The Living Statue

34.

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Our drive from the stinky motel on the outskirts of Paris to wherever we were going - I assumed back to the filthy rich hotel we'd stayed at ever since we arrived to France in the first place - was as merry as Missa pro defunctis. I kept to my designated corner at the back of the limusine, while Mr. Torres kept to his own, pressed to the leathered side of the door as if there were some invisible shackless restraining his movements. I was half expecting his driver to turn on Mozzart's Requiem and complete the lovely atmosphere.

I refused to do so much as look at him, let alone speak. The silence was only occasionally broken by the sound of a horn coming from outside. We seemed to be stuck in a world of our own which none of us had any intention of leaving any time soon.

I sat with my legs pulled up, my chin resting on my knees - at this point I didn't care about looking presentable in front of my ex-employer, nor about his immaculately clean leather seats - and stared out of the window, but I was barely seeing the images that kept flying in front of my eyes. I was deep in thought, far away from the bustling city outside, all too conscious of the awkward, gloomy mood that has set upon us.

I could see, from the corner of my eye, that Mr. Torres seemes as little enthusiastic as myself - his annoyingly perfect lips pulled into a thin, dissatisfied line as if sealed with molten metal. I couldn't see his eyes though, which were firmly trained on the passing road outside, though I had a pretty clear idea as to what his expression looked like. It was probably non-existent.

Back at the motel, what I'd seen on his face was as close to an expression - no, emotion - I'd ever seen from him, and it was not a pretty sight to look at. He was angry, and I couldn't, for the life of me, understand why.

Wasn't that what he always wanted? For me to just pack my things and leave? Exit his life as quickly and unexpectedly as I'd entered it?

I'm sure the calculative bastard simply wanted to avoid problems - and a missing daughter of a business mogul, who was, by the way, last seen arriving in Paris with you at her taw, would be a problem. A very big one at that.

That was, in a way, an answer to my question. And yet, I was not satisfied. It felt still as if there was a missing piece, as if I'd, yet again, failed to get to the bottom of it. The puzzle was not yet complete, and now that I refused to speak to him, I knew I'd lost my chance of piecing it together. Though I doubted his expressionless, stoney face or his mechanic, monotone words would let me in on the big secret.

I was stuck either way. I would remain clueless whether I refused to speak to him or not, so it didn't make much of a difference. And I didn't know why I cared to know in the first place.

I couldn't care less about his hidden motives - he was there, soaking wet in the middle of the night, for a good reason, and that reason certainly wasn't him being worried about my safety. After all, we're talking about a robotic, has-a-stone-for-a-heart-and-a-stick-up-his-arse, annoyingly-perfect-but-oddly-incapable-of-caring, bloody twat.

Mr. Torres didn't care about anyone, let alone an employee that he clearly wanted out of his empire and his life as soon as possible. But that fact only made me angrier. Who did he think he was, ordering me around when he'd already discarded me like a pair of old socks? He fired me, he made it pretty damn clear that he didn't want anything to do with me, so who the hell gave him the permission to barge into my life all over again when no one sent him an invitation?

"This is ridiculous," I said all of a sudden, the words out of my mouth before I could stop them.

At first I thought Mr. Torres didn't hear me and a small sigh of relief escaped my lips, but that was before he snapped his head to look at me, his face as calm as ever.