Y'ALL
I FINALLY FINISHED THIS!
Thanks for being so patient everyone :) and forge-ahead, whoever you are, thank you for the support!
And Krissyg927 ! Without you, i would never be inspired enough to stick with any of my stories. Your Mac fiction gives me the major feels.
Okay :) hope you guys like this. I just finished moving out of my house and had my final shift at work. In a week i meet up with my husband to drive out west to our new life. I'm celebrating with whiskey and Mac. Cheers !
XxXxXxXxXx
"What do you do with a drunken sailor,
What do you do with a drunken sailor,
What do you do with a drunken sailor,
Earl-eye in the morning?"
Eddie sang to herself as loud as she dared, which was hardly above a whisper. Just a puff of air leaving her lungs and passing over her chapped lips. It was the only way she was able to keep her mind clear. She knew that if she stopped to think for too long the fear would spread through her the way fire does a dry field. She could almost smell the smoke of it; it wanted so badly just to burn.
Her breath hitched, the mantra interrupted as her thoughts blazed with just giving in to the panic. It seemed so much easier, just to be consumed.
She filled her lungs with air and tried to convince herself to think of it like a game. All she really had to do at the moment was keep walking, and the rest she could figure out later. Keep walking and stay quiet, she reminded herself.
Then, in the tiniest voice she could manage, she began to chant again.
"What do you do with a drunken sailor,
What do you do with a drunken sailor.."
She moved as stealthily as she could through the thick brush, and she kept her head low to avoid the canopy of branches. There, in a thicket cleared below the waist by animals, she crouched and sometimes even got down on her hands and knees.
"Shave him on the chest with a rusty razor, shave him on the chest with a rusty razor"
When Eddie heard something somewhere off in the distance behind her, she instantly stopped. Her hand was poised a few inches in front of her, frozen mid-crawl, as she waited to see if she had imagined it. She ransacked her mind for the next verse of the song, willing herself to stay calm and trying to convince herself that it wasn't him, that it couldn't possibly be him.
But then she heard it again. The snapping of branches, closer this time, and her lizard brain finally took over. She took off running as fast as could, heedless of the damage she was inflicting on her bare feet and not bothering to stay low.
Thin branches whipped at her face and upper arms. They broke off and stabbed at her skin but she hardly noticed. The only thing she could think about was covering as much ground as possible. It wasn't even a whole thought, more like a pulse or the sound of one single word repeating until it began to drone on into a hum.
She had tapped into her animal instinct; She was running for her life.
XxXxXxXxXxX
- earlier -
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm doing?"
It was a stupid retort for a stupid question, because it was obvious what he was doing. That didn't make it any easier to understand though, and Eddie's brain kept short-circuiting as she tried to make sense of it. He was standing in front of the window to the room she had slept in, and he was hammering planks of wood across it.
"It looks like you're getting ready for a hurricane"
"Don't give yerself that much credit darlin', yer more like a gentle breeze"
Eddies body reacted for her, moving backwards and away from him on its own accord. He didn't turn to look but he must have sensed what she was doing, because he paused.
"Don't do it Ed"
Her breath hitched in her chest. Her entire body was screaming for her to run, but she somehow managed to keep herself from bolting. She watched him wait and listen. Then he turned to face her, the hammer dangling in his right hand.
"You run from me again an you ain't guna like what happens" he told her in a flat voice.
Part of her wanted to retaliate. She wanted to tell him she wasn't his to boss around or some kind of animal that he could keep kenneled. Another part of her was terrified though, and she didn't want to do anything that might make him mad. Still, she couldn't just not try to protest this. He was boarding up her window, and she knew what that meant.
"how long will you be gone?" She asked cautiously
"Few days" he grumbled. "maybe a week"
His words were like a punch to the stomach; She lost all her breath. If he was expecting to keep her locked in that room the entire time he was gone, then a week was way too long. Even though there was a bathroom attached, and he would most likely leave food for her, she was going to go out of her mind with boredom.
As far as she could tell it was Sunday, and Mac was probably on his way back to Utah so he could be at the garage on time tomorrow morning.
Technically he didn't have to show up at all, since he owned it, but she knew he liked the regimen and the atmosphere. There was something about the smell of concrete soaked with grease, it seemed to settle him.
"Mac, C'mon" she laughed. She was fidgeting, pulling at her thumb nail and lifting her elbows. "Just bring me with you, I-"
The sound of the hammer cut her off. Eddie stopped herself from shouting to be heard. Instead, she retreated back into the into the house and sat at the small table, resting her head in her hands and trying to think past the panic.
If he was going to be gone for that long and she would be unsupervised, then that was her window to escape. She couldn't help but scoff at the way the metaphor sounded like a total slap in the face though; There was no window, not anymore.
Making sure she could still hear the hammer working, she went to check the door of the room he was planning on locking her in. He had installed a deadbolt on the outside of it, so she abandoned the thought of trying to knock the doorknob loose. Instead she focused on the hinges, running her fingers over them and wondering the best way to work them free. The window he was standing at was now totally obscured, so she wasn't worried about him catching her inspecting them. As long as she could still hear him outside of it, she knew just where he was.
She checked her bag to make sure she still had the coconut oil she had packed. She liked to use it on her skin and hair, the parts of her that were always thirsty in the dry, desert heat. Luckily, it was still there, and she stashed it in the small attached bathroom.
Knowing he would realize a screwdriver and hammer were missing, she settled for a butter knife from the kitchen and a small, dense rock she found just outside the front door. She hid them both in the tank of the toilet, praying he wouldn't think to check there.
After she was done, she went back around to pester him. She knew he would be suspicious if she was suddenly eager for him to leave, so instead she tried to pick a fight.
"Do you get paid to be a prick?" She spat at him, her arms folded over her chest and her brow furrowed down. "Or do you just do it for fun?"
He chuckled as he turned around to face her, and it crinkled the skin by his eyes up. The dozens of small lines that formed there were from the accumulated years of squinting in the sun, but it only made him more handsome. He may have been weathered and worn, but the dry heat had aged him just right.
"Sometimes i get paid to be a prick" he nodded at her. "But with you i do it for fun. I like seeing you get all riled"
Eddie rolled her eyes and twisted her lips up. She felt defensive against his confidence. She wanted to give in to his flirting, to smile back and raise her eyebrows in an obvious challenge. As much as the desire tugged at her though, another part of her was unwilling to overlook the fact that he meant to keep her totally trapped. He didn't care about her. He just wanted the convenience her proximity could provide.
"I ain't ever guna fuck you again if you lock me in that room Mac"
She said it without thinking. She just needed something, anything, to threaten him with. It was the only card she had left to play, and she said it with as much conviction as she could.
"Yeah," he replied. He was turning his back to her and nodding casually, as if she had merely commented on the weather. "Yeah, we'll see about that"
XxXxXxXxXxX
She had waited a few hours after he had left to begin the task of loosening the bolts. It proved to be much tougher than she had originally imagined, even with the coconut oil to use as grease, and she spent a lot of time figuring out the best way to approach it. The butter knife kept slipping in her sweaty hands, and her knuckles would bash against the door and hinges each time.
She got frustrated when she couldn't make any progress, and the anxiety of him doubling back to check on her was making her clamp her jaw tight enough to give her a headache.
She kept thinking she heard his truck in the distance and she would freeze, her heart in her throat, as she waited to see if he had tricked her. Her panic kept her up all night, and when she finally pried the bolt free from the lower hinge, she could have wet herself with excitement.
Her panic forced her through the small opening that appeared, a tiny triangle of blackness that waited silently beyond the room she had filled with the sound of her ragged breathing. She practically bent the door in her effort to create the space needed to squeeze through, and it was only once she was out in the hallway that she even thought about her bag.
She got to her feet and threw her hands against the dead bolt, trying to pull it free, but stopped when she realized it had a padlock on it.
"The fuck..." she muttered to herself, wondering who could possibly need a lock on-top of another lock. Then she remembered what she was up against, and she abandoned the bag to go towards the front door.
Peering out the window, making sure the truck was truly gone, Eddie tried to sort through all the moving parts in her mind. She had to get away from him but she didn't know where she was or how to get back to civilization. She had to act fast but she needed to be smart about it. In a matter of minutes, she had already lost her pack because she was panicking and not thinking clearly. She needed to slow down and look for anything that could be useful to her.
She started to rummage through the small cabin for a flashlight but soon abandoned the task. She felt like an animal that had gotten out of its cage but was still sniffing around. She wanted to leave, to put space between her and this place. As soon as she left the incubated space of the cabin and stepped outside though, the urgency receded. Out here in the wind, with the moon throwing shadows up and down the tree line, Eddie felt less confident.
Shapes shifted and the gentle breeze of the day had mustered itself up into a howl. Her bare feet flinched at the feeling of the cold ground beneath them. Eddie gripped the back of her own neck and wrung the muscle in her hands, stalling.
This was new. This wasn't something she felt up to, not even in the slightest. This place had him lurking behind each and every tree in the moving, flexing darkness.
She retreated back inside and sat on the musty old couch. Maybe if he came back and she was still here, even though she had more or less broken the door down, he wouldn't be that mad. After all, she hadn't run away, she had simply gotten out of her confines.
It made her stomach hurt to think that way though, and Eddie knew that he was going to be pissed either way. Besides that, there was still the injustice of being kept here, and it shouldn't be up to her to convince herself of anything.
She argued with herself until the sun came up.
Then, maybe because she had exhausted her instincts and tapped out her wells of adrenaline, she got up and walked calmly into the woods. She faced east, the direction that the sun had risen, and squared her shoulders. After breathing in and exhaling slowly, she shifted her weight forward and began to walk.
XxXxXxXxXx
XxXxXxXxXx
XxXxXxXxXx
She could hear him behind her now, he was calling her name in a sing-song voice, laughing and making his voice echo.
She knew it was already too late. Eddie had never personally hunted with him but she knew people who did. Groups of them would go up to Wyoming or into Colorado every year. She had heard enough stories to know he was an excellent tracker and marksman. They were skills needed to do the thing that Mac craved. He liked hunting a lot, but only because it led to killing.
Eddie threw herself against the trunk of a tree and scrambled up into it. The bark was rough, but she fought gravity fiercely, and she propelled herself upwards into the haven of the branches on pure adrenaline.
It didn't take long for him to come into view. He was walking slow, casually almost, and his posture was relaxed. He looked like he was just going for a walk in the woods, except he was holding a crossbow. He had it in both hands, down low by his stomach, and his eyes were pointed at the ground. After examining the dirt for a moment more, he walked right up to the tree she was perched in.
"Ready?" He rasped.
His voice had lost the playful tone. Now it was the feeling of meeting rock against your back as you retreated, the sudden drop of realizing you're doomed.
"Mac-"
He didn't hesitate in raising the crossbow up and firing. He aimed quick, shutting one eye for precision and bracing his shoulder against the recoil. He felt the pressure give as he squeezed the trigger and heard the sound of the tension releasing.
The bolt struck just where he intended.
Eddie screamed as she tumbled down through the branches she'd climbed up. It cut off abruptly when her head knocked against one, and she landed in a heap at the base of the tree.
She lay still when he walked up to her.
Mac narrowed his eyes and nudged her with his foot. He looked up at the bolt he wasn't going to bother recovering, firmly embedded in the trunk of the tree by where she had held on, and then contemplated kicking her for all the trouble. Eventually however, even though he was tense with irritation, he settled on slinging the weapon onto his back and kneeling down to collect his trophy.
XxXxXxX
Eddie woke up slow at first. Her head ached something awful, and her eyes were pounding in their sockets.
"Ow" she groaned, trying to bring her hand up to massage them. It was then she felt the restraints biting into her wrists; It was then that she remembered.
Fully awake in an instant, Eddie jerked her arms and legs. Her arms were trapped behind her back at the wrists, but her legs were free. She was laying on her stomach in a room she didn't recognize, and the terror seized her like it had actual jaws.
The ropes sliced into her wrists, but she did her best to keep quiet while she tried to work the knot loose. She shut her eyes and imagined the pressure on her skin giving way, but no matter how she jerked or tried to spin her hands, the rope stayed tight against her.
"Fuck" she said breathlessly when one final twist caught the tiny hairs on her arm. It was hopeless. All she had done was make the restraints tighter.
She took a break and contemplated her options. After a moment, she rolled over onto her back, pinching the bruised skin of her wrists even more when she tried to rock herself up into a sitting position. It was harder than she thought without the use of her arms on the soft surface of the bed though, and she ended up turning onto her side to alleviate the pressure.
Eddie lay there, breathing heavy and willing the softer part of herself not to break down. Just as she was about to try and shimmy her arms over her legs to get them in front of her, she heard the sound of his heavy foot steps stomping towards her.
She started to panic but quickly realized there was nothing she could do to protect herself. If she couldn't get her arms free, then she couldn't run or fight back. She was going to have to wait for him to give her an opportunity.
The footsteps stopped and the door creaked open. Eddie tried to turn her head to look, but the pain in her arms and shoulder blades caused her neck muscles to spasm and then abruptly lock up.
"Mac" she called out.
Nobody answered but the footsteps started again, the scuff of steel toes boots. They stopped when they reached the bed she was laying on.
"Please" she began, unsure of what he wanted her to say. "Mac , I -"
"Told you not to run off again," his gruff voice cut her off. "an i told you what would happen if you did"
"Mac-"
The sound of his belt being undone made her shut up. He was either going to beat her with it, or he was just getting it out of the way so he could force himself on her. Or both.
"Mac !" She tried again, even as she realized it was too late for whatever he was going to do to her. "Mac !"
She tried to flip over so she could see him better, maybe even talk her way out of this, but he put his heavy hand on her shoulder and forced her flat on her stomach. His weight made the mattress sink, and he threw a leg over her to straddle her lower back.
Eddie still couldn't see what he was doing, but this unexpected turn gave her a dizzying state of dread. She had expected either of the other two scenario's, but this new territory sent her back into a blinding animal panic. She couldn't brace herself if she didn't know what was coming.
While he situated himself on top of her, she started begging him, repeating his name over and over and asking him not to do whatever he was gearing up for. His body shifted off towards the side for a moment, but then came right back down, all of his weight keeping her totally immobile.
Instinct told her to thrash but he was too heavy. She buried her face in the bed, resigning herself to being trapped, until she heard a unmistakable sound. It clicked and then made a rushing noise. She knew exactly what it was because she had heard it, countless times before, while sitting on the couch next to him and doing dabs. It was his blow torch, and the sound of it roaring was making her body fill with dread. She could feel it rising in her like water does in a sinking ship.
"Mac!" She gasped out, one final time as he grabbed her left ankle and pulled it towards him. "mac, please"
The only answer she got was the sound of meat hitting a hot pan. A sizzling, searing white heat, that hit the bottom of her foot and sent her world spiraling into black.
XxXxXxXxX
Eddie dreamt she was walking through the desert barefoot, the sand impossibly hot on her feet. She wanted to stop and look at them, to inspect the damage she felt, but she knew that something dangerous was close behind her. She never turned to actually look, but she could hear its breathing getting closer and closer.
When she tried to run, her legs sank into the molten sand, making her slow despite all her efforts. As her legs got deeper, the burning in her feet got hotter. It felt like she was falling through the earth and into hell.
She woke up panting, drenched in sweat and something foul smelling. She tried to shift her weight and immediately sent daggers stabbing into the soles of her feet. Unable to help herself, she cried out at the pain, slamming her head back down and doing her best to lay still so it would pass. The lights in the room were off, but the barely risen sun illuminated the space just enough for her to gently examine and discover the cause of her agony.
There, etched into the ruined skin on the underside of both her feet like a cattle brand, was the outline of his signature belt buckle.
The end
:)
I have a few ideas for a part 2 though :-p lemme know what you think!