CHAPTER TWO
ADORA
Mortality is a strange concept. I’m supposed to care if my next breath is my last, if the man who hunts me comes back again and again, seeking his glory. But today, I don’t.
Watching the man opposite me bleed, his eyes fixed on me as his friend stitched him back together was…grounding.
Everyone in my world treats me like a piece of glass to be wrapped away from reality, a crafted piece of art only to be brought out for show, put on display for a limited time.
This man stares at me as though I am a puzzle he intends to pull apart.
Examine every piece intimately, find the broken parts, and put me back together.
I don’t doubt that he will achieve his goal. He never once flinched when the needle pierced with flesh, never accepted medicine or the alcohol that his friend offered to dull the pain. As though the pain itself was what drove him on. Or perhaps that taking it away leaves him unable to function.
Hendrick.
His name, said once in the car.
Mine tumbled from his lips as he broke all the rules my agent put into place. Protection, she said, years ago when we first teamed up. A barrier between me and the world.
Then, it seemed like a wonderful idea. Now? That protection has become a cage.
I wonder what his version of protection will be like in the next hours, or days. How long it will last before he comes for me again.
Now, Hendrick sits across from me, buttoning a shirt that strains too tightly across his chest, borrowed from the house we left.
Where are we going? What will you do? There are more questions that bank up, but I’m so out of practice in asking them that I can’t push the words past my lips.
And so I simply don’t.
For the first time in years, however, I don't have the media and management entourage clamoring around me.
My brain is silent, and I have time to think.
The brightness of the gunshot. The flare of the screams, the cacophony and mess that followed as this man plunged me into darkness as he took pain meant for me.
And I ask yet again — How has my music damaged you?
“You don’t know who it is.”
The question isn’t a question at all. It's a statement.
I blink at him. After a moment, I nod. It’s an answer that I can give. But I want something in return. My unused voice feels broken, and I cough, trying to force the words out. “M– my-”
He watches me, with those dark gray eyes the hue of an overcast sky. Of slate carved from an unyielding rock face. Of hard rain bouncing off a cement surface. Industrial. Bleak.
Useful.
This man has a purpose. I narrow down his meaning in a spate of color derived from sound that ricochets inside my noisy/silent mind.
“My harp.” I finally finish the short sentence that takes me a full minute to complete. He never rushes me, waiting me out.
“Your instrument. It’s with us. In the back, as requested with its stand and your music. Stored safely as was required on your— as the information on your file.”
As per the rules.
His unspoken words are loud, regardless. I hear them. So, I think, does he. Hendrick frowns and looks away. Uncertainty or irritation crosses his face that doesn’t match the color of his eyes.
“Yes.” Another word. Three. A record. “Where?” Four, and fading. That's all I can push out for now.
Hendrick’s attention switches back to me. “I heard you. Back in the alley. After the shot. You tried to tell them. No one heard.”
You did. I can’t speak, but he seems to understand a little more, now. Maybe not everything, but some things.
“We’ll drive for a while. Then we will have to walk.” He looks down at my feet in my white ankle boots that poke out from beneath my beaded white dress. “They might take damage.”
I shrug, uncaring. The dress is ruined. I feel bad for the designer who will need to make another to replace this one that was on loan. I will pay her anyway, double for the use.
His head tilts to the side. “Your luggage will arrive tomorrow, along with your team. I left them behind.” His mouth shuts, and he returns to watching me, blatant and unapologetic.
He breaks all the rules. He’s direct. He’s terrifying.
I…love it.
“Than–” I rasp and cough, my knuckles pressing to my mouth as my air expires. A shake of my head, because I can’t say more.
Hendrick doesn’t move or offer my sympathy. This part of him is almost robotic. I gulp water from the chiller in the door, spilling some over the front of the dress, watering down the bloodstain that trickles lower.
The energy of the performance, the night, the shooting—everything crashes down over me.
I don’t need to check the time to know it’s after midnight.
He said an hour, didn’t he? So I have that time to nap.
I clutch my water bottle and lean my head back.
I hope wherever we go, it’s so far away that my team will never find us.
But that’s the sort of dream that got me into trouble in the first place.
Warmth seeps into me, more than the blanket Hendrick’s jacket made earlier. My dress is still soggy over my stomach, where I dribbled water. I hope the blood doesn't get onto my skin too much, but I guess it’s too late for that.
Water. Blood. Shooting—
I launch upward, a mangled cry tearing at my throat even as I clamp my hands over my mouth.
Tears—a reaction from so long ago—flood my eyes.
The earth clings to me at every angle, and I can’t get free.
Kicking, my dress tangles about my ankles.
Something solid makes a great target, right up until it grunts.
“Easy, princess,” it growls.
I stop. Turn carefully.
And come face to face with Hendrick, who is closer than I have had any other human for so many years that I’ve lost count.
Because he’s carrying me.
Twice in one day his skin has pressed to mine. First, using his body as a shield, now for warmth and—
His steps are sure and firm as we travel over rocky terrain.
I peer over my shoulder at the blue tinged landscape that resembles a moon landing.
Everything is dark and light at once. A glance upward confirms it’s still the middle of the night.
The same night. And he’s walking me across what looks like a desert also in the middle of nowhere.
“Do you want me to put you down?” His chin, rough with stubble, brushes my temple in an attempt to draw my attention away from the nightscape and back to him.
Blue, blue. Everything is blue.
The arms loosen, and he slowly lowers me to the ground, or at least, my feet door.
Once those contact and I’m standing, his arms disappear.
The loss of him leaves cold spots all over me.
I wrap myself in a single person hug but the thin performance dress was never created with a Texan desert night in mind.
Hendrick curses softly, and drapes his jacket back around my shoulders, tuck my arms into the sleeves like I’m his personal doll. My throat aches from the few words that I’ve spoken, and I can’t tell him that this is more contact than I’ve had with any other person for an age.
A lifetime.
Since…
My heart beats faster, raging toward a breathless prestissimo finale where the newly found ground beneath my feet begins to slip away.
“Whoa.” Hendrick’s hands grip my arms through his jacket. His hold keeps me upright, but I can’t tell him that it’s his closeness and warmth that I’m reacting to. “Adora. Look at me.” One hand drifts toward my face, and stops.
His breaths are slow and strong and regular, unlike my short, panicked puffs.
I try to memorize his rhythm, find my own against his, but it's too much of everything.
Him, the night, the shooting… the flashes, the sound.
It all echoes inside my head, blasts of color and noise ricocheting against each other in endless fragments that fill my mind with noise, noise. Noise.
“Adora. Can you look at me? Fuck. Love,” Hendrick’s voice softens as I blink and focus on him.
The tiniest nod leaves him squeezing my arm rhythmically. I like that. Huh. Another nod.
“Good. Okay, that’s something. Listen, there's a house up ahead. I can get you into warm clothes and a warm bed. I can make you coffee or tea. You can get yourself roaring drunk if you like. I won’t judge, not after what you’ve endured tonight.
I promise, Adora. But first, we have to get there because out here?
We’re exposed.” Those dark eyes are overlaid with the same moonlight blue haze that coats the desert and everything I can see.
No, that’s a lie. It’s him. Hendrick. He’s all I can see.
Another nod. I understand. I’m scared, but I hear him. The noise…settles. Some of the fragments are still bouncing, but it’s lesser, somehow.
“Driver?”
He seems to understand. “He’s with the car. He’ll stay there until your team arrives. Okay?”
I don’t have a whole lot of control over that, so I shrug then nod. All the little actions that seem to satisfy him. Our stilted language.
He never stops watching me, soaking in every detail.
The lies I don’t tell. “Good. That’s better, love.
I know I wasn’t meant to do a lot of things but he changed the rules the moment he shot at you.
I have a job, but that’s just more rules.
All I want is for you to be safe and alive.
Will you listen to me so I can do that for you? Please?"
I stare at him. My heart stares to pound, my breaths shortening. I don’t remember the last time anyone asked me something like that. I don't remember the last time anyone wanted to do anything for me.
“Love.” Hendrick’s hands cup my cheeks, his thumbs stroking my skin. Once, then again.
And again.
It’s a nice pattern, but everything is still blue. Maybe a little gray.
“O-kay,” I cough out, and raise my hand.
“That’s real good, love. Real good. I’m not gonna make you talk again tonight. But I want you to show me your favorite drink and your favorite food when we get there, alright? If I don’t have it, we’ll try to source something for you.”
I get the impression that he’s breaking some of his own rules for me. I broke some of mine and now he’s moving his bench marks for me. I know I’m not what he wants in an asset, and I’m far from what he expected, probably who wants to be shot on their first day on the job?
I nod once, and touch his arm, on the side where he’s hurt.
Hendrick’s face remains blank. “It’s fine, Adora. I’m okay. But we have to keep going.”
One foot in front of the other, over rocks that hate my heels.
Once, when I stumble I try to slip them off, but Hendrick stops me.
His large hand closes on my ankle when I try to pull the short zip down.
We’ve fallen into a sort of semi-comfortable silence during our short trek.
He looks up at me from his place on the ground, and squeezes my ankle gently, shaking his head.
Not yet. Just a bit longer. Can you do that for me?
I bite my lip and give him the nod he seeks, earning myself a smile I didn’t know I needed.
And it feels good.