Supernova Rapture

Chapter 5

Kressida wasn't quite sure exactly how this had happened. She was in Darien's guest room unpacking her overnight bag of recently bought supplies thinking about what led to this turn of events. After the Police had taped off her apartment as a crime scene, and Lacey didn't answer her phone, then Doreen's teen son had a friend staying for a couple nights using up their spare space. Otto and Ingrid had their daughter in law and grandson in their spare room since their son had come down with a very contagious virus that they didn't want the baby to catch. He'd been vaccinated but they were all paranoid about his health. So they didn't have the space. Wesley lived in a bachelor suit in his great aunts house in Brooklyn so that was a dead end. Darien had graciously offered her the use of his spare room until the cops were done with her apartment and Mario could change the locks again.

Worse she wasn't even allowed to take anything from her apartment. All she had were the clothes on her back and her purse, so they had to stop at a Target to get emergency supplies for her. Pyjama's, a toothbrush, a hairbrush, deodorant, she thought a clean pair of underwear would be nice too, but she was too embarrassed to buy underwear with Darien shopping along side her. He wasn't kidding when he'd said he was going to stay right beside her until he was sure she was safe. He hadn't gone further than four steps away from the time he said it until they were safely inside his apartment.

"I can stay at a hotel. They have security guards and video cameras. I'd be safe for a night or two." She said when he offered his spare room, and again when they were entering Target and a third time as they left target. Fact was though she didn't really want to stay alone in a hotel room, plus after everything was said and done she really couldn't afford one that she would feel at all safe in. Darien had put his foot down and Lieutenant Morton insisted she would be safer if she could stay with a friend. So Kressida found herself suddenly Darien's houseguest for the next of couple nights and she had no idea what to say or do around him now. She was in his space, and she was suddenly a little scared. She wasn't afraid of him, not at all. She trusted Darien and knew he wouldn't ever hurt her. What scared her was how aware of him she was. Kressida was afraid of herself and what she might do, of what she wanted to do, and of just how badly she wanted to do it!

"I'll show you where everything is when you're ready, I just have one rule. Don't touch my bedroom computer. Everything else is fair game but I don't let anyone touch the computer in my bedroom."

"Don't want anyone finding out you watch cartoon porn huh?" She joked. The disgusted look on his face said she was very off the mark. Good. She didn't want that to be true. Men who watch that filth usually tend to be pigs. Carson was like that. She really didn't want there to be any similarities between Carson and Darien. Darien was calm and kind and generous. He was the anti-Carson.

"Why would anyone watch something so degrading? I understand a person having sexual urges and needs, but there are better ways of handling them than that!" Darien said, the disgust dripping from his voice.

"I agree with you, I was just making a bad joke. Trying to ease some of the tension from the last few hours." God had it only been a few hours since her car being out of gas had been her biggest worry?

Had her car simply been out of gas? No her car's gas had been siphoned out. The tank had been full. Saturday her tire hadn't just been flat it had been punctured. Kressida had assumed she had run over a nail or some broken glass or something but what if that wasn't what happened? Was Carson sabotaging her car? How would he have known it was hers? She bought it after she left the hospital because walking was too hard but he did know where she lived, Carson could have been watching the place and seen her driving it. Oh dear god! It was making some sense now. He was so close to where she had parked. She had thought it was a coincidence, but what if he had been waiting for her to walk by alone. He knew where she worked, he knew the people she worked with, he could have been watching and seen everyone else leave. He would have thought she'd be alone and have to walk to get the gas. Why though? The only reason she could think of was he was going to do something to her! Kressida wasn't sure what he had planned but she was sure it was not going to be an apology. But Carson didn't know about Darien working with her now. Darien hadn't been accounted for in Carson's plan. Kressida wasn't alone and didn't have to walk. The look on his face as she went past in the car of another man wasn't just because he saw her again. It was because he saw her with another man, not walking alone. With his first plan ruined if he was fast he could have made it back to her apartment before her and messed it up and left the message for her. She felt her hands go numb and the pre-packaged pyjama's she bought seemed to fall to the floor in slow motion.