She blinked and he was satisfied to see there weren’t any tears there.
He threw her onto the bed built into the corner.
“If you want to live, then act like it.”
He felt the set of his face, the granite under his skin, as he climbed back into his seat and started the truck. A breeze flew around the cab, a storm, a tornado of ill feeling, and he heard the chair fall over and slide around in the back. Knew that Montessa was raging inside. If he was lucky enough, she’d go Apocalyptic and incinerate them all. But she wasn’t at that point, not yet. Perhaps she never would be. But, oh, how he hoped she’d fulfill her violent potential, and soon.
He’d sleep in the driver’s seat tonight. Let her have the back. Free to roam, free access to his tool box. She’d cut the ropes around her wrists, and then…what? Stab him in the neck? Possibly. Try to creep out without his noticing? He wouldn’t sleep a wink, he knew it, but he wouldn’t try to stop her. Let her go. Let her be free. She’ll go back to whatever life she would go back to. Her boyfriend would probably kill her. It seemed a shame that he would get to do so and Lu wouldn’t. Lu would have made it kind. Appreciated it. Filed it away in his mind of Beautiful Kills. Remembered her fondly, both alive and as a corpse. He wanted her in a way that loser wasn’t even capable of.
He realized his jaw was aching. Clenched too hard. He tried to relax, tried to focus on the road, on the whistling of the Montessa-created storm around his ears. Think of the here and now. The imminent. Don’t spend any time wondering how soft her hair would be when it was freshly washed and free of sticky blood. Don’t realize, with surprise, that for the first time, he was going to miss somebody.
He nearly ran off the road, righted the truck quickly. Sucked in a breath and held it.
It was true. He was actually going to miss her.
CHAPTER TEN
Her hair swirled around her, her breaths coming out in gasping almost-sobs of rage that she tried to rein in. The pressure in her head and chest pushed out, nearly exploded from behind her eyes and teeth. If she didn’t hold back, she’d blow the truck apart, she could feel it. Kill herself and Lu and there wouldn’t be anything to find, just tiny bits of rubble and detritus carried on the wind.
She had to calm down. Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe.
She held her hands to her face, her wrists bloodied and sore and raw. With her eyes covered, things seemed less pressing. She was here. She was safe. He had put her here to let her escape. She knew this. And appreciated it on a level, too, of course. Of course she did. But at the same time…
I’m tired of being tossed away.
Abandoned. Left. Her mother. Used up until her body and soul ground into little bits by her father, or at least the man that she had been trained to think of as her father. Used and left by her cousins. The neighbors. Everybody.
Renan hadn’t trashed her. He was frightening and abusive and scared her so deep that her guts pooled in her bowels, that she tasted vomit whenever he leaned in to bite or kiss her, she never knew which one. But he hadn’t left. He threatened to kill her if she walked out on him. That’s the opposite of leaving, isn’t it?
It isn’t love. Of course it isn’t love, and Montessa had never deluded herself into believing love entered into the equation with Renan. But still, he wanted her around. To control, certainly. To beat on and break. But to keep. Regardless of the consequences.
Being kept was the reverse of being abandoned, and Montessa had walked down enough dirt roads, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her hand, to know she wanted to stay. Be kept. With anyone, she didn’t even care who, anymore. It wasn’t so much to ask. Nothing to ask, really. It was just not being left again, and that was all. She didn’t expect any more than that.
“Lu isn’t Renan,” she said aloud, and this calmed her a little. Lu’s motivations were as lofty as a man like Lu’s motivations can be. In fact, it was probably killing him inside to let her loose like this. She could peek inside and feel his emotions, take them into her soul herself, but she was already too conflicted. She couldn’t handle any more.
She curled up into a ball, wrapping her arms around herself and keeping her face covered.
Breathe, Montessa. Breathe. He wants you to go, and it’s a gift. Take it as the favor he’s offering. This doesn’t mean you’re trash.
It means you’re special.
She’d seen enough of Lu’s emotion to understand his confusion regarding her. He’d never wanted to let a girl go before, she knew it. He didn’t understand his desire to have her live, why he could want such a thing. If he murdered her, slid his blade along her spine, tasted her arterial blood and tears, then he’d have her forever, in a way. But this was different, and she knew Lu didn’t feel comfortable around anything different.
She scared him to death, she knew that. And he scared her, but not in the way he thought. Not in the usual way a killer panics his victim.
She concentrated on her breathing. Calmed the wind around her. Chose to enjoy the comfort of the soft bed built into the cab. She thought of all the nights Lu must have slept here, how he’d lie on his back and stare at the ceiling, or perhaps curled on his side like she was doing. The bed was narrow, but could hold two, if they molded into each other’s bodies while they slept. If they were close.
Hours. Hours of driving. She dozed, in and out of consciousness. Found an X-Acto knife in Lu’s toolbox and worked at the rope around her wrists. He heard her. She knew he heard her. He didn’t say anything and she didn’t, either. She wondered briefly if this was what marriage was like, thirty years down the road. Being completely aware of each other but letting it all slide.
The filthy piece of rope fell to the ground, and Montessa flexed her hands, her wrists. Touched her tongue to the raw places, felt the burn and the hurt. She slipped the X-Acto into the back pocket of her jeans and sat on the edge of the bed.
The truck slowed, pulled over. The engine turned off and she heard Lu fidget around in his seat before feigning sleep. She waited until his breathing became slow and even, a courtesy on his part. Lu wouldn’t sleep tonight. His head was too full of turmoil and voracious black teeth of razor blades and loss. But he was trying. Bless the boy, he was trying.
She crept up between the seats. Saw the moonlight and the way it fell on Lu’s quiet face, his beautifully curved eyes. So much torment beneath the surface, but looking at him now, he seemed placid. A place of peace. If only there was such a place for Montessa.
She took the can of Coke from the console. Unlocked the passenger side door. Stole one last glance at her Nuclear Lulu and slipped outside.
~
Morning came and Lu cursed it, just like he cursed everything else. He sighed, stiff from sitting in the driver’s seat, and stirred. Time to get up. Time to get it all going. He’d had a good run. A good time, even, but everything ends.
He’d peeked at Montessa from under his lashes last night as she’d stolen from the cab. Saw her take the drink and nearly smiled, but then felt it drop away. She had unlocked the door, and then looked at him one last time. He had stilled his breath, forced himself to lie quietly in the seat, when that wasn’t what he wanted to do at all.
He wanted to leap to his feet, to grab her by her bloodied (thanks to him) wrists and tell her that it wouldn’t be so bad, really, if she stayed. He’d kill her or not kill her, whatever she wanted. Knives or no knives. Guns or no guns. He’d do anything, if she’d just agree to…what? Live in a semi with him until they both went down in flames?
Shame. The piercing recognition that he had nothing to offer. That a life with him would be worse than a life with her selfish boyfriend. That stayed his hand. Turned his body to stone. He let her go, watched her jump out of the cab and mostly close the door behind her quietly.
He didn’t want to move this morning. There was no reason to, really. He could wait until the police came and bustled him away. Maybe it wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe life in a cell before they fried him wouldn
’t be as horrible as he thought.
He was lying to himself, and Lu wasn’t a liar. He sat up fully, sighed. Ran his fingers through his hair. Everybody dies. Might as well get to gettin’ to it. There really wasn’t a reason to stick around anymore, anyway. He felt hollow and figured nothing would ever be able to completely fill the hole.
He kicked open the cab door. Dropped to the ground. Turned his face toward the sun and blinked.
“Hey.”
He spun around, saw Montessa sitting on the ground, her back to one of the massive tires. She looked weary and filthy and her lips and eyes were so full and big and beautiful.
“What are you doing here?”
His voice sounded differently than he meant it to. Almost harsh. Almost angry.
Montessa flinched, but then she stood up, slowly.
“Tell me why you’re letting me go.”
Lu stuffed his hands in his pockets.
“What a stupid question! Why would you ask that? If a killer lets you go, then you go. You run. Why aren’t you running?”
She took a step closer to him. Another. Lu noticed that the Coke can was wedged under the tire, that it would be crushed when he pulled forward. What a random thought, and he wondered about it, but realized his brain was finding small things to focus on. It couldn’t handle the big things, like Montessa. Standing in front of him. Reaching out to grip his t-shirt in her small hands.
“Lu. Tell me. Why are you letting me go?”
“Leaving that can there is littering, you know. There are laws against it.”
She laughed then, and he realized how bizarre his words must seem, but there were laws, and he wasn’t going to get caught by some Woodsy Owl do-gooder over something so stupid.
“I’ll pick it up. If you tell me why.”
He grabbed the hand clutching his shirt, and she hissed. He kept his grip there, felt the throbbing rawness of her wrist under his fingers.
“Stop asking like it’s important.”
“It is important.”
“It isn’t. It’s just an arbitrary thing. No reason.”
“You’re planning to kill yourself today before I turn you into the cops.”
“How did you…”
“You know how.”
He glared at her then, his eyes fiery and flaming and full of fury and helplessness.
“Then See why I let you go. Do it. Save me the aggravation.”
She studied him, the thin scar by his eye, the neat, blunt fingernails on his hands. The way his chest heaved under his shirt. He could barely catch his breath.
She swallowed hard.
“Please. Just tell me. If you don’t want me to stay, then I’ll go. I’ll report you or not report you, you can choose. But if you’re doing this to be nice, or at least what you think is nice…”
She looked away. Studied the ground. Let go of his shirt, but he still didn’t let go of her hand.
“Just be kind. This once. And tell me.”
This was humiliation. Begging. Asking a stranger to give her a reason to stay. A homicidal stranger, at that.
“Never mind,” she said, and pulled away. “I’m just being stupid.”
He grabbed her hand again, held it to his heart.
“I’m letting you go because I want to do something for you.”
His voice was rough and low and raw and earnest. The honesty was painful. They both choked on it. Both had difficulty forcing it down.
“What…if I want to stay?”
He blinked.
“Why would you?”
Because. Because she was lost. Because there was something about him that made her want to take care of him, to have him take care of her. Because it was easier to be with a man who wanted to murder her, and would appreciate it, than be with a man who would only beat her to death.
“My standards are low,” she said with an unfunny laugh, and tried to tug her hand away.
He still held firm.
“So stay with me.”
Her eyes flicked to his.
“I mean it,” he said. “Stay with me. Look inside of my head or whatever you do and see that I mean it.”
The inside of his skull, it tasted like roses and barbed wire and butterflies. Switchblades and heroin and grassy green gardens.
He wanted her to stay. Wanted that more than anything in the world, although he wasn’t sure why. There was a hole in his heart which had been there since birth, but somehow he thought she could fill it if she just stayed long enough. Stood by him enough. Maybe fell in love with him, someday, if the stars aligned just right and he was sufficiently lucky to be given a chance in this life. If a monster like him could be loved.
“You’re not a monster,” she said, and kissed him. He caught his breath, then kissed and bit her lip. Twined his arms around her. Pulled her against his body and prayed and prayed and prayed to gods he didn’t believe in that this wasn’t a dream, that he wasn’t somewhere sleeping the glutted slumber of a man who just corpsed a pretty girl. The darkest of afterglows. An afterdark.
“It’s real, Lu. I’m real. You’re real. And somehow you found me,” Montessa whispered, and she felt the heat in Lu’s blood then, the current of it running under his skin. His want, his desire, his wishes were fanned and ran wild underneath the thin epidermis. Her skin responded, her mouth devouring his, and the Wind That Was Not a Wind blew around them, tugging at their hair and yanking at their clothes, steam and fire and hurricanes.
“What is all this?” Lu asked between kisses. He didn’t want to break his mouth away, didn’t want to give up the oxygen that Montessa had become, but he needed to know, needed to hear what she thought, what this wildness was. Why he wanted to hold a girl instead of flay her, and why his arms wrapped so tightly around her waist instead of her throat.
“I don’t understand,” he said, but Montessa was kissing his cheekbones and his eyelids and pulled his head down so she could kiss his forehead. His nose and his chin and his mouth, his mouth, his mouth.
“There’s nothing to understand,” she whispered, and tugged on his lower lip with her teeth. Her words, they rang true. Were all he needed. Simplify, Lu. Go on instinct. This was right. It was. It was just, just right.
He wondered if his entire life had been leading up to this. Maybe it had. Maybe this was the beginning of the rest of it.
“The beginning of the end,” she answered him, and when Lu smiled, his white teeth made her heart jump and start and stutter in an exquisite way.
“We’re going to crash and burn, you know,” he told her. He held her close, his face to hers. She smelled like salt and blood and the most beautiful of heats. “They’re going to find me, eventually. You’ll want to be far away then.”
“Oh, baby, we’ll go down in flames,” she whispered against his mouth. “And I’ll be by your side when that happens. Right where I should be.”
Lu didn’t want to think of the future. Not now. He only wanted to think of the present, and that was almost more than his mind could handle.
“I don’t believe this is happening,” he told her. He murmured it into her hair. He realized her dark locks were still matted and sticky with dried blood.
He pulled back.
“You need a bath.”
She mock-frowned.
“Normally I’m a very clean girl, Lu. For some reason, I was all tied up this week.”
She laughed, but his brown eyes were serious and concerned and a little bit horrified.
“I mean it, Montessa. Look at you. What I did to you. How can you ever forgive me?”
She twined her arms around his neck, rested her cheek against his.
“My Nuclear Lulu. Don’t you understand that I know you like nobody else knows you? Of course I forgive you. If you hadn’t stolen me…” she stopped speaking, then. The words were barbed wire and they hurt. If he hadn’t taken her, she’d be waking up with bruised or broken ribs. Perhaps a chipped tooth or two. She’d be taking her clothes off in front of men who w
ere sticky with lust and shame.
“I shouldn’t thank you,” she said, and her voice was so small it sounded like it was going to flicker out. She tried again, stronger.
“I shouldn’t thank you, for what you did. But I feel like I want to. Does that make sense? Because even though I thought you were going to kill me, it was still such a relief. So much better than what my life was.”
Her eyes reflected horrors, things he could almost read in her irises, and it made the blood boiling in his veins churn even faster.
“Nobody should be that unhappy,” he said.
“You are.”
“I was. Not anymore.”
He led her to the passenger side and helped her in. Climbed in himself. He drove and they smiled and were almost shy with each other. It was a first date after the intimacy of intended murder. Standing amid the crows and carcasses, offering her violets.
He saw a place he recognized up ahead. The most spirit-crushing of motels, painted in what had once been beige, with an empty swimming pool in front.
“Here. We’ll stop here. It’s better than it looks. And I bet nothing sounds better than a hot shower.”
“And food,” she agreed. “I could eat until I die.”
“I’m sorry if I starved you.”
“It’s okay, Lu.”
He paid for the room, a cheap place with horrifyingly garish carpet and tacky woodland animal pictures on the wall, but the rooms were clean and the tub was spotless. Lu tried to doze on the bed (one of two. He wasn’t about to be presumptuous) while Montessa soaped and scrubbed and washed her hair and body with the economy shampoo.
Water never felt so good. Soap never felt so decadent. This shower was a sin, and the water running down her face and body felt better than the hands of any lover.
This was the shower she was never supposed to have. The shower that dead women didn’t get to enjoy. It was earned back somehow with her life.
It hit her then, that her life was supposed to stop, to end, and through a whim of Lu’s, this stranger, she was still alive. Could still breathe. Sleep. Make love and enjoy chocolate again and sit through another terrible B-grade monster movie because she loved them so.
Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A tale of Atomic Love Page 5
