Born to die - Playing dangerous I

F O U R

Adelaide's P.O.V.

In the past hour we had left Miami and I had been trying to get the salaud to tell me where exactly he was taking me. Or tell me anything at all. Can't say this was working very well if I'm being honest...

(bastard)

Exasperated by my failed attempts and the fact that he could most likely drive for hours with no talking, no music, no singing or dancing –nothing but concentrated, silent driving– I decided to even give small talk a try. 

"So is Adonis your real name?" 

No answer. 

"Adelaide is mine. If you were a little bit nicer to me, I would tell you that you can call me Ade, but cat cut your tongue apparently..." 

"Got." He said dryly. 

I sucked in a breath. "What?"

"The expression is 'cat got your tongue'." 

Okay, so he does talk, but only to correct me...

I pursed my lips. "My cat can do whatever I want her to do and I want her to cut tongues." 

My retort was perfectly mature.

He wasn't amused. 

"You're boring, you know?" 

"Words can't help me express how much your opinions concern me." 

Asshole... 

"Well, I think this was the biggest sentence you've told me so far." I grinned, like this was the highlight of my day. "I call this progress."

No answer. 

"If you don't say something back, I'll think that I won." I sighed vividly. 

"Won what exactly?"

"You know, the dialogue." More like monologue, because I was mostly talking to myself. 

"You win a debate, not a dialogue. And I usually debate with my 45. Or occasionally, with people that are not so beneath my intelligence, though that's mostly rare."

I opened my mouth. Closed it. 

Did he just call me stupid?

Frustration clawed beneath my skin. I opened my mouth again to say something –something about what an asshole he was– but before my mind could come up with the English translations of my thoughts, he told me "Maybe reconsider what you're about to say.". 

I closed my mouth. 

And glared. Glared hard. Glared and imagined being wizard Wenlock from 'Barbie and the magic of Pegasus', and turning him into ice with a single look. Or was Wenlock using a wand? Not that it mattered, I doubt I could ever turn this man more into ice than he already was anyway... 

My glaring didn't affect him in the slightest.

When I got tired of glaring, I decided to try my luck with the radio again, and stretched out my hand to reach the button. I turned on the radio and the annoying voice of who I imagined to be an almost middle-aged platinum-blonde news-teller echoed, but then he turned it off. I reached out to turn it back on, only for him to grab my wrist, with a warning look in his eyes. 

He let go of my wrist and I scowled at him, but didn't reach out again. "Well I'm bored." I announced. 

"Ask me if I care." He said dryly. 

With a saccharine smile on my face, I leaned closer to him. "Do you care?" 

He gave his head the subtlest shake, just to show me how ridiculous he thought I was. 

I huffed and sank back down into my seat, staring at the bloody mess that I was. Literally. My arms were covered in blood. My collarbone was covered in blood. My chest was covered in blood. My champagne-colored nighty was mostly red now. My legs were covered in blood. 

Dried blood that was itching and uncomfortable and disgusting. 

"I need to take a shower." I declared. 

"I can smell that." 

Ouch. What the f**k?

I wrinkled my nose and sniffed, trying to see if I indeed stank. I don't think I did. I mostly smelt of blood, which doesn't have a very bad scent. I actually quite like the metallic smell of it, as weird as this might be... 

Ultimately I convinced myself that it would be for the best to ignore his insult. 

"I also need to pee, so we're gonna have to stop. And I don't pee in the nature. I need a toilette."

No answer.

"Oh, and I also need to eat. I'm starving."

"You're quite needy, aren't you?" He couldn't sound more indifferent, but at least I got him to say something. 

"Well yeah, like, you know humans..." I said nonchalantly, sulking at the red beneath my fingernails.

Just when I accepted the fact that I wouldn't get a respond, he honored me with one. "We'll make a stop at a gas-station nearby, but you'll have to wash the blood off you first. You can't really walk around like this."   

"Well, so how am I supposed to wash it off?" 

Instead of answering me, he glanced outside the window, to the ocean. 

So blood or salt it was... 

Not an ideal situation, since both feel very uncomfortable, but... "Fine." I sighed. 

A few minutes later the car came to a stop in a quiet area by the coastline and Adonis, or The Professional or whatever he goes by, unlocked the doors. I hadn't noticed him locking them.

I opened my door and stepped out of the car, stretching out and yawning soundly. The shutting of a door made me turn around to look at him.

He raised his brows, gesturing the direction of the sea and, rolling my eyes, I walked around the car and passed him. I crossed the empty street, trying to ignore the touch of his stare, but paused and turned to look at him before getting into the water.

"Well, are you going to watch me bathe?" I shouted for him to hear.

"I won't see anything I haven't seen already." He said impassively, sending a wave of heat straight to my cheeks and core both, as the memory of my...offer to him, resurfaced in my mind. 

Despite my initial reaction however, I turned back around and made a good show of taking my nighty off my body, tying my hair up on a high-bun and walking in the ocean. I dived in, careful to keep my hair out of the water, and started rubbing my whole body with my hands. The blue water around me soon turned pinkish, but a physical and mental feeling of utter relief overwhelmed me, as my skin was finally free from the crimson liquid. 

My hair thankfully hadn't been dirtied by blood, since I had it tied in a high ponytail during the bloodshed yesterday. Otherwise trying to wash it with sea-water and without any shampoo and conditioner would be a disaster. 

After I was done rubbing myself clean, I stepped out of my panties and held them above the surface of the water, as I peed. I didn't think I could wait until we got to the gas-station, I was already bloated. And besides, I wasn't really in the mood to catch AIDS or something like that from a public gas-station toilette. Although very much nature, the sea was my best option. 

When I was done, I moved a few steps away from where I had peed and put on my panties again, before walking out of the sea, grabbing my dirty nighty and making my way back to the car, drenching and practically naked.

"I don't suppose you have a towel or a change of clothes, do you?" 

He gave me a cold, uninterested look. "We're gonna have to wait for you to dry under the sun."

I smiled teasingly and made a bold step closer to him. "You only say that so that you can look at my body..."

"I could look at your body –and not just that– whenever I wanted if I thought it was a spectacle worthy of a second glance." 

Jesus. 

And ouch. 

He somehow managed to make a subtle rape-threat and insult my looks in one sentence. And for some reason I was more offended about the later than I was concerned about the first. If he wanted to rape me, he would have already, literally nothing stopped him. I had even offered myself to him and he didn't budge. Maybe it was because he obviously wasn't attracted to me... 

I couldn't help glancing briefly down at my naked body with a small scowl.

I wasn't full of myself or anything close to that, but I was generally confident with my physical appearance. After years of being a s*x-slave I had learnt to use it to my advantage and I had no trouble being naked either. Most of the time, I liked the way I looked. Of course I had phases of being insecure too, like everyone does, but I couldn't afford to ever show this side of me, because people were always ready to use it against me. This moment had just turned into one of those phases however...

"How very noble of you to not rape me... Thank-"

"Get in the car."

I frowned with the sudden change in his tone. He still appeared calm and composed, but I didn't miss the tiny flickers of wariness in his eyes or the slightly sharper timbre of his voice. I decided to comply, but not without another comment.

"Okay, but only because you asked nicel-" 

Bang.

I jumped, then froze.

My eyes widened in terror and I could feel my heartbeat in my ears.

"Get in the f*****g car!"

Pushing my shock aside, I started running around the car to get in the passenger's seat, but then I was lifted off the ground. 

"I got the w***e!" 

I flailed and kicked and screamed with all I had, trying to break free, but to no avail. Whoever was holding me, turned around and started walking towards a black SUV that was left in the middle of the road with all the doors ajar. 

I managed to catch a glimpse of Adonis jerking his head back, straight in the face of the man who was trying –and may I say failing– to restrain him from behind, and almost at the same time aiming a high kick to the jaw of another man, who was about to shoot him. 

What in the James Bond? 

Two sickening crunch noises and the dull thump of the guy's gun falling to the ground reverberated all around us, as he broke free. 

I dug my nails as deep as I could in the big arm that was holding me around the middle, still kicking and flailing in the unknown man's hold. When this didn't seem to work, and we were getting too close to the trunk of the SUV, I turned my face in an awkward position, and managed to bite down on my captor's arm, hard enough to bleed. 

I was dropped down on the ground, as a loud growl resonated from behind me, and before I had the time to get up and run, a sharp pain on my lower back forced a scream out of my mouth and tears in the corners of my eyes. The man who had just kicked me, rolled me with his foot so that I would face him and aimed another kick for my chest, but in the last second I managed to block it with my upper arm. I cried out in pain, feeling my arm going numb already, but at least I had avoided the kick on my chest, which would have led to much worse results.

A rough hold on my hair forced me to my feet, as a high-pitched whimper that I wasn't aware I was capable of, erupted from my throat.

Bang. 

Hot liquid covered my face and I was dragged back to the ground by a dead weight. Feeling the panic rise inside my chest, I tried to break free, kicking and pushing the heavy, unconscious man off my small form. But in vain. I was too tired, or too skinny, or too weak and he was big and built as a body-builder and, I think, dead, making it impossible for me to escape from underneath him. It was suffocating and I was crying and panicking, trapped beneath a dead man.

And suddenly he was rolled off me. 

I squeezed my eyes closed, expecting another kick, or –even worse– a bullet between my eyes, but all I felt was being lifted off the ground, almost gently.

Hesitantly, I opened my eyes.

My gaze flicked up and locked with a pair of light grey pools, so light they looked almost white. Emotionless. Heavy and invasive, as though they were staring in my soul. And cold. Colder than ice. Colder than anything I had ever seen...

Although now, staring at them from such closer distance and with bright sunrays working their magic on them, I noticed the tiny rays of a warm brown in the middle of the irises. 

Light grey with tiny traces of brown...   

Adonis.

I sniffled and brought my hands on his hard chest. He didn't stop me like he had before, when I had tried to grab him to steady myself. He briefly glanced down at me, while walking us towards his car. 

"I'll stain your car." I muttered as he opened one of the doors to the backseats, then looking at my bloody hands on his white dress-shirt, I added "Or your suit.".

"I'll buy a new one." 

I wasn't exactly sure if he was talking about his car or his suit at this point, not that it mattered really. It didn't, not when I noticed something far more intriguing ... His answer was as calm and unemotional as every other word he had said to me so far, but for the very first time, he was looking at me –really looking at me. In my eyes. I had his attention and that alone was a small victory.

He placed me in a supine position in the backseat, but I whimpered, because of the pain on my lower back from the kick. He paused briefly and turned me to my side, but I let out an even louder cry as my upper arm made contact with the leather seat. 

He turned me slightly and traced his fingers on my back. I winced and sniffled when he touched the spot where the man had kicked me, and he took his hand off me. Then he rolled me to my other side and nudged my hurt arm. I cried out in pain and tried to cradle it with my other hand, which he gently shook away. Despite my cries and protests, he felt up my upper arm and shoulder for a few seconds, before letting go of me. 

"Your back will be alright, but your shoulder might be partially dislocated and there's a chance you broke your arm. Did you hear a cracking sound when he kicked you?"

I stared at him, with tears still running from my eyes, from pain and shock both. He was so calm, so unemotional, while talking about me being kicked, he was seriously making me want to kick him. See how calm he would be then... 

On second thought, I think I would hurt my leg more than I would hurt him if I kicked him...

"Adelaide."

I sniffled. "I'm fine." 

I struggled to get on a sitting position, but failed. I whimpered in pain when my back made contact with the seat, as I dropped back down.

"That's not what I asked." He stated, the slightest hint of impatience evident in his tone. "Did you hear a cracking sound, yes or no?"

"I don't know! I was too busy being scared for my life in case you didn't notice. He would have kicked me on my chest!" I snapped.

He regarded me for a second, then leaned down and helped me into a sitting position, careful not to touch my back. I struggled, but managed to sit, supporting myself with my uninjured arm. He started feeling up my hurt upper arm and shoulder again, making me cry and try to break free. 

His eyes found mine and he faintly eased his grip on my arm. "Calm down! I need to see how bad it is." He said calmly. 

I sucked in a breath and tried to calm myself. "I don't think I heard a cracking sound." I said finally. 

He nodded, then continued inspecting my arm. "It's not broken. Can you sit straight for a second?"

I did as he said and he scrutinized me. He touched my one shoulder, tilted his head a bit to the side, then looked at my other one, the injured one.  

"Can you move your arm?" 

I tried to move my arm. It really hurt, but I could move it.

He watched me for a moment, then took the wrist of my injured hand, surprising me. "I'll be quick." 

"Wha-Aaaah! Fils de pute!"

(Son of a b***h!)

With a very quick motion, he had pulled my injured arm from the wrist, forward and straight. A weird pop sounded and immediately the pain diminished, almost entirely, but not my panic. I wasn't a doctor or anything, but neither was he and I knew that he could have done real damage. 

I flinched to the other side of the backseats and started cradling my shoulder with my other hand, my eyes never leaving Dr. Nick Riviera.

"What is wrong with you?" I shouted.

"Better?" He asked, giving me a knowing look that made me want to punch him. 

Yes, it was better, but it could just as easily be ten times worse. 

"No!" I lied. 

His coldly calm demeanor didn't falter as he stood up from his haunches and slammed the car door shut behind him, making his way to the driver's seat. He got in and then he was driving again, like nothing happened. Like some men didn't just attack us, tried to kill him and abduct me. Like he hadn't just killed all four or five of them –I'm not entirely sure how many there were. Like I wasn't yet again covered in blood and dirt, staining his perfect car...