Lost Highway

by Hunter, Bijou

  Down below, the wolves feed on the woman. I cringe at the sounds of shredding flesh and snapping bones. My stomach lurches, and I instantly imagine them ripping her apart.

  All around me, voices promise Quill is dead, and I will be too.

  “Quill will come for me in the morning,” I whisper to myself. “We’ll go back to the cabin. I’ll hold him again.”

  The voices fade the more I say the words. I don’t let them take hold inside me. Quill will return. I refuse to believe otherwise unless the ugly truth is before me.

  I endure the darkness by closing my eyes and pretending I’m in the cabin. Quill stands in the kitchen with his arms crossed and a frown on his beautiful face. He’s studying the view outside the window, but I know he sees me. Quill always watches me even when his gaze is elsewhere. Deep inside, he needs me, and I know he’ll find a way for us to be together again.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Quill

  Having spent a dozen nights outdoors in the Lost Highway, I know survival is tenuous. Losing focus for a moment could lead to my death. This night is worse. Fear would prove a welcomed distraction from the misery I suffer while waiting for the darkness to lift.

  Odessa’s laughter haunts me. I thought she was insane to find forgiveness in this place after she’d refused to accept her redemption in her old life. She believed something changed in her here, and I couldn’t deny she smiled more after our first night in the basement.

  Finding humor in the small things, Odessa embraced the Lost Highway and claimed to love me.

  I hadn’t believed I was capable of loving her in return.

  Except no other feeling explains the pain I suffer from now.

  Her existence made my life more difficult. I should be relieved to have her dead and gone. Instead, my entire body rages at the thought of a single day without her.

  A sliver of light is all I need to jump down and run to where I left Odessa. I don’t care if the wolves remain active. If Odessa is dead, I have no need to take another breath. I’ve had the taste of something powerfully addictive, and I can no longer survive without her.

  I run through the still murky woods, barreling through the brush wanting to keep me from learning the truth.

  In my mind, I know Odessa is gone, though my heart refuses to give up yet.

  Pushing through the trees, I spot tattered clothing near where I left Odessa. I stumble nearly to a stop, unprepared to see the horror even after a night of imagining this exact outcome. I move to where the bloodied white fabric remains. My mind struggles to remember what Odessa wore the day before.

  I kneel down and touch the torn shirt. Scanning the ground, I see bone shards left over from the wolves. There is nothing left behind from her massive jacket or the machete. I move around the area, careful of the traps. Two of them were set off by the wolves’ activity, but I notice nothing indicating the beasts were injured. I also discover none of Odessa’s belongings they’d leave behind such as her shoes.

  Finally, I think to look up where I nearly miss the sight of Odessa’s feet dangling from a branch twenty feet off of the ground.

  “Odessa,” I whisper.

  I reach up and begin climbing. Calling out her name louder, I wait for her to show some sign of life. I’m halfway to Odessa when her feet wiggle, and she leans over. Her gaze meets mine, and her expression mimics how I feel.

  “Quill,” she says in a rough voice.

  The branches groan under my weight, but I don’t give up until I reach her.

  “You’re alive,” I murmur, still in disbelief. “You survived.”

  “I knew you’d come back.”

  My fingers reach out to touch her cheek. I still fear I’ve lost my mind after a night of mourning in the darkness. Odessa doesn’t prove to be a mirage. Her skin feels cold yet as soft as I remember.

  I lean forward to kiss her, and Odessa meets me halfway. Her lips tremble against mine, enticing me to warm them by deepening my affection. Wrapping an arm around her waist, I press her closer. Only the whining tree branch below prevents me from never letting her go.

  “Can you climb down?” I ask, ready to throw her over my shoulder.

  Once a smiling Odessa nods, we descend before the tree tosses us out. Down first, I impatiently wait for Odessa to join me. Her feet barely touch the ground before I lift her into my arms.

  “You survived,” I say again, wary of the Lost Highway’s ability to play mind games.

  “I waited for you.”

  My lips cover hers, and her flavor reassures me that she’s truly safe. I walk with Odessa in my arms, and she doesn’t ask to be set down. Her calm gaze holds mine, soothing me.

  I don’t need to see where I’m going now. The traps are of no concern. The long tree branches create no barriers. I am never more fearsome than in this moment with Odessa. The Lost Highway failed to tear us apart. Now I can face anything.

  The cabin feels like mine for the first time since I took it from Tom. In the past, I viewed this place as just another part of my territory. Odessa changed everything with her arrival, and there’s no returning to the old ways.

  Once in the bedroom, I strip out of my clothes while Odessa watches me and fumbles with her shirt. Even wanting to help her, I hold back. My trembling fingers finally reach out to undo the buttons. Her damp shirt and bra cling to her pale flesh. Exhaling roughly, I rub my fingers together at the thought of exploring her body.

  Odessa glances at the chains, but I shake my head. “I need to touch you.”

  Even uncertain about my intentions, she sits on the bed and works off her jeans. I notice the healing wound on her wrist. Later, I’ll ask for details. For now, I only want to claim her in a way I haven’t before.

  Odessa’s breasts draw my gaze to them. Her chilled skin looks different than I remember from our time together in bed. I’ve never seen her nipples soft the way they are now.

  My fingers tremor when they graze her tender flesh. Uncertain, I look to Odessa, who smiles reassuringly.

  “They want you to play with them.”

  “How?”

  “Do you remember how I stroke them with my fingers when we’re together? Or you can tease them the way you do with your tongue.”

  Licking my lips, I think of how good her nipples taste in my mouth. I’m desperate to suck them, but first I need to own them with the same hands I’ve used to end so many lives. I want to prove myself to Odessa. I’ve claimed her heart. Now I need to possess every inch of her body.

  Her nipples instantly harden when I stroke them between my still trembling thumbs and index fingers. I smile when Odessa sighs with pleasure. Cupping her breasts, I cover her lips with mine. I swallow Odessa’s moans as my fingers pluck at her hard pink flesh.

  “Quill,” she gasps, leaning back as I nibble at her earlobe.

  Her moans reassure me. I’ve felt her taste my flesh, sucking and nipping at my body. She knows me, and I want to know her. I’m frightened, though. Odessa is everything for me now, and I can’t bear the thought of harming her.

  Gently, I suck at her hard nipples, enjoying their reaction to my touch. Odessa squirms on the bed, and her legs part. She wants my cock inside her. I hear Odessa beg for me to fuck her, but I need to take my time so I won’t lose control and become violent.

  Odessa grips my face and lifts me level with her. “I need you inside me.”

  “I’m afraid,” I whisper.

  “Why? I’ve been yours since the moment we first existed. You’re only making it official. Take what’s yours.”

  Despite her arousal and words of encouragement, Odessa is filled with fear. A part of her remains terrified in the dark night, trapped in a tree with monsters lurking below.

  Soon, my body covers Odessa’s, warming her with the heat of my arousal. Though I fear I’m too heavy, her arms possessively wrap around my neck. All of her stress evaporates, and I feel her completely present with me.

  My cock probes her pussy, unable to find her wet entrance.
Odessa reaches down and guides me into her waiting body. I stare into her eyes and find no fear in them. Even when I thrust into her roughly, she only watches me in wonder.

  “I don’t understand love,” I whisper into her ear as our hips frantically move together. “I know I love you, even if I can’t promise my love is worth anything.”

  “It’s everything,” she murmurs. “I love you too.”

  Studying her face, I know I won’t hurt her. My fear of losing control is gone. Odessa is mine. Rather than make me weak, love provides a new focus beyond my killer instinct.

  Together, we’ll survive the Lost Highway.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Odessa

  After returning to me in the woods, Quill is a beast in a different way. He wants me unconditionally. His body fucks the same, rough and hungry. When his dark gaze focuses on me, he’s never been so open. Quill wraps me in his arms and stares at me as if afraid to look away.

  I know how he feels.

  Though I believed in my heart he would return to me, holding onto positive thoughts proves tricky in this place. By the time I heard his voice, I had wondered if I was fooling myself. I even considered how to end my life if he didn’t return. Suicide was preferable to life without him.

  But Quill did return, and now he won’t leave my side.

  We spend long hours in bed. When we aren’t making love, he nearly crushes me in his embrace. Quill craves me closer than I can manage. If I’m quiet for too long while we rest in bed, he lifts my chin so he can see my face. I never imagined him demanding so much reassurance, but there’s no way I’ll complain. Quill’s neediness is the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

  “My turn,” he says one day and wraps a metal cuff around my wrist. “You trusted John to tie you up. Do you trust me?”

  “More than I trust myself.”

  Quill saved me from the Death Dealers, from the Lost Highway, and even from himself. He’s earned my trust, but this is the first time he’s cared enough to ask for it.

  Exploring every inch of my body displayed for him, Quill even touches and kisses the back of my knees. He wants to know what I like and how my body works. He spends long hours between my legs, teasing my pussy in excruciatingly brilliant ways. I almost feel invisible when the two of them get together to play.

  I teach Quill everything I know, and he’s a model student. In those first days after our night apart in the woods, I wait for him to lose control of his inner rage.

  Except that part of Quill died the night he believed I was gone forever. After feeling as if I’d stolen his power, he’s regained it by facing a pain and fear he hadn’t experienced before.

  While I can’t imagine spending a lifetime knowing only death, I do understand how it feels to be under someone’s thumb. I gave my power to John to avoid feeling or thinking. I wanted to remain weak because the fog of that life allowed me to stay the sixteen-year-old distracted by lust long enough to lose her sister. As long as I didn’t change, I would never forgive myself.

  Now I have my power back. For good or bad, I’m responsible for me. The pain of bad choices and the consequences of weakness are all on me.

  Quill is free too. He traded his masters back in the old world for the hunt here in the Lost Highway. He was still trapped in his former way of thinking. Kill, wait, and kill again were all he knew.

  We’re different now, and I can’t help wondering why we were gifted our happiness while so many Death Dealers know only madness and butchery. Why had we gotten so lucky?

  “Have a Skittle,” I tell him after night arrives.

  Quill doesn’t object. He normally hates eating and says wanting food is a crutch. Now he opens his mouth, so I can drop the candy on his extended tongue. I eat one too and then place the mini bag into the cabinet with the rest of our treats.

  “Have you ever danced?” I ask while starting the CD.

  “I don’t like that music.”

  “Neither do I, but it’s all we have, so we’ll learn to like it.”

  I sway to the strumming guitar and head toward Quill. He gives me an odd frown. No doubt he’s thinking about how to avoid my groping hands. Slapping them away was how he once handled them. Now he endures my fingers on his hips.

  “Sway to the beat,” I say when he only stands robot-still.

  “I’m not interested.”

  “I don’t love Skittles or this music or living in the woods, but we need to find the joy in the small things, Quill.”

  Hearing his name, he loses the frown and allows me to guide him. I take his hands, and we sway to the rough country beat. Outside the cabin, monsters lurk and the Lost Highway schemes. Inside, I’ve managed to make Quill smile while trying something new.

  If living in this place is a battle, we’re definitely winning.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Quill

  I turn the woods around the cabin into an obstacle course of traps and early warnings. For too long, I ignored the night-dwellers like the one that attacked Odessa. The creature hadn’t come into the light of the cabin, so I felt she wasn’t a threat even as her kind became savvier about the traps.

  The Death Dealer I nearly failed to kill also provided a wake-up call. I’d felt invincible for too long. Or possibly I hadn’t anything to lose until Odessa. Either way, I allowed my standards to slip. No longer would I take for granted that I was on the top of the killer food chain.

  Odessa decides we need to burn and bury the trophies. She says we must cleanse the house of Tom’s past deeds to make it truly ours. I don’t argue, even if I’m unconvinced the voices in the basement are tied to the remains in the trophy room.

  “I was wrong,” I say later that night. “They’re gone.”

  “For now. I’m not getting my hopes up,” Odessa says, wrapping a leg over mine. “Either way, I’m relieved to have them out of the cabin. Now we have a spare room since there’s no way I can get the other room cleaned up.”

  Odessa gave up on wiping down her old room after realizing she’d waste our entire cleaning supply to complete the task.

  “The scavengers take things from the accidents on the highway. Can we do that?” Odessa asks another night. “We could get in the habit of staking out the highway to see if we can get dibs on supplies.”

  “The Death Dealers will be out in force. We won’t take the supplies easily. I don’t know why they allow the scavengers to take things, but they won’t be so forgiving with us.”

  “With time, maybe I’ll be enough help that we can get supplies without having to rely on the scavengers.”

  “In the Lost Highway, we have nothing but time.”

  Odessa smiles at me, taking my words as an agreement to her plan. I don’t mind the idea of hunting and scavenging with her one day. For now, I need her safe at the cabin where I won’t lose her.

  “I love you,” I say with more ease at every utterance.

  Odessa reaches up and kisses me quickly. She pretends to be interested in the movie we watch every few days. I have no doubt The Bridge on the River Kwai wouldn’t make the grade in the old world. Today, she embraces anything to keep us sane. I’m learning to care about the movies, music, and food too. If they extend the time we’re together, I’m willing to do anything.

  Too many years ago, I found my way to the Lost Highway and believed the killing was what drew me here. I hunted and waited while never certain what exactly I was waiting for besides my next kill. I assumed I retained my sanity and humanity because I was superior to the other Death Dealers.

  Now everything possesses a clarity the Lost Highway rarely provides. I had nothing before arriving here while Odessa was broken. We couldn’t make sense of who we were meant to be.

  We were lost until we created a piece of heaven together in the depths of hell.

  Epilogue

  Odessa

  The Lost Highway never relents. It provides no escape or explanation. This place simply exists. If we want to survive, we’ll learn to accept the r
ules rather than fight them.

  I still think we’re dead. Quill claims we’re in a parallel universe. Neither answer is right or wrong. The Lost Highway is our home now, and we’ll never leave except through death. I’m not even confident that’ll provide an escape.

  Despite the predators in the Lost Highway, I’ve never felt as safe or blessed. Since Athena’s death, I remained stuck at the age of sixteen. All I wanted was to suffer for my mistake. Now that I’ve found forgiveness, I’m finally growing up.

  Quill is teaching me to fight. He’s made me strong, and I believe I’ve helped him too. Quill never felt he was lost, but he certainly wasn’t happy with his life. I don’t think he even imagined he ought to enjoy happiness. Now he expects it.

  We will fight for our territory. No matter what we face, we’ll keep our home safe. I haven’t enjoyed a sense of belonging since I was a teenager. Now I do with Quill, and I will die to protect what we’ve built together.

  Most days don’t involve fighting, though. When the storms roll through, we spend entire days in bed, distracting ourselves from the noise and light.

  After we trade heads for a deck of cards at the outpost, Blackjack becomes our newest distraction. Quill quickly learns my tells, so I lose most hands. His reward for winning is control in bed, making me the winner too.

  Embracing love and laughter is the key to staying sane. We keep our minds focused on what matters rather than allowing them to become prey to the voices haunting this world.

  The Lost Highway might not be the devil, but the saying about idle hands still makes sense. As long as we enjoy the small joys – a tender caress, a card game, the occasional M&M – we will remain the Quill and Odessa, who discovered love and forgiveness in a place drenched in darkness and horror.

  About Bijou

  Living in Indiana with my three sweet sons, three wacky cats, one super mom (and her ugly dog), I love writing, Denny's, 1970's rock, Beanie Boos, and sitcoms canceled before their time.