Chapter 2:
See first chapter for warnings and disclaimers. Feedback appreciated. Enjoy!
The dream was always the same. It never failed to confuse her.
"Who are you?" Raines repeated doggedly, for the thousandth time.
A nine year old girl glowered back at Raines with all the determination of a sumo wrestler. She sat cross-legged on the cold, metal floor, clad in a grey dress which resembled nothing so much as an overlarge shopping bag with armholes.
"You tell me."
"No, you tell me."
"Why don't you tell me?"
"Tell you what?"
Raines never got annoyed in this dream, which she knew for a fact would not be the case in person. He repeated the question over and over. The asinine exchange went on for hours. As far as she knew, it wasn't a memory. Raines always appeared as his younger self, with hair and sans air tank, generally with a lit cigarette in his hand. There was never an answer. She always woke up perplexed. And with a rather inexplicable craving for Belgian waffles.
Her eyes opened. She was on her back, the ceiling dingy and water-stained above her. As if it ever rained in this godforsaken place. Waffles. There has to be a diner somewhere.
Focus. Lyle. Fuck. What the fuck time is it? Still dark out.
She fumbled in the cushions of the saggy couch for her watch. She hated sleeping on couches. Hell on her back. She located the watch, Hermes, square face, gold setting, black calf band, impeccably tasteful, gorgeous. A gift from Raines last Christmas. She squinted in the darkness, trying to read the time.
Great. Half past line. She hated watches with no numbers. Fucking Raines lived to torment her even when he wasn't actually present.
Looked to be about five thirty, if she had to guess. Only slept for two hours. Fucking dream. So confusing. She was hungry now too. And wide awake.
She sat upright, smoothing her rumpled blouse and attempting to straighten her woefully impractical hosiery. As she unfolded herself from the couch, she touched her throat lightly; it felt about twice its normal size and swallowing was more painful than it was worth. Lyle's got some grip.
She went to the dingy, cracked mirror on the wall and lifted her chin so that she could assess the damage Lyle had done. An ugly purplish bruise was clearly visible, despite the darkness and the dusty mirror. She could make out five finger marks, like a shadow on her fair skin. A turtleneck it is, then.
Really should go check on him. Dodgy, squirrelly little fella. Her earlier, mildly over-romanticized view of Lyle was fading as fast as her bruise was emerging. Devilishly handsome kindred spirit or not, he was still dangerous. Like her. Can't forget that.
She took one last look in the mirror. Damn. Getting a zit. Has to be stress. With a resigned sigh, she turned away from her equally exasperated reflection and moved across the uneven floorboards towards Lyle's bed.
The dream was never quite the same, the details, anyway, but the basic event never changed. Nor did the impact it had on him: each time he woke up in a cold sweat, expecting a blow that never came.
"I'm really sorry, Jimmy," Bobby said, coldly, as though his voice had originated from somewhere far outside his body.
Jimmy couldn't hear him. Or at least, he didn't respond, didn't look at Bobby at all. He just stared ahead, past the rise of the cliff, past the shallow rapids below, his eyes fixed on air, on nothing.
Bobby stood behind Jimmy, poised to push him over the cliff. As he raised his hands to do so, Raines would appear, sometimes behind him, sometimes suspended in an alarming fashion above the precipice, not unlike Wile E. Coyote a split second before the fall.
Bobby could see tears streaming from Raines' eyes, which alarmed him even more, but when he lifted his hand to his own face, he could feel tears there instead. He was crying but he felt nothing, not sadness, not anger, not even numbness to pain – he felt nothing and it panicked him. He lurched forward, pushing Jimmy over the cliff, sometimes even through the eerily floating Raines.
He would run then, at breakneck speed down the steep embankment – he still remembered each step, each rock and shrub, not 5 miles from his home. He was always aware of Raines nearby, silent, and crying, as he was crying.
When he reached the rapids, he searched for Jimmy's body, running into the water which soaked through his boots, tripping over unseen rocks, but Bobby never found him.
"Where is he?"
He wheeled around to face Raines, still silent, still crying.
"Where is who?"
Bobby approached Raines, reaching out with both hands to grab the older man by his lapels and shake the answer out of him.
"Where is he?"
Raines shrugged, impassive under Bobby's grip.
"Where do you think?"
Bobby cursed and turned away from him, his eyes away upstream, still scanning for Jimmy's body. Consequently, he never saw the axe coming until the blade was an inch from his neck, and Raines' silence was broken by an awful scream, animal, a battlecry.
Lyle awoke before the blade touched his neck. His eyes were open now, and his face was wet.
Where am I? Fuck. He tried to sit up. His leg stopped him as the chain of the cuffs extended taut.
Fucking Ow. Everything hurts. Ankle, arm, hand, side. Head. Like Jesus, almost. Like hell.
"Have a bad dream?"
Lyle very nearly screamed like a girl. As it was, he managed to turn the noise into a strangled cough and grunted noncommittally at his captor, about whom he had almost forgotten.
She stood in the door, her hair and clothes rumpled, not so tall now that her shoes were off, her eyes in shadow, lidded heavily. She looked as though she had just had several hours of particularly wild sex. He would have made a comment to that effect in his very best suggestive come-hither voice, but he was in too much pain. And too shaken by the damn dream.
"Arm hurts," he mumbled. Slick.
"I bet," she said, her voice almost too low to hear, soothing. What the fuck.
She crossed the room and retrieved a syringe from a black doctor's bag. She prepared it as she walked toward him, with an absent, practiced air. Lyle sucked his breath in as she took his right wrist and gently turned his arm over. He would have pulled away, he did not generally stand for being injected by women who kidnapped him and cuffed him to beds, but something stopped him. There was something in her face he recognized.
As she searched for a vein, he watched her, realizing precisely what it was he recognized. She was not afraid of him. She was sure of herself, and she was content, apparently, to wait, to bide her time, and he was utterly at her mercy, helpless. She was like a big cat, a lion, secure in the knowledge that she was bigger and meaner than any and all comers, licking her chops and relaxing as the situation unfolded.
He knew that look. Jarod frequently had that look, that smug, I'm so much smarter than you are, I'm not worried about a peon like you kind of look. On Jarod, Lyle found it unspeakably galling. On this woman, Lyle was intrigued. And a little afraid. And a little turned on. Fuck. Focus. She could kill you while you sleep. Game face on.
"Who are you? What's your name?" Lyle clarified after a moment.
She regarded him with a vaguely amused expression, the corners of her mouth twitching.
"I thought you'd never ask. Seraphina Parris."
Lyle snorted. He couldn't help it. Yeah fucking right.
"Yeah fucking right. That's not your name."
"Yes it is," she protested. He couldn't tell if he was indignant or making fun of him.
"It is not. Are you making fun of me?"
"It is. And I'm not, but I could," she said in a clipped tone of voice.
"Come on. It's made up." Lyle was not quite sure why he was pursuing this, but he had an idea from the warm, fuzzy feeling spreading up his chest that it had something to do with the injection she had given him. All of a sudden everything was so unbearably funny. He tried hard not to giggle. Fuck. Keep your fucking mouth shut, you moron.
"Yeah, it's made up. So what. So is yours." She crossed her arms and waited for his response.
Lyle did not know what to say. So he giggled. She, Seraphina, that is, Lyle corrected himself with another giggle, sighed.
"I take it you're feeling a little better."
Just so funny. Can't help it. Hee. Seraphina.
"Seraphina…Ha."
"I'll just let you alone, then." She arched one eyebrow fetchingly and stalked out of the room. Hee. She's pissed. She's cute. Seraphina. Fuck. Can't stop. Don't care. Seraphina.