Chapter 7 - Dean
Dean
Icraned my neck so raindrops ran down my face and sloughed the water off my chest and arms before reaching the furniture store’s entrance. We’d spent the night in its empty parking lot, with a lone abandoned car for company.
I doubted we’d managed over fifteen miles the previous day. Our car, while useful, wouldn’t take us home. Its balding tires were a risk, given the constant rain and the growing possibility of flooding.
I stretched and jogged a few laps along the store’s dry walkway, maintaining a visual on the car with a sleeping Lily inside.
We passed a tense evening in the cramped space until she fell into a shallow, nightmare-filled rest. Lily cried out several times and whimpered a couple more. They subsided with gentle words and soft touches from me until a fresh dream brought it all back.
A bang sounded, disturbing the morning’s calm, and a car pulled up beside our vehicle, so the driver’s side aligned with the passenger’s side of ours. Its left front tire was flat.
A man exited without noticing me. He stretched once and stood over Lily’s window. I waited, curious, telling myself he had done nothing so far. He ceased his spying, took a slow scan of the area, and popped his trunk to rummage inside.
I left my hiding spot, knowing the downpour muffled any sound, and approached him.
The dead man returned to Lily’s window without noticing me.
“Are you lost?” I asked.
He jumped, shoving one hand behind his back. “Flat tire. I was going to change it.”
I bet he was. “Let me help with that.”
He didn’t move, maintaining his focus on a sleeping Lily. “Yeah, sure. Is she yours?”
“She’s my wife.” The title suited Lily. I’d use it again. “And you aren’t allowed to look at her.”
He mouthed the last few words and said, “I wasn’t…I didn’t know she was yours.”
“Now you do.” I stepped closer. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she? You saw a vulnerable woman, alone, and stopped right next to her? What did you plan?”
“I won’t.” He gulped and stepped back. “I wasn’t…You sick fuck.”
“She accused me of the same. Unfortunately for you, she’s correct.” I grinned. “What are you hiding behind your back?” I asked.
“What? Nothing.” He licked his lips as his eyes flicked back to her sleeping figure, condemning him.
“Like I told her, she wasn’t my first, and neither are you.”
“Wh-?”
I moved, gripping his neck, enjoying the stink of his wet fear, and shoved him against the side of his car.
He choked and rasped as his hands grabbed and shoved until the focus left his eyes. I let go, and his body fell to the ground.
Beside me, Lily slept on, unaware of my presence or the dead man at my feet. I picked up the small knife he’d dropped and stuck it in my pocket.
“If you’d changed your tire and left my wife alone, this wouldn’t have happened. What kind of freak spies on a sleeping woman like that? Besides me.”
She’d claim a man didn’t deserve death over a knife and some voyeurism. I disagreed. She also wouldn’t appreciate waking up to a dead body or my explanation. I needed to move him before that happened.
Trash and empty beer cans littered the dead man’s car, while dark stains marred its cloth seats.
I opened the rear door, and the stench of stale sweat and rotting food greeted me.
Gagging, I dragged the body to the empty trunk and picked up the faint trace of bleach in its pristine interior.
I pulled the dead weight up, stuffed it inside the narrow space, and slammed the trunk lid shut.
“I should have hurt you more.”
Lily slept on, lulled into a peaceful rest by the rain’s steady patter. I stayed outside, uncaring of my wet shorts or body. We needed fuel, and the dead man solved that problem.
I grabbed tubes and an empty can from our trunk, both swiped from the gas station the previous night. Deciding Lily needed more rest, I went to work.
I shut the fuel tank door and squatted on the ground. The warm rain calmed me as the fresh kill’s rush faded.
We needed to leave soon. Already mid-morning, and I suspected the strange weather brought another early evening. Between downed trees and floods, driving at night was too risky.
With luck, we’d make it to Georgia today, or at least close to the state line. Lily wanted Deer Lake, and I promised to give it to her. Her safe haven, assuming it still stood, but it was never my home. I merely lived there for a while.
A new beginning would be better, a sanctuary that allowed her to thrive and carried none of my dark memories. A farm or private resort — a place with reserves of food and land. Remote, with natural defenses. My grandfather’s cabin suited, assuming I found it again.
Plus, her father and Ryan both warned me away from her. Lily deserved a better life, they’d said, and they’d given it to her. For most people, the comet brought doom, and for me, it brought opportunity and freedom. The old rules no longer applied. I chuckled at the thought.
Stoic, she had called me. My body trembled.
“Dean!”
Her frantic scream jolted me out of my daydream.
“Dean!”
Her door slammed shut as I stood. “What’s wrong?”
Lily sucked in a heavy gulp of air and bent forward. “I thought you were gone. I woke up and didn’t see you. I thought you’d left.”
“Do you truly think I would leave you alone like this?”
“I thought…”
She thought I had left her again. The realization stung.
“You shouldn’t think so much. This will go easier if you learn to do what I want and trust what I say.”
“I-” Her features tightened. “Where did that car come from?”
“Abandoned this morning by the owner, probably because of the flat tire. I took enough fuel for today. We’ll need more, or better still, another vehicle tomorrow. For now, get out of the rain. You’re soaked.”
“So are you.” Her eyes lingered on my chest before returning to mine. “It’s odd that someone left their vehicle so close to ours.”
“People are strange.” I guided her back to the passenger door and returned to my side before starting up the car’s heater. “Dry off.”
“With what?”
Lily’s wet tank top clung to her, accentuating the soft curve of her breasts and hinting at her dusky rose nipples. The stretched cotton showed off her upper chest.
I pressed a finger to her neck before adding a second. They stroked down her chest to the shirt’s delicate edge. One finger grazed the hidden skin underneath.
“Remove your clothes.”
She scoffed.
“You’d enjoy whatever I did. We both know you enjoy what I do to you. You’ll admit that soon.” Lily couldn’t stop me unless I allowed it. I removed my fingers. “Wrap yourself in the blanket until they dry. I won’t look.”
She turned her back to me, wrapped the blanket like a sari, wiggled, and threw the wet clothes in the back seat. “Keep the heat on.”
“See, I didn’t look like a fucking honorable gentleman.”
“There’s no honor in you, Dean.”
“There’s more than you believe.”
“How did that car end up next to ours?”
She knew, and I couldn’t bring myself to care. “The owner won’t be a problem, if that’s what you’re asking.” I smiled, wondering if she’d challenge me.
“How long until we’re back in Deer Lake?” she asked after a long silence.
“That depends,” I said, considering. The weather and road conditions delayed us, and I intended to drag out our journey. “Maybe four days?”
“That’s not so bad. Four days until I’m snuggled in my bed again.”
“It could be longer. If this rain keeps up.”
A swell covered the road ahead, proving it. I turned around to try another way.
“It better not,” she said. Lily didn’t recognize east from south. I could take her anywhere, and she wouldn’t realize it until it was too late. “I have an offer for you,” she said.
“Intriguing. I accept.”
“You don’t know what I was going to say.”
“It doesn’t matter. Making the offer implies you believe I’ll agree. You want to take your clothes off? Wonderful. You want to find a romantic hideaway and delay our return a few days? Even better.” I let off the throttle and faced her. “How about we pull over so I can fuck you?”
“Dean, be serious.”
“I am serious. More than you’re willing to admit.”
“We aren’t together.”
“Allow me to rectify that.”
Lily rubbed her lips together and glowered at me. “That won’t happen. We’re in the past. We’re over.”
She wanted to talk about last year. I tried to apologize last night. Why not now? Get it done so we can move forward. “Yes, about that. What I did was a poor decision, and I’m sorry.” Did she hear the sincerity? Did she hear my regret? “If I could go back, it would have ended differently.”
I’d have stayed. Stayed and faced all the miserable consequences it’d have wrought.
“Thank you for saying that,” she said, though it didn’t sound as if she believed it. “Back to my offer. A partnership.”
“Partnership.” The word stung.
“Yes. We’re stuck together for now. Let’s start fresh. Begin anew. Whatever happened before this week doesn’t matter. You did what you did. Thanksgiving and Christmas.”
“And New Year’s. Don’t forget that.” Where was she going with this?
Lily blanched. “Whatever happened. This isn’t forgiveness or reconciliation, so don’t think it is. We need cooperation and some trust. I’m giving you that. I accept a poor soul left his vehicle next to ours and went for a walk.”
“Okay,” I said, wary, not enjoying her word choices.
“So, we agree? We’ll be honest and work together until we get home. I’ll share with you if you do the same with me. We’re partners.”
“Sure, partners.” I preferred a different term for us. Several ones, but I kept my mouth shut. “We work together.”
“I want to go home, so if that’s what I need to do, then I will,” she said.
What did that mean?