After Our Kiss

by Nora Flite

  Wandering around after my friend, I began to regret my attempt at this whole “being social” thing. Did I really need to make new friends or meet guys? What was wrong with being single? I could get some cats, or a cute dog, and spend my days traveling.

  I could watch Netflix on my couch while ordering from Yelp more than once a day.

  That sounded amazing, actually.

  “Oh!” Chelsea gushed, giving me a shove. “That's Cody Masters, he's down here from Silicon Valley. He's got a startup!”

  I couldn't not roll my eyes. “Chelsea, that's...” She stared at me pointedly. “...fun! So, so fun. Go say hello.”

  “Are you sure?” she asked, already backing up.

  Laughing, I grabbed a red cup from one of the many tables and filled it with rum and coke. “See me making a drink? I'm sure. Let's mingle and talk about it later.”

  Clasping her hands, she bounced off to go talk to Mister Startup. I watched her lips move, saw his spread in a grin, and when she giggled I was sure I'd be taking a taxi home alone. Ah, but my purse is in her car. I should have brought it inside. I could have played on my phone in the corner and ignored everyone.

  No. Chelsea wants me to mingle. She meant well, and considering how many times I'd tried to fix her life, I owed her some effort. Sipping my drink was only so fun. Swaying to the ever changing, forgettable techno beat wasn't engaging me, either.

  Parties have always made me feel lonely. And my mind was still fixating on the video footage of Conway. Maybe I'm wrong and it wasn't him. It wasn't a leap to think I could be jumping at shadows. I'd done it before. But I wanted to be right. I wanted that man to be the boy I'd known in another lifetime.

  Reaching up, I grazed the back of my neck, touching the skin my long hair hid. Conway had left an impact on my heart. Tomorrow, I'll go to the police and see what they can tell me. If the man they wanted was really him...then I needed to know why. The news said he was suspected of kidnapping girls. But that was ridiculous. I knew him. He'd never do something like that.

  He could never be his father.

  Taking my red solo cup on a tour of the big house, I scanned all the strangers. They'd formed groups; mixing in and starting a conversation would be hard. I'd finished my drink, and was debating on getting another, when a new problem popped up.

  Damn, I need to pee. Wandering up the stairs, I found the bathroom easily—there was a huge line of people waiting for it. Rocking side to side, I groaned. Maybe I should take this as a sign to just leave. Chelsea wouldn't even know. But my bladder couldn't make it all the way to my apartment, let alone a store that might let me use their restroom. Back home, you could have knocked on anyone's house, and they'd have let you use their bathroom and given you a cup of coffee.

  I miss Virginia. I missed... a lot of things.

  “There's another bathroom around back,” a guy behind me said, gesturing. “In the guest house. I can show you?”

  He was around my height, his hair the color of summer wheat. Nice enough looking. Chelsea would dig his type. I was more interested in what he'd just suggested. “That'd be great, thanks,” I said, smiling sheepishly.

  “I'm Jason, by the way.” He hopped down the stairs.

  “Georgia,” I said, chasing him past rows of people. The crowd thinned towards the back of the house, and when we exited into a large yard surrounded by stubby pine trees and brick walls, we were alone.

  Jason glanced back with a bright smile. “Are you cold? You don't have a jacket.”

  “My friend's idea,” I said, rolling my eyes. “She thought a jacket would hide my—” I shut up, realizing that talking about my “assets” would sound egotistical. And I wasn't. I'd have been just as happy in a plastic garbage bag and left alone.

  Pursing his lips, Jason pointed at a small building across the yard. His breath was visible in the cool night air. “Here it is.” He opened the door for me, flicking on the light. It was cozy; a small shag rug, Ikea furniture, one of those giant arching lamps that I was always afraid I'd tip over if I blew on it.

  “Is this your house?” I asked, ducking under his arm and entering the building.

  “No.” He shut the door behind us. “Paul owns it all, I've just been here a bunch of times. Bathroom is over there.”

  It wasn't easy to miss, being the only other door. This place didn't even have a closet. Ducking into the bathroom, I shut myself inside and sighed happily. Of course, the one interaction I have is with a guy showing me where to find a toilet. Chelsea would laugh at that later.

  Cleaning up, I dried my hands and fixed my hair in the mirror. It wasn't like I could do much with it, the reddish, thick strands were in a perpetual state between frizzy and stiff.

  When I stepped out, Jason was sitting on the small white couch, his feet on the glass table. There were some books in a stack, one of them—a copy of The Great Gatsby—was now in his hand. He was holding a pose, as if I'd caught him in the moment of being intellectual. Right then I knew he was fake.

  That doesn't make him a bad person, I reminded myself. I knew all about acting fake. I did it a lot to get through the day. Smiling, I cleared my throat. “All set.”

  “Oh, great!” Dropping the novel, he stretched his arms across the back of the couch. “So, Georgia. Anyone ever make any jokes about you being a state incepting another state?” He made the iconic bwowm sound from the movie Inception.

  I covered my mouth. “Hah, nope. I usually get better jokes than that.”

  He laughed loudly, throwing back his head. When he considered me again, his eyes were warm... twinkling. “Hey. Come sit over here, let's get to know each other.”

  My stomach plummeted. “I'd like to get back to the party.”

  “The party isn't going anywhere.” Jason unfurled from the couch, swaying towards me. I became super aware of my distance from the door... how his body was blocking me. “In fact, there's a better one right here, babe.”

  “Jason, I'm not interested. Sorry.” Why the fuck was I apologizing? Tensing my body, I gave him a sharp frown. “Let's just get out of here.”

  His head tipped lower. I was reminded of a lion as it prowled. “Relax, doll. I only want to show you a good time. And you should be thanking me. I helped you out, right?”

  “All you did was show me to the bathroom,” I whispered.

  “Yeah. Now I'm ready to show you more.”

  We moved at the same time. He jumped at me, and I darted for the exit. Jason's arm curled around my throat, tossing me to the floor. I hit hard enough that my skull was ringing—the vibrations numbing my ears.

  “Learn to have some fun,” he said, sitting on me.

  Rolling, I struggled to keep his hands off of my chest. “Stop it!” I screamed, “Help! Help me!”

  No one could hear over the music outside. The party was roaring, rocking, and drowning out my plea. Shoving my knee up, I caught him in the groin. His eyes watered, but he didn't climb off, he simply slapped me. “Fucking hell!” he said, cupping his crotch. “You're psycho!”

  He'd hit me hard enough that my gaze had shifted to the left wall. It was nice, not having to look at him.

  Jason's weight vanished. I drew in air, desperate to breathe. I'd thought he'd stood up, but I turned and saw he'd been yanked off of me. A broad figure dressed in faded jeans and a glossy brown bomber jacket had Jason in a headlock. I couldn't see the new man's face.

  “Let me down, asshole!” Jason shouted.

  Mr. Stranger obliged. He threw my would-be rapist to the ground. Hard.

  “Fuck,” Jason gasped, hunched on his hands and knees. He started to lift his head, but the other man jammed a knee into his temple; he collapsed, out cold.

  Quickly I got to my feet. “Thank you. If you hadn't showed up, I think he would have—forget it. All that matters is that he didn't get that far. You saved me.”

  It was semi-dark in the guesthouse, but that didn't prevent me from studying the man's face when he turned. Eyes like a furnace that had long g
one cold. Severe cheekbones covered in rough stubble that stopped just before his angular chin. His lips were thinned out by how hard he was pressing his molars together.

  Once upon a time, those same lips had been soft as butter.

  My heart shuddered. “Conway?”

  This reunion was one I'd dreamed about over the years. I'd wake up in a sweat; sometimes I'd be sweltering, wriggling in my sheets as I imagined my long ago hero as a full-grown man. My imagination hadn't been kind enough. Conway was gorgeous.

  But I already knew that. I'd seen him a couple hours ago on the news. Goosebumps went up my neck. “The police,” I said softly. “They're looking for you.”

  In a split second he went from statue to cheetah. He was on top of me, muscular arms controlling my struggles, a wide hand capturing my mouth so I couldn't scream. Lightheaded from his speed—his close proximity—I didn't even fight. Nostalgia washed over me. I'd lived this exact moment when I was thirteen.

  Back then it had been another man who'd pressed chloroform to my nose. Conway did it with similar precision. Forced to inhale, my eyelids fluttered, weighted down by the drug. I was a comet burning in the atmosphere; plummeting so hard I could pierce the earth's crust and land next to Hades.

  The last thing I saw as I faded away were Conway's black pupils.

  If I did end up in hell, at least I'd find him there.

  - Chapter Five -

  Georgia Mary King

  I woke up thinking about horses.

  Coughing, I rocked sideways, trying to remember what I'd been doing before I passed out. Had Chelsea coaxed me into too many shots? Any shot was too many, but I'd agreed to have fun on her terms.

  White noise throbbed in my skull. It rolled behind my eye sockets when I opened them. My body was shifting even though I wasn't moving. I really DID drink too much, ugh.

  Overhead was a dirty ivory ceiling. Blinking, I carefully turned to keep my headache from assaulting me. I was lying on my side on a smooth floor that matched the walls. The only light came from two laptop-sized, tinted windows at the end of the room.

  No. This isn't a room. The walls rumbled—the ground under me jolted, and I cried out as my brain flexed in sympathy. I went to rub my dry eyes; that was when I noticed my hands were bound together in front of me by a strip of plastic.

  I remembered everything.

  Conway! He'd knocked me out. He'd taken me. This wasn't a house, it sounded and felt like a car. A van. I'm in a fucking van. Oh god. What was going on? Rolling back and forth, I saw that my ankles were bound the same as my wrists.

  “Hello?” I croaked—my voice was weak. I needed water. Ignoring how much it hurt, I swallowed and tried again. “Hello! Help! Can anyone hear me? I need help!”

  The van squeaked to a halt.

  For a while, nothing moved. I strained to hear every sound, picking out what I could. The right-handle wriggled; even though I expected it to be Conway who opened the van doors, I wasn't ready for him to appear.

  Half of his face peered inside. He took me in carefully, like I was a wild lion he'd locked up. Then he entered, shutting the door quietly behind him and making me remember all those times he'd done the exact same thing.

  Too late, I knew I'd missed my opportunity to scream. The sound could have escaped through the crack. Scooting my knees under me, I sat up, readying myself for his approach.

  “It's been awhile.” His voice was a rich vein of silver running through the earth's crust. There was more of a pleasant timber than he'd had as a teenager.

  “I wondered what happened to you,” I said, shaking my head. “When the police investigated, they found no trace of anyone. I hoped you were okay. I searched for you online, off and on until...” Until my therapist convinced me to stop. She'd said it wasn't healthy.

  He hadn't moved from the rear of the van. He was wearing the same jeans, but the brown jacket was gone. A thin, gray ribbed t-shirt put his muscular body on display. His arms were exposed; both were covered in elegant, shiny black ink.

  And scars.

  So many scars.

  Conway saw where I was looking. The edge of his cruel smile belonged to someone else. It reminded me of his father, and the comparison made me ill. “You searched for me? Funny that I found you first.”

  “Conway, what's going on?” I lifted my bound hands in front of me. “You were on the news. They said you'd abducted a bunch of women, I didn't believe it—”

  “But now you do,” he cut me off. One scuffed boot came my way, then another. He was nearly on top of me. “You were always smart, Georgia.” Him speaking my name caused a ripple inside of me. “Put the pieces together. The police are looking for me because I'm a bad fucking person.”

  “You're not,” I said quickly. “I know you, Conway. You risked everything to help me. You saved me! And you did it again last night!” I was trying to appeal to the part of his humanity I knew was there. “Whatever is going on, we can talk this through. Just... just untie me. And we'll talk.”

  His left hand swept upwards; a chunk of his pinky finger was missing. Ruffling his hair, he knelt in front of me. His nearness brought his scent to my nose—smoke and sage. “I didn't save you last night. I just got rid of someone who was in my way.”

  A hairline of doubt cracked my confidence. “No. He was hurting me, and you stopped him.”

  “If I'd arrived a half hour later, and he'd already fucked you...” He said it so coldly that my heart began to crust with ice. “You'd still be right here, tied up in this van. Don't mistake timing with heroism.”

  That was when I really, truly saw him. The tattoos, the scars, the muscles... the fierceness in his black eyes, how he held himself with a natural dominance. Even if there was more going on here, I had to stop doubting that Conway was capable of hurting me.

  He'd wound plastic around my limbs.

  He'd thrown me in a van.

  The boy who'd smiled shyly at me in the dark was gone. It was time for facts, and the biggest fucking fact was this:

  Conway had kidnapped me.

  Shifting on the floor, I stared just past his ear. “People will look for me. There were witnesses all over that party.”

  “They saw you. Not me.”

  He was right, but I was just talking at this point. “My friend Chelsea will know I'm missing, she'll report it.” Five, six feet at most. If I move fast enough...

  “Let her. The police don't treat missing women the way they do little girls. Even if they take her report seriously, it doesn't matter. No one will find us.”

  My attention bounced back to his face. His intensity burned. “And why's that?”

  “You'll have to wait and see.”

  I leaned towards him. He flared his nostrils, like he was angry—or like he'd gotten a whiff of me and wanted more. “The old you would have told me where we're going. You didn't like seeing me lost and scared.”

  He hadn't blinked during our entire talk. “I'm not the boy you knew nine years ago, Georgia.”

  “That's alright,” I said, squaring my shoulders. “I'm not that same girl.” My forehead rocked into his, sparks exploding between my eyes and along my temples. But I didn't care because I'd stunned him, giving myself a chance to run.

  For the first six months that I was home after escaping Facile, my mother didn't push me into anything. Not going outside, not seeing friends, not attending school... she just let me be. But when I turned fifteen and was still sleeping with the lights on—and triple checking the house locks—she insisted I do something about my fears. Something practical.

  I humored her and endured three years of self defense classes. My instructor encouraged me to run, so I began running each day. When I returned to school I joined the track team. To this day, I kept up with the routine. All that exercise hadn't healed me.

  But it had made me strong.

  Gasping, I shoved forward, stumbling on my tied feet. I was half-hopping to the van doors, my bare knees scraping painfully on the floor. Go, go, go! I
screamed at myself, fumbling with the handles.

  Behind me, Conway approached like a speeding train.

  The handle went down under my clawing fingers. In a great heave I threw myself outside, eating sand, some of it getting in my eyes. I didn't care—I screeched. “Help me! Someone help me!”

  Hands yanked me up, tossing me back into the van. Even though my eyes were watering to get rid of all the grit in them, I still saw the landscape outside. It was just one long strip of road, pine trees going orange under a bold October sun.

  There was no one around to hear me.

  “Not a bad attempt,” he said. He didn't shut the door. He hovered next to it, the open sky taunting me. Conway touched the bridge of his nose gingerly. “Thought you'd broken something for a second.”

  Rolling onto my knees, I spit out phlegm mixed with sand; my mouth tasted terrible. “I wish I had!” A nuclear bomb went off inside, my words flying carelessly. “What's wrong with you? You hated your father, remember? Now you're doing the exact kind of shit he used to! Why? Tell me why?”

  All emotion slid from his features. “Why, or why you?”

  My pulse quickened. “Why me.”

  Surveying me long and hard, he said, “You need water. I'll be right back.”

  “What? No, tell me why you kidnapped me!”

  But he was gone, stepping out and shutting the door. I didn't have to wait more than a minute; Conway returned with a bottle in his hands. What else did he have with him at the front of the van? Crouching, he tipped it towards me. “Drink.”

  Eyeing it, I curled my fingers together in one big fist. “Did you drug it?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it matters,” I said, though I took the bottle anyway. Sipping from it, I shut my swollen eyes and sighed. I'd been parched, but the situation had made it easy to ignore my body's needs. I drank until Conway took the water away.

  “Look up at the ceiling,” he commanded.

  “I'm not doing anything you say. I'm not a willing captive, asshole.”

  His hand was like iron when he gripped my chin. With ease, he tipped my head back, splashing water into my face. “You've got sand in your eyes. If we don't wash it out, it could do permanent damage.”