Chained Heat

Chapter 3

CLACK

CLACK

CLACK

This morning was cold.

Peter scrunched his nose and curled up into a tighter ball. His left hand, his chained hand, felt numb, so numb that twisting a single finger even for an inch felt like he was trying to lift a boulder the size of his house. Expect he didn't have a house, neither did aunt May. They lift in a multi-storey building and their apartment only had two bedrooms, a bathroom and a living room mashed together with a small kitchen. And that place no longer was his home. His room was now this old sleeping bag that would not keep him warm if the season would turn colder. He rubbed his head down and tried to warm himself up again.

But as Peter slowly became more alive, stepping out of his deep sleep, his eyes slowly feeling ready to open again, he started to awaken. Something, or someone, was making this weird sound close to him. It felt like the ground was shaking right by his arm that was aching from being too straight the whole night. And suddenly --

BAM

He had seen enough crime shows and shitty action films to know what a gunshot sounded like. Peter's body jolted in reaction as he sat up and looked around, his vision still a bit blurry, his eyes and his whole face feeling dirty, his body still aching. Peter's heard was racing like hell and panic started to rise up in his body, his eyes circling the perimeter in fear of finding a group of police ready to arrest them. But when his eyes did get adjusted to being open again, he saw Quentin Beck knelt down next to him, holding a gun that was pointed towards the chain of the handcuffs.

"Did you just try to shoot me?" Peter panted out. He wasn't sure why he said that. He had told Beck before that killing him would be stupid if the two of them were still handcuffed together. And he knew Beck wasn't stupid enough to shoot him and then drag his body around. But then came the question of what exactly Beck needed the gun for.

"No. I tried to shoot the chains. Should I aim for the lock, instead?" Beck greeted him, wishing him 'good morning' with a gun pointed at the handcuff around Peter's wrist. Peter immediately pulled back in fear, shivers running up his spine.

"You're as stupid as you look", Peter grunted. "A bullet isn't going to magically break us free."

"That's exactly what a therapist would say", Beck said, and he smiled, the motherfucker smiled so widely his teeth were visible. But he did notice how Peter was not in the mood for this - how he was a mix of being horrified of the gun and annoyed by being awoken like this -, so Beck pushed the gun back inside his backpack. "Start packing. I wanna go."

Peter wanted to give him a sarcastic comment about ... something, anything would do as long as it pleased him and made Beck annoyed, but instead Peter just grumbled something under his breath and climbed out of his sleeping bag, getting ready to leave and continue their 'adventure' again.

--

It took them far too long to find the road again, then even longer to figure out which way to go. Their plan was still to head towards Humboldt County, and even if Peter was having second thoughts about going there, he decided to just give up and do what he was told. After all, Beck was the guy with the gun. He was also the guy who was eating chips while he was walking, claiming they were good enough for breakfast, and sometimes being nice enough to even force feed some to Peter. On times like these when Beck wasn't so nice anymore but was annoying and creating more trouble for them, Peter secretly wished he had a large knife to cut off his own arm just to get rid of this man and continue his journey anywhere but home. At least he wouldn't have to listen to someone chew chips down his throat when he'd be alone.