The Net: Nightmare on the Highway: Chapter 12
Seeing deep into her fear filled eyes, Jacob saw the woman he loved. The woman who wouldn't let him fall to his death, no matter how scared she seemed on the outside. As the gutter cracked further he let go with his right hand and swung it upwards into her hard grasp. With brute strength she pulled him back up onto the roof.
Without even stopping to catch her breath Angela threw her arms around Jacob as soon as she knew he wouldn't fall.
"Oh thank God you're alright. Thank God."
Jacob said nothing, just held her close, his eyes shut tight. A single tear made its way down his cheek.
A full fifteen minutes later they got up and went back down to their room. Angela gathered her purse and headed for the door. The television screen was black as Jacob straightened out the bed covers.
"We'll just get a different room for the night," he said.
"No. I want out of this place. Now."
"But where will we go?"
"Home. Let's go home. We can sleep all day once we get there. I'll just call Walter and tell him I need to take the day off. I just want to go home."
"OK. We can go home."
Together they left for the parking lot and got into Angela's car. Driving down the deserted highway the hotel disappeared into the darkness until their own headlights were all they could see in the darkness.
"Stay the night," Angela said, breaking the silence.
"What?"
"I really just don't want to be alone right now."
"Oh, that's so sweet, Angela," another voice spoke up. "How come I never got an invite like that?"
They both turned in their seats to see Sean Trelawney in the back seat again.
"What? How?" Jacob sputtered.
"Ah, now, now. That was just my TV image, children. This is the real me."
Jacob noticed that Sean looked a little off from before. He seemed fainter, as if, if he tried hard enough he would be able to see right through the man.
Angela spun her head back around and kept her eyes on the road through the maze of cracks in the windshield.
"Now, I'm going to do what I tried to do on the roof back there. Only this time," he cocked a gun, "I'm going to do it right."
He brought the weapon into plain sight as he leveled it and aimed it at Jacob's head. The gun went off as Angela's hands left the steering wheel. She leapt towards Jacob, pushing him forward, as the car lurched off the road and the bullet lodged into her arm. The car fell down a grassy incline and smashed into a tree at the bottom. Angela was thrown back into her seat. Jacob's head came within inches of hitting the windshield before he was slammed backwards. When they'd caught their breath, they looked back to see Sean still sitting in the back seat, though his body seemed to be fading from existence right before their eyes. Jacob began to see the back of the seat the man was sitting on.
"What the...What's going on?" he asked, bewildered by the disappearing enemy who hadn't been hurt by gun shot or by the car smashing into the tree.
"Damn it!" Trelawney swore. "That was my last chance to kill you both. Shit. I can't kill you. Aren't you lucky."
Angela gripped her right arm in her left, trying hard to keep the flow of blood under control. "What do you mean?"
"You'll do anything for each other. Damn it. You'll risk your lives for each other. True Love. That's what it is. True love is preventing me from killing you. Or anyone else from killing you for that matter. Oh, how I hate True Love!"