I can’t…” she answered quickly with widened eyes.

  “What does that mean, too many people?”

  Damn mouth. There was no way she would ever be able to explain her reasoning to him.

  “I told you, I’m not much of a people person,” she stated after a moment of deliberation.

  “There’s something you’re not telling me. I haven’t even known you that long and I can tell from your body language that you’re hiding something. What is it?”

  “I can’t say.” She shifted in her seat once again.

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  “You’ll think I’m crazy.” She stared at the mug in her hands.

  “I already think you’re crazy. What is it?”

  There was no way. He wasn’t ready to hear it; she wasn’t prepared to prove it anyway. “I’m just…scared of crowds, that’s all. I probably have some kind of phobia,” she stated to the coffee steaming in her cup.

  “Enochlophobia,” he stated.

  “Say what?”

  “Fear of crowds. There’s a phobia for that.” Awesome, held captive by her own personal encyclopedia…

  “Yeah, I probably have that,” she conceded hoping to end this conversation as quickly as possible and move on to something else. Preferably something other than her…

  “So, Pete, since you know so much about me now, do you think I could ask a couple of questions?”

  “You can ask. I don’t necessarily have to answer.”

  “Ok. I suppose I can live with that. Are you a cop?”

  “No,” he stated with a laugh.

  “Federal agent?”

  “Yeah. That’s it. I’m a Federal Agent,” he stated with mock assurance.

  “No you’re not. Can you just tell me?”

  “No, this is fun. Take a guess.”

  “Well, based on the fact that you killed someone in front of me, I’m going to say…hit man.”

  “We don’t prefer that term. It’s sexist,” he said.

  “So you are a hit man…”

  “Contractor,” he corrected.

  “You kill people for money.”

  “You could say that,” he replied nonchalantly before taking a sip of coffee and fixing her with another stare. It seemed extremely odd that he would share that with her. Wasn’t he worried?

  “You don’t seem too worried about telling me that.”

  “I’m not. I keep my shit wrapped extremely tight. Even if you managed to get away and started spouting off about me, they wouldn’t find anything. You on the other hand -”

  “Am I one of your…contracts?” she interrupted.

  “No. This is totally personal. Rick is not a contract and you are inconsequential.”

  “Thanks…” she muttered.

  “Just throwing it out there. Now, get up…go put those nasty things you call clothes on your body and let’s go. We have a couple of places to visit today but first we need to do some shopping, so move it.”

  *****

  “Why?”

  “Just get in.”

  She stared at the open trunk then back at him.

  “But I said I was going to cooperate.” She was practically whining at this point.

  “Jane?” She could see one eyebrow rise from behind his dark aviators.

  “Really!”

  He leaned a forearm on the trunk and pushed his glasses down the bridge of his nose to regard her.

  “You have no idea where you are right now and we’re going to keep it that way, got it? I promise I’ll let you out when we’re far enough away.”

  She looked at the trunk and back up at him.

  His only answer was a swoop of his wrist and a point to the trunk.

  “Don’t drive like a maniac,” she mumbled as she stared at the scratchy fabric. “And … could you avoid potholes?” she added.

  “Jane -”

  “…because that hurts. It’s really bouncy back here -”

  “Jane -”

  “And fast turns, can you take them a little slower? I mean, I roll around and my back is still really messed up from last night -”

  “Jane!”

  “FINE!” she yelled before stepping closer and glaring at him. They were mere inches apart, breath mingling. She smelled like…toothpaste.

  “I dislike you very much,” she stated in a voice that was almost a whisper. It made him take an involuntary swallow. She turned and stepped into the trunk, taking her time orienting herself into a somewhat comfortable position, although there really wasn’t one.

  He waited until she was situated on her side with her head resting on a folded arm. “All set?” he asked as he gripped the trunk lid.

  Her answer was to flip him off as her eyes stared straight ahead.

  “Nice,” he muttered before slamming the lid down. He stood for a few moments just staring at the trunk, a small smile forming on his lips before he shook it off and gave himself a mental head punch.

  *****

  “See? These are jeans. Jeans don’t have pleats in this decade, what do you think?” He lifted up a pair of low rise, strategically worn jeans in the rather swanky Birmingham store. He was joking with her in front of the young sales woman who, for all intents and purposes was staring at him with open appreciation.

  How does she know he’s not my boyfriend? How rude is that? Suddenly the woman swung her attention back to Jane causing her to avert her eyes immediately. No eye contact, no eye contact…

  “You can’t buy me clothes. That isn’t right. It’s just…it’s the principle of the thing,” she mumbled to the gleaming lacquered floor below.

  “I know, right? You with your high moral values and what not,” he stated after a small snort escaped him. “What size are you?”

  “Four.”

  “Here.” A pair of jeans was thrust in front of her eyes before her shoulders were encased by something…his arm. He was pushing her along as he walked her toward the back of the store.

  “I’ll be right outside. Don’t you dare try anything stupid, do you hear me, Jane? Nod that you understand,” he whispered into her ear as they walked. It was unnerving how close he was. She could feel the muscles of his arm bulge when he gave a small squeeze to prompt a response.

  “Yep.”

  “If you try to leave -”

  “You take the footage to the Police. I know. We’ve been over this,” she stated in a low voice accompanied by a roll of her eyes.

  “Good girl,” he whispered in her ear before giving her a slight nudge inside the fitting room entrance.

  As soon as she put one pair on and turned to admire what real clothes could do for a woman’s body, a few pairs of jeans and several shirts flopped over the top side of the stall door.

  She immediately made a grab for the top shirt. It was stylish; it was made of some kind of gauzy material in a lavender color with intricate beading around the neckline. It was beautiful; it was… one hundred and twenty nine dollars and ninety nine cents! Holy crap. Paired with the jeans, she was wearing one month’s rent. She stood and stared at it before a voice broke into her thoughts.

  “Let’s see,” he barked from the entrance and she quickly removed her
hoodie and anxiously pulled the delicate shirt over her head. The fabric was incredibly soft, the color was a compliment to her skin tone and the shirt conformed to her shape attractively.

  A small smile formed on her face as she turned and checked herself out from all angles. Clothes were amazing. They could transform you, she looked like a completely different person…this was…

  “Yo, Jane…this century. Come on.”

  Her breath blew out behind closed lips causing an unflattering sound to escape before sliding the lock back and stepping out.

  If she was looking for a certain reaction, she would have been flattered. He was leaning against the entrance and immediately straightened as she took two steps toward him. He was silent; he swallowed and blinked a few times before casually leaning against the wall once again.

  “Those are fine. Keep them on; please just cut the tags, can you cut the tags?” he asked, still staring at her but apparently not speaking to her.

  “No problem,” the salesgirl offered as she wandered up and carefully clipped the tags before his eyes wandered down her legs to her feet. Sneakers that had definitely seen better days peeked out from the denim and caused him to cringe.

  “Do you sell shoes? We need shoes.”

  “Next door,” she stated.

  “Fine. Grab those, will you?” He indicated the rest of the clothes flopped over the stall door before turning toward the front of the store and wandering to the glass counter, effectively dismissing them both it seemed.

  Whoa.

  Jane in outdated, unflattering clothes was still noteworthy. Jane in fashionable form fitting clothes was…striking. She was thin, the type of body that any designer would love to dress.

  He had to turn away lest she notice his gawking. He didn’t gawk.

  Instead, he focused on pulling bills from his wallet as he waited rather impatiently at the counter.

  A pile of clothes flopped in his line of sight as he could feel Jane wander up next to him. A sideward glance confirmed she was holding her jeans and hoodie in her arms.

  “I don’t think so. What are you doing?” He indicated the clothes in her arms.