Authors: Aisha Brooks
Chapter 2: Boom
I guess the one nice thing about having an electric keyed car, is that you can turn it on without being in the car. If I hadn't turned my car on in the driveway as I was walking towards it, I wouldn't be alive. My car exploded in the driveway, injuring one of the maids who was walking towards the house. It could have been me. It should have been me.
John jumped on top of me as soon as the explosion happened. It occurred so quickly I barely had time to register the ground shaking as the car split into pieces that just flew everywhere. I felt shrapnel from the metal shards raining down and cut into some of my skin. He was covering my head and neck with his body, and I suppose he was less worried about my extremities than my brain. Although I'm not sure why, laughing to myself, I thought I had very nice arms and legs that would have been worth protecting. I think I may have been slightly hysterical.
Slightly
.
I'd made a point to torture him over the last couple weeks. I egged him on and poked at him, like a bear in a cage. So far, he'd kept from responding to me on the surface, yet I couldn't seem to resist trying to get a reaction out of him. It was rather shocking to realize that no matter how much you picked at someone, they just ignored you. It made you feel invisible and the more he ignored me, the more I was determined to get a reaction out of him.
My car blowing up was not how I intended to do it though. It shook me to the core and I realized in that moment the seriousness of the situation and the threats to my life. While the concept of actually being in danger had been vague and I could sort of understand the seriousness, having bloody arms and having to pick glass and shrapnel out of my skin and flesh had a better effect on me then someone telling me I might be in danger.
“Are you alright?” He asked me as he got off me and helped me to my feet. He looked me over and must have decided most of my wounds were superficial because he seemed to relax slightly after he examined me.
I wasn't sure entirely, I felt numb and my ears were still ringing from the shock of the explosion. The maid was lying on the ground, unmoving. I moved to look around him and he blocked me. I could get a glimpse of a big chunk of metal sticking out of her back and a pool of blood getting thick on the ground. Guards and people came running around outside and ended up blocking my view of her. John directed me away from the scene, but I had a bad feeling she wasn't as lucky as I was.
“Is she alright?” I finally asked him, looking up at John's face.
When he grimaced and then quietly shook his head, I knew the real answer. There had been a victim in this explosion and while I was lucky it hadn't been me, a real travesty had happened here today. I was angry. On her behalf, on behalf of her family. For myself too. That could have been me, should've been me. The poor maid had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time. This is why families like mine didn't deserve to exist. Innocent people got caught in the crossfire and it just wasn't fair.
“It's okay to feel angry,” John told me, as he checked my arms and shoulder, making sure I didn't have any serious injuries.
I appreciated the gesture, but just being alive was enough to make me feel relieved, the shock and adrenaline from the explosion had me shaking and he took me inside to clean me up. But I still felt guilty. I had lived and my poor maid hadn't. What a mess, and it was my fault.
“I need to talk to your father,” John told me, and looked concerned. “I think you may need to go into hiding for now.”
“Hiding?” I asked him, confused.
John nodded, “I'm going to make arrangements with your father, and then I'm taking you away from here, until it's safe for you to come back. Listen to me Sofie; I don't think I can protect you if they'll bomb your car in your own driveway. Next time it might be a sniper through your window. I won't see it coming. I can't keep you safe in this environment.”
Surprising both of us, I gave him an answer that didn't come with an argument. “If you think it's best.”
John looked surprised for a moment, but then nodded and walked me the rest of the way to my room, one hand on my lower back protectively. In the moment, all I could do is shiver. The pain of the cuts and glass in my arms started to hurt and I cringed.
“I'll send someone to you to clean you up, I won't be gone long, I need to make a few phone calls and talk to your father, okay?” He asked me quietly, and I nodded feeling numb about everything while my brain tried to catch up to what just happened.
I sat on the edge of my bed and started to cry. I wondered if this was how my mother felt before she died, afraid, hurt, scared, realizing that loving my father was a death sentence. I needed a way out. After seeing and experiencing this for real, I realized I couldn't stay.
“John?” I hesitated, realizing that if he told my father what I was about to ask him, I'd never get free.
“Yes Sofie?” He paused in the doorway and turned to look at me.
“After this over, I want to disappear. I'll pay you whatever it takes. I have money saved up, I'm fairly rich in my own right, and my mother left me everything she had. I can pay you a lot to help me escape this life. I can't do this anymore. I already watched my mother die, and seeing that poor maid get killed when it was meant for me, I need to disappear. Please don't tell my father, he'd never allow it.” I searched his face, hoping he'd understand. Praying my gut feeling about him was right.
“When we get you someplace Sofie, we can talk,” he told me. “I will be back soon, back whatever you need for a few weeks to go off the grid and we'll go from there.”
I nodded at him, but I felt my face get wet with tears and I surprised myself. I wasn't usually one to cry, I was the type to yell and lose my temper. I was embarrassed and when he shut the door I grabbed the pillow off my bed and buried my face, the blood from my arms smearing on the white satin.
I stifled them and wiped my eyes with the back of my hand when the maid knocked on the door and came in with a first aid kit.
“I'm so sorry, Maria,” I told her softly when she started picking out the glass and cleaning my arms. The maid who'd died had been her sister. It just wasn't fair. I wanted to hug her, but she seemed to be holding herself together by a thread and I didn't want to be responsible for her falling apart.
“You didn't do it; Isabel knew the risks of working here. We both did. The pay is good, and I know your father will make sure her family is provided for. That's all she would have wanted,” Maria told me as she finished cleaning my wounds and bandaged me up. “John told me to help you pack. I hope you survive this Miss, you're a sweet girl and you've already had too much tragedy in your life.”
“You're right Maria, I have, and I want out. If you were smart, you'd get out too,” I told her bluntly.
“I need the money,” she told me and shook her head as she cleaned up the mess and wrappers from the bandages and alcohol. She pulled some bags out of my closet when she was done and started helping me pack while I waited for John to return.
Chapter 3: Hiding From Evil
John took me to a small cabin in the middle of nowhere. I was lucky it even had working electricity and running water. He made me ditch my cell phone and leave it behind. I was worried about surviving, but walking into the dingy cabin, realizing it was almost the size of my bedroom and bathroom for the entire dwelling, and no cook or maids, I was on my own.
How would I survive if I had to be solely responsible for myself? Yikes, I would need to figure this out if my goal was to go on my own. A normal person took care of themselves. I had to figure out how to do that. I wanted to be normal.
Well, I had John, but he didn't really strike me as the domestic kind of guy, and I didn't know how to cook.
“John, if you expect me to be able to take care of us while we are here, you're in for a world of trouble, my cooking skills are more along the lines of opening a can of soup and burning it in the microwave.” I crossed my arms after dropping one of my bags on the small dingy couch and he brought in the rest of the bags.
“It's a good thing I can cook then,” he told me grinning. He set the bags down and put his hand to my chin and tipped it up so he could look at my eyes. “Don't worry Princess, I promised to keep you safe, and if that means doing some laundry and making sure we have edible food, I can do that.”
“I'm not a Princess!” I huffed but when his thumb rubbed my chin softly, all I could think about was kissing him. I knew it was a mistake, but I leaned forward and pressed my mouth to his before I could stop myself.
Shocked, he stiffened against me, and I wasn't sure if he was going to kiss me back, or reject me. His hand slid around my neck and he kissed me back. His lips pressed hard against mine and then his tongue entered between my lips, deepening the kiss. The tension we'd been feeling spilled into a fiery eruption of passion. I don't know if it was survivals guilt that made me take the leap into dangerous territory, or just the simple fact I wanted him and there was no one here to stop us.
Finally, he put his hands on my shoulder and pushed himself away from me. Feeling hurt, I looked up at him confused. It had just started to feel good and I didn't want him to stop.
“Sofie, it's okay. We need to stop. You've been through a traumatic event; you need time to adjust, to heal. I can't give you the comfort you seek right now; you'll regret it in the morning.” John put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye. “I shouldn't have let myself kiss you back, I'm sorry.”
“You don't understand,” I told him, starting to protest, feeling offended he'd apologized for kissing me back. He needed to understand that it wasn't about the horrible event I'd just been through and witnessed, but more that he was the first person I'd met I actually wanted. For the moments I'd been kissing him, I'd forgotten everything but how he'd made me feel. I wanted that. I wanted him.
I had means, opportunity, and a handsome man in front of me I wanted. He was trying to do the right thing, an honorable thing. He didn't seem like the type of man who was afraid of my father. I didn't know anything about him, other than he'd saved my life and the only reason he was hired by my father was to protect me. I'd assumed he was a hit man, but watching him handle the situation, he moved more like he had military training. Something niggled at me that I couldn't quite place.
“Sofie, I'm going to make us some food, okay?” John told me and then touched my cheek quietly for a moment, making me feel like maybe what I'd felt between us real. “There are two bedrooms, pick the one you want and put your stuff in it. I have a special phone I'll use to contact your father, I'll let him know we arrived safely, and then we can talk. Just me and you, okay?”
I nodded and then went to grab my bags and pick a room realizing that nothing was as it seemed. I wanted answers but I wasn't sure exactly what they were. And I guess the better question was did I
really
want the answers. Was the truth always better? Was being in the dark sometimes easier? Shaking my head, I realized that I would just have to trust my gut and try not to overthink it, but it was hard.
Setting my bags on the first bedroom I found, I smelled cooked meat. It didn't smell horrible, and my stomach was grumbling. Heading back out to the tiny kitchen, I found John flipping hamburgers over in a pan.
“We had food here?” I tried to figure it out since we didn't stop by a store on our way here.
“This is a safe house that I've used in the past. I keep it well stocked in case of emergencies,” John told me as he scooped the food out onto two glass plates and set them on the small wooden table in the kitchen.
I wasn't dumb, and so when I sat down and ate my food, I picked at it. I wanted to know why he had safe houses set up. Watching him eat his food fast, as soon as he was done I pounced.
“So, why would you need a safe house?” I asked him, and then took a bite of my food, watching him as I chewed.
“Work, sometimes when protecting assets, they require safekeeping,” he told me, his tone was funny and I almost smiled when I realized that I was starting to pick up on his subtle cues.
“Asset?” I asked him and started to laugh until I realized he wasn't kidding. “What do you mean asset?”
“How about we talk over a glass of wine later, let's just finish dinner and let me do the dishes, you can unpack, I need to make a couple more phone calls first, then we'll get settled in and have a conversation about everything,” John told me, his gaze was shuttered and I couldn't read him.
I admit I was disturbed by him keeping secrets and while my gut told me I could trust him, I still felt like he had something he needed to tell me or was hiding from me that I should know.
“Fine, I have something else we need to discuss too,” I told him and put the last few bites of meat into my mouth.
“What would that be, princess?” he asked me grinning at me when I glared at him. He's lucky I didn't kick him under the table, he seriously was taunting me with his princess comments and one of these days... Refocusing my attention, I tried to ignore his comments.
“I want you to help me disappear. I cannot go back to my father. I need a fresh start; I cannot be involved in this. Hiding in a cabin in the woods is not good enough for me, I want to really live my life and as long as I'm associated with my father, or people know who I am, I can't.” I sighed and put my fork down. I wasn't sure what it would take to convince him to listen to me, but I'd do whatever it took.
“That's part of the conversation we can have after my phone calls, just be patient with me Sofie.” John took my plate and did the dishes, shooing me away when I tried to help. I wasn't sure if I was amused at his not wanting my help, or irritated that he was implying I was useless. I wasn't useless; I just needed to learn how to take care of myself.
I went and took a quick shower to distract myself and put a towel around my hair, grabbing a bathrobe out of my bags, I put it on, not bothering to get dressed right now. I found the fuzzy pink bunny slippers I'd slipped in my travel bag and put those on my feet. The cabin had hardwood floors and it was freezing my little toes off.
Going back to the living room, I saw John outside on the small porch of the cabin and I went to go outside and hesitated when I heard him on the phone. I didn't mean to intrude or listen into his conversation, but he didn't exactly try to hide it from me either.
I heard snippets of the conversation, and now I was more confused than ever. He was talking about having the asset contained, and safe, and he mentioned my father's name and that he almost had enough details to take him everyone down.
Feeling protective of my father, I grabbed a statue sitting on the end table next to the lamp for self protection and waited for him to come back inside. If he lied to me, I planned on whacking him with it and taking his car and going home. Assuming I could find my way home. His didn't have a built in GPS and since he made me ditch my phone, I was in trouble without GPS.