Agent in the Dark (The Agents for Good) (5 page)

C
hapter Six

Captive

The rain was a blessing, as well as the darkness it brought with it, which shadowed our movements and took the focus off of us. By my calculations I was roughly a mile from the lair I had carved out for myself in the rubble of the once proud city. The rain was cold and it wasn’t healthy for anyone to be out in, but I was grateful for it.

I saw none of the beleaguered residents of the city on my sprint away from the scene of my latest bloody massacre. Up ahead of me were the high-rises. One in particular was the location of my lair in this city of cutthroats.

The high-rise must’ve caught on fire at some point and from the ground floor up to roughly halfway up its height it was a charred ruin completely impassable, as the weight of the building had partially collapsed down onto the weakened burned out areas near the ground plain. It had been a daring feat to climb up the charred outside of it for a distance of twenty to thirty floors in the dark of the night. But the sanctuary that I had found had been worth it.

The upper stories of the high-rise were virtually untouched by the scavengers, who had raped the city. It was as safe a spot as could be found in the city. There was even food, candy bars mostly. I reached the base and looked around in the onslaught of heavy rain, but nothing stirred. I tugged on an almost invisible strand of fishing line and a climbing rope fell down the outside of the building the several hundred feet needed to reach me. I hooked a foot in the loop at the end of the rope and gave the rope a sharp tug, which unseated the safety I had on a connected rope, which had a heavy weight attached to it via an elevator pulley at the top of an elevator shaft.

Normally the ascent was faster, but with the extra weight of Asia it was more of a gradual rise up the side of the charred out high-rise. I was actually pretty proud of my little dumb waiter system to be truthful.

When we reached the popped out windowpane I swung inward and tied the rope off. Awkwardly I stepped out of the loop and began climbing the stairs to the next floor above us. Another nice thing about the shelter was that the roof and windows of the upper section of the high-rise were mostly intact, so there was little water damage or fouling done by birds. It was a veritable haven in the midst of hell.

I stepped into a luxurious suite and made my way to the bedroom. I laid Asia down on a chase lounge, as I lit some candles. I turned back to her and I didn’t like what I saw. Her face was pale and I touched her forehead to see if she had a fever. She was so cold it shocked me!

I felt for a pulse and at first I didn’t find it. She was in deep hypothermia and her wet clothes weren’t helping. I stripped my own off and then more or less ripped hers all off. I pulled the covers back on the bed and laid her on the bed. I got into the bed and pulled the covers up over both of us. I pulled her over on top of me, as chills racked through me at the contact of her ice cold skin with mine.

Generally, I was very warm-blooded by nature, but the cold rain had left me chilled and now having to contend with the ice block that she was, was its own form of torture. Shivering I wrapped my arms around her. Her wet hair was unbearably cold against my skin. I pulled another blanket close and worked at drying her hair and then mine. That done I rubbed away at her back, as I finally began to make some heat of my own again.

In an hour’s time I was quite warm again and being to
rtured in an entirely different way. There was nothing like having a beautiful woman laying on top of you, skin to skin and having the urge to do something about it, but bound by not doing so by a sense of some guilt that I would be as bad as about the worst individual I could imagine, if I listened to my desire’s commands to take advantage of her in her sickened state. I wasn’t that far gone yet, at least I hoped not.

It was torture! This wasn’t at all how I had imagined our first time together in bed would be. What do you know I still had something of an ethical code somewhere inside. I didn’t eat people or take advantage of unconscious women. It was good to know that I had something redeeming about myself yet intact.

Her face was turned to me, as it lay on the curly black matte of my chest hair. She had warmed up considerably and she was breathing much stronger now. For someone with a slimmer build she certainly had full lips.

‘Stop! Don’t go there John!’ I preached to myself, as my hands dug into the mattress and I stared up at the ceiling willing myself to not give in to the temptation presented by her.

Why was I fighting so hard to avoid my own desires?

It just seemed like the thing to do was all I could come up with. Surprisingly after a while I fell asleep.

I startled awake and glanced around disconcerted. What was wrong? The candles were almost burned out, but I saw nothing else amiss.

I was hot! No, she was hot!

She was literally burning up on top of me. Oh God! This was bad! What to do? Get water and try to cool her down?

As tempting as that was the body promoted fever for a reason.
It was best that she sweat out whatever the fever was trying to get rid of. She was moaning and shifting around pitifully on top of me in her delirium of fever. I pulled her up a little further then and I pulled the covers up farther and held her consolingly with one arm, as I reached for the wet towel that I had dried her hair and mine off with earlier. I pressed part of it to her face and mopped the sweat with the cool towel.

“
Shhhhh it’s okay.”

I did my best to calm her, as sweat rolled off both of us. Four long hours later her fever broke. I watched her take deep even breath after breath enjoying it somehow. She’d scared me for a while. She’d slipped up further on me and I couldn’t look away from her face. My lips were on hers without any real thought on my part.

I pulled back from her. I had to get away from her before I shot my newfound code of ethics all to pieces! I started to shift out from underneath her, as gently as I could. Her hands drifted to my arms where her fingers molded around the muscles of my biceps and grasped them firmly enough that her nails dug in slightly.

“Oh come on lady!” I breathed out in frustration.

I tried to remove her taloned grasp on one arm, but she held on. I didn’t want to use the force needed to remove her, as I didn’t want to wake her from her restful sleep. Groaning I lay there and put my ethics to the test.

Asia stirred for a moment restlessly and then bolted upright wide-awake. When she did the blanket covering her fell and she gasped snatching it back up, as she quickly realized that she was completely naked beneath the blanket. Her mind quickly left that horror tinged predicament to focus on the leather strap that was bound around her left wrist. The strap was tied off to the bed in a complex not that she doubted there was a fix for other than the slice of a knife. Waking up to find oneself naked and tied to a bed was not a good thing!

Despite the adrenaline pumping through her veins she still felt as weak as a newborn kitten. How would she defend herself? Against
who would she be defending herself against?

Scattered thoughts returned to her all jumbled up. She had been running and then the mob had seized her and then…… She swallowed hard remembering, as the door of the room swung open. The sick monster had come for her!

I glanced up from the tray to my very awake patient. She’d moved as far from me, as the cord around her wrist would permit. I set down the tray and slid a knife out before lea
ning across the bed toward her.

Her eyes darted to the knife in alarm and she strained harder against the tether of the strap. Carefully I slipped the blade of the knife between the leather strap and the skin of her wrist and sliced through the leather binding.

“I didn’t want you to go wondering off on me, while I was gone Asia.” I said softly making direct eye contact with her.

Her eyes flared at the use of her assumed name. I flipped the blade end for end in my hand and offered her the ha
ndle of the knife. Her eyes came up to mine in open question of my action.

“Take it.” She did and I drew back from her.

“Now I know you’re thirsty and if you were hungry enough before to dine out on a rat then you’re probably ready to start downing centipedes.” I held out a cup of water and she reached for it so eagerly that she almost dropped the blanket, but she recovered the blanket quickly looking mortified in the process.

“Allow me.” I said tipping the cup of water up to her lips. Dutifully she drank, but kept one eye fixed on me the entire time, as her hand gripped the knife so hard she might have squeezed water out of it. The cup empty I took it away.

“Could I please have some more?” She asked, her voice rough and unused sounding.

Her English was perfect, except for only a slight accent that I liked instantly.

“You certainly may, but we need to space it out some.” I responded in keeping with her perfect manners, but I couldn’t help grin a little at the silliness of having manners in such a setting as this.

It was hot inside the tower and I hadn’t bothered to put a shirt on. I knew how intimidating I could look, especially to a woman fully expecting to have to defend herself against being raped. Her eyes seemed focused on one part of my chest in particular and I glanced down to the area in question. It was the scar I’d gotten from one of my bear skirmishes that hadn’t gone too well for me in the past.

“Where a bear swiped at me.”

Her eyes darted up to mine, as her cheeks pinked knowing that I had caught her looking.

I held out a piece of jerky, “It really is just bear meat. I don’t do the whole consume one’s neighbor thing.”

She kept my gaze for a moment, and then she took the jerky from my fingers. The taste must’ve surprised her, because she started gobbling it down.

“Easy! Don’t eat too fast you’ll hurt yourself! There’s plenty more
take your time.” I said gesturing to the tray.

She did slow down some, but it was an effort on her part. An hour passed by like that, a cup of water then a piece of jerky or some other native food I had brought along with me. Her stomach had shrunk and I could tell when she was full after only a few pieces of jerky. She was looking tired again too.

“How would you feel about a little dessert?” I asked pulling a Hershey chocolate bar out from a fold in the covers.

I chuckled, as I saw her eyes light up with yearning and I handed the chocolate bar to her. She said something, as she took the chocolate from me that I didn’t here.

“What?”

“Thank you.” She said, only slightly more audible in tone.

I watched her eat the chocolate bar and had to admit to myself how rare the few times in my life were, when someone had ever thanked me for anything. The other side of that was that I hadn’t done much to deserve a thank you.

She was really enjoying the taste of the chocolate, but in some ways it was much more than that. “It’s nice to taste the way things used to be isn’t it?”

She nodded understanding my meaning. I had been refe
rring to just a brief time before, when a candy bar had been a thing of commonality, with a million gas stations supplying them in never-ending supply, but now they were all but a memory in just a little over two years.

“Probably just tastes good too.” I said watching the relish with which she consumed every morsel of chocolate. She stopped and shocked me by breaking off several chunks in her hand to hold out to me. I stared at her offered hand and what it contained in disbelief.

She was sharing her food half starved as she was, with me, the man holding her captive!

My voice husky sounding I said, “No you eat it. There’s more where that came from.”

She pulled her hand back and I studied her curiously, as she finished off her chocolate. Her gesture had been oddly touching and it led me to a question.

“Are you a Christian?”

She looked up and nodded.

That explained a lot about her. Oddly I wasn’t put off by that like I normally would have been. Instead I found myself wanting to sit and talk with her and discover all I could about her. There was a wealth of knowledge in her eyes that I was fascinated to discover. I wanted to kiss her again so badly! I’d better leave now before I let myself go too far.

I glanced at the blanket she had firmly tucked beneath her arms. Some part of me just wanted to leave her naked for my enjoyment, but she was a person worthy of respect. And r
espect made me need to offer the basic human need for clothes. I reached down and brought up a pile of clothes, which I dumped on the bed.

“Something here should fit you, if not there’s plenty more that you can go through tomorrow.”

I didn’t miss the look of relief that flashed across her face at the sight of clothes. She liked to be decent. That sort of made her special in a way, as I hadn’t really known any women like that before. The women I had been with were all aware of what beauty they had and they flaunted it to good effect. There had been nothing shy about them and yet it almost seemed like a character trait with Asia.