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Ash
It’s barely six AM as I make my way through the house as quietly as I can. This one is almost as huge as my mom’s and the layout and decor—dark wood and glass accents everywhere—so I have little trouble finding the front door. Funny how just a day ago, I couldn’t escape this neighborhood fast enough and now I can’t wait to get back.
The cool air of early morning hits me full in the face, as does the silence. The picture perfect, happy neighborhood street has not woken up yet.
A banged up, white van with tinted windows is parked at the curb, looking out of place in this picture perfect, happy neighborhood morning.
The window slowly rolls down as I approach it, and Fuse’s face comes into view. Dark stubble covers his chin, and the shadows cast by his prominent brow reach down almost to his lips this morning.
“What the fuck took you so long?” he snaps. “Get in.”
“I figured I had some time before you showed up, so I took care of a few things first,” I say, grinning like an idiot as the memory of those “things” flashes across my mind.
“I bet you did,” he growls.
He starts the van and peels off from the curb, tires screeching.
“How’d you know where I’d be?” I ask as I look for the seatbelt, which I a wasted effort since someone cut it off long since.
He grumbles something under his breath, but doesn’t give me a straight answer.
I’m not usually in the best mood this early in the morning, but it seems that Bea is the best coffee a guy could wish for too. Just one more thing to add to the list.
“Did Cross say what he needs from me?” I ask.
Fuse gives me a contemptuous, withering look then focuses his eyes back on the road. “You’ll find out when you get there.”
And by that he means, “Shut up now.” I’m perfectly happy to oblige him, leaning back and closing my eyes. I don’t fall asleep, I merely doze, and Bea with her milky skin, her soft lips and delicious curves features heavily in the almost dreams I dream. If I think hard, I can even feel her hair tickling my chest as she lays on top of me, her lips locked on mine, out bodies joined.
Fuse breaks hard, and makes a sharp left, the change of direction slamming me against the passenger side window. He couldn’t have ripped me worse from that fantasy if he tried.
We’re bouncing along a forest road now, the trees growing thicker and thicker around us.
“Where the fuck are we?” I ask.
I don’t think I’ve ever been this deep in the woods around my hometown.
“This is a shortcut,” he growls and keeps going.
“To what? Death?”
He chuckles darkly, but says nothing.
And after a couple more minutes, we hit a tree root, or maybe even fallen log that stops us dead.
“What the hell?” he says and gets out of the van.
I climb out too, not liking the fact that we’re now stranded in the middle of the forest on this shortcut of his. I expected to find him at the front of the van, checking what stopped us. But he’s not there.
I lean down to check under the left front tire. Apart from a thick blanket of needles and debris there’s nothing that could’ve stopped the van there.
Fuse is still nowhere in sight as I move to check the right tire. Same thing. Needles and thin branches none even remotely thick enough to stop us cold like this.
“Fuse, where the fuck are?” I yell out, getting only annoyed birds cawing as a response.
Dark thoughts are starting to fill my mind. Shapeless things. Does Cross want me dead? But he’d kill me yesterday if that was so. Only…did he refrain because Lily was there and all that trouble with Bea?
But that makes no sense.
