Somewhere Over the Freaking Rainbow - By L.L. Muir Page 0,40
internal temperature. It was fine. The room must be warmer than she thought. Looking around, she found a miniature radiator in the corner to her right.
“I wouldn't let you freeze.” He pointed to the box she was sitting on. “And there's food and water in the boxes, so we really have all the time in the world.”
She murmured again.
“Not yet. I can't trust you...not to scream...yet.”
She tried to promise.
“Sorry. Not yet.” He folded his arms and tucked his hands in his armpits. “I guess I could have taken you to the old Latimer place, or somewhere on the other side of town, but I didn't want to leave you alone very long. This way, they can see that I'm home. If I went missing along with you, that wouldn't be good.”
What disturbed Skye the most was the planning that had gone into getting her up there. Just how long did he think to keep her?
She tried to promise again, with her muted speech and then her eyes.
He looked away and eventually she wondered if he'd forgotten she was there.
“All right. I'll take it off. But if you scream, it goes back on. Got it?”
Jamison couldn't mean it. He couldn't. But all night she'd felt like she no longer knew him, hadn't she?
She nodded, almost reluctant to give him a reason to step close to her.
Delicately, he untied the knot, then pulled out the large white handkerchief he’d stuffed between her teeth.
Kenneth! What would he think if she didn't go see him tomorrow? Or for a few days? She wanted to ask Jamison just that, but she'd hold on to the question and use it when he didn't seem so...dangerous.
“I didn’t want to have to scare you like this, but I’d be a coward if I didn’t do something.” He wrapped the scarf around his neck and resumed his seat, then folded the hanky and put it in the pouch pocket of his dark sweatshirt. “Are you afraid?”
“No.”
“Liar. I thought you were always honest.” He sneered.
“I am. Why would I be afraid? You've been kissing me all night. Or was that just to get me up here?”
His gaze dropped. “Let's just call that a series of good-bye kisses.”
Skye shut her eyes. “Why? Did Lucas tell you I'll be leaving?”
Jamison’s head snapped up. “No!” Something on his wrist stole his attention. “When?” His voice broke and he started again. “When are you supposed to leave?”
He was hurt. He did care! Everything was going to be fine.
She kept a sober face. “Two weeks. Maybe sooner.”
“Permanently?”
“Yeah.”
His foot started tapping. “Where to?”
“Another compound.”
He opened his phone and the little blue screen lit up his frown. He jumped up, so quickly it affected the candle. He went to the door in the floor and slid out the bolt. Looking back as he was lowering himself through, he said, “Don't make a sound, Skye. Please. We have a lot of talking to do. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“I believe you.”
The door closed again and she heard him slide the bolt through the loops on the bottom.
Maybe his mother had come home. Maybe Lucas or the others had sensed her distress and were looking for her. Maybe she was too shocked to pick up on anything.
She forced her mind to settle, to avoid reaching out for anyone's thoughts.
Was he waiting just below the door, testing her?
She pushed aside her bruised emotions and the worry that he'd never really cared about her, in favor of a more important question, the answer to which might be the key for getting out of her little prison...
What had happened in Texas?
***
Jamison turned on the water tap on his granddad’s enclosed porch. The bar of LAVA soap sat dry, cracked and untouched on the indented edge of the old sink, waiting dutifully until someone with hard-earned dirt on his hands might have need of a good grainy scrub. Waiting for a man who might not be coming home.
The water splashed out of a faucet that had lost its screen long ago, raging with wicked speed around the basin, then plunging down the drain in defiance of any need to conserve it.
Jamison watched the torrent, hands braced on either side of the porcelain, exultant in the waste that would probably piss off the eco-nuts next door. Wild drops splashed onto the odd green soap and stirred its fragrance. Nothing perfumed about it, but the scent summoned memories that slammed into his chest like a steel pan in the hands of an