Apocalyptic Montessa and Nuclear Lulu: A tale of Atomic Love (2 page)

She passed the semi, her steps faltering a little before she righted herself. A little too tired, but she could push through. After all, she was her mama’s daughter, and there was something special about her. A girl like her could never give up, but just needed to keep going.

If she had been paying attention, she would have noticed a shadow sliding behind her. If she had taken her earbuds out, she would have heard the surreptitious sound of sneakers on pavement, heard shallow breaths. Noticed the glint of something sinisterly sharp in the moonlight, the smell of evil deeds being considered.

None of this. None. She focused on putting one bruise
d foot in front of the other, on getting home so she could collapse into her bed that would smell of Renan’s sweat. On getting something to eat, if there was anything in the house. On drinking two big glasses of cold water if there wasn’t.

She focused on getting home…no, to the place she
lived.
Because it wasn’t a home. It wasn’t a nest. It was somewhere she paid rent and left her clothes and closed her eyes and slid under the water in the bathtub. There was no such thing as home.

She was thinking too much. She cursed inwardly and bit her tongue,
concentrating on the steady
bop, bop, bop
of the music she endured.

A hood slid over her head.
A hand clamped over her mouth. She felt a sharp dig into her neck, heard something spoken over the sound of her music, but couldn’t make it out.

Montessa tried to scream, kicking and fighting, but the
palm over her hooded face pressed harder, and the steely sharpness pierced her skin. The trickle of blood that ran down her neck shocked her. The pain of the knife was so sharp, so sweet, so sudden and cold that she sucked in a breath as well as she could, stiffening reactively. Her legs wouldn’t work anymore, but stuck out like the tiny wooden legs of dolls. The hand came off her mouth and wrapped itself around her ribcage, pinning her arms to her sides.

The voice again,
in her ear.

“Move and I’ll kill you right here.”

The blade pressed into her throat again, that same shock, the sheer surprise of being cut, of her skin being rent, of her blood, which was so precious, being let loose and wasted in such a careless way.

She was dragged. Backward
, she thought. Away from the road. Away from help. Away from the path that would lead her back to Renan.

Oh, thank goodness,
she caught herself thinking, and it was a surprise. Then there was a great, ringing pain in her head, and she was relieved of thinking for a while.

Montessa woke up and moaned. Renan’s blows had been nearly unbearable th
is time. She blinked, but the room was still dark.

“Decided to wake up?”

The voice was soft. Surprisingly so. The words were spoken intimately, like a lover, but she didn’t recognize the voice, except to say that it was strangely beautiful and foreign.

The hood was yanked off her head, and Montessa
squinted in the dim light that came from a small lamp. Even that light was too much.

“I’m going to throw up,” she said, and a shadow suddenly swooped close, held a large plastic bowl in front of her face. She ret
ched, not once, but twice, and realized the stranger was holding her hair back from her face.

“Thank you,” she said quietly when she was done.
The bowl was emptied. The stranger mopped at her face with a damp baby wipe. She closed her eyes to keep out the light.

“I don’t like filth. Don’t mistake this for tenderness.”

That soft voice again.

She nearly laughed.
Her lips turned up despite herself.

“I won’t.”

Silence. The stranger perched beside her. She opened her eyes and stared at her feet. She had lost one of her shoes in the struggle. She felt a vague sense of defeat, but decided mourning wouldn’t do her any good. When had it ever?

“You think this is funny?”

He didn’t sound angry, just curious.

She swallowed hard. Assessed. Her skull
nearly split in half from the headache, but her mind was fairly clear. She was tied to a metal folding chair, bound at wrists and ankles, waist and shoulders. She couldn’t get out if she tried. She glanced at the red stain on her shirt, blood from her throat, and she knew she wasn’t going to try. Not now, anyway.

Her hair hung in her face, and she tossed it out of her eyes.
Her skull screamed. She grimaced.

“It isn’t funny. It’s…apt.”

She felt him eying her. Felt the anxiety crawling under his skin like flames. Fire. Smoke. Steam.

“You don’t act like most of the girls I take.”

She wasn’t like most girls. She was going to say it, but the room swam and her stomach churned.

“Bowl,” she said
instead, and vomited, hard, so hard that she choked and heaved and coughed. When she was finished, he wiped her face again. Held the tissue while she blew her nose. Gave her a glass of water and let her spit it out into the bowl.

“Thank you.”

“It’s weird that you keep thanking me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s even stranger that you’re apologizing.”

She blinked up at him then, trying to make out features, but all she saw was the
glow of a cigarette in the half-light. It moved and danced in a strange way, split into two and three. Fireflies. A swarm. She heard it in her head.

“Hey. Are you gonna puke again?”

She couldn’t answer. The swarm of fireflies turned into something else. Flames. A city. On fire.

She whimpered, tried to pull away.

“Hey.”

The bowl was in front of
her, her hair pulled back, but she couldn’t take her eyes off of the burning glow of his cigarette, of the flames running down the mountainside, of the open mouths of screaming people trapped inside buildings.

The stranger touched her and she jerked back, away from his hands.

“Too hot,” she said, but the words came out jumbled, slurred, and the fire ran across her body, charring her tender skin, and then for the second time in as many hours, she fell unconscious.

~

Lu looked at the girl for a long time. She hadn’t seemed afraid of him, or of being tied up. There had been an easy acceptance of her situation that he wanted to ask her about. That he
would
ask her about. It was almost like she had seen into the core of him, seen what he was. Not The Man Who Had Taken Her, but the force of nature that was Lu.

He busied himself cleaning out the bowl. Pulling the girl’s hair back and tying it with a rubber band, just in case. Checking to make sure the metal chair was firmly fastened in place so it didn’t move, that she was breathing easily. He’d had one suffocate before. What a shame. Such a loss. He’d cursed for days after that one. Had to find another right away to stuff food into the hunger. Much sooner than he had planned, of course. It had been dangerous, and close. Too close.

He climbed to the front of the semi, hopped behind the wheel, and started the truck.

He drove down the road, past the turn-off the girl usually took to get to her house. A small thing, neat on the outside, thanks to her. He had watched her scrubbing and weeding and painting
the trim. Mowing the lawn in a pair of men’s shorts and a white tank top. The boyfriend was never outside unless he was coming or going, a posse of men or women hanging around him.

Lu wondered what the house looked like now. Destitute. Empty. Maybe it mourned for her, in a way. Knew she was leaving a hole that would never be filled.
Wondered if it had cried when she left, knowing deep in its eaves she wouldn’t return. Lu felt vaguely sorry for it, but not for long. You can’t do what he does and give in to the weakness of sympathy.

He cont
inued on, leaving her house, her boyfriend, and everything else that had any meaning to the girl behind.

~

Montessa woke up somewhere in Idaho, but she didn’t know this, of course. She just knew she was stiff and hurting from being tethered to the chair. Her head was feeling a bit better, and the nausea was mostly gone, but she was thirsty. The hood made it hard to breathe. She tried to breathe shallowly, but she still inhaled the thin, dark fabric. It still fought its way into her mouth, wanting to coat her throat and airways with lint and thread and darkness.

Her breath started to come fast. She fought to slow it.

She squirmed against the ropes, uncomfortably. Testing. Feeling. The knots were tied firmly. Her ankles were sore and raw. She still wore one shoe, and the other missing sneaker shot that strange hypodermic needle of sadness through her again. A container of sorrows. She kicked the remaining one off, wiggled her toes. Better to lose both than to be constantly reminded of the one. She had learned about loss early. Learned about moving on, as much as you could.

“Doing okay back there?”

His voice was muffled, but still strangely melodious.

“I need to use the restroom.”

“Of course you do.”

“And I really need a drink of water, if you have one.”

“Quite the demanding princess, aren’t you?”

She didn’t say anything else. Just tipped her head back, willing her eyes to somehow see through the black fabric. She swallowed hard, tried to keep the panic and despair down.

They rumbled to a stop. She felt it, the gravel underneath wheels.

She heard him clamber toward her. She caught her bottom lip
between her teeth, nipped it hard enough to draw blood.
Concentrate on that, Montessa,
she told herself. Instead of wondering who the man was. What he had in his hands. Wondering if death was as peaceful as liars always said, or if it was gushing and bleeding and limbs drumming a sporadic rhythm on the ground as the last neurons fired. She bit her lip again, otherwise her screams would force their way out of her belly and throat and she would shriek both of them into oblivion.

“I’m going to untie your feet so you can use the
coffee can. I’ll have my knife to your throat. Try anything and I’ll kill you.”

“You’re going to kill me anyway, right? Why should this deter me?”

“If you want to be stuck like a pig while taking a piss, be my guest. It seems like a cheap way to go.”

“I won’t try anything. I just…please hurry.”

She felt his hands on her ankles, felt the tension of the ropes release.

“Don’t kick me.”

“I already told you I won’t.”

His hands around her waist, her shoulders. The ropes fell away. He yanked the hood off, pulled her awkwardly to her feet, and she groaned at her stiffness.

“My hands?”

“They stay tied. I’ll pull your pants down for you.”

“I…”

“Relax. This isn’t my thing. Don’t worry that I’ll be getting off on it. I certainly won’t.”

She thought she should be ashamed. That there should be a stab of humiliation, but there wasn’t. It wasn’t any different than being a stripper. Any different than being used by Renan. And using the restroom was a relief.

“Thank you,” she said after he yanked her pants back up.

“You’re exceptionally polite.”

“For a kidnapped girl?”

“For anyone.”

He led her back to the chair, and she balked.

“I’m sorry. Could I stand for just a little bit longer? Even a minute or two?”

“Think you’re in a position to ask for favors?”

“Mama taught me it never hurts to ask.”

She looked him in the eyes, then. A
n earthy brown, exotic, so dark that they almost seemed black. Pinpoints of light in them, fire at the corners. Her breath caught.

“I scare you.”

It wasn’t a question, it was a statement. He knew it. Knew it deep in his bones the way he knew he was a murderer. The way he knew he was meant to be a lover to somebody, meant to go down in flames.

She swallowed hard.

“Your eyes.”

“What about them?”

She was going to discuss her fear. Tell him about his blackness, how he chills her. He’s heard it before. A hundred times by now, at least. He felt his shoulders draw in, and this angered him. He straightened, gritted his teeth together.
Who has the knife, huh,
he thought.
Who is in charge here?

“You are,” she said, “but that wasn’t what I was going to say. Your eyes have a fire inside of them. Like nothing I’ve ever seen. I just…that sounds silly.”

She sat down, rearranged her arms behind her so her bound wrists were as comfortable as they could get.

“You can tie me up again. I just wanted to move around a little bit, that’s all. But I can see you’re stressed and would like to get going.”

Lu stared at her. Stared at her eyes, pupils not matching each other, and her matted hair and the curves of her lips. He saw the dried blood on her head and down her throat, the angry wounds that caused them. He bound her body too tightly to the chair and pulled the hood down roughly over her head.