Valerie's eyes shoot open, a bright white light shining in her face. She screams for Nicolas as loud as she can, her rpms racing as she imagines herself again restrained, waking up to this same light in her face. It was only a matter of time before she would find herself looking into those horrifying green eyes.
But, wait. My engine. It's running.
As her vision clears, the white light in her face turns out to be the white paint of a wall.
"Valerie.. It's okay..shh..," says Celine. Her voice is calm and it is coming from Valerie's right side, "We're in Saint Pont Hospital.."
"W-what? How..?"
"We jumped..," Celine answers, "..and you knocked out, but I found a pay phone..and it was a miracle, Val. It had a dial tone.. I hid the three of us..until police arrived.."
Is this a dream? Valerie didn't know what to believe anymore. For all she knew, the three of them could still be trapped in Chaumont, unconscious beside that psychopath. This all sounded too good to be true. She runs her eyes over to her friend and sees that multiple wires are hooked up to her, and an infant lay asleep in Celine's tires: Eliot.
Valerie tears up. It's the first time she's seen her child, and he looked exactly like his father, champagne paint and all. She turns her front wheels out, and with a choked up voice says, "I want to hold him.."
Celine nods, stretching a wheel out and giving him over to Valerie, "He..hasn't woken up since the nurse brought him in hours ago..but they said he is one-hundred percent healthy..and they washed him up and fed him.."
Valerie sighs and then whimpers as she looks down at what is left of her family, "I should of just called the cops," she wipes tears from her face, "Psycho..he's right. I am stupid.. I trusted a stranger. I ignored my husband.. I-I thought I could take on Christophe..," her voice trails off.
"Val, don't blame yourself. We all make mistakes..but none of this is your fault. Christophe went insane. If anything, this is all my fault..for forcing you to go out that night.."
"But..Nicolas would still be here if I had just listened to him," her voice raises, only to silence with a gasp. Eliot's eyelids are moving faintly, "H-he's waking up.."
Valerie smiles, "H-hey..my sunshine.. M-mommy is so sorry..," her voice cracks. She waits for his eyes; his innocent little eyes that would always remind her of Nicolas, but when he finally opens them, her smile vanishes.
"Val..?" Celine asks with concern, "What's wrong?"
"H-his eyes..," she drops her child on the blankets in front of her and rips her own eyes away. Eliot looks confused, his lips parting and letting out a wail of distress.
"Valerie! He needs you! What is wrong with you!?"
"No..I can't..his eyes should be brown," Valerie yells over Eliot's cries, "My entire family has brown eyes.. N-Nicolas' too.."
Celine shakes her hood, getting off of her hospital bed and scooping up Eliot, "Valerie..he has been through so much.. He needs you just as much as you need him-," but then she gasps hard, dropping Eliot right back onto the blankets.
"T-that blue.. They're Christophe's eyes.."
Three weeks later.
Los Angeles International Airport, California, USA.
"After eight vehicles have been found brutally maimed, France has no one else to blame but Christophe Peugeot," says the news anchor as he reads the evening headlines. A few cars sit in front of the television, eyes glued to the screen with their carry-on bags at their side as they wait for their late-night flight.
"But is it Christophe Peugeot?" the news anchor continues, "Two female survivors say differently, claiming Christophe is accompanied by multiple personalities. This condition is commonly known as D.I.D. or Dissociative Personality Disorder."
" The slayings have all occurred within a one-hundred-thirty kilometer radius of an abandoned French town, Chaumont, and anyone living nearby is strictly forbidden to leave their homes until this crazed man is captured."
A police officer nearby glances up at the television screen just as a photograph of Christophe is being shown. He narrows his eyes, taking in the details of his face: His white paint, his sharp headlights, and those bright blue eyes.
"Hm," he grumbles to himself, deep in thought, until the sound of a landing jetliner steals his attention.
One by one cars of all shapes and sizes pile into the airport, forming a line in front of the police officer, their passports out and ready. The officer stands taller, trying to look more professional. His LAPD decal shimmers gold against the white of his door.
Finally the last car in line rolls up, his voice small and reserved, "Good evening, officer-," he looks down at the policeman's license plate, "-Officer Pryde."
"Evening," Pryde says with a straight face, barely giving the car a glance. He's already flipping through the passport, "Mr. Fou Boucher?"
"Yes, sir. That's me," the car responds.
Pryde narrows his eyes at the photograph, and then back up to the stranger, finding himself face to face with a Peugeot 406. He raises an eyelid.
This man looks just like Christophe. Then again, all these foreign cars look the same. But he's painted a glossy black..not white. And his eyes..they're extremely green. Weren't Christophe's blue..?
Pryde flips through the passport again, "You're American, hm? That's odd, because you've got quite the foreign accent."
"Oh..yes..I became an American citizen years ago," the black car responds calmly, "I was just visiting my family in France."
"I can see why you've come back," Pryde turns away to grab some papers, which he's required to hand out to all the vehicles, "I'd leave too with all those slayings going on."
But when he turns back to give him the papers, the car is gone, leaving Pryde and the entire airport drenched in a lonely, unsettling silence.