ISAK & Red: An enemies-to-lovers Dark Romance

by Cari Silverwood

  The first thrust slapped wetly in, and he forced my face into the soft upholstery. I turned my head and shut my eyes. God. So— Another thrust rocked me forward, filled me, then another… So fucking good.

  My moans were punctuated by gasps, and by the shift of his hands on me, by the spread of my thighs.

  Later he spun me over, until I arched backward across the armrest and he sucked at my clit until I spun off into more oblivion, arching even higher, with my legs wrapped over his back as if to strangle him and fasten his mouth to my clit forever.

  This day was a thing of wonder.

  The hurts had been just right. The care he took was novel. There might actually be a future where I could survive. I slumbered, half awake, until the memory of the stranger with the black gloves woke me.

  I was half buried under Isak’s limbs on the sofa.

  I struggled upright and he glared at me, one-eyed.

  “Lie down. Shower later.”

  I lay down so fast the sofa shook, but I managed words.

  “There was a man, outside on the path, who was at Ted’s house.”

  He swung himself upright, rubbed hands through his hair then pointed floorward. “What are you doing up here? Down.”

  I scrambled to the floor and felt fear.

  “Tell me more. Why did you not say?

  I opened my mouth.

  “And don’t ever presume to curl up with me like that. Lick my feet while you answer me.” Mr. I-don’t-give-a-shit had returned.

  I bent over and gave the top of his big toe a lick, shuddering as I did so. I had no choice in this, and yet he wanted me to show him the way to being more human?

  Whatever the drug had done to him, it was wearing off.

  “He passed us on the path.” Lick. “The man with the black gloves.”

  “Hours ago then. You fool, Red.”

  “You said not to speak.” I raised my head.

  “You can suck my dick while I think on this. I suppose we should leave. That or kill him.”

  It was too late for killing to do much good.

  “He will have told someone by now – likely Ted.”

  “Yes.” Lips curling disdainfully, he dragged me closer with his hand jammed into my hair. “Make me feel good before we leave.”

  I had set the cat among the pigeons, as the saying goes.

  CHAPTER 6

  RED

  Isak decided to drive.

  I’d seen the pills on the table before we left, as we packed hurriedly, then I watched him instruct the female manager. He had made her open her office at two AM.

  We were never here, never existed. Clean the room, excise all evidence. And then we left, marching out to the Porsche, revving the engine only enough to smoothly pull onto the small internal roadway.

  With the exit gate in sight, a chrome-shiny bike gleamed in the headlights out the front of the final resort house on the left.

  Isak slowed. “That him?”

  I told the truth, of course. “I don’t know.”

  Then, it was as if I could feel his murderous impulses as he stared at the house. Maybe we were leaking into each other’s heads after all these years.

  “Don’t.” I gulped then clutched my seatbelt where the sash fell across my white dress. “Please.”

  His head swiveled to target me. His eyelids lowered lizard-like, his eyes baleful and sinister in the reflected glow from an outside light.

  “Why?”

  To even get an answer from him felt as if the hand of a god was waving me on.

  “Bad karma?” I scrambled for a better reply. “If you’re thinking of getting me to go in and see if it is him so that I can kill him, don’t.” Blink-blink, from him. I took that as permission to continue. “Killing anyone here, we might still get us tracked, even if you manufacture alibis from some woman. Families have seen us. This car is pretty damn obvious.”

  He grunted. “Okay. Raincheck then.”

  Murder later? Phew. I lay back and concentrated on lowering my blood pressure.

  With gravel cracking beneath the roll of the tires, we exited onto the road then cruised away.

  “Don’t forget!” I squeaked. “They drive on the left here!”

  “Crap.” He swung to the left-hand side. “Easier when I command you.”

  So that was how I’d managed? I guess it had worked because I’d not noticed my inclination to drive on the left. I wound the window down and leaned out, breathing the fresh air, maybe hoping to cleanse my soul, at least for a short while.

  The night sky above was black, and stars twinkled like a cheerful Christmas card.

  Where were we going? I glanced at him. “Destination?”

  “Wherever looks good. Inland maybe? Australia has long roads and a low population when you go there. Away from the Ted minion.”

  He was still talking more than he used to. “Are you due for another one of those pills?”

  Asking was fraught with danger. Every time I spoke to him was dangerous, really. It was similar to waving a hand at a shark.

  For what might’ve been a minute he was silent, and I gave up on getting a reply.

  We turned onto the highway, the Bruce Highway, according to the signs. It was a rather ironically casual label. Everything here was a little weird and a little exciting, and I wanted to experience more of it but away from this man. Far, far away. But if he did not take those p—

  “Fetch me half of one from that bag in the back. The black bag.”

  I managed to find the soft bag in the car’s dark interior and brought it to my lap. I unzipped it and rummaged inside until I found something light and rectangular with the rattle of a sheet of pills. Three remained. He had not taken more. One of the little cavities in the sheet had a half a pill inside it with the foil squashed down around the remnant. I gave it to him with a bottle of water he’d left in the central cup section.

  He swallowed it down, Adams apple rising and falling.

  Would that be enough of a dose?

  I could ask? Did I dare?

  Later. After it has some effect.

  Then I fell asleep, rocked by the car’s movement.

  When I woke, we were stopped in a carpark outside a small motel and parked next to a white sedan. A row of cars stretched to either side, and the highway hummed behind us. A lit sign propped high on the one-story building had “Roadside Motel” written on it. If this place had a proper name it wasn’t illuminated at night.

  “This is going to be obvious.” I waved a finger at the car’s red hood.

  “Well, hell. Tomorrow we have a new car then. Several new ones. Come.” He thumbed at his door’s window. “We have to go see the manager.”

  After he hauled out our luggage, he took it to the office, where he had me wait outside. The lights inside flickered on as he entered, and an older, white-haired woman stepped back and held the door open.

  The glazed look on her face was standard and recognizable.

  How he knew that a susceptible woman ran this place would’ve worried me in the past, but by now I figured most women were. I’d let his monster loose was what he’d once said to me. He thought some act of mine had given him more strength… more power over females.

  Whatever. If I let that get me down, I would collapse with the burden of depression, tragedy, and guilt.

  I leaned on the rendered-brick outer wall. Chunks of the render dug at my shoulders. My sandals had grit in them too, and I shook those out and decided today was going to be a good day. It must be so. I was awake and aware.

  Eventually, the pills would run out, maybe soon.

  Our luggage lay stacked before me, and in the middle of the pile, standing tallest, was the big terror-laden suitcase. I’d avoided looking at it until now. My lip curled.

  The suitcase was made for binding women inside it so they could be fucked by random friends of Isak. The holes at either end were covered by leather, clipped-on sections.

  My heart cringed. My stomach did too. That
suitcase would never leave my memory.

  The purpose of the vile thing wasn’t obvious unless you’d seen it used. That first time…

  And yet here I was, committed to reforming him.

  Isak exited, and the screen door banged shut and made me flinch.

  “This way.”

  Cherish this day, I reminded myself. I am me.

  In a small, somewhat threadbare room with faded wall paint and a bright quilt on the bed, we showered. I sat at his feet, kneeling – he seemed to get a kick out of that – with the water pouring down on me from the ancient showerhead.

  “We sleep. You, floor.” It was six AM, I noted from the bedside clock. He turned off the light, tossed a pillow and the quilt onto the floor for me, and I curled up on it. Sleep came like a hammer.

  When I woke, my first thought was that he’d made me sleep. The asshole.

  “Breakfast. Get dressed.” His words made me sit up and realize he was already dressed and sitting on the bed.

  His lizard-eyes were in force.

  I scurried to get dressed, and we loaded our stuff into a grey SUV. The red Porsche was gone from the car park. Someone else had been blessed. A woman, of course. If he swapped enough vehicles, the trail would have to get cold. So long as neither of us plowed into an oncoming car due to driving on the wrong side of the road… which was the left? No, the right.

  Remember, dumbass. Red is R, and R is wrong?

  Saying my name to myself had reminded me of something else he had done, long ago. Being more aware was rocking me with these ancient deeds that I wished would stay buried. It did not help me to recall them, but I could not stop them piling in either. I followed Isak toward what looked to be a cafeteria attached to the motel.

  My name was not Red. I hadn’t even known he’d altered it and wiped my real name, until the day he told me.

  He’d changed it inside my head.

  My past me, a CIA analyst, existed in records, but accessing those was impossible without being a superb hacker and knowing that name. Catch 22, as they say. Even Google needed the right words.

  In the past, he had delighted in reminding me that he could do anything to me. Taking my name ranked up there as potentially the most disturbing thing possible.

  I might never know my true name. The sadness of that weighed down my feet.

  Forget it. Focus on the doable and on today.

  “Did you lose the Porsche to throw Ted off the trail?”

  “Yes. And because I found an interesting news story.” He tapped his cellphone then showed me the screen.

  I read the title out loud, “Man Finds Out Wife Gave Away Porsche. Oh.” The photo at the top of the article showed a guy standing next to our shiny vehicle.

  “Oh indeed. You were right.”

  That was his last comment, until we were sitting at a window-seat table that overlooked the delightfully boring car park and had ordered a late breakfast. Ten AM according to his cellphone. He’d deposited it, screen up, beside a knife and fork wrapped in a white serviette.

  I unrolled my own set of unfortunately blunt cutlery. Not that he would let me stab him.

  “I bet you never even paid for the room.”

  His eyebrow rose. “Did you expect me to?”

  “No.” I frowned, played with the knife, then decided to plunge in. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Nothing ventured also meant less likely to be punished but, hey, swings and roundabouts. “How often are you taking those pills. Do you know what dose you need?”

  “Hmmm. Why?”

  “You want me to help you be human? Is that still on?”

  He sat back, slowly, creaking the chair, drawing my attention to the solidness of his body and the perfection of his hand where it rested on the table edge. Underneath that gray shirt lay muscles. My nostrils flared. If only he was not an evil dick who should be minced up and given an early grave.

  “It is, still on.”

  “Then if you don’t have a plan, I do.” Or I will. “I don’t see this as an easy task.”

  “Task?” He chuckled. A waitress arrived bearing our plates of sausage, bacon, fried eggs, and hash browns, then went away and returned with two coffees before he continued. “Tell me more.”

  Before anyone can change, they need to recognize the problem and want to change. I remembered that from some self-help shit I’d read once upon a time. Isak appeared to be at that stage. Until the pills wore off.

  “You want to change? Be more…” I did air quotes. “Human?”

  He nodded, eyes narrowing as he watched me and blindly stuffed a forkful of food into his mouth.

  I cut up some of mine, poked it into a pile. “Can I have your phone?”

  The fork was waved at me, and I spun the phone. No password. Was this a burner? Did they have those here? Who cared? I googled what does it take to be a good person.

  Bingo and ala khazam. It looked pretty straight-forward. The hard part? Getting him to do it. This was like Peter Pan taking Wendy off to Neverland.

  Where a Captain Hook had waited.

  Isak was probably Hook not Peter, I reminded myself as I prepared to speak. He was the villain in spades, with icing on the top and a bloody knife stabbed through the middle of the imaginary cake. Assuming Captain Hook was a cake.

  I purloined a business card from the little display on the table and convinced the waitress to bring me a pen. Then I wrote stuff down. Then I ate some food.

  Let Mr. Asshole wait, for once. By the time I looked up – I’d been super hungry – Isak was lying back in his chair with his arms folded. The man had patience. I dabbed at my mouth with a serviette then pushed the card across. The writing was tiny – it had to be to fit.

  “Your list. A To-do List.”

  He dragged the card closer with a finger then picked it up and read. “Shocking writing, Miss Red. We need to send you back to school.”

  Somehow, god knows why, I almost smiled at that. The smile broke and failed. Simply recognizing that I had almost smiled at what might have been a teasing joke made tears spring to my eyes. I wiped them away, quickly.

  Fuck that. He would not have meant it to be funny.

  He eyed me, waved the card. “Say it.”

  “What makes a person good?” I ticked it off on my fingers, reciting from memory what I’d written.

  “One. Be kind to others, especially your loved ones.” I doubted he had any loved ones.

  “Two. Do good deeds.

  “Three. Smile and be cheerful even when things aren’t going your way.

  “Four. Be honest.

  “Five. Be generous with your belongings.” And don’t steal Porsches? Hell. Stealing was the Way of Isak. We had tens of thousands in one bag. Most were fifty-dollar bills. Whenever we passed a woman and he felt the need, he’d stop them and get some cash.

  Of course credit cards in Australia would be a liability since neither of us was here legally, though he would surely fix that minor problem.

  “Six. Be selfless.”

  I felt some of those doubled up, but all of them were good, moral points.

  He blew out his mouth like a puffer fish. “Interesting.”

  Then a man walked by the cafeteria on the outside. I stiffened. “It’s him.” My eyes felt as if they’d bugged out.

  “That is Ted’s man?”

  “Yes.” How had he followed us? Maybe someone staying here had spotted the Porsche and stuck a pic on social media?

  “We’re leaving.”

  Isak headed toward a back door and I scurried after him. A car engine noise grew louder. There was a bang, and I swung to see what had happened. A large black SUV rammed Ted’s man off the sidewalk next to the café, scraping him forward, and jamming him against the wall. As the vehicle jolted to a stop, a few windows shattered. Seconds later, people began screaming.

  “Come.”

  At the command, I jogged after Isak.

  Within a few minutes, we were in a different SUV and driving away. I think I heard siren
s approaching, but they were distant.

  “You made someone run him over?”

  “Of course.” Isak nodded, swung the wheel to change lanes. “You can drive when we get to the next car. This one here will pull over with us.”

  A young woman was beside our car in a black BMW, and she slipped behind us, following in the lane. I had no doubt he was controlling her. I slid down in the seat, shut my eyes. “I don’t think you quite got the picture.”

  “Oh?”

  “We need to tack an extra bit on that list I gave you at the café: Seven: Do not murder people.”

  “Gotcha. Next time, Red. Next time.”

  I sighed and said dryly, “From now on, if you want me to help…” This was scary, standing up to him. “I get to dole out that drug.”

  “I have to get more of it at the next town.”

  Not a yes, but not a no.

  CHAPTER 7

  ISAK

  Collecting more Keppra was easy, since female pharmacists were common here. We stopped at a town, found the pills, and swapped to a bronze-colored, four-doored pick-up – what they called utes in Australia, or utility vehicles. I told Red to drive. Everything we currently carried had fitted in the back under a solid lock-down cover. The woman I’d taken this from now had a silver-gray sedan to drive back to her remote property.

  She was heading inland, same as we were, and nobody in the Outback was likely to care which car she drove. Being recently widowed, her time and money were hers to play with. The car registration authority was a different and more difficult problem I would eventually have to deal with.

  I’d questioned her thoroughly. Outback was such a crazily casual word. This country reminded me of Texas or Arizona in the US. I gathered that the further west we went, the greater the resemblance would be – dry, dusty, immense, and beaten down by the sun.

  The ute was eating up the road at a good speed.

  “We’ll keep this one.” Until I grew bored with it. The bronze color was nice.