Chapter Five

“Adam.” Ste said, nodding curtly.

“Ste.” Adam smiled.

Ste turned to look at me. “Joanie, get over here now.”

“Leave her alone, Ste.” Adam said.

“Jo, please, just come over here.”

Adam huffed. “Give me a break I don’t just attack any human I meet.”

Ste stood up and almost dragged me away from Adam. “That’s not what I heard.” Ste stood in front of me. “Leave, Adam.”

Adam looked at me and smiled. “It was nice meeting you Joanie.”

Ste growled, “Leave. Now.” Smirking, Adam left.

 

Ste spun around and pushed me onto the bed. “You stupid girl.” He shouted at me. “You stupid, naïve, little girl. You are so lucky he didn’t kill you. He so easily could have. Then, where would that have left me?” When I didn’t answer he continued his rant. “Where the hell where you going anyway? Didn’t I tell you to stay in the room?”

I sat up and responded with the same sharp tone. “Look, I never would have asked you to avenge my death. You don’t owe me anything.” I added, smiling, almost antagonising him. “By the way I don’t think he would have killed me.”

His voice dropped. He was just more than whispering. “You don’t know him Joanie. He’s a human hunter, he kills humans for fun.” I swallowed hard. “He goes around in his little gang killing humans. Do you understand now?” I nodded once. “Where were you going?”

“I was trying to go home.”

“You were…trying to…leave?” He choked out. It was the first time I’d heard him struggle for words.

“Yes.”

“Joanie, what don’t you understand? You can’t leave.”

“So I run away and I get killed, this isn’t living anyway.”

All the anger had left his voice. “I’m sorry you feel that way. But when you leave - if you leave - then you won’t be the only one killed. Your little sister, Lucy, they’ll kill her too. Everyone you know. Because they have to, they can’t risk it.”

“Lucy.” I said, nostalgically.

“You can’t leave, Jo. Ever.”

Suddenly, I could see the idiocy in my actions. I blew air out of my mouth noisily. “I did it again, didn’t I? I’ve made your life even more complicated.”

He shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” He sat next to me on the bed and put his arm around me. He pulled me close to him into a hug.

“I’m sorry, again.” He said with a half smile. He said every word slowly and deliberately as if they’d been practiced. “The push and the shouting, that was out of order. I just lost it a bit when I saw you with Adam. He’s dangerous and I can’t bare to see you around him. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I sighed loudly. “I don’t understand you Ste. One second your leaving me alone in the room…”

“Sorry about that as well. I don’t really know why I reacted that way.”

“Neither do I. We were really getting on and you just left...”

“Yeah I know. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I told him honestly, half smiling.

“You mess me up Jo. I can’t think properly around you. I don’t understand it.”

“You sound like a school girl with a crush.” I joked.

He mumbled a response that sounded like ‘I feel like one’, but that was probably just my ego playing tricks on me.

“What?” I asked. I looked in his eyes, if the eyes truly are the pathway to the soul then I must have got lost, because I was getting nothing.

“Nothing.” He looked around the room, avoiding my eye line. “You need to eat.”

“I’m not hungry.”

He sighed. “You must be. No one's home, so we can leave the room. Come on.” He smiled and took my hand. Although it was a necessity, there was still some compassion in the gesture. He guided me through the corridors and I was surprised to find that I almost recognised the way. I was walking beside him rather than trailing behind uselessly.

 

When we reached the kitchen I helped him search through the boxes to find something edible. Most of the boxes looked filled with rubbish to me, scrap pieces of plastic and cardboard. Some wood, some metal. It almost looked like a junk yard. In the metal box, sitting in the hole was some recognisable food. Ste pulled it out for me and put in on the floor. I took the lid off and peered inside. It gave me a slight feeling of homesickness. The box was filled with all the things my cupboards were filled with at home. “Can I have a biscuit?” I asked with a grin and watery eyes.

He smiled back. “Course.” I ate the biscuit quickly. “You might as well come to the kitchen whenever you want now. If Adam knows you’re here, everyone will.”

“He won’t tell anyone.” I told Ste, stubbornly.

He sighed. “Yes, he will. You don’t know him like I do.”

“Look. If he really wanted to hurt me, he could have killed me, right?. He would have killed me the second he dropped through the hatch.”

“The hatch?” I realised then that Ste didn’t know how far I’d got in my plan to escape.

“The metal hatch. The way out.”

“Metal hatch?”

I sighed. “Anyway, so he helped me to find my way back.” I told him with a smile. Thinking about it now, I was wrong before. Adam wasn’t as plain looking as I had previously judged. I sneaked a quick look at Ste, he was glaring at the floor. “You okay?”

He looked up quickly, with a false smile. “Yeah, course.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” He snapped.

“Alright.” I paused. “Do you want to go back now?” Without a word he started walking away. I followed him quickly.

“When are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” I asked, almost running to keep up with him.

“I’m fine.” He snapped again. I grabbed his arm and spun him around. He stopped sharply.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shouted at him.

He met my confused eyes. “You need to stay away from Adam.”

“Why?”

“He’s not safe.”

“He won’t hurt me.” I told him.

“He’s not nice.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re just being stupid now.”

“He’s an idiot.”

“Whatever, Ste.”

“He’s killed people before.”

I swallowed hard. “Stop.”

I could picture random faces. “Men.”

Faces of people I know. “Shut up.”

“Woman.” Faces of people I love.

Faces drained of blood, broken and bruised. “Ste, leave it.”

“Children.” Lucy. Her face wouldn’t disappear. It stayed their fogging up my brain. Her eyes swollen from bruises and tears. Her lip split and bleeding. Her hair stuck to her head through blood and sweat. A single tear drop rolling down her face.

“Ste, shut up. JUST SHUT UP!”

“He’s a loser, Jo.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I said, through a stream of tears that I was only half aware of.

“He’s not good enough for you.” The last word rang through the corridor, almost but not quite echoing.

“What and you are?”

“That’s not what I meant.” He blushed. “Jo, are you crying?” I raised my hand and wiped my eyes quickly.

“No.” I lied. He pulled me into a hug.

“I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. Sorry, Jo. I’m really sorry.”

 

How was I meant to explain to him that it wasn’t his fault? That it was actually my mind creating images that had me crying. I would sound insane, so I just kept quite. I let him comfort me and when the tears stopped I looked up and instantly felt better. His eyes were watering over and his mouth was turned downwards. No matter how twisted it sounds, I was glad to see him distressed. Because he was distressed over me, which meant he cared about me. He wiped the tears from my eyes. With his arm still wrapped tightly around my shoulder he walked me back to the bedroom.

“Look. If you like Adam that’s okay.” He told me, after he sat me down on the end of the bed.

“I don’t.” I admitted.

“I’m glad.” He smiled. He spoke slowly, “Are you alright now?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m fine.” I breathed deeply. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it. Do you think it’s strange that we are constantly apologising to each other?”

“I never noticed it before to be honest.”

“I think we should stop.”

“Saying sorry?”

He smiled. “Yes, and doing things that need apologising for.”

“Deal.” I smiled back.

There a long silence. It wasn’t awkward though, just silent. He leant his head on mine and retracted quickly. “Jo, you stink.”

“Thanks for that. It’s not my fault, you know.” I said defensively. “I haven’t showered for almost a week.

“Oh yeah.” Ste said, thoughtfully. “You have to remind me of these things.”

“What things?” I asked as he dragged me out of the room.

“Human things.” He answered, as if it were obvious.

He pulled me through familiar hallways. I was starting to distinguish one corridor from the next. If you turn left here then it takes you to the kitchen. Right and then another right takes you to the hallway with the hatch. A few turns back is the way to that dark room that I’d seen on my first day. Way, way back there was that dungeon-cellar place. I shivered at the thought. But we didn’t go down any of these corridors we kept walking.

“Where are we going?”

“To the shower room, I told you, you stink.”

“Yeah, thanks again for that.”

He grinned. We finally stopped in front of a wooden door, it wasn’t any different to any of the others, except maybe a little bigger.

 

He opened the door for me. When I stepped over the threshold I stopped instantly, taken back. The floors were a white marble with matching pedestals connecting the floor and ceiling. There was a large, white bath sitting at the other end of the room. This was the brightest room I’d seen. There was a chandelier hanging from the middle of the room. Fluffy white towels hung from gold bars and a matching mat lay comfortably on the floor. Ste walked confidently to the other side of the room while I stood, stunned at the door. He began running hot water into the bath tub. He poured some other liquids in the tub as well, as bubbles started to form, the scent of lavender started to creep it’s way over to me. Ste turned to smirk at me.

“You alright?” He asked, not even attempting to keep the humour out of his voice. I nodded, speechless. “It’s a little different to the rest of the house, isn’t it?” I nodded again. “Do you like it?” He asked, cautiously. I nodded. He smiled. “The bath’s almost ready.”

“I…er…don’t have any clothes to change into.” I reminded him.

“Oh, right, yeah.” He disappeared out of the room and reappeared less than ten seconds later carrying a pile of clothes. “Here you go.” After passing me the pile he stood there awkwardly for a moment. “Okay, I’ll wait outside.”

 

He left and shut the door behind him. I stripped down instantly and threw my dirty clothes into a pile on the floor and carried the clean clothes towards the bath. I climbed into the hot water and allowed the warmth to relax my muscles. I turned the tap off with my foot and just laid there, for what seemed like years. I got more relaxed with every second that passed. I dunked my head under the water and then searched around the shelves that surrounded the bath for shampoo. There was something that smelled similar to strawberry jam so I rubbed it into my hair. After rinsing that out I tried to find some conditioner. After a while I gave up. I decided that it was probably the right time to get out. So I reluctantly stood up and pulled a towel off the nearest bar. I wrapped it around myself and allowed my hair to drip onto the towel.

 

I moved quickly to the pile of clean clothed and inspected each piece. I blushed when I saw the underwear, hoped and was surprised to find it fitted perfectly. But knowing that Ste had picked it out made me blush deeper. I pulled on the dark denim jeans and the black vest top. Then I yanked on the fashionably checked shirt. The outfit was comforting, because it was something that I would wear normally. It surprised me, almost frightened me, to know how much Ste knew about me without me ever telling him. He’s only seen me in one outfit and I know he’s never seen me in my underwear. I blushed again. I rubbed my hair with the towel until it stopped dripping. Then I hung the towel up to dry and walked to meet Ste.

 

As I walked towards the door Ste opened it, his hand pressed over his eyes. “Jo.” He called out.

I laughed. “Ste you can look.” He moved his hand slowly. “Thanks for this.” I said motioning to the clothes.

“Don’t mention it, I thought the blue in the shirt would suit you. And it does.”

“Wow you’re a genius.” I laughed.

“Had to guess for the sizes of the…you know.” We blushed simultaneously.

“Why do you have all these clothes? What I mean is none of the girls I’ve seen look the same size as me.” In fact, every girl I’ve seen looked like one of those supermodels from years ago, they were tall and slender, thin and fragile. I was a comfortable five foot six, and although I was slim nobody would ever describe me as fragile.

“It was at the back somewhere, I had to search for a while.” He reached over to me and brushed my hair away from my face. “You look nice with your hair wet.” His hand lingered on the side of my face.

“I don’t smell anymore, then?” I probed, my voice shaking slightly.

He smiled. He bent down and pressed his lips to my neck. He breathed in softly. “You smell nice to me.” My skin tingled. I couldn’t help but smile. He kissed my neck once more then stood up straight. He looked straight into my eyes. He seemed to see through every pretence, every mask and every lie right into the heart of me. He half-smiled. He leant down and closed his eyes. I shut my eyes and waited, my breathing quickening, my heart stuttering.

 

“What’s going on here.” A familiar voice interrupted my dream-like moment. I opened my eyes and watched disappointed as Ste grudgingly opened his as well.

“Adam, go away.” Ste growled through clenched teeth. Adam chuckled.

“I just came to invite both of you to dinner.”

“Jo can’t leave. Remember.” He was still growling. The way he spoke sounded almost accusatory.

He laughed once without humour. “I know. We’re having it in the dining room.”

“The dining room?” Ste repeated in disbelief. “Jo will hardly be able to see in there.”

“She’ll get use to it.” Adam shrugged.

I coughed once. “Sorry, hate to break up this very interesting conversation but I would appreciate it if you stopped talking about me as if I wasn’t standing right here.”

“Sorry.” They said simultaneously.

Adam turned to me. “So, you hungry?” My stomach rumbled.

“No.”

He laughed. “So your stomach just then, it was what, saying hello?” I blushed.

“The girl said she wasn’t hungry.” Ste snarled.

Adam continued to look at me. “Come on Jo, I know your hungry.” He smiled, I glared at him. The problem was, I was hungry, very. I looked at Ste, he was already looking down at me.

“Are you hungry?” He mouthed, too quick for Adam to notice. I nodded once. He looked at Adam and spoke abruptly. “We’ll come. But only for a minute.” Adam grinned. Ste took my hand and walked me to the dining room. The entire time he gripped my hand tightly, protectively. We walked down the familiar hallways until we reached the dark room that looked almost identical to the one I came across on my first day.