CHAPTER 22
Wagner
“I really appreciate you taking me home to get my stuff,” Danica tells me.
She is standing outside her shack. Well, Violet’s really, but from the looks of it, Danica will be staying here a while. That’s great. Having her here is great. Fuck. Sometimes, you need Adrian to expand your vocabulary a little. It’s not only great. It’s fucking amazing having her here.
“Mason said he checked the place out a few times since you’ve been here, but there was no suspicious activity,” I assure her. “Still, better be safe.”
“I think so, too,” she smiles.
Her pony tail sways to the left, then to the right, as she starts to walk over to her car. Those jeans don’t do her ass justice.
“Where are you going?” I shout after her.
“Um, to my car?” she turns around. “Where else?”
I point to my bike.
“Are you kidding me!?” Her eyes widen in shock. She might be a little pissed, too. But, it suits her so well. Nothing prettier than a mad woman. “I’m not riding that coffin on wheels.”
I chuckle at her comment.
“You’re lucky I like you, so I’ll let that one slide,” I slap her butt, and she quickly looks around to make sure no one saw us. “What are you so afraid of?”
She sighs. Her cheeks are blazing red. The sun bathes in her eyes, as she tries to turn away from it. But, it follows her wherever she goes, desperate for her attention. I know the feeling.
“That we’ll crash?”
“What if I drive slowly?” I ask, as gently as I can. Even though gentle isn’t my suit. That’s Adrian’s department. But, he’s not here. And, I’m not riding in no car. “Do you trust me?” I ask, extending my hand to her.
She looks at it. I know she’s thinking. Weighing. Should she do it? The corner of her lip dances in a smile.
“I do,” she nods.
“You know I’d never do anything to scare you or hurt you, right?”
“Yes,” she nods again.
“We’ll go slow. Promise. You just hold onto me.”
She comes over and wraps her arms around me. Her hair smells like apples. Her body is so little. You’d want to put her in your pocket and always take her with you, wherever you go. Is that what love feels like? I’ve only known desire. Need. Fucking. Then, afterwards, nothing. With her, it’s different. It’s so different. I want her to stay. Before, during and after. I want her lips to keep moving, I want her voice to be heard, I want her body to always be close. Is that how the guys feel, too?
“And, you’ll stop if it’s too much?” she whispers in my neck.
My dick gets hard at the thought of her kissing me, of stopping somewhere along the way for a quickie in the woods.
“Of course,” I grin, adjusting my hard cock in my pants, hoping that she couldn’t feel it.
I take her over to the bike. She stops. She’s looking at it. Inspecting it, like it’s an enemy she’ll be fighting soon. So, she needs to know its weaknesses. I smile. Sometimes, she’s like a child, and that’s why she needs to be protected. Women like her are so rare. So fucking beautiful, like a dying breed. Like us. That’s why she belongs with us. She and the boy.
I sit down first, adjusting my weight.
“You ready?” I ask her.
She sighs, her lips parting only slightly. I’d take her closer, but she needs to do it on her own. She feels the leather seat first. Her fingers dance on the cover. She inspects every part of it, as if she knows exactly what it is and what it does. I allow her. She needs time. We’re in no rush.
It takes her a few moments to finally sit down. First, she adjusts her helmet. Her body presses to mine. Her tits flatten against my back. The soft midsection between her legs pinned down to my lower back. This is where she belongs. I show her where to put her feet. She does it, obediently. Her arms wrap around my waist, tight. Her fingers dig into my jacket. I smile.
“Can we start?” I ask, my foot ready.
“Yes,” she replies, louder than I expected.
I press on the gas pedal. The machine roars wildly. It takes off, through the dirty outback and into the neat streets of the town that we’ve made into our home. Slowly, her grip loosens. But, she’s still pressed close to me. I can feel her breathing.
“We good?” I ask, every once in a while.
“Good,” she’d reply back.
I take the roundabout way, to the lake. When we reach it, I expect her to jump off the bike. Instead, she gets off slowly. One leg at a time. Confidently. With a smile on her face.
It’s still sunny. It’ll be a warm night. One for open windows. I hear crickets already. A few birds chirping in the nearby trees. I started noticing these things only recently. Like I have a new reason to look at the world differently. I wonder if it’s an inside change that provoked this.
“It wasn’t so bad, was it?” I ask, grinning.
She fits into this serene scene perfectly. She’s like a water nymph, from one of those old mythological tales. Adrian’s got all kinds of obscure books on his shelf, and sometimes, when I’m very bored, I browse them. Not too often, though.
“Not at all,” she shakes her head, gazing at the lake. “I don’t know what I was so afraid of.”
“Fear,” I reply. “You convinced yourself you were scared of it. And, there’s nothing more frightening than the fear we create for ourselves.”
She looks like she didn’t hear me. She doesn’t react. She seems lost in the view around her.
“Do you think it’s possible to live without fear?” she suddenly asks. Her eyes are still glued to the surface of the lake, as if she’s expecting something to happen to it, and she doesn’t want to miss it.
“Would you want to?”
“What do you mean?” she finally turns to me. I see confusion in her eyes.
“Adrian once told me, he read in one of those books of his, light wouldn’t exist without darkness. So, everything you appreciate wouldn’t be as valuable if you got it easily, without fear, or hard work, or some kind of sacrifice.”
“You know what, I never saw it like that,” she smiles.
“Yeah, that’s what we have Adrian for,” I smile back. “Smart ass.”
She chuckles. We both gaze into the distance. Who knows? Maybe we see the same thing?
We remain like that for a while. She gets closer to me. I wrap my arms around her. I remember wanting to fuck her on the way to her place, but all need and desire for that are gone. My dick is asleep. Not because it doesn’t want her. Hell, it wants her all the time. But, it’s calm. My body is calm. My mind is calm. All I need is her presence to be truly happy. I know that now.
We reach her home quickly afterwards. We didn’t even notice that it’s starting to get dark slowly. Exactly what we’ve been trying to avoid.
When she gets off the bike, her face changes. There is sadness. No fear. Just deep, deep sadness.
“Everything OK?” I ask her. My hand rests on her shoulder, as she gazes at her home. I wonder does she even see it as her home anymore.
“Just wondering when we’ll be able to get back here,” she replies.
“You don’t like it at our place?”
“Oh, no, it’s not that,” she immediately turns to me. I feel the scalding touch of her palm against my cheek. “I feel very welcome at your place. It’s just, this was the first place where I truly felt like I did everything right. I got a job. Dominick started school. I haven’t been late on any of my bills. I feel like my old self again. And now, I’m afraid I’ll have that taken away from me again.”
“Look here,” I cup her chin, making her look at me. “No one can take that away from you, unless you let them.”
“Do you think so?”
“Absolutely,” I nod.
“I must admit, it feels nice to hold onto hope that Dom and I will eventually be returning here. I like this little house, despite its not so nice history. I feel like we’re both broken in a way, and we finally found each other. Perfectly broken. Perfectly aligned in that way.”
“Sounds very poetic,” I smile.
“Sounds like a waste of time, is what Mason would say,” she replies. “Let’s do what we came here to do.”
She takes a step first. She unlocks the door, and opens it. It’s pitch dark inside. Almost like there’s no electricity. But, she switches on the light, and all’s well again. That little worm of doubt is gone. The fucker. I hate when he does that.
“I’ll just go upstairs and grab a few things from my room. Can you get everything from Dom’s list?” she asks, giving me a little piece of paper.
I take it. Blue sweatshirt. Jeans. Socks. Underwear. Toothbrush. Cologne. PS. I chuckle. Adrian told me he played with Dominick. I bet the kid whopped his ass.
“It’s the first one to the left, upstairs,” she tells me.
I follow her upstairs. The stairs creak. Annoyingly so. But, I endure it. We’ll be out of here in a jiffy. She disappears in a room down the small hallway. I enter the one I was instructed to.
The moment I enter, I recognize it for what it is. A teenage boy’s room. A room that would eventually have one of those do not disturb signs pinned to the door. Dirty socks on the floor. Open books still lying on the table. The window over it open.
I glance over at the closed wardrobe in the corner. This is the moment where, in horror movies, the killer jumps out and takes me out. Well, not in my movie, buddy. I rush over there, opening the wardrobe with a vengeance.
My heart in my heels, I chuckle. It’s empty. Of course it’s fucking empty. I feel stupid for even thinking something like that. There’s bad mojo in this house. I’ll just grab the stuff from the list and….
At that moment, I hear the sound of shattered glass. Instinctively, I look at the window. Still open. Untouched.
“Danica?” I shout.
I hear running. Scurrying feet. Then she bursts through the open door. She is flushed. Her eyes are wide. She’s still holding the red lacy bra in her hand. The sound stopped her mid-packing.
“What was that?” she asks, shivering. “That sounded like someone broke my window.”
“I’ll go check it out,” I reply, worried. But, I don’t let it show. “You stay here.”
“I can’t stay here alone…. Please, let me come with you.”
“If we stumble onto someone, they might attack you. So, instead of attacking them, I’ll be defending you. Trust me, you’ll be much safer here. Just close the door, prop it with a chair or something, and hide. Don’t make a sound. When I come back, I’ll call out. Got it?”
“Mhm,” she nods. She’s even more frightened now than before.
I know she doesn't like the idea of staying alone. But, coming with me is the worst thing she can do. She just needs to stay put, and hide.
“Good girl,” I lean over and kiss her on the forehead.
I close the door behind me, hoping it’s nothing, but I can’t find a good explanation for a broken window in the evening.