Chapter 10
1188 Words
Owen is hurt and muddy. He was rolling in dirt, his clothes are soaking wet.
He’s moaning and groaning, but he’s still alive.
I’m driving the luxury car down the rocky terrain in the rain as fast as I can.
“Thanks…” he says and straightens himself on the seat. “You saved my life.”
“Yeah, because I need you to tell me everything,” I say, clutching the steering in fury. “You knew all along that Marcus was alive? You were working with him the whole time?”
"Um... Well, yeah..." he says, "I just wanted to protect you... I'm still protecting you."
"I'm the one that just protected you. You better tell me everything, or I'm stopping this car and leaving you."
I'm driving along the edge of Aldin Town and it's raining. I have no idea where we're at, I just drive as far away from Marcus and his goons as I can. It's the only way to protect Owen.
“I don’t exactly work for him… I was tasked with infiltrating his organization,” he says.
“You were informing on him?” I say…
“I have never told anyone my work, but I specialize in retrieving items of interest. A while back, a client informed me that Marcus Tassoni had an item of interest… A very valuable sequence of numbers… and one thing led to another, and I ended up here in Aldin Town."
I dart my eyes at my book bag with the novel and yellow bookmark. Could that be the unique sequence of numbers his clients are after?
I drive the luxury car up the mountains of Aldin Town as the rain pours down. The windshield wipers are moving back and forth as we drive in the silence as the rain crushes in the car.
He grabs his stomach, clutching it in pain.
“I doubt Marc carries a first aid kit.” I say.
He opens the glove compartment. There’s a silver gun with shiny steel and a quarter bottle of whiskey…. And stacks of money.
“Seems they were ready for business.” He says reaching into the glove compartment. He takes the whiskey and sips it from the bottle. Then his other hand reaches for the gun.
He checks and sees that there’s ammunition and nods in recognition of the cold steel.
“This gun could’ve killed me if you hadn’t saved me.”
“I just need to get answers. But for now, we need to go somewhere safe. Those guys are going to follow us.”
“How was I part of your mission?” I ask.
“I was told by Marcus to keep an eye on you after I found you here. He had been looking for you… but for some time, I told them I hadn’t found you until they came that night and followed us… They were just seeing us getting to know each other…”
“Why didn’t you tell me? What didn’t you tell them you’d found me?”
“I’m sorry…I wanted to say it all to you…” He says… “I wanted to tell Marcus that I’d found you too but… I started falling for you and it all just changed my mission. I thought you were already living a happy life. With Marcus, in his world, you’re always going to have danger and chaos.”
“But you don’t get to choose for me…” I say.
“I guess some part of me really just wanted us to get away from it all…I am sorry.”
I let the apology hang in the air as I drive through the rocky road in the rain.
He speaks to me again as I drive, Every word is pouring out of him as he takes more of the whiskey. I feel like I understand him more. But I still have questions.
“Who is your client?” I say.
“That’s the irony. I hardly know my clients and they all rmain anonymous.”
“Could it be Marcus?”
“Maybe…but it’s unlikely. It’s probably someone who wants to take Marcus down. I won’t know anything for sure unless I can get to my computer. I need to find out what’s going on.”
“A computer? We’re in the middle of Aldin Town…In the middle of the mountains and my crazy ex, who you work for, is tying to kill us and you’re trying to play computer games?”
“I need to find out who the client is and what they want from me.” He takes another sip, “Thank you for saving me Clara.” He says using the fake name….
“How are you going to keep calling me that when you know my real name is Sophia?”
“I guess, a part of me will always know you as Clara.” He says taking another sip to numb the pain. “We are rich now but we need to get to my lake house…”
“I thought you wanted a laptop or something.” I say.
“Yeah, everything I need is at the Lakehouse… It’s a bit far from here, we might have to find a place in the woods to sleep because the river might be flooded in the rain, and with this car, we won’t pass through.”
“We’e not sleeping in the bush are we?” I say.
“We can’t risk it. There’s nowhere else we can go in Aldin Town…. And we can’t leave because of the rain.”
“We may just have to hide in plain sight. I say as I drive to the hotel and park the car at the back where nobody will see it.
I pull in at the motel. It’s at the edge of the town, a space solemnly visited.
“Do you think this is a good idea?” He says.
“We’ll just take turns watching until we have to go in the morning. We both need to shower and clean. We’ll be no good if we’re cold and sick. Besides we’re rich remember?”
I take the extra cash we saw in the glove compartment. I pay in cash…. I park the car in the basement and we go inside the motel room.
When we reach the motel room door, the both of us reach for the door at the same time, just on time for the both of us to catch sparks of the romance that we left lingering.
I feel the hope of love that I had for him that turned to bitterness, or something more potent when I reach for his hand.
He looks at me and sees the woman he’s risked so much for, someone he feels he should defend and protect.
As I stare at the door, the dynamics of our love come to full view. I know that anything can happen behind closed doors.
Being alone with him is something that I’ve always wanted but knowing that Marcus is alive changes everything.
- Writer
