Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Rue Bennett
I don’t know what my plan is from here. I had hoped, but I didn’t expect that I’d make it out. My luck, now I’m stuck in a truck with a fucking lunatic.
“I like Slasher better.” He smirks as he mumbles something beneath his breath.
“Well, that’s not my name.”
As the adrenaline begins to wear off, my muscles become weak, my good eye beginning to close as I fight it.
“Whoa, whoa!” The truck swerves as my body gives up and blackness is all I see.
It’s warm. Warmer than I’ve been in the last few weeks, and it feels nice. The pain is still there as I open my eye, my hand coming up to my face to touch the bandage now covering the other one. Panic sets in at the unfamiliar surroundings and I frantically search for my gun.
“Looking for that?” Elias speaks softly, motioning to the gun on the bed side table.
Grabbing it, I aim it at him, and he cocks his head.
“That bandage didn’t magically appear, you know.”
“Why?”
He shrugs as he walks past me unbothered, taking a seat on the motel bed. “Felt like it.”
“Where are we?”
“Just south of the painted desert....a.k.a... bum-fuck-nowhere.” He looks at me expectantly, like he’s waiting for another question, and I have several I’d like to ask but before I can, he continues.
“We’re on Kempe Road and it’s just a few hours drive to the nearest ‘ city’ If you can call it that. Motel’s name is Chancelor, which is fucking odd if you ask me, and I went out to get us some breakfast.” He holds out an oat bar and I fear he can hear my stomach rumbling.
“Why are you helping me? You could have just dumped me somewhere...”
“We’ll call it curiosity for now, Slasher . Eat if you want your body to heal.”
Grabbing the bar, I take a seat and unwrap it, this being the first real food I’ve had since I was taken. We eat in silence, and I begin to think about my parents.
How could they deny paying the ransom?
How could they leave me in the hands of those vile men?
“What happened to you?” he asks, taking the last bite of his oat bar.
“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
He smiles. Not in the way someone does when they want to be friendly though...in the way that makes me regret saying what I did.
“In a nutshell...I escaped an asylum and now?—”
I laugh nervously, “Wait, wait, wait, wait...an asylum?”
“ Does that scare you?”
Does it?
“I plead insanity when they found me on top of my sister's killer with my hands around his neck.” He waits for me to digest his words, studying my face.
“I’m listening.”
“He raped her, killed her, and kept going when she was dead. He had her in his house for fourteen days before the police found him. She was fifteen.”
A knot forms in the back of my throat, and I squeeze my eyes shut, bright lights flashing before me as stink breath shoves me into the wall.
“No! No! No!” I scream into the void.
“Hey...Hey!” Elias’ voice breaks through the flashback and the pain from my nails digging into my thighs makes me draw back.
“I... It’s... fuck .”
I can’t formulate a sentence, the shock and trauma taking over my body.
“It’s okay,” he kneels before me, his dark hair falling beautifully over his eyes. The jumpsuit now hanging from his hips, his arms covered with tattoos. “It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”
“I’m so fucking angry ,” I admit.
It feels good to say it out loud. This is the most I’ve spoken to someone in weeks, and it seems normal .
“I just want myself back. I want to be the person I was before they did this to me!” My eye stings as the tears come.
“Hey. Look at me please,” he says in a soft voice.
When I do, the green in his eyes ground me as he speaks. “Don’t do that.” He’s careful not to touch me as he rests his hands beside my legs, looking up at me. “Don’t diminish who you are right now. You don’t deserve that. Not after what happened to you.”
“I want to kill them all.”
A slow smile spreads across his lips. “Don’t be afraid to want it. That’s the hardest part, I promise. Once you accept it, everything that follows tastes like a cool ice cream on a hot Sunday afternoon.”
I smile back, feeling a little part of my new self starting to form.
Taking the last bite of my oat bar, I slide back onto the bed. “I’m sorry about your sister.”
He nods, acknowledging the small bond that’s starting to grow between us.
“This changes nothing. You’re sleeping on the floor.” I smile as I speak, watching him grab the thin blanket on top of the bed.
“I’ve slept on worse, Slasher , this isn’t my first rodeo but I’m excited to be a part of yours.”