deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 2: coffee and paints

"your ears are full of their language,
there's wisdom there you're sure,
'til the words start slurring
and you can't find the door."
-"coffee and tv", blur

The bed had been pressed against the wall opposite from the window, so Sam could wake up in the morning bathed in the sunlight. She crawled underneath the covers and rested her head on the soft pillow. Alone in New York City, but at least she had a new friend in Frank downstairs, though. Her parents would arrive come the morning light, but she nestled her head down in the surface of the pillow and closed her eyes.

She couldn't hardly nudge those two guys out from her mind. Every thought of them turned into one of her parents. She could tell them she met a pair of new friends, but it was nothing special.

She closed her eyes and drifted off within a few seconds.

Sam opened her eyes to find a head full of black and white right in front of her face. She couldn't tell what color his eyes were, but she could make out the sight of his nose and that head of hair despite the shadows around them. Who was he?

His hand caressed over her hip and her thigh, but he never let his hand go any further than that. He said something to her, but she couldn't tell. He brought his lips closer to hers, but he never kissed her there.

Sam raised her gaze to the low ceiling over them.

"Samantha," he whispered to her; he sounded as though he had become a ghost, even though his body was warm and soft. "Samantha—kiss me—"

She moved her head in closer to his, and he brought a hand to her face.

"Please—kiss me—"

But she was reluctant. This was a man she knew, and yet she didn't know where he came from, or why they were trapped inside the trunk. Or why he was calling her by her full name.

The car came to a halt and he held onto her by the hip.

"What's going on?" she asked him.

"I don't know. I don't—where are we going—" He huddled closer to her.

"Come here," she begged him and she put her arms around him. His hair was soft. Everything about him was soft to the touch.

"Don't let me go," he whispered to her. "Please don't let me go—Samantha—"

The white stripe in his otherwise dark hair remained right in front of her nose so she could catch the delicate smell of his cologne. The trunk popped open and she could see into his hazel eyes and his full face just long enough. She turned her head to find they had wound up in a desert somewhere, albeit a desert with a vast span of shallow smooth lakes as far as she could see.

"—bury the two of them," a disembodied voice before them commanded. Sam and the man next to her were laid out on the desert sand, flat on their backs. His arms extended over his head while his legs were spread straight out before him. She looked down to find they both had been stripped naked.

"Stripped us naked and hid our clothes," she muttered aloud.

She could feel herself being dragged along the soil to somewhere. The lakes. They were being dragged along and then about to be left in the waters to drown.

She jerked herself awake and she lifted her head. Darkness surrounded her. She was back in her bedroom. Sam rolled over onto her back to ensure she didn't have something stuck in her spine and her shoulder blades. She gazed up at the dark ceiling overhead.

First off, who was that man laying next to her on the sand? And why were they laying next to each other in that trunk? She could hardly shake the look of fear in his dark eyes. And what was going on with his hair, that stripe, that shock of pure white hair right on top of his forehead?