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.
