We sat in silence as the scenery passed by in a haze.
Finally, he looked at me from the corner of his eye. “Yeah, well, don’t point that out to anyone else. Besides, I had selfish, evil reasons to drive you home.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to show me a profoundly seductive smile.
The butterflies came back. “Oh, yeah? What are these selfish and evil reasons?” I asked, batting my eyes.
“To get you alone.” His face turned dark and menacing, quickly pulling me back into my nightmares.
The butterflies vanished as the color flushed out of my skin. He hadn’t said that lightly. He wanted to scare me. I inched closer to the Hummer’s passenger door. He looked at me with a humorless smile. I didn’t ask what that meant, and I didn’t want to know.
The intelligent, self-preserving part of my brain was telling me to be afraid and find an escape, but my heart was trying to persuade me otherwise. This entire situation scared the hell out of me, yet drew me in like prey. I couldn’t understand anything going on, except I wanted to be with him. I had to be with him. How can you love someone so much when you are horribly afraid of him at the moment? Love? Did I really think that? That was ridiculous. I didn’t know him enough to “love” him. Infatuation was probably a better term in our case.
The Hummer turned on to a side road I didn’t recognize before. He traveled down a backwoods, gravel road for several miles until we could no longer see the main road. There was nothing in sight, not even a house. Then, he pulled the Hummer over to the side.
“Why are we stopping?” I asked, trying to feign ‘calm and collected.’
His eyes turned shiny, pitch black, again. It hit me like a ton of bricks… I was his prey. I half expected his tongue to slither like a snake at any minute. My heart started to pound. I should have listened to the voice in my head. I began looking around trying to plan an escape. I could start running toward the main road. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get too far.
“I wouldn’t try it. You’re right; you won’t get far.” He stared out the driver’s side window into nothingness. He seemed so calm.
It happened much too quickly to process or fight. He slithered out of the driver seat and on top of me. His eyes were the mysterious and frightening shiny black. His hands wrapped around my neck, cutting off my ability to breathe. I fought him off as hard as I could, but I was no comparison to his strength. I never stood a chance at all. My consciousness faded in and out.
“You used to be good,” I struggled to say, only producing a hushed whisper.
Twenty
I woke up in a dark room on a dirty, noisy metal frame bed. It was more like a cot. My head hurt beyond tolerable, providing fuzzy vision. I touched my throbbing neck. The pain and swelling was so intense that I couldn’t swallow without wincing.
The door creaked open.
I strained to point out, “You used to be good. I know you still are. You always save me, not destroy me.” Whoa, where did that come from? Who was I kidding? I was getting used to outlandish-ass thoughts rolling off my tongue. Still, I stood my ground.
He whipped his head in my direction with a confused veneer. “Wait, what? What did you say?” His eyes softened a bit.
I didn’t say anything, just shrugged. I wasn’t sure what I was saying. It just popped out.
“Do you ever dream about me?”
I just stared at him, biting my nails, trying to calm my nerves. I wasn’t going to admit that I dreamt about him, especially, that I had dreamt of him my entire life. Especially not after he had tried to kill me.
His eyes were deep black. “This is important. I don’t mean regular everyday dreams. Do you have unexplainable dreams that have followed you your entire life?” He had every intention of getting information out of me. He seemed to have a disturbing power over me when he really unleashed himself onto me. He was frightening. At the moment, after what he did, he had never been more frightening. I had a deep sense that meant more than I realized.
He slowly walked toward me, extending his arm toward me. I pulled back against a wall. I wasn’t going to let him touch me again.
“Okay, have it your way.” He took his arm back. “Here.” He tossed an unopened bottle of aspirin and a bottle of water. “For what it’s worth, I am truly sorry. I should have known. Well, I suspected at least.”
I wanted to ask him why he tried to kill me. I wanted to know why he took up the profession of an assassin; at least, I assumed that was why he tried to kill me. I couldn’t believe that he just picked me out of a phone book, researched me, and then found me. He knew way too much about me from the time we met, and he seemed to have been more invested than a random killing spree. But I looked away and rolled my eyes.
Audibly exhaling, I said, “Yes, I have had dreams about you. What does that have to do with anything?” My voice was rough and barely audible. I swallowed a few aspirin and washed them back with water. The water was soothing yet burning at the same time.
He shook his head. “You never understand. You can never see the significance.” He rolled his eyes back at me. “What do you look like in these dreams?” he continued, not answering my questions.
This one I could answer. “Once in
