9. Quite a change

The next morning she woke up early, but Van Cleaf must have had been up long before - since her handcuffs where gone. He still had not changed and studied the magazine he brought for himself. It appeared to her that he was a bit overslept. Sandrine took her bag, went into the bathroom and took a last look on her long, blond hair. Then she started brushing it. The girl was anxious to get the new haircut she had wanted for so long.

For her it was like a final break-up with her father and whatever would happen she knew that from now on she would never again pretend that she was someone else. Sandrine was not even sure why she had plaid this game so long. Maybe because she was afraid of him? That could not be the only answer, the relationship to her parents had always been difficult. For a long time she was not able to explain why she loved them in one moment and hated them in the next one. Then after her father took Tessa away from her she learned to her surprise that it was not her father she hated most, but her mother. From him she did not expected anything, she was not even sure if by this time there was any positive feeling left for him, but that her mother did not do anything to help her was a more painful experience than the loss itself. Always she obeyed and behaved as if her father could not possibly do anything wrong.

Suddenly Pick's voice interrupted her thoughts: "Changed your mind?"

"No - not at all."

She had not realised that he got also up. Sandrine put the brush on the shelf under the mirror. Then she asked him, if he could hand her the scissors over. He walked over to her and was about to give her the scissors, as he said: "On second thought, I think it will be easier, if I do the cutting. At least I can see what I'm doing."

"That would be nice," Sandrine said carefully, she was not to happy about the picture of Van Cleaf behind her with a sharp blade. Although she knew that he was right. She would have had some problems keeping her hair on the same length.

"And how short do you want it to be?" he said, stroking her hair with his free hand.

"About this long," she said holding her hand under her ear.

He leaned forward and took the brush from the shelf. As he started combing her hair, her skin began to tingle and her feet were getting colder. Being close to him felt so strange. Remembering the last time he stood close behind her - it had been the same odd feeling. Only then she thought it was a side effect of her fear. What was the meaning of this? Sandrine didn't move an inch. She listened to the noise of the scissors cutting through her hair and felt the brush moving through her hair from time to time. She came to the conclusion that it was not a bad feeling. It was strange and unusual, but not bad.

Van Cleaf needed a bit to figure out the best technique. Making a straight haircut, was not that hard. Keeping his hands from exploring her body was much more challenging. The moment he reached out for the brush, he was so close to her that he could feel the heat of her body. He should have stayed away from her, but he did not want to. So he had to endure the torture he laid on himself. It was probably the best willpower training he ever had, he thought while he was returning to the main room. Since he was already falling behind with his regular training he decided to put his roaming energies to good use.

Sandrine on her part was quite happy with the result. Already she looked a bit different. Her head felt so light. Slowly she touched her neck. This was much better. Fixing her hair with pins on her head took too much time and did not last very long. After Pick left her alone she began to mix the ingredients together and started dyeing her hair. It took a bit longer than she had expected. Carefully she wrapped the towel she had put on her shoulders around her head. She went also back into the main room and sat down on her bed.

Uneasy with her thoughts about him she decided not to look at his exercising. Instead she tried to escape into the Star Wars Universe, but soon she gave up, disturbed by his heavy breathing. Slowly she lowered her book, unable not to look at him. She thought about her art teacher telling her that ancient statues showing muscular warriors where just idealisations of the reality. What would the teacher think about her kidnapper?

'Maybe it's because I'm attracted by him, that I feel strange close to him', she asked herself. 'Wouldn't that only be natural? I'm seventeen and lately haven't seen many members of the opposite sex!' The only thing that did not figure in was that she was sure that she did not considered him to be attractive until the morning after her second kidnapping.

As he was about to get up, she looked back into her book. It was unavoidable that she had to deal with this, but she tried to delay the issue as far as possible. The problem was that Pick made it practical impossible to ignore him. Shortly afterwards she felt that he was looking at her and rose her eyes to meet his gaze. Did he know that she had observed him again? His face offered no clues.

"How long?" he asked her.

"At least 15 Minutes," she said after checking her watch.

Pick nodded slowly and attended his clothes. The girl saw that he was taking out the handcuffs, she almost had expected this. Sandrine knew that she would not try to escape - not again, but she was also sure that he wouldn't take any risks. Therefore she tried to appear as relaxed as she could as he chained her again. The one time he did this she believed that he was just careful, the next time it appeared to her that he was simply enjoying it.

He went into the bathroom and took a brief shower. The past minutes he thought about Sandrine, actually he was thinking most of the time about her. He got no idea why the girl had such a huge affect on him. On the one hand he could not wait to hand her over to Fouchon, but on the other hand he felt that he would miss having her for himself. As he returned and released Sandrine, she did not seem to be angry or intimidated at all.

With a smile on her face she headed for the bathroom. She got the colour out of her hair, tried to dry it as good as she could and then she cleaned herself a bit up. She had not expected that the dark colour made her look more grown up, but she loved it. Tessa had been right after all. She looked through her clothing and decided for a short blouse and a long skirt. She collected her things and went out.

The moment Pick saw her he was fascinated. His hostage looked really different, more like a young woman than a little girl. 'If she can change a few attitudes like she changed her appearance, she might really get along with Fouchon and me,' he thought. Then he said loud: "That's quite a change - to the better."

Sandrine smiled, which made her even more beautiful: "Thanks. - I bet I know someone who will get a heart attack, if he sees me like this."

"Let's get on the road, we are good in time, but if we want to stop by a restaurant tonight, we shouldn't loose to much time."

They packed their stuff together and left.

They ate a few snacks from the gas station where they stopped by for breakfast. The whole time Pick had the feeling that Sandrine wanted to ask him something. He would take any bet that it was her next attempt to find out what plans they had for her. It was for sure fun to led her tumble in the dark and seeing her being afraid, but in this case it wasn't a good solution.

The question was what could he tell her without giving anything away that he was forbidden to say. "Later," he told himself, "when she had cleared everything with Fouchon I will find ways to frighten her from time to time." This helped him to focus on the current issue. He wished he would had have a bit more practice in social skills, he wasn't sure how well his instinct could aide him in this situation.

"If Fouchon wanted to see you dead, he wouldn't have stopped me earlier. I can't tell what he wants exactly, but I don't think you have to be worried about your future. I hope this helped you and answered your question."

Sandrine was surprised, she had not expected that Van Cleaf would even give her a hint about their future plans and know this. Although she could see that he did not like saying this, fact was he did say it. Furthermore she was sure that he knew what to Fouchon wanted her for, but also that he did not lie. That was not like him, so much she learned. When he had played his games, he revealed facts that people like to put aside with words and physical force. If he lied, he ruined that.

"Oh it helped, but it wasn't what I wanted to ask you."

"It wasn't?" Before he could decide if he was more angry or surprised, he say her smile and had to think about something he told him yesterday morning. 'At least one of us is happy.'

"So what was it you wanted to know?" he said finally.

"I wondered how I should address you?" she said slowly.

"Pick, just call me Pick, that's fair enough or else you demand that I call you 'Miss Mosley'."

"Oh no - never! I hate that name and I also hate being called Sandy, my dad does this all the time."

Van Cleaf took the chance and asked her what she liked to do, when her father would not stay in her way any longer. Again Sandrine surprised him, also she got no real clue what she liked to do for a living, she had a plan what she liked to do in the next years. First of all, she wanted to find Tessa, this should not be to hard for them to figure out. He was pretty sure that Fouchon had not anything against Tessa influencing Sandrine.

The girl told him that she wanted to travel through Europe with her friend. She had put aside enough money to get started. In case they could earn enough money on their trip, they would count on Tessa's special abilities. It seemed that Tessa was good at stealing cars, filching and a some petty offences. Sandrine seemed not to have any problems with this. She told him her father should help her out and since he would not she had to help herself.

The more she told him about herself the more he could picture Sandrine besides her real father. She got many different interests, especially in music, but she also liked the kind of music her father listened to and many of the stuff he preferred most. She like to go to theatres and not only to cinemas. Her education was much better than he had expected, she had a good basic knowledge and was very open minded.

Sandrine was actually someone, despite her age, he and Fouchon could talk to. Maybe he should call Fouchon tonight, it was already about time. After a few minutes of silence she suddenly asked him: "And what do you do when you are not hunting or kidnapping someone or doing anything like that."

"My job is my hobby," he was not sure if he should be the one to give her a closer look on what they did, so he kept it short. "When I'm not busy with work I enjoy music, good conversation. I even go out, sometime to theatres, sometimes to places where you can find guys who want to make trouble."

He smiled and this seemed to startle her for a moment, but she recovered fast. Pick wondered if she ignored his unpleasant sides or if she accepted it as something she had to live with.

"And I like to spend my time with boxing. Training or fighting I enjoy both."

"That pictures," she said with a soft smile. Although she immediately bite in her lip.

After they had stopped at a gas station and bought a few snacks the next hours where spend with talking about travelling. Since Pick was from Europe and had been around almost everywhere else, he was able to tell Sandrine a great deal about many places she asked him about. By now it was probably the day that went by fastest.