I awoke with a feeling of comfort and warmth. It was such an odd sensation… A foreign sensation I was incapable of remembering before that point and time. I shifted slightly. That dream had been so frightening. I hadn’t really gotten any rest… Then again, I could have still been dreaming.
I felt arms tighten around my shoulders as I unconsciously turned my head sideways to rest against a warm male chest. I felt a faint tug at the corners of my lips at the warmth surrounding me. This was definitely a dream. No one had ever wanted to touch me with a ten foot pole, let alone wrap their arms around me… The man rested his chin on top of my head and chuckled… Wait, that voice sounded familiar…
Begrudgingly, I opened my eyes. My vision was blurry at first, but it slowly cleared. My throat hurt. My lungs ached. My side was on fire. I was looking at the wall of a brick interrogation room with a steel wall where the one-way mirror used to be… The smile on my lips instantly vanished. None of that had been a dream. Why could I never catch a break?
“Oh, are you finally awake, aimer?” Eric’s voice in my ear made me chastise myself for feeling comfortable in his arms. He was still seated the same way he had been when I had fallen asleep, but I felt a bandage on the bullet wound at my side. That could only mean that he had taped me up at some point while I was unconscious before returning to the position.
“Someone just shoot me. End my misery.” I couldn’t help but groan as I forced myself to pull away from him. I couldn’t afford to be comfortable if I wanted to live through this nightmare.
“I believe someone already has, and they were punished rightly for it as well.” The absurdity of that statement… I tried so hard not to giggle, but I was still exhausted. My will power was near null.
I leaned forward and covered my mouth quickly in a feeble attempt to muffle the giggling rising in my throat, but, of course, I failed miserably. I knew so when Eric pulled me back into his chest and kissed my cheek.
“See how lovely your voice is, ravissant? I do adore listening to it so much.” I could feel the heat rising up my neck as I slowly stopped my giggling, surrendering my weight to him as he pulled me closer still. I had never met someone so affectionate. “What were you saying just before you fell asleep, cher? You’re hurting?” What was he talking about? I hadn’t said anything before I had fallen asleep.
“What are you talking about, Frenchie? I didn’t say anything.”
“Do you not remember, cher?” What was there to remember? I suppose I remembered mumbling something that could have been misconstrued as the statement he said he had heard, but I couldn’t even remember what it had been or what I had been thinking at the time either. However, that probably coincided with, first, being shot and, second, nearly strangled to death.
“I remember nothing because I said nothing. That or I was mentioning my discomfort of nearly dying several times in the course of an hour. Most of which being thanks to you, Frenchie.” I felt his chest vibrate against my back as he chuckled above my head.
“You didn’t die, did you, cher? You’re still speaking and being snippy with me, so I would certainly hope not.” My stomach rumbled quite loudly, forcing a blush to my freckled cheeks and causing Eric to chuckle again. “Hungry, cher?”
“I blatantly refuse to eat anything you give me.”
“If I really wanted to poison you, cher, I would have done it when I kidnapped you. Besides, I don’t kill people if I can help it.” I scoffed, wishing I had the will to stand up and get away from him. Why was it so difficult to leave his embrace? Why couldn’t I shove him back and try to escape? Why wasn’t I still panicking at the mere tone of his voice?
“I still refuse to eat anything you or your flunkies give me.” At least I could still tell him no. It would be really bad if I was incapable of saying no to him.
“Why, aimer? I told you I didn’t want to hurt you, didn’t I?”
“That’s supposed to make me trust you?” I felt him shrug behind me before I finally forced myself to push his arms away and stand. I couldn’t take it any longer. I ran my fingers through my hair while I made the attempt to think through my predicament.
I was trapped in an old interrogation room which could only mean I was being held in an abandoned police station. I couldn’t imagine that recent interrogation rooms had steel doors or sheets of steel where the mirror would normally be.
I was trapped with a psycho Frenchman who seemed to enjoy causing fear and inducing my attacks. However, he had saved me twice from two of his thugs. At least they had seemed like his thugs. It could have been possible that he wasn’t the boss, but I somehow doubted that from the interaction he had had with the others. Aside from that, he was highly affectionate. It was odd to say the least. A six foot two man being affectionate would have been laughable or maybe even cute if I was watching him interact with someone else instead of having him be as such with me. With me it was simply foreign. I had never had anyone act that way towards me. I suppose it made me anxious.
I turned back toward him to find him… Pouting? Why was he pouting like that? He looked truly upset that I had moved away. It was such a contrast… I felt my cheeks burning. Any other time in my life, that look would have been cute. Even now it was, but I couldn’t really give in to that! How much worse a mistake could I make than to give in to those bambi eyes?
I heard him getting to his feet behind me slowly. I heard the swish of his coat as he moved towards my back. I could even hear his even breathing when he stopped behind me. For a few seconds, everything was clear… Then he touched my shoulder. I brushed his hand away and spun to face him, finding his giddy grin back on his lips as he looked down at me. This man was the very definition of a mood swing…
I took several steps back to put some distance between the two of us. It only took me a second to decide what my next move would be. I bolted for the steel door and turned the handle hard. Shockingly enough, it opened and allowed me to run from the room with no idea as to whether or not Eric was behind me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get far before I ran into someone. It wasn’t Jason or David, but it was another male. I didn’t recognize him as one of the two that had followed David in when he tried to strangle me either.
The dirty blonde man glared down at me as I began to back away from him. He looked as if my mere existence angered him… His eyes were a clouded gray as they studied every twitch of every muscle in my body. The man was only wearing black leather pants and buckled boots similar to Eric’s. His muscled torso, on the other hand, was completely bare, but there was a leather collar around his neck to match the buckled wristbands that ran along his forearms. Every fiber of this man bled lethal, and all I could do at that moment was stare as I slowly began to feel a shortness of breath and panic well up in my throat.
“Icarus Arsenios is back from his job? It’s about time, mon ami.” The Frenchman sounded more sarcastic than anything else as he spoke to who I thought was his comrade. I felt him lean against my back and wrap his arms about my shoulders tightly, as if he were afraid Icarus was going to attack me. At first I thought so, too.
“Your little dear is about to die, Eric. Why not give her lungs a rest?” His voice was somewhere between a bass and a tenor, making him seem to be around Eric’s age. His facial structure only helped that idea.
I felt my inhaler put to my lips before Eric pressed the button and gave me my air back. I wasn’t sure how much more of this I could take.
Wait just a second… Had Icarus just told Eric to save me from pain? Maybe not in so many words, but it was close enough… I looked into his gray eyes and studied them intently while the two spoke over my head.
“I see le patron has kept you quite updated on the business.” Icarus only nodded before he caught my gaze. I refused to waver against his stare. However, it wasn’t as difficult as I had thought it would be. There was almost this sympathy in his eyes the way they softened after a few seconds. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a killer as he let on?
“Your girlfriend is looking for you, mein freund.” I felt Eric shudder behind me.
“Must you call her my amie? She is no such thing, and it quite pains me when you call that she-demon such a thing.”
“What other reason do I have to live other than to irritate you?” Despite their banter, both men were incredibly guarded. I could feel the tension passing over my head. Then their talk of Eric’s girlfriend finally caught up to my thoughts.
“Girlfriend?” I hadn’t meant to speak. It must have slipped while I was trying to organize my thoughts…
“Jealous, aimer?” I scoffed and crossed my arms over my chest.
“I was thinking out loud. I would highly prefer you hanging all over someone else.” I could easily imagine that smile on Eric’s face as he rested his chin on my shoulder and pecked my cheek.
“Eric Chantal, how dare you touch another woman while I live and breathe?” Both men visibly flinched at the sound of the blonde woman shouting from down the hall behind Icarus. Despite the guarded nature of the men towards each other, Icarus moved to stand beside Eric while the woman stormed down the hall looking far less than pleased. I was quite sure this encounter wasn’t going to end well.