Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 37

Hi!

Another weekend over. Too fast, and as always, I didn't have as much time for writing as I actually planned. Still, I got down to it, and ... here's the next one. I hope you enjoy reading it :-) Anna and Alexander are on their way to... yeah, to what?

Lara

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Chapter 37

"Get into the car," he said.

My eyes caught on the second of the two black BMWs. The car door was opened from the inside. Jack stepped out, looking at me like I was worth less than the dirt under his fingernails. My mood deteriorated further.

It didn't get any better once I was in the black BMW. Alexander got in right behind me, forcing me to move over to the other seat. He was sitting close enough to clamp a hand on my forearm, or neck, if I so much as twitched in the wrong way.

His presence alone was enough to make me feel uncomfortable, as if I was in the middle of drowning. The air in the car felt stuffy, too cold and unforgiving to breathe easily. There was no distraction, no visual route of escape through the window – nothing to look at but a mass of shadows and darkness outside as we were speeding away in the night.

I had come up with a contingency plan. I wasn't planning on staying around forever. I still had the cuff and my mother's pendant. And I was going to use it. Once I completed whatever task Alexander had for me, I would renegotiate, portal out of this mess and stay with the Lumenis for a while longer. I just had to wait for things to be over, for the right moment. I just had to play along for a little while. Just a little longer.

After throwing questions at me for what had to have been an hour – of which I answered close to none, by the way – the vampire had turned taciturn. The mood was oppressive and suffocating to the point of intolerableness.

At first I was watching the scenery with the attention of a starved meteorologist, waiting for the change in landscape. Something different than black shadows and hints of motion, that first indication of city lights and civilization. The longer I stared, the more I got the feeling that we were not heading for a bigger city, or an airport for that matter. I glimpsed a few signs on the highway, towns and names I was unfamiliar with. It took about an hour until I had a general idea where we were. We passed Pescara at some point in time and were heading further north. Where to or why, I had no idea, but I didn't like being in the dark.

I sighed and glanced to the front seat, watching Jack's messy blond hair in the dark. The longer we were going, the more I wished I could simply portal out and away from them, imagining myself in an escape scenario that would bring me back into the Lumenis' open arms. I fantasized myself into a scenario in which I would force a fake toilet break, lock myself into a stall and portal out with neither Jack nor Alexander the wiser. Hah, I would-

The thought died and withered in mid-air. I froze.

The feeling slipped into my skin and wouldn't go away. Alexander was watching me.

"Did you lie, little witch?"

My head snapped to the side. My nerves were on edge, spinning further and further towards the crash I'd imagined in my mind a hundred times since we left the beach.

"Lie about what?" I said.

He had his head cocked, sitting at total ease with his legs crossed in front of him. His voice was silent and low, filled with the kind of self-composure that negated a sense of limited time. It was there, even in his voice. There were no limits for this person. No boundaries. No fear.