Dane reached into his coat, his movement slow and deliberate, pulling out a silver chain that hung there. His fingers curled tight around the silver chain, a ring hanging from it, glinting in the sunlight that carried in from the windows. It swung there like a pendulum between them. It seemed so small and insignificant, and yet it carried the weight of everything Alice had been holding onto for the last six months. Her breath was taken away quickly, a sharp little hitch that she couldn’t quite smother. “What the fuck is that?” Her voice cracked around the words that left her lips, but the anger was there, hot and rising fast. She tried to swallow it down, the fear clawing its way to the surface. Dane’s eyes glared at her, a slow and calculated look as the smirk he had faded. It was replaced with something colder.. More in control.
“Such language,” he said to her, like he was scolding a child. His voice had dropped to something more low. “I really thought we were getting past that already.” Alice’s anger reached her ears, her heartbeat hammering heavy in her brain. The fire poker that she still had felt solid in her grip, the metal no longer cold, her skin had heated it up like the fire that burned in her. She stood up, her mind stuck between two awful points. Wanting to know more, but wanting to survive. She knew what that ring was. It was David’s engagement ring. Her heart lurched sideways, and before she even knew what was happening, she lunged.
The fire poker cut through the air in a sharp fast arc. It was fast and fueled by a panicked red hot anger. Dane was however faster. He caught the rod in one hand, his fingers closing around the metal like it was nothing but a small twig. Alice’s breath left her lungs in a hard rush. His eyes locked onto hers, the steel grey, steady. It was as if he wasn’t even surprised as he slowly stood up, still gripping the poker as he pushed forward, forcing her back step by step until the wall pressed cold against her spine. Dane pinned Alice’s hands beneath the rod, the metal biting into her wrists just enough to feel uncomfortable. He leaned in close enough for her to smell the crisp, woodsy scent of him beneath the leather of his jacket. His breath ghosted over her lips with a warmth.
His voice dropped to a more serious tone. “Fight suits you, Alice.” he said, his lips just inches from her own. “But you won’t win.” Alice’s chest heaved against his, her heart pounding so hard that she swore that he had to feel it against him. Every instinct told her to scream and fight her way out of this. But she didn’t.. Because the worst part of this.. The sickest part. There was some small, hidden piece of her that liked this. Dane tilted his head like he could hear those inner most secret thoughts that rattled around inside of her skull. His grin crept back into place. “There she is,” he whispered. He shifted just enough to free one of her hands and dangled the ring between them. The ring swung back and forth, a silent offer.
“Now, I am going to let you go,” he said, the warmth of his breath brushing against her mouth. “And you’re going to take this little token.. Like a good girl.” Alice’s fingers trembled as they closed around the chain and ring. Dane eased the poker from her grip at the same time, prying it from her like it was an exchange. She backed away from him slowly with her eyes never leaving him. She finally felt her fingers brush against the doorknob. “Leaving so soon?” Dane said with his grin widening. Her breathing became heavy as her fingers tightened around David’s ring, the metal biting into the palm of her hand.
Dane didn’t try to stop her from leaving. That was the worst part of all of this. He wanted her to leave. Make her think that she had just an ounce of control in this situation. He knew that she would be back. The door slowly creaked open behind her and the cold air swept in quickly. It didn’t quite feel like freedom. It felt more like a game. And she was already playing without even knowing. She ran.. Ran as if something primal and life saving had taken over her legs. Her heart and stomach were both in her throat, fighting for space, her lungs burned with every deep cut breath. The trees blurred past in the jagged streaks of brown and green coloring. She didn’t think anymore. She couldn’t. It was pure instinct, the kind that screamed run when there was nothing left.
She finally reached the car, her body trembling so badly that it took three tries to jam the key into the ignition. The engine coughed to life and she didn’t even remember putting the car into drive, only that suddenly the road was stretching out in front of her, winding endlessly. She was speeding down the mountain like she could outrun everything that clawed at the very edges of her mind. Her vision started to blur behind hot, stinging tears. David’s ring.. Dance voice.. That grin. It all played on an unforgiving loop like a demented record stuck. She pulled off to the shoulder of the road once she felt like he could no longer catch her.
Her fists slammed into the steering wheel again and again until the horn blared out in pathetic, broken bursts. She sobbed so hard that she thought she might choke. The kind of crying that came from the deepest pit. Some place buried deep and forgotten. But even in the wreckage of her mind, there was something darker pressing at the edges. Some kind of whisper that she just couldn’t really silence. You want to go back. It was a sickening realization that was wrong. And yet.. There it was, gnawing at her from the inside out like an animal. Her breathing slowed down as she tried to calm herself.
That’s when she heard it.. “Click!” The distinct metallic sound of a hammer being drawn back. Alice froze as the air around her turned thin. Her eyes hurried to the mirror and there she was. The woman from the porch.. Same frizzy, disheveled blonde hair. Some oversized sunglasses that hid whatever was underneath. The gun in her hand looked too big for her, but the way she held it made Alice believe she was serious. As if any more knots could well up in her stomach at this point. “Drive,’ the woman demanded, the voice flat and distant like a recording being played back on an old cassette. “W.. who are you?” Alice’s voice came out as a cracked whisper that let loose from behind her lips.
The woman’s head tilted slightly, the corners of her mouth twitching up into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “Drive back to the cabin. This isn’t quite finished yet.” No more words came from the woman. Alice’s hands crept back to the steering wheel without even thinking twice about it. It was as if they belonged to someone else. Her foot found the gas pedal and the car slowly turned back toward the winding road. It didn’t make any sense.. None of it really made any goddamn sense. But the deeper part of her.. The part she couldn’t quite face.. Almost wanted to be told what to do.
The drive back felt much longer than the distance she drove away from the cabin. Every curve in the road seemed to stretch out like a rubber band that had been pulled far too tight. The whole time, Alice kept glancing back in the mirror at the woman sitting calmly there in the back seat, the gun resting lightly on her thigh. Every time she glanced, it was just sunglasses staring back at her. By the time the cabin came into view, Alice’s hands were slick with sweat across the old word leather of the steering wheel. Her heart was pounding hard enough to shake her ribs.
She parked the car and slowly opened the door. She took a deep breath and peered into the back seat, but the woman was gone. The back door was wide open, but no one seemed out there. Her stomach flipped and a cold dread crawled down her spine. What the fuck was happening to me? Her thoughts became confusing ones as she staggered up to the porch steps, her body moving like it wasn’t entirely her own. The door creaked open under her trembling hand and she hoped the maybe.. Just maybe he would be gone and she could have some sort of breath in all of this. Nope. There Dane was, crouched by the fireplace, coaxing the flames into life.
He didn’t even seem all that surprised when throwing a glance her way. “Didn’t get very far, did we?” His voice was a bit warm, almost teasing. It felt more like a lover welcoming her home than the slow burn nightmare that this all was. Alice’s knees almost buckled as she sat down on the couch without even meaning to, her heart continued to rattle around in her chest. Her mind kept thinking about the woman with a gun. “Hard to run when your girlfriend is outside,” she whispered, the very words testing him, needing to know if he would acknowledge it. She wanted desperately to know that she wasn’t going crazy.
Dance glanced on at her, one eyebrow lifting slightly with a hint of curiosity flashing across his face. There was something.. Off in the way he looked at her. But then he shrugged, turning back towards the fire as if the words she said didn’t even matter. Oh god.. I’m crazy, I’m absolutely losing it. She squeezed David’s ring so tightly in her first that the edges cut into her palm. The pain helped ground her and bring her more into the reality of it all. It however wasn’t enough to drown out the whisper echoing at the back of her skull. The thought roaming around in her brain that she didn’t want to seek the answer to. You didn’t want to leave. You wanted to come back. Dane glanced at her again, those sharp gray eyes cutting straight through her.
“I think you’re exactly where you want to be, Alice.” Her stomach clenched at the thought. He was right and somehow he knew it.. They both did. Alice shook her head, feigning ignorance, though she knew damn well that he could see right through her. It was as if he could somehow easily read what was underneath her skin.. What was deepest inside of her. She wanted to believe that she was only here for one reason and that was it.. To find David. That was certainly the logical most level headed excuse out of all of this. Perhaps an excuse. Something she could tell herself to keep from completely unraveling. But beneath that thin veil of a reason, something twisted and writhed around in the shadows of her mind. Something much darker and closer to Dane than she could believe.
Alice sat there stiffly, her hands gripping her knees, like if she just held on tight enough, she could stop the room from spinning. I’m only here to find out more about David, she told herself again, but those words in her head just felt hollow, tinny, as if she heard them through some kind of old rusted-out radio. Maybe it was true.. Maybe it wasn’t. The real question was whether she was going to get any real answers or if Dane was just going to toy with her, drag her deeper into his web, until she couldn’t tell which direction was up anymore. Dane finally stopped tending to the fire, turning his full attention on her now. The orange glow of flames licked at the angles of his face, casting shifting shadows that made it hard to tell where the man ended and the darkness began.
He eased himself down into the old rocking chair that he seemed to have grown fond of. He rocked back and forth as he watched her, saying nothing at first, but just studying.. Observing. “I guess you want to know if he is alive?” he mused, his voice was slow and to the point of it all. His gaze seemed to pin her in place with those sharp gray eyes cutting through her like twin blades. Her throat tightened as she nodded, unable to force words past the knot in her throat. Dane’s lips curled slightly, just a hint of something smug, something knowing. He had her exactly where he wanted her. He always had. He liked holding her there on the edge, dangling the truth just out of reach.
Finally, he leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “You better be sure, because once I tell you.. There’s no going back.” She swallowed hard. This was incredibly hard, but she knew she needed an answer. After all this time, she needed to know. “Just tell me.” Dane gave a nod towards her. “Alright.” He reaches into his boat, fingers curling around something.. Another trinket he kept? It was a folded piece of paper, yellowed at the edges as if it spent some time in his pocket. He tossed it onto the table between them. It sat there for what felt like an ungodly amount of time. She watched it sitting there and she wondered if this was a game.. Some kind of trickery. What could this piece of paper be?
Alice hesitated before finally picking it up. She unfolded it slowly, her hands shaking from the moment, her breath catching in her throat.. It was David’s handwriting. Alice, if you are reading this… Her vision blurred as she skimmed through the words on the page. It was a goodbye letter. “This isn’t real. It can’t be.. He wouldn’t…” she said through a quiet whisper of disbelief. It was her David’s handwriting and words, but how? “Go on, sweetheart. Read it all.” Her hands seemed to tremble more as she kept reading through the page. It got worse and worse. He’s not going to let me go. I am not given a choice because it’s not me he wants.. It’s you. I hope this letter never finds you. I love you so much, David.
The room tilts and her grip on the page tightened as if holding on to it would keep her upright somehow. A thousand thoughts crashed into her mind all at once, but one stood above the rest. One again the answer should have been clear. Run. Run as fast as you can. But she didn’t. She couldn’t any longer. Alice’s vision swam, the room tilting like a boat caught in an unseen current that was rushed along by a brewing storm. She could feel her body slow to a limp, and before she could stop herself, her body collapsed forward into the couch cushions. The fabric was rough against her cheek, but she barely noticed as the weight of everything was crashing down onto her.
The fear, the exhaustion, the slow, creeping horror of realization. It crashed over her several times. Her limbs felt like lead, her body no longer hers to command. She should have ran. Should have stayed driving the car and never came back. She should have fought harder to do something other than let her body give out like a puppet with its strings cut. The truth was she had been running one way or another for months. First from all the grief, then from the uncertainty of it all, and now from something much worse. Now there was nowhere left to run to. No place to go. The room blurred around her, details slipping away from her as if the very walls around her were melting. Was he watching this all happen? Probably.. He always was.
Her breathing slowed, her mind sank into something heavy and inky black. A part of her fought it, trying to claw her way back to the surface desperately. The exhaustion was stronger, the days catching up to her. Her thoughts were a chaotic entangled mess, looping in on themselves. David. The letter. Dane’s voice, low and amused. Then.. Nothing. Just the darkness swallowing her whole. There she was in the darkness, but she certainly wasn’t alone. Somewhere in the shadows was out there, she felt him. Dane. She couldn’t see him, but she knew he was there at a distance, watching. Then she felt it, his hands moving over her skin as if he already owned it.. Commanded it.
She gasped, but the sound was swallowed by the thick, inky void around them. His breath was at her ear, warm and slow, and his voice was nothing more than just a bare whisper. “You don’t want to run, Alice.” She tried to move, to push away, but her body didn’t obey. Not really. Because deep down, she really didn’t want to. Fingers traced up her arms, skimming over her throat before tilting her chin up. She still couldn’t see him, but she could feel him.. Feel everything. The weight of him, the heat of his body pressing close. Her pulse pounded against her ribs over and over, her breath shaky and uneven. She could smell his scent, distant hints of leather and pine rushed in. “You are starting to understand, aren’t you Alice?” he said, the words flowing from behind his lips in another whisper, the tone low and untamed as if wrapped around steel.
She opened her mouth to protest, to say no, but when his finger slid across her jaw, the words turned into something else. A soft, involuntary sound that she barely recognized as her own. His lips ghosted over hers, teasing, hovering. It wasn’t a kiss, not yet. It was control. A game. One that he was certainly winning. “Good girl,” Dane whispered, his lips as close to her ear as he could get. The words sent a shiver down her spine, but whether it was from fear or something else entirely, she couldn’t say. Then, just as it started, it was all gone. Alice’s eyes flew open, her chest rising and falling far too fast. The cabin came back into focus with the firelight of the fireplace casting its glow over the living room. The weight of the dream was still thick in her mind. She looked around, she was alone. But somewhere, in the back of her mind, she could still feel him.