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My stomach growls as a gas station sign looms, letting me know that the next turn off represents food. Hunger is one of my least favorite kinds of suffering. It is so unnecessary, and it weakens the body. I chuckle to myself as I remember the wasting of the previous three attempts at breakfast. To lose one set of pancakes was misfortune, but three batches? That was carelessness.
I look over at Elise as I pull into the parking lot. She’s still fast asleep. It would be a pity to wake her, but it would probably be madness to leave her completely unattended. It won’t take long to order breakfast, and I do want her to sleep… I tap my finger against the steering wheel. Decisions, decisions.
Elise
I wake up in a strange car, in a parking lot I don’t recognize.
The events of the morning come flooding back to me, feeling stranger than ever. Did any of that happen? Am I having some kind of breakdown? The latter option feels like it’s more of a possibility. It’s more likely I went mad and ended up stealing a car and passing out in a parking lot than I was attacked in my apartment and then again in a hotel room, and…
“What the fuck!”
I try to get out of the car only to discover that I have been chained to the steering wheel. The keys have been taken, and there’s a note down in the little center console from the man of what I thought must have been my dreams. It’s written in a bold and scrawling hand. “BE BACK SOON, DARLING.”
Darling. I’ve never had anybody call me darling before. The word hits different when you’re chained to a car, though. Not exactly as romantic as it might otherwise have been.
Suddenly, he’s back.
“Sorry, took longer than I thought. Pancakes are not that hard to make,” he says, swinging a long leg into the car. He’s wearing ripped jeans, but I don’t think they’re the pre-distressed kind. This is a man who rips jeans like he rips people. He’s a syrup smelling, ultra-hot, super dangerous, absolute maniac and now he is sitting less than a foot from me, offering me pancakes in a cardboard box plate, replete with syrup. There’s a wooden fork with it, flimsy but more than up to the task of handling pancakes.
“Are you going to uncuff me?”
Cosmos glances over at the cuffs as if he’s noticing that they’re a problem for the first time.
“Oh. Yes. Sure. Unless you like them?” He finishes the question with a rakish wink.
I am not amused.
“No, Cosmos — and that’s obviously not your real name. I don’t like being chained to a steering wheel while I’m asleep. What if something happened? What if a car hit this car and I couldn’t get out and I fucking burned alive because you’re a possessive maniac?”
He gives me a long, serious look. I’m waiting for him to tell me he’s going to spank me again for disrespect or something like that.
“You’re right,” he says, reaching for his keys. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful. I don’t ever want to be the one who puts you in danger.”
It’s almost sweet, the way he uncuffs me quickly, a look of real shame on his handsome face.
“Here,” he says, handing me my little pancake tray. “I know you don’t like breakfast, but it’s closer to lunchtime now, so you should be good to eat.”
“Thank you,” I say, rubbing my wrist where the steel sat against my skin.
We eat. Or, he eats. I pick. I’m trying to come to terms with everything that just assaulted me in my memories. There was so much blood. My blood. Other people’s blood.
“I don’t think I can eat this,” I apologize.
“What’s wrong?”
“I just feel a little queasy.”
His concern is genuine, even if it comes from a crazy place.
“What else do you want? A salad? A sandwich? Crackers? Juice? Rice?”
“I’m okay. I don’t usually eat until dinner time.”
He frowns. “That’s not healthy.”
“You just wolfed down six gas station pancakes, don’t talk to me about healthy.”
“True,” he admits. “But you are going to eat something at our next stop.”
“Deal,” I say.
He starts the car and we are off again on the open road. The autobahn is a thing of beauty, wide open stretches of road that seem to go on forever. I rest my head against the back of the seat and surrender to the madness, just for a little bit. This is going to be a long drive to…
“Where are we going?”
“A safe place. It’s like an ancestral home for people like me. You will be safe there, with the other wives.”
“Oh, so there are other kidnapped women?”
“No. You’re the only one who has technically been kidnapped, far as I’m aware. I heard Thor has found some female to entertain his hammer.”
