CHAPTER SEVEN: OTHER INTENTIONS?
Stephanie felt a cold chill come over her as his smooth hands slid over her bare neck and collar bone. She bit her lip to keep a gasp from escaping her small mouth. He saw her lustful expression and her suffering; he smiled his terrible and wicked smile. He had won.
Stephanie awoke from her nightmare with a jerk. Sweat covered her from head to toe and her limp body was madly shuddering with shock. She didn't remember what she had been dreaming about, but she could still feel malevolent hands all over her body.
Stephanie rubbed her tired eyes and peeked at the two beds across the room, both of which still held two sleeping lumps. The light was not bright, but she could see clear enough; it must have been early morning. She did not want to wake her captors, but she did not want to sit there patiently and wait for them to finally stir.
Stephanie examined the room once again with little interest. A new door adjacent to the supply closet caught her attention. Curiously, Stephanie stood from her couch and began her journey slowly towards it. Hopefully it was a bathroom, which she had not had the chance to use since her little adventure at the Nakatomi building. She turned the grubby, brass doorknob and cautiously opened the door. The room behind it was pitch-black and Stephanie groped the walls in search of a light switch. After a few moments of blindly stubbing her toes on walls, she found the stupid thing and flicked it on. White light lit up the small room and revealed a porcelain sink, a mirror, a toilet and a shower within a glass enclosure
"Thank God," Stephanie whispered to herself happily. A quick shower wouldn't hurt anyone. Checking to see if Hans and Theo were still sleeping deeply, Stephanie shut the door behind her and slid out of her disgusting dress.
The shower wasn't difficult to work; to the left of the handle made the water hot and to the right made it cold. She adjusted the water to a comfortable temperature and she hopped inside the glass box. The water immediately made all her muscles relax and her mind unwound into a stream of peaceful thoughts. The terror of last night seemed completely unreal. She ran her hands over her frail body, wiping away grimy dirt and sweat. In this world, where soothing water healed everything, there was no hostage situation, there was no pain and there was no Hans Gruber.
"Miss Bowers!" a voice called to her from behind the bathroom door and urgent knocks closely followed. Stephanie abruptly snapped out of her half-trance.
"U-uh, yes?" Stephanie answered.
"Are you taking a shower?"
Stephanie recognized the voice to be Hans'.
"No, I'm secretly planning how to escape you and this nasty motel room," Stephanie replied sarcastically.
"I'm coming in."
"No! You can't! I was joking!" She could hear the door knob turning and she covered her exposed body in panic. "I'm naked!"
"I'm only coming in to make sure you are actually doing what you claim to be doing and not holding any weapons or such." Through the fogged up glass Stephanie could see the door open and close. She waited for Hans to speak, praying to God that the fog hid her body.
"Can you step out for a minute?" he asked calmly.
"Are you serious?" Stephanie exclaimed.
"Yes, quite."
Stephanie stood there, resuming her sickly shaking, before turning off the water. She could see his dark silhouette through the glazed glass. This would be over soon; she just had to show him she had no bad intentions. Stephanie opened the shower door slightly and thrust her empty, wet hands out to Hans.
"Happy now?"
"No, that won't do. Come out fully." His eyes were as piercing as the night before and Stephanie wished more than anything to disappear that very second.
"Alright. Hand me a towel," Stephanie sighed weakly. Hans looked around the bathroom in search of one.
"You didn't bring one in."
"Really?" Stephanie scanned the bathroom herself, not believing she could have been so dumb.
"Hurry up and come out," Hans spoke in his usual impatient tone. He noticed her apprehensive look and he furrowed his brows. "I'm not going to take pleasure in seeing your childish body, so you don't have to worry about that."
Stephanie, feeling greatly insulted, let out an agitated sigh and obeyed. She emerged from the shower with a deathly pace, covering her breasts with one hand and her crotch with the other.
Stephanie did not look at Hans' face and wished he would hurry up with his search. A strange feeling came over her and goose bumps crawled over her skin; it was if she could feel Hans' eyes on her body. She reluctantly sneaked a peek at him to see if he had finished. To her bewilderment, she saw Hans observing every inch of her, his cheeks flushed with crimson. She quickly dismissed the sight, reasoning that it was the heat and humidity of the room getting to him.
"Finished yet?"
"Turn around."
Stephanie's heart stopped.
"What?"
"Turn around." Hans' serious eyes flickered back to her own.
Stephanie's breath hitched, but she followed his orders. She warily removed her hands from their previous positions to cover her backside as she turned.
Stephanie thought that it would be better if she could not see Hans examine her, but she was wrong. It was much worse. She could not see where his eyes were placed or what he was doing behind her back. She bit her lip in anxiousness, her heart knocking at her ribs.
"Alright. I'm done now," Hans said. Hearing his voice so close from behind her gave her the weirdest sensation, like a fleeting feeling in her chest. With no hesitation whatsoever, Stephanie reclaimed the secure cover of the shower. The bathroom was slowly losing its warmth, but Stephanie waited until she heard Hans leave the room before she turned the comforting water back on.
Once Stephanie had finished cleaning and grooming herself, she carefully stuck her head out of the bathroom door and peeked around at the room. She spotted Hans sitting on the couch which she had come to hate after one night of painfully sleeping on its rock-hard cushions. He seemed to be intently reading the morning's paper.
"Where's Theo?" Stephanie curiously called out from the bathroom.
"Seeing as how I can't be seen in the American public for now, he has volunteered to fetch us some breakfast," Hans answered her, but he did not look up from his reading material.
"Oh." Stephanie waited a few seconds as she tried to plan out how she would get herself a towel without exposing her nakedness, but she quickly gave up.
"Would you be so kind as to grab me a towel, please?" Stephanie asked Hans politely.
"I must kindly decline," Hans replied mockingly at her attempt at good manners. "Why don't you get it yourself?"
"What? And expose myself again? I bet you'd like that, you pervert," replied Stephanie. "I've exposed enough flesh to you for a lifetime, thank you very much."
Hans glared at her and then set aside his newspaper. As he approached the supply closet directly across from her, she shrunk back into the security of the bathroom.
"Here." He thrust a pumpkin-orange towel at her with his eyes focused on the wall beside her.
"Thank you." She quickly snatched the towel from his grasp and shut the bathroom door.
Stephanie tightly wrapped the oddly-coloured towel around her midsection and turned to the mirror above the sink. With a swift swipe, she wiped the fog off the mirror and inspected her reflection. She noticed that some colour had come back to her skin now that she was not under the stress she had been under the previous day. Stephanie pinched at her cheeks and arms.
"Am I getting a little chubby?" Stephanie muttered to herself. She laughed at this trivial suspicion. It felt so nice to feel like a normal teenage girl, at least if for this moment.
"Hey! Stephanie!" Theo yelled out from behind the door.
"Can't I get some time to myself?" Stephanie muttered and unwillingly opened the door fully.
"I found these at the gift store here," Theo spoke lightly, shoving some clothing into her hands. It seems that the troubles of yesterday had been wiped away by a night's good sleep for Theo.
"Thank you. That's so nice of you," Stephanie spoke, feeling sincerely grateful.
"What are you talking about? We can't have you walking around in a blood-stained, ripped dress; that will look suspicious," Theo said matter-of-factly. "I also got you these." He handed her more things. Stephanie carefully looked at the objects in her hands: a brush, a toothbrush, toothpaste, two different shades of pink lip gloss, and a thin book.
"Lip gloss and a book? I really am growing on you, aren't I?" Stephanie reached up and pinched his cheek playfully.
Theo swatted at her hand (while trying to hide something that looked similar to a smile) and left her to change. The clothes he had bought her weren't actually that bad. She pulled on a plain, white bra (Theo had somehow gotten a size very close to her own), an aqua-blue tank top, a nicely-fitting pair of blue jeans and a pair of white running shoes.
"Oh, good. If I need to run away again then I'll have the proper footwear this time," Stephanie remarked.
She grabbed her new brush and emerged from the steamy bathroom. Hans was still reading the paper with a paper cup of coffee in his hand and Theo was nibbling on a donut while staring out the glass doors.
"No need to seem so somber, boys. It is Christmas Day after all." Stephanie sat down on the edge of Hans' bed and began to brush her drying hair.
"I was going to buy myself a new computer for Christmas with that money," Theo spoke absent-mindedly.
Stephanie rolled her eyes.
"Come on, it's not the end of the world," Stephanie replied, trying to raise the mood of the room.
"You aren't the one that risked your life and reputation to try and steal billions of dollars worth of stuff, and then walked away with less than what you came with," Theo said moodily, turning to look at her.
"No, I'm just the silly orphan girl that was put at gunpoint repeatedly on Christmas Eve, and then kidnap by two moping idiots," Stephanie retorted.
Theo turned back to the glass doors without another word and Hans continued to read as though she didn't exist.
Stephanie grabbed a donut from beside Theo, picked up her new book and slid open the glass doors.
"Where do you think you're going?" Hans asked, finally looking up from his paper.
"Out. Don't worry; you will be able to keep an eye on me from here." Stephanie closed the doors irritably and marched across the parking lot to a tree that grew in the middle of the motel lawn.
What jerks! They were miserable because their heist hadn't worked out. What about her? She was stuck with two greedy men who were on the run from the police. Because of them, she would probably be scarred for the rest of her life. But come to think of it, she didn't feel that damaged from last night. It actually felt like it had all just been a vivid nightmare.
Stephanie plopped down in front of the lofty tree and stared at her book. On the cover was a huge, hot-pink heart with black, curvy writing on it saying, "The Key to Lisa's Heart". What the hell? She flipped the book over and read the short summary on the back.
"'Lisa is not your normal girl; she has never experienced an emotion remotely close to romantic love. But one day she comes across Californian-hottie Brad while shopping at a surfer shop. Will he have what it takes to unlock Lisa's cold, dispassionate heart?'
Ew. Why the hell would anyone read this?" Stephanie almost threw the book away from her. Stephanie gazed up at the sky and took a bite out of the chocolate-glazed donut.
I wonder what Mom and Dad would think about all of this? Stephanie thought. Surely her father would be impressed with Hans' intelligence and class, but even more furious with him for killing Mr. Takagi and trying to rob the Nakatomi vault.
"Didn't like the book, huh?"
Stephanie turned to see Theo walking towards her from the parking lot.
"Did you even try to read the summary?" Stephanie asked with an appalled expression on her face.
"Of course I did. I thought girls like that stuff."
"Maybe if their heads are filled with nothing but air and estrogen," Stephanie sneered.
"My apologies then." Theo sat down a fair distance away from Stephanie and crossed his legs. There was a moment of uncomfortable silence and Stephanie felt the need to say something – anything.
"You know, there are legal ways of getting money."
Theo looked at her; his playful smirk back on his face.
"Yes, but stealing is way easier," he replied as if it were common sense.
"But it's bad." Stephanie raised an eyebrow at him.
"What, and you've never done anything bad before?" Theo challenged her.
Stephanie searched her brain, looking back into her domestic past, trying to find any disobedience towards her parents.
"Not that I can remember. There wasn't really a reason to go against my parents, or the law for that matter," Stephanie said, sitting back in her victory.
"Really?" Theo looked at her in cocky disbelief.
"Really. I had an exceptional upbringing and I have no brutish similarities with you or that hot-headed German."
"Ouch." Theo laughed. "You know, he's not as bad as he seems. You'll see."
"I severely doubt that. He's arrogant, bossy, cold-hearted, and unsympathetic," Stephanie spoke with slight frustration.
"Unsympathetic? Why do you think you're even here?" Theo leaned forward, almost seeming offended at her opinion of his boss.
Stephanie stared at him with a puzzled look spread on her face.
"He didn't send you to the roof with the rest of those idiots, did he? He kept you by his side," Theo stated firmly.
"Yeah, but probably because I would have caused even more trouble," Stephanie debated back.
"No. I think it was something else." Theo turned from her to the empty parking lot. His lips were pursed as though he was trying to figure something out.
Theo had a good point. If she had gone with the other hostages she would not have been any use to anyone. She would have been as stuck and as desperate as the others. Stephanie thought back to the way Hans looked in the elevator and when she had asked if he was sending her to death with the others. His face then was not pompous or frightening. He did not look calm either. He looked as if a battle was engaging in his mind, as if he were trying to make a difficult decision. Had he really thought about her well-being?
"Anyways, Hans wants you to come back to the room. He has a few things he wants to cover." Theo's face returned to normal and he stood back up.
"Yeah, okay." Stephanie obeyed peacefully and followed Theo back to their glass doors, still pondering what had gone on inside Hans' head in the Nakatomi building elevator.