Ascendancy

Chapter 17

      Three bright flashes, distinctly blurred, are left imprinted on my mind. Wanda is breathing hard, but is putting on a brave face as she drags me down the street towards our hotel.

        "Wanda," I pant, "Stop." I crouch against the wall, my back to our hotel's brick alley. "I don't have your super human training, and if I did, I would have kicked that guy's butt myself."

        "Are you ok?" She asks, her eyes deftly scanning my face. Wanda grasps my hands. "We need to tell Bucky. Someone should go after that man."

        "No!" I shout, and look around the ally after my voice reverberates down the darkness. An inhale, then an explanation: "I mean, yes, he should be stopped, but we can't tell Bucky. It would ruin the trip. He is so close to recovery."

         Wanda is silent. Her eyes dig. The narrower her gaze, the harder she drills.

        "Fine," Wanda finally relents. "But we need to report the man to the police. And," Wanda says quickly, when I open my mouth, "You need to tell me honestly how you feel."

         Countless rape and sexual assault calamities have consumed my thoughts after my patients tearful recounts. I've gone through the procedure over and over. I know the mental processes that must be gone through.

        Somewhere deep inside there is shock. But it's overridden when I think of Bucky. He can't, and won't know about this. I was barely touched: neither mind or body. I can handle this.

        And heck, I have superhero friends. I don't think I need to worry about being attacked again.

        "I promise, I'm fine."

///

        The wind whirls and whistles. Green and orange spans and mushes, then rolls past my window. The car jumps, falling into a pothole.

        "D*mn country road," Bucky mumbles, moving the car to avoid another hole.

        "Language."

        Bucky chuckles. I look over and smile at him.

        "Germany is really beautiful in the fall," I sigh. Trees brush past like an artist painting before my eyes, his stroking softly procreating colorful petals. The moon has almost completely disappeared, leaving the soft and sticky caress of dawn upon the forest our road is surrounded by.

        "I feel like I've only seen it covered in snow." Bucky's eyes shift quickly across the terrain; his assassin training kicking in for the danger.

        I've found myself doing similar things. Each time a flash of light glints past me, I turn, expecting a human form. But there never is.

        That flash in the alley wasn't Wanda. It wasn't a car or the streetlamp or lightning. So what was it?

        "We're almost there," Bucky says. The pitch of nervousness is sharp in my ears.

        A pasture softly unfolds before the concrete street. The car turns onto the gravel drive, rocks churning like a tossing sea beneath us. The green grass is high, at least two feet. As a crowd, they all sway and undulate together, a wave of grass slowly tumbling towards the farmhouse.

        It looms to the side of the main house; both look utterly abandoned. The wood is an iron gray, with stripes of red paint splashing the barn like an open wound.

        Bucky pulls up besides the barn. After he hops out, Bucky comes to the passenger side, and opens the door for me. I take his hand, trying to dig into his eyes. They look grey like the barn; the ghosts of their pasts haunt them grey.