CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Song: Dust in the Wind by Kansas
Glancing towards the window, he saw that she was right, the rain had finally stopped. Which was really good because, at that moment, he really wanted to be outside. Away from Star.
"I'm going to do a perimeter walk," he said, standing up and heading to the bedroom, where most of his uniform was, in one of the drawers she had set aside as his. He didn't have anything that was his, only his weapons and gear.
Opening the drawer, he quickly changed into the clothing that was inside, his mission outfit, his leathers and vest. He stared at the face mask, not wanting to put it on, but right then he knew that he needed to. Picking it up, he fit it around his face and neck, taking a calming breath as the familiarity began to settle in. Next, he gathered a couple of guns and knives, each one securing to their place across his body, feeling them in his hands making him feel more like himself.
Leaving the bedroom, he saw Star still sitting on the couch. When she heard him leave the room, she turned to look at him and he saw, for a moment, the slight widening of her eyes at the sight of him. Would she fear him now? She did not move and she also did not say anything. She just looked at him. Moving over to the couch, he took his waterproof boots from their place by the fire, putting them on and then lacing them up without a word to her. They had not gotten wet like hers had earlier, during her spree to the gravesites, but now they were warm for his feet.
Once he was finished, fully prepped and ready to go, he walked around the couch over to where the chain was lying on the floor, not having been used in a while, he realized. But it would be now. Without hesitation, he picked the cuff up and rounded to the front of the couch, so that he was next to her. Star quickly lifted her foot and placed it onto the hearth, making it easy for him to reach her ankle. She knew what was expected of her and did not try and complain, especially after this morning's stunt. He locked it into place around her sock and put the key back into his pocket. He then headed to the front door.
"I'll be gone a few hours," he simply told her opening the door, barely turning his head to look at her.
"Alright," she replied while still looking at him, with those eyes.
Closing the door behind him, he headed down the steps to the nearest path opening, leading into the woods, no actual destination in mind. He just started walking the paths circling the house, starting with the inner ring, as he thought of them, picturing their layouts in his mind to try and distract him, once again, from Star.
When he had woken up and found that he had grabbed around her with his arm, his first thought was that he had possibly crushed her with it as he had slept. When she had finally moved, letting him know that he hadn't, it was a relief. But if he was worried about hurting her, how was he going to deal with completing his mission? It always came back to that thought. Finishing the mission.
There was no way he could continue staying with her in the house. It was effecting him much more than he had thought possible the other day. He had told himself that it would be fine, that he could handle being around her with what he was feeling, and then just letting the Chair do its job of removing all of it, after he had completed his mission. But, he had not thought that it would keep getting worse as he stayed around her. Earlier, he had admitted that he was trying to protect her from learning the truth of the gravesites. And then, when he had woken up from their nap, he had been worried that he had injured her.
What he needed to do was to go ahead with his plan and kill Star, to complete his mission. But not today. He had agreed to allow her to leave her information for her parents and authorities. He would not deprive her of that, not with what she had been through. But when he got back, he needed to inform her that she needed to go ahead and write the information down. That way, tomorrow he could finish the mission, to kill Star.
Once she was removed from his presence, all of these emotions and feelings would quit, would go away. Then he could just use the house as shelter, as he had originally intended to a week ago, when he was sent here to work. No more distractions. No more confessions. No more Star.
At this point, he had walked around the house five times following the strange twisting circular paths that the guards had worked into the woods, moving further and further from the house. As he was crossing the drive to the house for the fifth time, he glanced out to where the road headed back towards civilization. Off in the distance, with the sun barely breaking through the remaining clouds, he spotted something.
He examined the surrounding area carefully, before exposing himself by leaving the woods. Walking down the edge of the dirt road, staying in the grassy areas to prevent footprints, until he made his way to the spot on the ground that had gotten his attention. On a water puddle that had gathered in a low area, there was a rainbow liquid, motor oil, floating on the surface of the water. The ground around it did not show any deep rutted tire tracks, which meant that the oil had been on the ground since before the rain had started during the night, maybe even before the snow.
But, had it been there all along? The only reason he had noticed it this time was due to it floating on the water. It was not just a drop or two. There was enough oil for him to estimate that whatever vehicle it had come from had been parked on the spot for at least a short amount of time.
He headed down the drive towards the main road that all vehicles coming here would have to travel on. The entire way there, he spotted nothing out of the ordinary. No other tire marks, and definitely none made in the mud that was everywhere. The oil spot had to have been old. Maybe even from a local's vehicle that had broken down and been pushed down the drive, to be out of the way since it was not too far from the paved road. Moving back into the cover of the woods, his mind focused on the oil spot as he continued on, checking more paths, anything else occupying his mind.
Hours later, he had lost count of the number of perimeter rounds he had made, and the sun mostly gone. Opening the front door, it was the wonderful scent that assaulted him which made him stop. But it was seeing Star sitting at the table, a piece of paper and the pencil they had found in the truck in her hand, that caught his attention.
When she heard him opening the door, she had looked up from her writing and glancing towards him, looking as if he had caught her doing something she should be guilty of. She didn't have the normal warm greeting for him that he had come to expect, instead having a sad look about her. But there was only one thing that she would be doing with those items. Exactly what he was going to tell her to do, write out her information. She had done it without him even having to demand it of her.
Stepping inside, he got a quick, "Stop!" yelled at him from Star. He froze in place, wondering why she would be yelling at him. Star stood up from the table and walked over to the kitchen and grabbed the dish towel. Making her way over to him, she gently fell to her knees in front of him. He looked down at her, her hair falling loose down her back and over her shoulders, a lovely brown shroud. How he wanted to reach down and run his fingers through it again. She began to unite his boots, working the laces easily. Once they were both all the way undone, she told him to step out of the shoes. As he lifted his foot, Star used her hands to hold the boots into place.
He watched as she then picked up the muddy shoes and began to wipe the floor, where he had begun to track the mud into the house. From the kitchen, the timer on the oven began to make an annoying buzzing sound. Star spread the dishtowel on the floor next to the door and put his boots on top of it, to collect the mud and debris that had collected on the soles.
"I need to check on that," she said, heading into the kitchen area to deal with whatever it was filling the house with that delicious scent.
Yes, he decided, he needed to complete his mission tomorrow. He couldn't stand enjoying this for too much longer.
Star sat on the far right side of the couch with a blanket wrapped around her, only her head visible, her legs drawn up to her chest under the cover. Since he had returned, Scary had not spoken a single word. That had to have been about three to four hours ago. While he was gone, she had pulled out the last of the apples and found a tin that she used to make as close to an apple pie as she could. It had turned out fine, but instead of the warm reaction from Scary, he had simply eaten it, after his entire dinner of course, without a word.
She knew that there were only a few days left, and so did he. That was why, as the pie was cooking, she had pulled the paper from the van out and written down her basic information. Scary had brought up while she was in the tub about how her time was drawing close. All she had was his word that he would actually let her information be found. She guessed that if it would compromise his mission, that he would tell her and not lie to her. He hadn't lied to her so far, from what she could tell. But, all that she had was his word, the word of an assassin.
When she went to write her address, she actually began to wonder if her family would still be living in the same house. There was always a chance that they had moved after she had disappeared, but she would never know. Still, she wrote her name and address as if it were on the front of an envelope.
Did they assume that she had run away, as she had always guessed they would by her actions? There was no way she could go into detail about what had happened that day, but she hoped that if they did read it, they would know that coming all the way to Russia had not been by her own choice. So, instead, she had chosen to write them a simple message: Hi everyone. I've missed you.
That was all that they needed to know, not all of the horrible stuff that had been done to her. Hopefully, they would never learn about that. She wasn't sure how the authorities would handle that information. They wouldn't know, would they? Would finding Kozlov's body here make them research her and discover why she had been here? Did the police files on gang criminal mentioned when they kept sex slaves? Would the police search the paths and find the other girls' graves? She hoped so, but there was a very good chance that their parents would never know what happened to them. They never even had the chance to write a note for home. They didn't even have proper names on their graves, just whatever Kozlov had decided to call them.
After Scary had returned, he had changed back into comfortable clothes, but it was easy to see that he was once again brooding. But just as she had before, she could see his demeanor change into one that didn't want to speak. She had tried putting on a few records with an upbeat melody, but after a while, seeing that they had no effect on him, she put on something more melancholy to match the atmosphere of the house's occupants. He didn't even seem to get the slight morbid joke she was trying to accomplish with the current song. She wanted him to stand up and take it off, tell her that he didn't find it funny. She just wanted him to do something.
Earlier when they had woken up, he had seemed to have been very worried about what he may have done with his arm as he slept, asking if she was hurt. Was that all that was bothering him, or was it also the fact that another day had passed? Had he remembered a little bit of what had happened while he was sleeping? She didn't think so, feeling that he would seem more embarrassed, and not the darkness he was exuding. For all she knew, it could be something else entirely that had him sitting opposite of her, as far as he could get from her, but still be on the couch. It was getting late, and even with the very strange, emotionally conflicting nap, she felt worn-out.
"I want to go to the bedroom," Star simply stated as she rose from the couch, dropping the blanket in a heap where she had been sitting. Lifting her leg so that her foot rested on the couch, so he wouldn't even have to move, she offered it to him, so that he could remove the cuff. Scary took the keys from his pocket and unlocked her, only the sound being that of the chain hitting the floor. No comment from the peanut gallery, she thought.
Without another word, she walked around the couch and entered the bedroom, heading straight for the chain located in there. Picking it up from where it lay next to the bed, she turned and was surprised to find that Scary had followed her into the room, so quietly that she had not even been able to tell.
"Alright, you are sneaky," she said giving him a slight smile, holding the cuff out to him. Scary didn't let his expression change in the slightest at the joke she tried to make about their conversation from earlier.
He took the cuff, bent down, and locked it into place without a word. Standing back up, he stepped over to the fireplace and added a couple of pieces of wood to the fire, a few more than she would think was necessary. She headed into the bathroom and closed the door for privacy, since he didn't seem to care about anything right now.
Taking her time, she brushed her teeth and got ready for bed. She realized that the hairbrush was still out on the hearth when she looked for it to give her hair a final brushing for the day. She had not braided it, even after Scary had left the house, letting it fall loose, figuring that he would like to see it like that. But of course, he had said nothing about it when he had returned. Turning the light out and leaving the bathroom, she found that Scary was no longer in the room. In fact, he had closed the bedroom door. Had he done that so the fire could warm the room up for her?
She figured that wearing the sweats to bed would be fine, and a single shirt would suffice with how warm the room had gotten when the door had been closed. Especially if Scary came to the bed later. Pulling the covers back, she gathered a length of chain and laid it out of the way, so that her socked feet didn't touch the cold metal during the night. It was then that she wondered about wearing the chain tonight. When Scary had slept in the bed with her, he had not locked her up, but tonight when she had offered it, he had not protested, and she had not thought about it. She was used to being secured in some way, so she had just assumed and offered it to him.
Crawling into the bed, she rolled over so that she was watching the closed door that he had used to separate them. The fire was starting to rage and it was giving off a lot of light, not to mention heat. There was no way she was getting cold if it stayed like that. Looking at his empty side of the bed, she wondered exactly what he was thinking about out in the den.
Star was hating the fact that she was in here alone, and that he was out there, almost a bit mad at him for sulking the way he had been doing for the past few hours. She had gotten used to him giving her the little touches, and she was not even talking about what had happened during nap-time. Even when he had just put his hand on her knee, while she was in the tub, it had been nice. She had gotten so used to being hurt when she was touched, because of Kozlov, yet here was an assassin, her killer, being nicer to her than anyone had been in so long.
As the room continued to warm, she began to let the covers slightly fall from how she had them pulled all the way up to her neck. Putting the sheets under her arm, she rested her arm on top of the bed. After a few moments of not being able to get comfortable, she grabbed the pillow from Scary's side and wrapped her arm around it. His pillow instead of him. That was all the comfort it seemed that she was getting tonight. Star finally allowed her eyes to close, once the burning feeling of the tears stopped.
