"Someone hit you," he says again in that voice that sounds like rocks on steel. "It left a mark."
Whatever spell he had me under, it breaks against those words. I recoil from him, and he drops his hands instantly. As if to prove that he was touching me because I needed the support, not because he actually wanted to do it.
My heart leaps into my throat. I feel trapped and skittish, like it only just occurred to me that nothing that has happened today feels real and I need to get the hell out of Dodge so I can wake up from this nightmare.
"No one hit me," I say automatically.
I have no idea why I'm denying it. But I do know it's not about protecting Tom. Maybe it's about protecting myself.
People used to look at my mother the way this man is looking at me, and I always despised it. I swore I'd be different, and even though fate has dragged me right back into the exact same place she suffered in, I'm still stubbornly defiant. Not me! I'm screaming at the universe. You won't do to me what you did to her!
"No one hit me."
"You already said that." Just like that, his tone shifts. It turns dark, fierce. It fractures into a dozen different pieces, and every single one of those shards is aimed right at vulnerable old me.
"I... I fell," I stammer stupidly.
His expression doesn't change. I don't know why I feel the need to explain anything to this man. He's a stranger. A stranger who walked out of the woods like some apparition from a dream. But his eyes demand explanation, and God help me, I'm giving it to him.
"I was... walking down the stairs," I continue. "And I tripped. I fell."
I glance down, my face burning scarlet red. I can see him at the edge of my vision still gazing at me impassively.
"Anyway," I add, "I have to go."
"Late for a wedding?" he asks, deadpan.
It takes me a long moment to realize he's making a joke. It then occurs to me-way, way too late-that this whole interaction is bizarre beyond words. "Where did you come from? Were you... camping, or something?"
He shakes his head, but offers me nothing else.
"You never told me your name," I remind him.
"No, I didn't." He glances up towards the bridge. "I'm going to go take a look at your car. See if it's repairable."
He starts hiking up the sloped, rocky curve that leads to the bridge. I hesitate for only a second before I start to follow. My dress is so heavy that it takes all my energy to keep moving, and the muddy ground does me no favors. By the time I reach the car, he's already shutting the hood.
"It'll drive. No lasting damage." He chooses his words carefully, as though there's only a finite amount left and he doesn't want to use them all up in one go.
"So... I can get in and go?"
He glances towards me. "Are you asking permission?"
I laugh bitterly. "No. Just, sometimes, I think my life would be easier if someone just told me what to do and how to do it."
I wait for him to look at me as though I'm insane-more likely concussed, but insane would also work as a plausible explanation-but his expression doesn't change.
"That... that was a strange thing to say... wasn't it?" I mumble awkwardly.
"If it's how you feel, it's not strange."
"No one ever says how they really feel. Not to a complete stranger."
"Maybe they should start."
I try looking at him the way he's looking at me. Unblinkingly. Unapologetically. The eye contact intensifies, but I still refuse to break it.
The sirens do that for me.
I gasp when the first wail sings through the air. I turn my gaze out towards the empty road behind us. "Ambulance," I guess.
He shakes his head. "No. Police."
He nods once, crisply as if reaching a decision, then opens the passenger side door and gestures for me to get in.
"Time to go," he says casually.
I look at the passenger seat and then back at him. "You're driving?"
"Yes. You're in no fit state to drive, and I'm not interested in taking another plunge into the next river we find. But if you'd like to stay, be my guest."
There's plenty in there that I could argue with. Plenty in there that I should argue with. But I make the mistake of looking at his cobalt blue eyes, and that's what seals the deal.
I get into the car, and we drive.
3
DANIIL
It's been fourteen months since I've seen a woman.
This one was worth the wait.
She's slumped limply against her seat, skin ghostly, stare vacant. She looks almost lifeless. A china doll who would move anywhere I put her. Her hair is plastered down the sides of her face and water droplets still sparkle across the tops of her breasts. She's soaking the seat through, but she doesn't seem to notice.
"Seatbelt," I say.
She turns, looking through me more than at me. "Huh?"
I lean over to grab the seatbelt and put it on for her. She smells of lilacs and champagne, and my dick stiffens in my pants almost instantaneously.
It'd be easy to say that this would happen for any female I saw today. Over a year of captivity reduces a man to his most animalistic instincts. But I know in my marrow that that's not true.
It isn't because she's a woman.
It's because she's this one.
Pink lips, soft as a cloud. Blushing cheeks. Pale green eyes like the highest leaf on a tree right when the dawn begins to break.
The latch of the belt clicks into place. My hand brushes her chest as I withdraw it. She's cinched up in too many layers of lace and fabric for it to be sexual in the least, but something about that faint contact makes me shiver regardless.
The whole time, she just watches me blankly.
I'm lucky to have found her in this state. Panicked, vulnerable, broken. She's as much on the run as I am, albeit in very, very different ways. I have to capitalize on this moment as much as I can before she starts waking up.
Before she starts fighting back.
So I pull the car out and resume driving, heading in the same direction she'd been going in. The vehicle groans and shudders at first, but it evens out as we pick up speed. The sirens grow louder.
It takes a few miles, but the girl slowly regains her senses. She sees my eyes flitting between the rearview mirror and the road ahead, and eventually, she makes the connection.
