Untitled
“Hey! Let me go!”
The sirens are blaring all over town as the sky turns that sickly green color.
The Emergency Alert System screams at me over the radio, warning me to seek shelter immediately.
I know it doesn’t make sense to turn the radio down to see better, but I did right before this asshole ripped my door open and swooped me up in his arms.
“No! You’ll die out here! Haven’t you seen the radar?!” He screams at me like I’m across the parking lot instead of in his embrace.
His body is tight against mine, muscular enough to pick me up without a care in the world. Okay, maybe one care… like the tornado spinning right towards us, about to swallow us whole, kind of care.
I don’t even bother saying anything, I just let him carry me.
We don’t have time to argue or think as he runs to the brick mechanic shop at the end of the strip mall.
If I can hear the branches from the nearby trees snap and crackle, then I know he can too.
As soon as we enter the space, the sound outside intensifies.
“We need to get down!” He continues to hold me until we are in a small room in the back of the shop.
He finally sets me down and I sit with my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around them. I figured he would sit down next to me and pray or something. But instead, he squats down and hovers over me. We’re breathing in the same static air, his forehead touching my raven colored bangs.
“What’s your name?”
“W-what?” I stutter. I blink rapidly at him. Why is that what he asks me? “Why?”
“If we die, I want to know who I died protecting. Is that okay?”
If there was light in here, he would see my cheeks and chest flush with an intense pink. Is he… being flirty? What is wrong with this guy? First pulling me out of my car, carrying me the entire way, now asking for my name like we aren’t in the middle of a fucking war zone?!
“Prudence.”
“Mmm, Prudence,” He repeats, like he is testing my name on his lips. “It’s beautiful.”
“Please don’t say something cheesier like ‘just like you,’ I might actually vomit if you do.”
His deep chuckle fills the space louder than the storm. I guess if I am being hunted down by a fucking tornado then I might as well be with a hot guy. Oh gods, now I’m the cringy one.
The storm sounds like a freight train right on top of the building, and that’s when I notice his face.
He actually looks concerned– at least what I can see of him in the dark.
He’s flirting to keep the atmosphere lighter than it actually is.
I guess I would rather die with someone than being stranded in a car or an abandoned building by myself.
“What about you? What’s your name?” His deep breath seems to relax both of us. If he can stay this calm with a literal tornado right above us, then I can talk to a guy I don’t know. It can’t be that hard… right?
“I’m Bellamy.”
I laugh, actually laugh. “Bellamy?! Like the character off that one show? Oh that’s good.” He smiles, but his eyes don’t crinkle. “Sorry, I’m scared.”
“It’s okay. We will make it.” Both of our arms tighten around my body in a protective way. “Just breathe.”
The sound of the roof tearing off the building is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever heard. If you imagine the sound of tin being shredded by a cheese grater, then it’s pretty accurate.
“I’m 35, had a shitty childhood, and I killed the guy who married my mom!” I yell.
“Why are you telling me this?!”
“Because we’re going to die and I need to tell someone what I’ve done! I can’t keep it a secret any longer!” The sob catches in my throat. Not like he could even hear it over the sound of the wind.
“I’m turning 42 this weekend, and I killed the man who killed my sister!” He screams back. “At least we have something in common!”
I laugh harder than I have in years. For the first time in my entire life, someone actually understands what one will do for family… and now we’re going to die.
“Kiss me!” I scream while pulling him down into my lap. I open my legs and pull him onto his knees in front of me. “Kiss me so I can die happy!”
He doesn’t even hesitate. One moment the world is screaming at me, the next his tongue is in my mouth dancing with mine, and the world is quiet. He doesn’t stop even after the danger stops.
“Prudence,” It’s so quiet now. “May I?” He tugs on my pants. “Let me taste you in the eye of the storm.”
I don’t say anything but grab the stretchy pj pants and start to shimmy out of them as he backs off of me to take off his shirt.
This is literally insane! Not only did I just kiss a man I don’t know, but he’s going to eat me out while the sky is trying to kill us.
“You can scream as loud as you want, the only things that will hear you are me, this concrete floor, and the tornado above us.”
Well if I wasn’t turned on a little, I am now.
“Stop talking. Start eating,” I demand. I don’t know this version of me. I don’t know where this is coming from. Maybe it’s adrenaline, maybe it’s desperation, maybe it’s fucking Maybelline. All I know is that I’m a hundred percent here for it.
As soon as my pants are off he starts licking.
At first it’s slow and calm, like the storm, but as soon as the eye passes and the tornado rages above us, his pace follows.
My eyes roll back as my hands and feet tingle when my body starts to shake.
If the noise wasn’t so loud I’d be able to hear him, but it makes it so much hotter not having that fifth sense.
His grip on my thighs tighten as something hits the side of the building and I know that he won’t stop even if the roof gives way completely.
Just before the tornado crescendos, he pushes two fingers inside of me. The storm isn’t the only thing about to dissipate into nothing. The last thing I hear is his name coming from my lips as I drip onto his face.
“Prudence? Prudence, come back to me!”
I open my eyes only to see bright red. My heart rate spikes, I can hear the blood pumping in my ears, but I can’t see anything except the world bathed in crimson.
“You're going to be okay. It’s okay! I got you!” I can hear the fear in his voice, the fear of a stranger who just met someone in a disaster and the fear that something is wrong. “It’s just a little cut, it’s fine.”
I try to reach my hand up to feel this ‘little cut’, but he grabs my hand and picks me up.
“What happened? It hurts!” I'm trying to keep the pain out of my voice, but the more I try to remember the more my head throbs. “We survived?”
“You’re going to be okay,” Bellamy repeats. He isn’t necessarily talking to me anymore, but he keeps uttering those five words as I start to nod out again. “No, no, no, no! Stay awake, Pru! We’re almost there!”
“Almost whe-“ I mumble before wincing in pain.
“We’re almost to my house, I have a med kit in my kitchen. It has Morphine and a suture kit. I would have taken you to the hospital, but I know they are going to be swamped.”
“Who are you?” I ask, grimacing when my voice comes out ten times louder than it should have.
“I’m Bel-,” he pauses and I feel him shift my limp body in his arms. “I’m Bellamy, remember? You’re Prudence.”
“No, I know that. What are you? Why do you have a med kit?”
“Oh,” he chuckles but I know he did it out of relief rather than genuine comedy. “I’m a mechanic, but I have a lot of medical training.”
“So you were a doctor before?”
“I was a special operations medic in the Marines. It was my job to keep people alive long enough to get them home. You're in good hands, now be quiet and let me work. I know your head is killing you by the look on your face every time you open your mouth.”
“Oh.” My head reels with everything that’s happened in the last two hours. The Emergency System alert, trying to find my keys, driving, and then the real crazy. A man, a tornado, a glorious feasting of me, and then a head wound. I’m doing great. This is fine. This is totally normal!
After Bellamy stitches up my head and loads me full of pain meds, my world stops spinning. I can breathe and think for the first time.
“So we didn’t die. So there’s that, I guess,” I huff.
“Is it true what you said back there? About your stepdad?” He asks, stripping his bloody shirt and tossing it onto the floor.
“Is it true about your sister?” I counter.
“Unfortunately, yes. She was murdered two years ago by a man who was so high on drugs he didn't know his ass from a hole in the ground. When I got stateside from the Marines, I hunted him down. When the town found out he died, they outcasted me. Everyone knew that I did it, but no one could prove it, even the detectives.” His eyes shift to the floor as we relax on his couch. Somehow his house is still in perfect condition. Maybe I should say his bachelor pad. Everything is black and silver, modern but a touch of 90’s nostalgia.
If he's going to be honest with me, then I might as well be honest with him. “When I was seven my mom got with a man named Mike. At first he was decent, he seemed caring and sweet. But as soon as he got us all into a good house, he turned into a fucking monster. My last straw was when I couldn’t sleep at night because he was upstairs raping my mother with a shotgun. I could hear her sobs and I could hear the pain, yet I couldn’t get to her.
He had put bars on my windows and padlocked my door. I couldn’t do anything.”
“Holy fuck.” He shifts his body to lay on the couch, grabs me and pulls me against him. His forearm rests against my chest, so I lay my head on his shoulder as we now stare at the ceiling while I continue.
“I finally had enough after we got away and he came back. We had gotten into a small upstairs apartment, it was cozy for just the two of us. While my mom was at work one day, he showed up. All I really remember is charging at him, and knocking him down the flight of stairs. He never got up.”
“That’s a lot. Like… a lot, a lot. I’m so sorry,” he whispers into my hair, snuggling me closer.