This couldn’t be happening to me; it just
wasn’t possible. How could I have gone
from a faceless number among the masses to a rare commodity so quickly? In the grand scheme of things it took only a
heartbeat for a stranger to change my life; wasn’t that usually the way of it
though? So why was I surprised?
I breathed in a big lungful of stagnant
trunk air, a cocktail of rubber, oily rags and anti-freeze; if bottled, not a
soul would buy it and I couldn’t help laughing at the thought. Eau de Car Care; not even a marketing genius
could get that one past Yves St. Laurent.
The laugh changed from a soft chuckle to a
slightly crazed staccato, and I focused for all I was worth to rein my mind in
from the dark recesses in which it wanted to hide. No time for madness, I had to figure out a
means of escape and for that I needed my wits.
Based on the uninterrupted pace at which
the car was moving I deduced we were on a freeway, but where to I hadn’t a
single guess, irrelevant though the destination was. I was in utter darkness and didn’t know how
long we’d been traveling before I woke up from the nap Drahomir had forced on
me.
My pupils were fully dilated and still I
couldn’t see what was in the trunk that I could use to escape or defend myself. With a sigh I decided that when left
weaponless, charge the lion.
Turning on my side like a coffee grinder,
I pointed my feet at what I suspected was the back of the rear seats and like a
piston my legs shot forward and struck the target. The car swerved for a moment before being
corrected as a string of muffled curses filtered through the seats.
I pounded my feet against the seat, sweat
breaking out across my skin and stinging my eyes and still I kicked. After what seemed like ages to me, but was probably
more accurately ten minutes, I felt the car change directions and slow down.
After a series of stops and turns he
parked, killing the engine, the door opening and closing before several more
minutes crept by. In wide eyed
anticipation, my breathing gone shallow, I waited for him to pop the trunk at
which time I’d… what? What would I
do?
My hands were tied and I had no idea where
we were. He was stronger than me,
undoubtedly faster and I didn’t know if he was armed on top of it all. The longer I waited the more adrenaline
drained from my blood, leaving me weary to the bone and my eyelids felt heavier
as the minutes ticked by.
When the trunk lid finally sprang open it
startled me as my first kick against the seat backs must have startled him, and
a small yip escaped my lips. He leaned
in and reached for me, his large hands seeking to gain purchase on me as I
squirmed and thrashed to stay as far from him as possible.
With a frustrated growl he lunged forward
and grasped one ankle, using it to pull me toward him. I lashed out with the other foot, connecting
with his bicep, his chest and unfortunately the edge of the trunk a time or
two. He managed to grip my upper arm and
between that and his hold on my ankle he managed to drag me out of the trunk. Turning, he quickly moved the five feet that
separated the trunk from an open motel door, and after crossing the threshold,
he closed it firmly behind him.
He dropped me on the bed before ducking
back out to quickly close the trunk. I
bounced against the mattress and let it launch me to my feet. When he came back in I ran at him, slamming
my shoulder into his sternum, which drove him back into the closed door. I knew he’d anticipated my reaction when his
hands were already partway up to block my attack.
“God damn it woman!” he snapped, gripping
my shoulders and holding me at arm’s length.
I turned my head left to right and tried to land a bite on one hand and
then the other until it became very cartoon-like.
“Let me go!” I shouted, leaning toward him
with the hope that the shorter the distance my words had to travel, the harder
their impact would be. He silenced me
with a single sharp shake and a very feral snarl.
“I am not going to hurt you!” he said,
scowling down at me.
“Then let me go.”
“I can’t, I have to protect you. I don’t care if you don’t believe anything
I’ve told you, you soon will.” With that
ominous prediction hanging in the air he moved me backward and sat me down in a
chair. “Eat something,” he ordered,
motioning at the fast food bag on the table where I sat.
“I’m not hungry,” I said, my stomach
growling at the mention of food and making me a liar.
“Of course you’re not.” He sat down on the bed, leaning back against
the headboard and crossing his feet at the ankle. His cobalt stare weighed on me, watching
every move as I reached into the bag with tied hands and extracted a paper
wrapped burger.
After peeling the pickles off I tucked in,
devouring every bite and wondering if anything had ever tasted so good. Cheap food and a diluted soda washed down the
last of the Eau de Car Care that had coated my mouth; I was happy to trade one
flavor for the other.
Wiping my mouth with a paper napkin I sat
back and met his blue gaze with my own hazel one, his pressing down on me like a
hand, and with a sigh I looked away.
“Where are we anyway?”
“Mojave,” he answered, folding his arms
across his chest. “It’s about the
halfway point so it was a good place to stop for the night.”
“Halfway to where?”
“Our destination.”
“Fine, be obstinate,” I said, shrugging
one shoulder as though it didn’t matter one iota to me, which I was sure he
knew was a lie. “What else can you tell
me about my parents? I’m fond of fiction
and bedtime stories are always nice.” My
voice was sharp and dripped with sarcasm I could almost taste.
He climbed from the bed and walked toward
me, looming speechlessly over me for a moment before gripping my arm and
dragging me to my feet. Pulling me
toward the bed he pushed me down and I again bounced on the mattress.
With a heavy sigh he turned and moved the
chair from which I had been evicted, placing it in front of the door and
sitting down as an obvious sentinel.
“Good night, Rain,” he said, flipping the lights off, and I simply sat
for several minutes, amazed at his dismissal of me and frustrated at the bodily
barricade he’d become.
The low drone of dozens of voices speaking at once filled the room, the range of tone overlapping to create a strange kind of white noise that Chloe was usually oblivious to. Today it was like a hundred banshees wailing on a cliff as turbulent waves battered the stone face and she squeezed her eyes shut to fight off the urge to plug her ears.
Only 8 more hours until she would be getting on a plane and flying away; away from everyone who had expectations of her, had demands on her time and relied on her. For 14 glorious days she could focus solely on herself, she could swim and sleep and hike and breathe; she would have the time.
Glancing at the clock she sighed; 7 hours and 48 minutes to go.
The drive home was filled with so much sameness: the same songs on the radio, the same cars following the same route to the same home they always went to in order to do the same things they always did.
“How did I get here?” She asked herself, her voice incredulous in her own ears. There had been so much she had wanted to do and see and experience, and in her 39 years she’d barely scratched the surface of that great big world of wants.
Chloe walked through her front door and straight into her bedroom where her packed suitcase stood waiting, staring at her impatiently, and with a relieved smile she grabbed the handle and went out to wait for the taxi she’d pre-scheduled to take her to the airport.
Long flights, layovers and plane changes could do nothing to diminish Chloe’s excitement and with each mile of ocean that passed 35 thousand feet below her she felt more and more eager to be free of any routine. She wasn’t on the ground a full day before she was in the ocean, swimming slowly, letting the salt water seep into every pore, soaking up each new experience like a sponge.
Chloe spent her days hiking in the jungle, swimming and exploring the reefs that skirted the island, and trying every kind of new food she could find. Her spirit felt light and engaged and alive with each passing day and each experience. The unbridled joy and elation she felt flagged on the journey home, and with every mile of ocean that passed 35 thousand feet below her the memory of another responsibility came to her until it felt like the fleas of a thousand camels were biting at her brain.
When the plane landed in LA she rushed to the ticket counter and bought a ticket back to the island paradise from which she had just come; she couldn’t return to her old life without sacrificing her soul and that was a trade she wasn’t willing to make, she’d just send for her things and start a new routine.