Page 81 of Trapped: Until The Darkest Of Night

At some point, I admit to myself that I want her, even physically. Now that she’s losing her fear, a thousand times more than before. The dark burning in my chest has given way to another feeling. It’s a bit like floating.

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning and feel like I’ve fallen out of my old life; I think it should hurt, I must have broken all my bones, but feel like a newborn caribou calf taking its first unsteady steps. It takes me a while to realize that I’m happy in a strange way.

Ever since Lou told me Jayden’s story, we’ve been spending most days together.

We have breakfast in the RV, and while I clean up and do the dishes, Lou watches reruns of Hero of the Week. Every once in a while, I tease her about the show’s pseudo-heroic crap and she replies that I’m simply jealous of the attention the heroes receive. I can only laugh at that because the only attention I want is hers, but I haven’t said that out loud in a long time.

In the mornings, she often offers to help. She accompanies me to the lake and together we wash our dirty jeans and T-shirts. We kneel side by side on the bank, arms up to our elbows in the water, while Grey frolics around us, preferably biting one of my freshly washed clothes. Sometimes, I think he does it on purpose because he wants to annoy me. I’m afraid one day I’ll have to vie with him for Lou’s favor.

At lunchtime, we decide together what to cook for dinner, no, usually Lou decides and I merely nod. The main thing is that she eats. Afterward, we spend two hours in the RV, especially on days when the air between the spruce trees and the deadwood shimmers with heat.

Nowadays, I seldom see Lou standing around anymore, clutching her necklace and pendant as if it was the anchor to her past.

However, despite my happiness, I don’t trust the peace. It’s going too well. From time to time, I wonder if Lou is deceiving me and secretly plotting to stab me in the back, strangle me, or whatever she thinks she can do to me. I don’t want to test her, but I also know that one misstep from her could ruin everything like a card removed from the bottom of a house of cards.

I dread that moment. The bad thing is I don’t know how I will react. I still don’t trust myself, I don’t know enough about the new Brendan because that part is still foreign to me.

In the morning, Grey’s pathetic whine wakes me up. In the bunk above the driver’s cab, I sit up and, bleary-eyed, look down the aisle. Lou has left the folding door open and I spot Grey, who has tumbled out of his blanket lair and is sucking on the corner of the blanket.

I quickly climb down, sneak barefoot to the back, and pluck Grey from the down comforter with one hand.

Carefully, I set him down on my fleece sweater on the seat and regret a little that this sweater will probably never be anything other than Grey’s daytime sleeping place. The pup looks up at me with his beady eyes and then crawls awkwardly under one sleeve, whimpering.

“You’re cold too, aren’t you?” I look out the window. A thin fog hangs like a veil between the trees and the sky is dusky gray. It’s five thirty at most. I quickly pull my sleep shirt over my head, throw it on Grey for fun, and slip into my clothes.

Grey starts whining again. My shirt comes to life and moments later his little head peeks out from under the top. “It’s okay. I’m on it.” Watching him, I fill the kettle with water and pour the powder into the measuring cup. It occurs to me that I left the scissors on the tabletop last night.

Lou didn’t say anything about it, but maybe she didn’t notice. It’s the first time I haven’t locked away a sharp tool immediately after use other than the knives on my belt.

It only takes me a second to decide. I quietly disappear into the bathroom and deposit the scissors in the mirror cabinet. I’m wondering all the time if Lou is planning something; maybe this is how I’ll find out.

Something in me makes me do it.

It’s now eight o’clock and I’ve made coffee and toasted frozen pancakes. Grey hangs lengthways across my forearm and is drinking his second portion of milk of the day. His stomach bulges like an inflated balloon. As I wonder if he has had enough, the RV rocks gently—a sure sign that Lou is moving in the bed.

“Hey!” I look up to see her sitting on the mattress, staring in my direction.

Has she been watching me for a while?

She blinks a few times and rubs her sleep-reddened cheeks. Two strands of hair stick out from her head—it looks funny, a bit like a clown.

I put down Grey’s milk pouch, take the key on the table next to me, and toss it to her on the bed without comment. For a while, I used to unlock her bonds in the morning, but over time it felt like I was her personal jailer.

Lou opens the shackle and disappears into the bathroom. She’s rarely talkative this early in the morning and it’s best to leave her alone until she’s had at least one cup of coffee.

The RV sways back and forth again. I don’t know exactly what she’s doing in the bathroom, but she’s definitely not on the toilet. It’s also not the first time the whole RV rocks like a ship in a storm once Lou has closed the door behind her. A few days ago, I thought about setting up a camera. Maybe she’s trying to crawl up the walls and get out through the hatch in the roof, but a camera in the bathroom would be wrong on so many levels.

At some point, I hear the water rushing and the RV’s plumbing gurgling like intestines, and shortly afterward, the door swings open. “Could you give me a pair of scissors?” Lou asks, like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“For what?” I stand up with Grey in my arms. It’s funny that she’s asking for them today of all days.

“I want to even out my hair.”

I think I hear veiled reproach in her words. “Look in the cabinet.”

Truth or pretense?

Lou closes the door behind her, leaving me to ponder.

---