Drifter On The Horizon

by Travis Pasch

CHAPTER TEN

  A Night in the Desert

  The hero kneels atop the town's bank. The hot desert air blows across his skin, the dust breaches his eyes, yet he doesn't move. He knows he has to remain perfectly still to catch his target, the youngest of the Rouwling boys. The man has spread rumors far and wide about his eagle eyes; the hero doesn't really believe them but remains absolutely still all the same. He keeps his right eye fixed down the sight of his old rifle, surveying the small town below, where only a few dozen buildings greet his eyes. He knows the man is supposed to pass through here at some point today, but he has no idea when. He props the large rifle up on his knee to help keep the weight off of his arms and sustain his endurance for as long as he can. The bright sun is becoming a problem as it starts to burn his retinas and make them water uncontrollably, sunspots are building at record pace. He almost gives in and blinks from the pain but just then he sees his mark ride into town with a new partner. The outlaws are easy to spot, as they're exceptionally tall men who've been on the road all their lives and never done one ounce of good between the two of them. They're both wearing large brimmed hats, flowing coats, and a patch over their left eyes, not because of a loss of sight but because it helps them shoot better, keeping out all distractions and training their right ones to become all the more dominant.

  He debates for a moment whether he should take them both out with the rifle or try and kill one of them and duel the second. He loves nothing better than to kill a man who thinks he's better than him in a duel. The hero considers for a moment what he's doing here; after selling the rich woman's carriage he could almost retire, but something deep within keeps driving him to dispatch the myriad of outlaws residing in the west. He has no choice but to keep going until he's dead among the dust, laying side by side with his victims. Shaking off the ridiculous ideas of retirement and death, he adjusts his sights to his initial target and aims down the iron, taking into account the desert wind and the speed of the outlaw's riding. The kick of the gun hits his shoulder before the sound lets anyone know he's fired. The deadly bullet smashes the first man off his horse. The blood trail flowing from the man lets the hero know he's successful. The second man leaps off his horse and uses its large body for cover, knowing a similar fate will soon befall him.

  "Come out here and fight me like a man you coward!" the outlaw yells in desperation. Instead of responding the hero readjusts his sights and takes aim for the outlaw's leg. Once again the bullet strikes true and the outlaw falls to the ground, cursing a storm as blood starts to spurt from his now shattered leg. Both the horses dart from the insanely loud gun. All the townspeople have abandoned the streets and are nowhere to be seen or heard.

  The hero climbs methodically down the small bank upon which he took his vantage point, keeping his rifle strapped to his back. He walks slowly but eventually comes to stand directly in front of the writhing outlaw. The hero looks at him with hatred for everything he's done to so many innocent people and feels no sympathy for him. The man reaches for his gun but the hero is too fast, he pulls his pistol first and shoots the man's gun from his rough hands, blowing off his pointer finger in the process. Again the man screams out more curses as blood is flows freely from his multiple gun wounds.

  "I'm sorry but time consumes us all," the hero says before dispatching the man by shooting him straight through his un-patched eye. He looks up to the sun and takes a deep breath, happy to be alive and all the more rich. Now just one more man to go and this part of his journey will be settled. Then he might be able to find some peace back in Arizona. Unfortunately, the one thought that always pervades his mind is the truth that he let an innocent man die in his stead, he tries to convince himself that one man's death is worth the amount of good he's doing...

  Zale awakes with a start to the sound of tapping. He groggily looks out his window, a glowing finger taps on his car. His heart stops, he almost convinces himself his tired mind must be dreaming, sadly the situation has all the unfortunate tinges of reality. The woman looks at him with expectant eyes, almost like she wants him to get out of the car and talk to her. Instead of obliging her he freaks out and jumps into the driver's seat and starts the car. The glowing woman puts her hands up and shrugs her shoulders.

  "Oh no, oh no... oh no," he says to himself in his unmoving car.

  "Are you serious?" she questions, her glowing form inches closer to his driver side window. An itching in his foot prays for the sweet release slamming the gas pedal would offer, he momentarily resists the urge but doesn't quell it fully. Sweat builds on every surface of his body, all his random fears coalesce into this single moment of panic, nearly shutting him down completely.

  "Are you going to say anything? Or just live in my parking lot forever?" she yells through his rolled up window. He wants to tell her he's going to live here until his untimely end but he works up the courage to respond otherwise, as his window grates downward.

  "Sorry... I uh, well you know," is all he can manage.

  "What do I know?"

  "It's just well, you're so pretty and, and," he stumbles.

  "And...?" she urges.

  "I was just too nervous to talk to you, but, but your, uh, your presence made me feel secure," he spouts, immediately regretting every word of it.

  "That's... odd," she says, a long pause filled with nothing but his car's rattling and whirring commences. He furiously tries to come up with anything to say.

  "Sorry, I'll leave," he whispers in defeat, this woman makes him so uncomfortable the comfort she brings can't be worth the pain.

  "I didn't say that, meet me back here at eight tonight," she says and leaves without another word. He replays the encounter in his mind a thousand times, every time he sees his same blundering, yet somehow the outcome he desired took form. Did he imagine that answer? Either way he'll be here at eight o'clock to test what actually happened. He didn't even get her name.

  Despite the oddity of it all his stomach whines in hunger. First and foremost he needs to get something to eat. Buoyed by his unexpected success he feels the zeal to stop by and get a coffee from Azelia, it may distract his mind for a moment. His time spent with Azelia has proved illuminating, yet he still can't commit to the idea of her, much like he can't commit to basically anything. His cheeks burn red with embarrassment out of the blue, the idea of the glowing woman makes his failures come to light in a way never before revealed to him, and there are plenty of them. He pushes his head out of the window, letting the cool air calm his raging thoughts.

  __________

  She admires her new camp site for its simplicity and beauty, but its seclusion is its true allure. She knows Clint has probably stopped by her old camp more than once, trying to find any shred of evidence of her new whereabouts. She's taken the most circuitous routes to get here every day, he couldn't have possibly followed her. Even if he were to somehow, by a disastrous miracle, find this campground, the gargantuan trees would help protect her from being fully discovered. The breeze blowing through those massive trees makes her think of home, and when her and Clint were inseparable. She imagines herself falling up and down on the swings by her old house and the feel of his hands pushing her ever higher. At the time she would have done anything to start a new life away from her drug addict parents, but still a forgotten innocence reigned over the whole thing.

  Her eyes begin to water as she thinks back to a time when everything seemed so innocent and running through a field of sunflowers was all she needed to feel happy. She feels more threatened now by Clint than she ever did by her parents. Sitting on the hood of her car reminds her of when the two of them first met. She was sitting on her hood outside of school and he came right up next to her and didn't say a word, he just sat there and looked at her. He once told her he was too nervous to speak and all he could do to keep from running away was sit there and look into her eyes.

  She gets off the hood of her car and rests on the bench in the middle of the rather large campsite with nothing in it other t
han her small orange tent in the left corner surrounded by trees. She puts her head in her hands and tries to think back on what's happened in the last few weeks and tries to imagine a better future with Zale, one where no matter what happens she isn't running for her life. It's just some fairy tale that every girl has at some point only to have their dreams crushed by the weight of the world and the black gaping maw commonly known as time.

  Sitting with her head like this brings back the dark times when she lived at home and all the reasons why she left. Her parents coming home at four or five in the morning, wired on meth, ready to explode. The fight that always seemed to follow, no matter what was going on, every scenario invariably seemed to have the potential for blood. She feels a twinge of regret for making Clint come here with her; he comes from a good family and was on his way to take over their business and be a successful man in the community. Now he's a traffic cop who hates his life. She knows he's too proud to move back and make amends with everyone, or to jealous of anything she might ever have with another man.

  She wants nothing more than to just lie down and relax but she feels too lonely to do anything but lay her head down and cry, just like she did when her parents were fighting, only this time it's her who's the screwed up one. She tries to remind herself that when Clint and her moved here he turned crazy and she couldn't live with him anymore; it will eventually be the best for everyone.

  She brings her head back up and wipes the still fresh tears from her face, takes a deep breath, and gets to making lunch.

  __________

  He sits stiller than a statue, the air careens against his body, the sudden burst of coolness makes all the hairs on his neck stand to attention. Clint hopes Zale is oblivious enough to never notice the small G.P.S. unit he put under his front mat. For some reason the door was open and he didn't even have to break his window but he left a few thumbtacks behind in his seat as a parting gift. He will follow him tonight to do some recon, a vagabond such as him must engage in some unsavory acts and he plans on catching him committing one of them. Maybe he can prove to be such a thorn in Zale's side he'll give up on Azelia and she can suffer an ounce of the pain she's inflicted on him.

  In the last few weeks he's been unsuccessful in trying to break the pair up, or accomplishing much of anything. Every day the silence within his apartment makes the gulf within his mind fall deeper into the center of despair, every waking second spent alone brings his hatred for all things to a raging boil. He pushes his mind back into the maw of reality. He has plenty of time left in the day before his recon will start, his remaining time will be best spent at the canyon. Maybe today will be the day he builds up the courage to just jump off and end his suffering.

  His body drives him to the canyon from muscle memory without him even realizing it. He closes his eyes and starts walking to the edge of the cliff, he likes to see how close he can get to the precipice without looking. He opens his eyes after many blind steps, only ten inches of real estate rest between him and the edge, he looks down yearning for the canyon below him. It isn't very grand but it's still one of his favorite places to come when he is supposed to be pulling ticket duty. He thinks again about just going home and mending things with his parents, but he doubts they would take him back unless he came begging and he won't beg to anyone. Maybe it would be best to leave Azelia to her life and let this new guy bring her ruin, maybe his family would understand. His parents forbade him to go with Azelia, "the drug addicts' daughter"- they foresaw the coming catastrophe. Time has proven them correct, and admitting that fact brings him within inches of self destruction. He is now nothing but a shell of the man he was, he gave up his entire being to satisfy her desires.

  He spreads his arms and tilts his head back looking to the sky, some clouds are finally rolling in and the birds are circling above him. He wonders if they can sense his imminent downfall or if there's just some dead animal in the valley catching their interest. He can't help but think that they're just waiting for him to jump. There's a chance he's even more desperate than the man who jumped off this same spot last fall.

  Instead of jumping he just puts his arms back to his sides and drops his head. He turns around to get back to work, feeling defeated. There are so many things mounting on his shoulders that he has handled incorrectly. If only regrets could be lucrative.

  __________

  Jade feels the pedal beneath her foot press to the ground, she doesn't remember telling her body to do that. She feels more nervous than she has in a while. She's actually questioning her own judgment, for the first time in her entire journey. Jade looks at her speedometer and realizes she is already going twenty five over the speed limit and that number is still climbing, maybe she should slow down and try to make her mind do the same as well. If she has to make one sacrifice to save her work, it would be more than worth it.

  She turns the music down on the radio and takes a few short inhales to keep her from slamming the gas pedal again. She's starting to wonder if she is no better than the people she hunts every day. Can she sacrifice an unnecessary pawn to keep saving many from the ravishes of the evil men she hunts? Would she be diminished or emboldened by the slaying of a sheep?

  She pulls into her complex and feels the weight of so many decisions coming down on her. She parks her car gracefully and sits contemplating unknown variables, prying to find an answer to a problem without fully understanding the question, hoping the clear answer will come to her and make everything straightforward and righteous again. She's normally so set on her path, and positive she's doing the right thing that a second guess would never be needed. Everything was going so well, until this idiot decided to take up residence in her vicinity, forcing their presence upon one another.

  She slams her head on the wheel, the resulting honk makes her jump up, gripping her chest.

  "Damn!" she screams slamming the wheel to create another honk, a woman walking to her car across the lot stares at her.

  "Sorry," she apologizes. She wants to go up to her room and sleep but she's too nervous and undecided to move a centimeter. The question really boils down to one thing, can she kill an innocent man? Her thoughts race through all the faces of the men she has killed in the past few months and wonders if she was right and if they were truly the evil men she thought they were. If she knew this man was truly bad then she could find it in her heart to put him in the ground somewhere, despite the consequences she may suffer. She just isn't sure enough that he is, still, if he proves to be a problem she will take care of him. The idea of becoming like all the evil men she's killed makes the back of her throat salivate and almost forces her to vomit.

  Maybe if she avoids the man tonight he will leave her alone for good, but that outcome is near impossible. Why should she feel bad about this? She has done more good in the past few months than most people do in their entire lives, if she has to make one sacrifice to keep her good deeds going, then so be it. She doesn't want to become the evil she so vehemently abhors. She leans back in her seat and figures she'll just have to wait for tonight and let it all play out before she decides.

  She finally gets out of her car and heads for her apartment. She jolts up the stairs trying to avoid her old Vietnamese neighbor, Ms. Ngyun. She is always hounding her and calling her Mister, she's not so sure that the woman really understands English. She is always asking her to do some stupid task and today she flat out doesn't feel like doing it, if only she could work up the audacity to kill the old lady and shut her mouth for good. She dashes up the first flight of stairs in just a few bounds.

  "Mister, Mister!" Ms. Nguyn yells, just like clockwork, every damn day.

  "Sorry, I really have to go," Jade responds. She starts to head away from the old decrepit woman standing in her doorway but stops and turns and says, "It's Miss, how many times do I have to tell you that?"

  "It's important though Mister," Ms. Nguyn responds. Jade lets out an exasperated huff and turns around as she continues her way up to the third floor. r />
  __________

  Seven thirty has come all too fast for Zale, his confused brain has yet to accept the fact that he's seeing the glowing woman in half an hour. He has been dreading eight o'clock all day, just the idea of an encounter with her has caused irreparable anxiety to course through him, even though he's wanted to experience her closeness for what feels like years. Sweat sticks thick to his skin, humidity has settled with a vengeance on the still night. His mouth stings with mouthwash and his armpits tingle with fresh and unused deodorant. He almost feels bad for Azelia, because if things start working with the glowing woman, whose name he still doesn't know, he will have no choice but to break things off with her, despite their enjoyable encounters. Just the idea of dumping her brings instant remorse that tickles his tongue, while the idea of the glowing woman elates his soul. His conscious is only balanced by his boundless waiting joy for the night.

  He's getting way too ahead of himself, he doesn't even know anything about the glowing woman. There's an inkling of a chance she's an evil witch not worth the precious hours he's wasting on her. He spits out the mouthwash he's been gargling by the side of his car, he's in the park right next to the lake, the lengthening stubble on his face proves a shave is in order. One of the downfalls of living in your car is getting fresh isn't always the easiest of tasks. He shaves quickly while his face is still damp. He looks out across the large lake, a strange feeling overtakes him the instant the glowing woman loses her position in his mind, like there is something inherently wrong with what is about to happen. A light across the lake pushes her back to the forefront of his thoughts again, and his worries drift into obscurity.

  He stands up and rinses his mouth one last time for good measure. He shakes all his limbs out and gets back into his car. He sits down and screams, a thumbtack juts from his rear end. He imagines blood flowing from the wound. He stands up and brushes it off him. Luckily it didn't penetrate deep enough to make him bleed, the scare was worse than the pain. Why in the world are there thumbtacks in his car? A vibration pulses against his leg and frightens him again, this shock is just his cell phone ringing. He looks at the number and realizes it's Azelia, he's not sure if he wants to answer it. He does after short debate.

  "Hello?" he says into the receiver.

  "Hey," she yelps, too loud, he turns down the volume on his cell to save his eardrums more pain.

  "Hey what's up?"

  "Not much, just wonderin' if you wanted to do something tonight. I could use some cheering up."

  "Wish I could, I'm meeting a friend who's only in town for tonight," he lies.

  "Oh... o.k." she says, sounding obviously defeated.

  "What happened today? I stopped by your work and you weren't there."

  "Nothing really, the day just got to me."

  "I'm free tomorrow," he says without thinking about it, and in some ways regrets it.

  "Cool, when do you wanna meet up?"

  "Depends, when are you working?" he asks, leaving himself some room to back out if necessary.

  "The night shift unfortunately."

  "Can I pick you up when you get off?" he asks, his natural inclination to please everyone takes over his better judgment, because if the glowing woman needs him he'll be there.

  "Yeah that works, I'll see you then."

  "I'll catch ya later," he says, feeling stupid almost immediately for his lame attempt at coolness, a quality he doesn't possess in the slightest.

  "Bye," she says and the other end goes dead, he holds the phone to his ear for just a few more seconds before snapping back. He shoves the phone into his pocket and starts his car, he has to focus on tonight.

  Zale pulls into the woman's apartment complex, she is already waiting there by her car for him. She waves him to park into the spot next to her, he obliges and steps out of his car slowly after his brakes screech the vehicle to a full stop. The night does nothing to halt her blazing glow, he resists the urge to don his sunglasses.

  "Hey... I, well you know. Um, what's the plan?" he stumbles.

  "Get in the car and I'll tell you," she says, gesturing to the passenger side door.

  "I, I don't think I got your name before."

  "You don't think so?"

  "No," he says, his skin tickles with fresh sweat running off his forehead. He gets in her car, still waiting and oddly patient for a response.

  "You're a piece of work, you know that?" she states and enters the driver's side.

  "I've been told. So... Your name? I'm Zale, by the way," he states without much delay.

  "Jade, happy?" she says with a smirk.

  "Of course, where we going, if you don't mind my asking?" he asks as they pull out of the parking lot.

  "Somewhere I want to go. Do you normally talk this much?"

  "Only when I'm nervous."

  "Do I make you nervous?"

  "Obviously," he responds. A long stretch of unremarkable road falls beneath them and the second hand ticks hundreds of times before she speaks again. The long pause nearly forces him into cardiac arrest.

  "Have you ever been in a fight?" she asks, the question takes him off guard but talking will help him to settle his nerves.

  "I did some wrestling and martial arts back in high-school," he responds and stares straight ahead.

  "I mean, any real fights?" she inquires, turning a sharp right onto a deserted highway.

  "Yeah, who hasn't?" he answers, this feels more like one of his ridiculous dreams than real life, flooding serotonin rushes his mind into a momentary euphoria.

  __________

 

  Clint feels a blaring rush tonight, he doesn't get this feeling often enough, maybe he should take up skydiving. The chase comes with such a strong adrenaline injection it almost gives him a hard on, he imagines the feeling akin to a hunter stalking its prey. Clint hopes, no, he knows he can find something good by following Zale. Already Zale is acting weird and switching cars, he assumes something juicy must be coming soon. He pushes the loose gas pedal to the floor in an attempt to keep up with the new car, he doesn't have a way to track it so he has to stay within sight.

  Maybe he should just call Azelia now and tell her that her new boy is a psychopath, that he's acting sketchy. He knows though that she wouldn't believe a thing he says without proof, undeniable proof. His trusty camera sits uncapped and ready to fire in the seat next to him.

  ___________

  "Is someone following you?" Jade asks Zale, the first words spoken by either of them in a while.

  "I don't think so," he says, shocked out of his thoughts by her words. She slams her foot on the gas pedal and makes a very illegal left turn, nearly clipping two other cars in the process. "Whoa, do people follow you regularly?" he asks with more than a bit of nervousness in his voice.

  "No, mainly just you," she says.

  "So funny. "

  "Is it though?"

  "You never did say where we're going you know," he states, trying to divert her attention away from his oddness.

  "I didn't? Sorry, I thought the desert would be a nice place to talk about things," she says without an ounce of sarcasm in her voice.

  "Sounds good to me," he responds. His paranoia slips into the mortal realm, is she taking him there to bury him alive, never to be found? He tries to banish that thought as fast as he can. With every passing second he starts to believe more and more this is one of his dreams. She veers to the right and almost clips some more drivers, they all honk at her. He needs to say something to not fall into full insanity. "You know I've been dreaming about the desert lately," he says weakly.

  "Exciting, are the dreams dusty?" she laughs.

  "You know I'm a writer?" he says forging on, oblivious.

  "Even more exciting," she retorts, he can tell something big looms on her mind, like an important decision waiting to be answered. They are just getting out of the city and into the surrounding desert, the vastness of it brings up his own lack of significance. Despite his norma
l love for the desert he wishes she wouldn't venture too far out into the nothingness. His mind races, for some reason his ill working brain keeps sending him warning signals of danger, his body feels like she might try and kill him, even though the idea is much too absurd to be true.

  He rolls down his window and looks out at the stars, with every second they drive away from the city the stars multiply and the sky expands, unleashed from its chains of light pollution. The wind pushing his hair calms him down and he realizes how stupid it was to think she might dispose of him. Although her brashness and odd sense of humor don't seem to fit an angel, she's most likely nervous and not herself, after all she is confronting a kind-of stalker. Also Jade's constant checking for following cars is quite perturbing. He pulls his head back into the car and realizes he has a consolation prize waiting. If things don't go well with Jade he can fall back on Azelia. That thought immediately makes him feel like an asshole, but he can't help it.

  "How long have you lived here?" he questions. She shrugs her shoulders.

  "Not long, let's see...." she says, finally warming to his banter.

  "You can't remember?" he laughs.

  "I guess about four or five months. You?" she asks, shooting him a sidelong glance.

  "Weird, that's when I moved out here. I came out here to get past writer's block. Why'd you move?"

  "It just felt right, that's all."

  "Hmm, makes sense, where you from?" he asks.

  __________

  She eyes him with suspicion, he has hardly looked at her, what does he know? She's trying to stay calm until she makes her final decision but his last question makes her flinch and lose most of her cool. Ever since she began her little night forays her memory of almost everything else has gone blank, her only memories are from her new life. She isn't even sure she had a childhood, she's most likely thrown up walls to protect herself from the supposed evils early in her life, maybe she was a born vigilante, meant to bring evil men to heel. She laughs at the novelty of the idea. She looks back at him until he looks at her. She's mad he would ask such a dumb question.

  "Why not ask what I do? Or, what I do for fun? What a dumb question," she says grumbling to herself.

  "Sorry, what do you do?" Zale asks her.

  "I'm an account manager," she says smiling to herself, he's easily controlled at least.

  "What do you do for fun?" he asks, she laughs.

  "Those are better questions. Not much though, I'm pretty boring," she lies, she wishes she could tell him what she does for fun, she always feels the urge to tell someone, she yearns to let anyone in on the secret. But right now if she told him she knows she would have to kill him on the spot. Every time she thinks about killing him it feels something like suicide. If she does murder him she would kill everything she stands for, everything she has fought for, but if she doesn't kill him then what will she do with him? If he keeps rooting around he'll eventually find it all out, realize everything. But then again, maybe not, he seems quite simple.

  "Have you written any famous books?" she asks, happy to break herself out of her thoughts. She figures whatever choice she makes in the moment will be the right one.

  "Me? I wish, you probably haven't heard about any of my stuff," he says looking at her momentarily again, almost like it hurts him to see her.

  "How do you make a living then?" she asks again, still trying to keep her mind clear.

  "I don't make a very good one but it's what I want to do, and really not that hard. Sometimes the ideas don't come and that's the worst part of it all, so the pressure can get to you sometimes. But since I moved here things are going pretty well. And I'm not even sure I like my books," he says at length, then remembers how conversations work and asks, "Do you like account managing?"

  "Sometimes, well, it doesn't really matter I guess," she says.

  "Isn't it good to like what you do?"

  "It pays the bills."

  In the ensuing silence the only noise is the rattle of the air conditioner and the rumble of the badly finished road, at this point she really wishes her radio worked. The interior of her car is almost fully lit by the moon and the black leather seats reflect it back brightly. She knows her spot is only a few miles ahead and decides to keep talking to keep her mind off what she might have to do soon.

  "If you don't think your work is good and don't make much money why not do something else?" she asks.

  "I'm too much of a slacker to actually work a regular job," he laughs.

  "What's your next book about?" she asks, liking his voice, at least more than the haunting sound of the rattling air conditioner.

  "It started out as a semi historical samurai book but now it's more of a western."

  "That's an odd change."

  "True, but I've been dreaming about the desert so much, I couldn't think about Japan. Maybe tonight will be good research, or something like that."

  "Sounds interesting enough," she says and once again decides to fill the silence. "Almost there, don't worry."

  "Cool, where is it?" he asks.

  "Nowhere special," she says and again has nothing but the air conditioning to ease her troubled thoughts. She pulls off the road at mile marker forty, she figures this is far enough away from the city. The dust billows around the car in a great fog making it almost impossible to see anything. Jade slows the vehicle almost to a halt. The amount of odd ditches here could really mess her car up and she doesn't want to take the chance. She plays with her hair while absently steering with her right hand. She looks over and his head bounces more than a bobble head doll.

  "It's a little bumpy," Zale says while desperately holding onto the handrails.

  "Yeah, but it's worth it to get away from the city," she says, half lying, she honestly knows she isn't meant for the city but the truth is, it's the only place for her, can't do much hunting in the desert. She sees a small hill ahead and aims for it, the other side of it will be perfect.

  "I'm the same way, I love the desert and isolation but being around people sometimes feels right."

  "Here we are," she says and brings the car to a stop at the bottom of the small hill.

  "Good... but uh... what's out here?" he asks, he is sweating more than he should be, the night air has finally found its chill in the absence of the sun.

  "Just a good spot to get away from everyone," she says. She gets out of the car and walks around to the back of her vehicle and pulls out a blanket she always keeps back there just in case she might need to wrap up a body. She slings it over her arm and underneath it she hides her pistol after pulling it out of her belt. He gets out of his side and comes around to stand in front of her. The gun is pointing right at his midsection, she cocks the trigger and tenses. She feels sick, she urges her finger to squeeze. He would be so easy to get rid of, he has nothing, knows no one.

  "You wanna lay and look at the stars?" he asks with a slight smile.

  "Yeah," she answers laboriously. The gun still aims at his chest but she can't do the deed, she suddenly breaks into a sweat, he notices the change and tenses. "You'll turn into them," her mind keeps repeating, could she handle that? The cold steel of her revolver makes her hands sweat all the more. Her finger slips on the sticky trigger, it tries to make the familiar action, it aches to be rid of this distraction.

  "You all right?" he asks raising his eyebrows. She doesn't respond for a few more seconds and slowly lowers the blanket and the gun with it. She lets the hammer back and sighs.

  "I won't hurt you or anything like that, I only followed you because, well..." he says, unable to give a good reason. The thought of him hurting her makes her laugh, she holsters the gun for later use and goes about laying down the blanket. She lies down on the blanket, he hasn't moved an inch yet. She pats the spot next to her, if she isn't going to kill him she might as well as have some fun. Her soul will remain intact for today, along with her pride, and who knows, maybe this will make her stronger, maybe she can continue to use him and pull his strengt
h.

  "Get over here," she says playfully. He accommodates her beckoning and lies down right next to her. Despite his draw to her he feels a kinship more like a sister than a lover to her.

  "Whoa you see those over there?" he says pointing to the west.

  "I think, what is it?" she asks

  "Not sure, I always wanted to know and was hoping you could tell me," he says, smiling. They both lay there in silence for a few more minutes, looking at the stars and pointing them out to each other.

  "I have to ask you something," Zale says but hesitates to finish.

  "Yes?"

  "I don't mean to pry but, do you work a part-time job at night? Cause' I've never seen someone who goes out late quite as much as you," he says his cheeks turning red in the process.

  "I know you tried to follow me the other night," she responds and doesn't say anything else to answer the question, the hammer of the revolver pings her hip painfully at his prying. How can he not find out eventually?

  "Sorry, I won't do that anymore," he pouts.

  "I'm a night person," she says. If only he knew how close he came to being part of her late night escapades. They laid there for most of the night just stargazing, she feels good about her decision and realizes just how harmless he really is by the end of the night. She knows almost all the same stars as him, but that's where their similarities stop. That's a good thing though, she knows now she can use him, make use of his easily controlled persona. She laid on the charm thick enough tonight to get him to do anything she could want.

  She needs some help for a big hunt coming up, and if he doesn't work out she would have no qualms about ending him then. And deep down she is forced to admit her broadening loneliness is becoming a problem. She drops him off at his car, parked right next to hers. She rolls down the window.

  "You can sleep here tonight, if you want," she says.

  "With you?" Zale asks.

  "Don't push it, you're lucky I'm letting you stay in this complex," she says, but can't help smiling. She may have actually had some fun tonight.

  "I had to ask, see ya' later," he says with a one sided smile. He gets into his car and puts up the curtains. As she walks up her first flight of stairs she turns and sees him peeking out of the curtains at her. She waves and he closes them fast, pretending he wasn't looking.