The Dark Stranger

Beware

"The Dark Stranger"
© VeGirl 2014

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Hello my beautiful readers,
It is time for a little heads on; this chapter has a little wicked something, something... so if you're sensitive; beware...
Now, on with the story:

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I get back on the freeway after visiting my parents, north of Phoenix. They looked a bit uncomfortable when I asked the dreaded question of being adopted, but they admitted it instantly. Apparently both my brother and I was adopted; him when he was just a baby, but me when I was ten years old.

I am sitting here behind the steering-wheel with a million questions spinning. I ponder how Vincent will explain how I could be ten when my parents found me and how I could have been a grown-up and married before that. There is several things wrong in this theory.

Mom and Dad told me the story of how they had found me in a home for abandoned children, and how poorly the conditions had been there. I had been dirty and hungry and they had taken me in even if I had barely been able to speak or anything. It was a gamble, but it had turned out good, they said and I could only agree.

It is late and I have another hour of driving ahead of me when I turn off highway 17 and continue on the smaller road with trees on both sides. Mount Union on my left signals that I'm on my way home and I'm anxious to get back. There is a lot going on in my mind, it is weird to suddenly have my life totally turned upside down, and that is before I get a gorgeous lunatic neighbor, filling my head with fantasy-stories.

I like trees surrounding my car and once again I am glad my granny left me her house in the small town for me to live in. Suddenly some animal runs across the road and I turn the steering wheel to avoid running it over. Everything happens so fast, and before I know it, my car is going off the road and into a tree.

A deafening crash turns my world silent and black.

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I have no idea how long I've been out, but it is still dark when I finally open my eyes again. I am confused, and can't understand where I am or what has happened. The surroundings is too hard to make out, until I understand that the car is laying on its side.

I do a check of how badly damaged I am, and find that I am bleeding from a cut on my head, and my arm hurts like hell. Luckily I had my seatbelt on, but now it feels like an impossible task to get out of the car. I manage to get the seatbelt off and I can stand up to reach across the car to the passenger door, but it is too heavy to open and I am too weak to put any real effort to it.

There I stand inside my crashed car with tears falling and no idea of how to get out.

After a while I realize that the front window is shattered and I try to kick it out. It takes some effort, but finally the frame lets go of its hold and I am able to get an opening wide enough to crawl out of. I slump down on the side of the road and pad my pockets to find my cell phone. I realize it must have fallen out and is nowhere to be found. I am too exhausted to get back into the car to search for it at this moment.

In these wee hours this road is not well trafficked I note as no-one had passed me and found my car laying there with the headlights still on. Not sure if it is the chilly night air or if it is the post-crash-chock, which makes my body start to shake and tears flow freely down my cheeks.

I am just about to make the hard decision to crawl back into the car to find my phone, when I hear a car coming through the close curve. Quickly I scurry on my feet and limp up on the road where I wave my uninjured arm to get through to the driver. The car slows down and with a cold shill along my spine I realize that it is the sleek black Rolls-Royce that I have caught a glimpse of outside Vincent's house. I swallow hard and my pulse starts to beat like crazy as Vincent's warning runs through my head; don't mistake him for a cuddly bear.