Heat - 23. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

The sky breaks, then. Rain crashes down in a sheet like it had all been hanging in the sky waiting for his permission to fall. Maybe it had. My clothes are soaked through and that only seems to improve his hold. I can feel them constricting around me, trying to force my body to move the way he wants me to move. It’s not necessary of course, I couldn’t resist him if I tried (and I did). He’s got his hooks inside me somehow, moving my muscles and bones like they’re his own. He's just showing me his power. Showing me all the ways he could kill me with a single thought, like I wasn’t already aware.

He guides me, one hand on the back of my neck like we’re just two close friends out for a walk during the worst storm of the year, and together we walk away from the Big Bowl and towards the outskirts of town. He says nothing to me, just smiles his melting smile when I ask where we are going, but it doesn't take me long to figure it out on my own.

The reservoir, already full from the late summer storms a few months back, is overflowing its concrete banks. He tells me to sit and I drop like a stone into the sticky red mud at my feet. Then he is silent for a time. Waiting.

“Why did you bring me here?” I ask, hoping to distract him somehow. Maybe if I can draw his attention for a second his hold on me will slip and I can… what? Punch him? I’m sure that’ll go great.

He laughs his wet laugh and pats my soaked head with his unoccupied hand “Now why would I tell you that?”

“I don’t know. We’re gonna be here a while right? Might as well make conversation.” I try to shrug and am shocked when he lets me. Maybe this plan is working, somehow? I jump to take advantage of the moment. “I know! We can play a game. You can ask me a question, then I ask you one. We can get to know each other a little.”

“Right. Because I am simply dying to learn about my little brother’s fuck toy. You going to tell me about how daddy abandoned you, is that it? Try and find common ground between us - we’re not so different, you and I. Maybe you think if you get me talking I’ll slip up and you’ll be able to wriggle out of my grasp? Well allow me to disabuse you of that little notion right now. You will never escape. You are powerless. If I told you to eat mud…” he tilts his head dismissively and I slam my face, hard, into the ground “you would. So yeah. I don’t want to get to know you. You’re a toy that I have stolen from my brother’s toybox to get him to go where I want him to go. That is all. You may sit up now.” I do, jerking painfully into an upright position. I can taste blood from my nose when I open my mouth to spit out the gritty clay. The red of it and the red of my blood mix, dripping onto my shirt in visceral streaks. “Now, is there anything else you would like to discuss?”

I shake my head silently. He lets me shake my head. There’s a thudding in my skull now and my chest has begun to ache sharply. Adrenaline, flooding my body. I think you’d call this a panic attack if it was less justified.

His eyes. It’s so hard to look away from his eyes. The worst part is they are so much like Asher’s. They are more blue than gray, of course, but something about the tone of them reminds me of him so much that it turns my stomach. Then it hits me. That moment, when he was telling me his story. The only time I’ve ever felt afraid of him. It’s the exact same mix of hate and rage swirling in those eyes.

Satisfied by my answer, he turns away from me entirely, looking out over the water. His hand is still on my neck, was the entire time even as he slammed me to the ground. I mark that down in my head - the contact must be important. If I can break it somehow I might be able to make a run for it.

We sit in silence for probably ten minutes. Him, looking out over the flooding dam with an oddly self-satisfied expression and me exhausting myself trying and failing to move any part of my body. Finally he gives my neck a little squeeze and says “Hmm. I wonder what’s taking him so long. Brother never was one to be late to something so… important. I was hoping to save this for later but it seems he may need a little incentive to hurry it up. I don’t have all day, after all.”

He holds up his left hand and makes a swirling motion, slow at first and then faster. The arm slowly liquifies until it is a whirl of water in the air getting larger and larger. Then, all at once, he stops. The water reforms (or, as close to reforms as he can manage) into his arm and I am confused. Nothing is happening. A moment of stillness, of calm. Then the town sirens kick on.