LAMIAE

CHAPTER SIXTY TWO: SAVIOR

"Are you lost, little girl?" the man who said it was only a few years older than her, which made his statement sound pretentious. He looked like a drunkard; his face was red and he smelled like he hadn't washed for days.

"No, I'm waiting for someone," she glanced at the car. She hoped her voice sounded menacing.

"For Casper," he patted the car on the hood. The mischievous gleam in his eye made her understand that the man opposite had no peaceful intentions. "I wonder what he'd say if he saw it," the man closed his eyes for a fraction of a moment and she didn't even know at what microsecond a baseball bat appeared in his hand. He swung before she shouted at him not to do it. He hit the windshield, breaking it into thousands of tiny pieces that landed in the car and in the grass around it.

"NO!" she screamed, running forward. She didn't know what had tempted her to try to snatch the stick from him; whether it was an impulse or a hope that the power she had just thought about would manifest itself in a crisis situation. Unfortunately, nothing worked and he pushed her away from him in disgust, causing her to fall to the ground. He probably even wanted to attack her, but he thought of something. Some devilish idea appeared on his face, and he suddenly became excited.

"Or maybe," he said, slightly showing his molars. "I'll destroy the car with you inside."

Hearing his words, she didn't have much of a choice. She could lie there on the ground and wait for him to carry out his threat, or she could try to escape. She pushed herself to her feet, mentally wishing the world would stand still. Just today, when he asked her to take care of them, she had to fail.

She didn't get far, then she felt herself bump into a barrier, as if she had hit a vertical trampoline, and she jumped back. And then she felt a strange sensation of something tugging at her stomach, drawing her to the car like a magnet. She was afraid because her body stopped listening to her and became subservient to his command.

"Let me go," she demanded as she fell to the same spot where she had been lying moments ago. It was a bit as if time had rolled back those few seconds before the escape attempt.

"Why?" the man was having a great time. "Why would I do that?"

She clenched her fists in anger. She regretted that she had never been interested in martial arts, that she had never signed up for any self-defense course to know what to do in a crisis.

The Mercedes door opened on its own, its edge almost brushing her shoulder. An unseen force yanked her forward onto the passenger seat, forcing her violently inside. She tried to fight it, to move, to get out, but no, she was completely paralyzed. She had no use of even the muscles of her face, and her voice could not utter a single sound. The same thing happened in Stone Run. Sandra's opponent also couldn't free himself from oppression and now Dagmara was treated exactly the same way.

She realized that this was caused by the man's eyes. He didn't blink, his eyelids didn't flutter, no matter how long he looked at her, his gaze didn't change. He was absent, focused only on her, as if he wanted to put her into a state of hypnosis.

The car began to creak and was destroyed from the inside. Considering her chances of survival, she concluded that they were decreasing with each passing minute, that the man was about to set the car on fire, and that she and the machine would explode into the air. She couldn't even ask him to stop, there was nothing she could do but sit limply in the chair and watch what happened.

But at some point she moved her hand. She did it out of fear, clenched her hand when the headrest of the seat touched the roof of the car, because her head also touched the roof at the same time.

"Am I disturbing you?" only now, after his words, did she notice him. Alan stood in the shadows, probably dissatisfied with what was happening. She had never been as happy to see him as she was now, even though logic told her that he was supposed to be at home, at her grandmother's, with the injured Arleta.