Holiday in Handcuffs

Chapter 2

Meredith sat in the drivers seat of her car with a scowl on her face. With one hand on the steering wheel, she used her free hand to change the radio stations. Christmas music. It was all Christmas music. And Meredith despised Christmas music. OK... she didn't really despise it, per say. It just... annoyed her to no end. Christmas music was full of happiness; cheery, melodic voices singing about bells, and trees, and balls of holly... whatever that was. She rolled her eyes as she switched off the radio and let the silence fill the air around her.

Ah. Silence. It was a beautiful thing sometimes. Sometimes all a person needed was a little bit of silence. Silent time to clear the mind of clutter. Except now she was hearing those freaking Christmas carols in her head over and over and over again. She muttered a few curses under her breath. Meredith was determined to hate Christmas this year. And so far, she was definitely off to a good start. Two day ago, she had been dumped by her boyfriend of two years. Strike one.

Now, she was driving to her mother's house in the freezing cold and snow to spend the next five days couped up with her mother, her new step-dad, and her annoying goody-two-shoes step-sister, who insited on competing against her in every aspect of her life. Not to mention the fact that she was showing up by herself, having been made single without warning five days before Christmas. It was humiliating. And Meredith didn't think that there was enough alcohol in the world to endure the sympathetic looks that her step-father was sure to give her. Or the 'I told you so' looks that her mother would be throwing at her every chance she got. Or the snarky comments that her step-sister was going to be spewing at her while she snickered and giggled at her expense. Strike Two.

Meredith would rather just spend the insepid holiday alone in her apartment in New York, with her Charlie Brown looking Christmas tree with her ex-boyfriend's expensive present sitting beneath it. Or she could crawl into a hole and die. Both choices sounded good right now. Actually, anything sounded good compared to the reality of her situation.

Meredith sighed and turned the radio back on. Finally, she found a radio station playing nothing but heavy metal. It wasn't to her particular liking, but it was a lot better than Christmas music. At least the heavy metal matched her dark and sour mood. Deck the halls, my ass, she muttered under her breath as she smirked and guided her car around a right curve.

As soon as the road straightened out again, Meredith's eyes landed on a black car at the side of the road up ahead. She slowed down a bit, peering through the passenger window and through the falling snow to see a man standing outside of the car, his right foot continuously kicking the front left bumper of what Meredith could now see was a very expensive BMW. She chuckled to herself as she passed him, and she was quite certain she saw his mouth moving to form a few explicit words of disgust as he repeatedly punched the numbers of his cell phone with disgust and furry.

Meredith chuckled. If he was expecting to call someone on his cell phone, he was seriously mistaken. There was no reception out here. And with the snow falling this heavily, he'd be hard pressed to get someone out here that could help him tow his car away. The longer Meredith thought about that, the more she could hear the voice inside of her head telling her to turn around and help him. She tried to silence that voice, but it wasn't working very well. She drove for another mile before she finally slowed down and made a u-turn. It was Christmas, after all. And even though she wasn't in the holiday spirit, she wasn't going to intentionally leave someone stranded in the snow this far away from civilization.

As she drove back towards the stranded man and his snow-banked BMW, other thoughts began to occur to her. What if this was a set-up? What if this was one of those freaky scenarios that she had seen in e-mails that people send out to warn people about creepy guys who tried to attack women during the holiday season? What if his broken down car was a decoy and he was just waiting for her to turn around and offer her a ride so that he could kidnap her, or wors?. What if he was a mass murderer, praying on helpless victims that fell victim to his evil plots? This could quite possibly be her strike three.

Nervousness wrapped around her like the cord she envisioned he wrapped around his victim's necks. Her palms began to sweat as she gripped the wheel tighter. As the stranded man's car came into view, Meredith slowed down and retreived something out of her glove-box. She came to stop and slowly lowered her window and peered at the man who was standing in the cold, his coat clutched tightly around his body as he tried to keep warm. He gave her a tight-lipped smile as they peered at each other through the falling snow. He didn't look like a mass murderer. But, then again... Meredith never really trusted a man with a smile like that.

He took a step closer to her and as Meredith offered a weak smile in return, she slid her hand securely around the gun that rested in her lap.