It was a drawl on what shocked her into consciousness. Her mind registered the massive boom first, but the world shaking under her could have very well done it too. She spewed what to her was the lewdest curses she knew at whoever it was but it translated into a mumbled incoherent groan.
“You’re not in a coma. Good. Get up.”
Ah, the loud individual had a voice now. A booming voice that she tried to swear at again but just became more frustrated that it wasn’t coming out of her mouth in the desired words. Or any words for that matter.
“Move it, darlin’. I’d say twelve hours is more than enough beauty sleep.”
Twelve hours?! It takes exactly fifteen minutes to mobilize an armed unit and another four hours to find anybody, anywhere. Twelve was unacceptable. The demented freak should have been thrown back into his cage by now, no excuses.
The sudden military information flooding her head brought the face that matched the mean, loud voice to focus to her mind. She tried to sit up but someone must have filled her head with lead because it was nearly too much for her delicate neck to handle. To make it harder the softness under her cheek refused to relinquish its hold on her. If she tried to lift up an inch, it followed her, adding even more weight to the balloon attached to her.
“I’m not gonna tell you again, kid.”
Suddenly a cold shock hit her feet and the chill came all the way up to her knees.
“Fuck ya,” she managed the actual words, though they were weak and jumbled. Gathering all her strength together she pushed her body up, away from the softness. Momentarily confused she looked down at where her head had laid. It didn’t make any sense; there was nothing soft in the mustang. Once the dizziness stilled and the nausea snuck down to a more acceptable level in her stomach she opened her eyes. The first thought that came to her was how the hell did he manage to get a bid ol’ bed in the car?
Slowly the room around her went from dancing and fuzzy to still and solid. Except for her partner, who with the pace he was walking back and forth in front of her was making the nausea harder and harder to control.
She had to get him out of her sight before it was too late and looked down to the bed instead. She narrowed her eyes at the stain on the pillow. Slowly she pulled off one of her gloves and lightly touched the side of her jaw. Well that explained why she stuck to the pillow case.
“Um, sugah, why tha hell am ah bleedin’?”
He finally stopped moving and looked at her. “You don’t remember?”
She shook her head and quickly regretted when the world seemed to go upside down around her.
“You hit your head,” he answered her and went back to his pacing around the room.
“Oh what?” she huffed, noticing the sticky path went all the way down the side of her face and her neck. “A god damn cement block?”
“Does it matter? Just get the fuck out of the bed; we’ve been here too long as it is.”
Ignoring him, she looked down at her shirt and sure enough the path extended all the way down, making an obvious blotch on her chest. “Ack! Ya jus’ let me bleed all ova mah self all night?!”
“You don’t like to me touched,” he reminded her as he came out of the bathroom, shoving tiny little bottles into a bag.
“Well ah can’t exactly walk around like this either, can ah? Ya gonna give me one of ya shirts to wear?” She began crawling slowly towards the end of the massively large bed. She didn’t remember what happened last night but she was slightly unnerved about why she would deserve a big, soft mattress.
He turned around and dug in one of the many bags he had lying by the heavily bolted door. Biting her lip, her head tilted slightly as she studied. For the life of her she could come up with nothing but pure talent. How else could someone bend over in jeans that tight?
When he straighten up and turned around her barely had enough time to react when a white ball came flying at her.
“Here, you can wear this,” he grunted.
She unwrapped the white mass to be met by a giant tire with screech marks and flamboyant red lettering spelling out ‘Rally Tire’.
He wasn’t sure what kind of reaction he wanted out of her when he gave her the shirt. Wide-eyes, guilty looking frown, something like that. Not a damn coy little smirk. He was annoyed by it, but maybe it was too much for him to expect a conscience from her when he had none. Scratch that, he had one. There was no way he’d wear a shirt with pride of a man he killed. Not that he *knew* she killed him, of course.
“Do ah get a shower or jus’ a splash on the face?” She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout. The innocent expression made an interesting dichotomy to the bright maroon dried blood smeared all the way down her face. He had to fight a smile himself; it took quite a woman to pull that off. And blood smeared innocence looked perfect on her.
“Ya,” he relented, turning away from her. After all, he did promise, just because she couldn’t remember didn’t change that. “Just hurry up. Ten minutes then I’m leaving you.”
She winked at him and swung her legs over the side of the bed, her feet dangling a good foot away from the floor. With a quick little hop the distance was made up. She stood there as the room spun around her and suddenly flipped. Before she could move to make it stop pain shot into her knees and crushed fabric was under her palms.
“Shit, you okay?” He kneeled down beside her, wrapping a hand around her upper arm.
With him supporting her weight she lifted her other hand up and pushed it onto her forehead, trying to still the movement around her. “Yeah..yeah, ahm fine. Jus’ got up a bit fast, ah guess. Hell, ah hope whateva ah drank last night ah had a good time.”
He pulled her up by her arm and held her while she wavered again on her feet. “You sure you can make it?”
“Sugah, ah ain’t eva sure of anythin’,” she giggled and pulled away from him slightly, carefully testing her weight.
He shook his head and let go of her. Another one of her damn twisted answers. He didn’t understand what was so hard about it. Someone asks you what’s two plus two you answer ‘four’, not ‘what would you like two plus two to be’, or something fucked up like that. It doesn’t matter what you want it to be, it’s just four, get over it.
“Okay,” she sighed, smiling at him. “As easy as Appalachian moonshine, right?” She took the first step carefully, both of them watching her feet. When the next three steps were successful as well he was comfortable with getting out of her shadow.
He grabbed the first few bags at the door to take them to the car when something tumbled out of one of them. Picking up the plastic bag filled with the nearly the entire contents of the bathroom he called to her. She stopping in the doorway and turned around.
“You might need some of this,” he tossed it to her. The small bag fumbled in her grasp before finally falling to her feet.
She bent down and snatched it up. “Can’t walk in a god damn straight line an’ he keeps thrown’ shit at me.”
“Hey, less bitchin’ more movin’,” he interrupted her mumbling.
She straightened up and the nausea in her stomach sprang to her head again, making her grab the doorjamb to keep from falling over. Waiting a minute she gave him a “bite me, asshole” before slamming the door shut.
Twenty minutes later the car was completely loaded and he was outside leaning against the balcony railing, fuming and puffing away at a cigar. As he figured it there were two possibilities. Either she fell down again and busted her head against the toilet or something. Or she was purposely trying to piss him off. He hoped for her health she was passed out and bleeding on the floor.
Everything was just some sick fucking game to her and here he was more of a nervous mess with each passing second. It already was taking all his concentration to keep the claws in and not spring at each shut of a car door by one motel go-er or another. He could feel the metal inside him, slightly vibrating in anticipation. The cigar helped, always did. It soothed over those glass sharp nervous and reflexes. Hell, it probably saved more than a few dumb fuckers that tried to come up to him at the wrong time over the years. But he wasn’t sure anything could save his ‘angel’ at this point if she came out of there whistling Dixie or some shit like that
Another five minutes went passed as his cigar was long gone. Just as he was about to storm in a flash some claws at her for motivation the door opened and honey and cinnamon invaded his senses before his eyes even saw her. He sighed, somehow slightly more in peace. It seemed like it had been forever since he smelled that. At first it was a welcomed change to gunpowder, now it was so much better than the irony blood and clay dirt that he’d smelled for him was way too long.
“Hey, sugah, ya ready?” Her hair was wet and pulled tightly back, the two streaks making a white skunk stripes across the top of her head. She smiled big at him, oh so innocent. And the ends of the too big for her white t-shirt was tied in a knot around her waist, a sign against that for which only he would understand. Well, maybe him and another dude, assuming again he wasn’t dead somewhere.
“Am I ready?! I told you ten minutes. What the fuck part of ten minutes don’t you get?” he growled, snatching the small and much lighter zip-lock bag out of her hand.
He was half way down the stairs before she could open her mouth. She ran after him, making sure to have a hold on the railing the whole time. “Ahm sorry! Ah had a lota disinfectin’ ta do. There was mah head, which ya gonna have ta tell me that story sometime. Then mah arm where that bullet cut me. Ah had a nasty one on mah knee, ah figure from when ah hit tha buffalo..... Wait, where tha fuck are ya goin’? Where’s tha car?”
She stopped her rambling to notice he was walking no where near a busted candy apple mustang. In fact, glancing around the parking lot it was no where in sight.
“I got us a new car,” He answered without turning back to her. When he stopped and took a set of keys out of pocket she felt very sick again.
He opened the back door to a rusted up, dark silver pick-up with a chipped incomplete blue stripe down the side. On top of the horrible nineteen seventies monstrosity was an even older camper, whose yellow paint job was clashing in near obscenity to the truck it was attached to.
“Ya paid for this piece a shit?” She gawked.
“No,” was his only answer as he made his way to the driver’s side door. He opened it and everyone within a mile knew about it from the loud, moaning hinges.
She gave the big machine one more long look before rolling her eyes and moving to open the passenger door. The obnoxiously loud groan wasn’t a surprise and she took her time opening it, leveling her eyes with his as she played it out as long as it could muster the noise.
“Just get in,” he snapped at her.
Her reply was a loud ‘huff’ but she obeyed and jumped into the car. She pulled the door shut, then again a second time, and finally the third time it remained closed.
“Oh, nice,” she rolled her eyes. “Ya stole this?? Ya could have any car for free and ya stole *this*??”
He ignored her and turned the key to start the car. It coughed and puttered and she matched it with sound effects of her own, for which he shot her a dirty look. But she just smirked at him and went on coughing each time the engine did, with that evil little smile on her face.
Finally it roared to life with a loud ‘boom’ that made both of them jump. He let it run for a second and it slowly calmed down, until it practically purred.
“Ya did a big favor for whateva overall wearin’ bugger ya stole this from, sugah.” She turned around and eyed the back, into the camper. Groaning at the sight she turned back around. “Ah’ve neva seen a bigga waste of ceran wrap mah entire life. That is what this is made out a, right? Used ceran wrap?”
“Listen,” he pulled out another cigar from his mutilated jacket. His nerves were beginning to shake again as the care pulled away from the motel. “The mustang was tore to shit and They know what it looks like now. This gets better gas then the mustang, plus I put five gallons in the back so we won’t have to stop for a while. And some food and shit, so we don’t have to stop for that. And I figured one of us could sleep back there while the other one drives, put some real distance between us and Them.”
“Sleep back there? With the *five* gallons of gasoline?” She gawked at him.
He turned his head away from the road to look at her. “You could get out right here. No one’s making you come,” he answered her. The words seemed like he was concerned for her or some shit, giving her a way out. But there was a distinctive challenge in his voice, one she did not miss.
She giggled and leaned further back into her seat. The noise, the ban of his existence, was too much for his nerves and the claws sprang free. Luckily they did no damage to the car, but he was slightly disappointed that the girl didn’t even jump.
“Sugah, ya got five god damn cans of gasoline in tha back of a highly flammable piece a shit and ya smoke like a chimney. Not ta mention ah *seriously* doubt ya gonna be out runnin’ anybody in this. Ya need a guardian angel now more than eva.”
They drove in silence for a little while after that. Mainly because he couldn’t argue with it, and if she was the only one willingly to take the job then maybe he just had to accept that. When he looked over to her again and she was already half asleep, her hands clasped together protecting her head from the window.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
I know, updating later than I said I would. REALLY sorry. Calm before storm kinda thing again, although, with these two its always a storm I guess...