Don't Hold Your Breath

Chapter 6

The silence seemed to be wearing on Zeke a bit because he took out his phone and connected to the Bluetooth of the car, putting on a classic rock station. Neither of us said anything for pretty much the remainder of the drive. It wasn't until the sun was starting to go down and we were about an hour away from Omaha that Zeke broke the silence.

"Somethings been bothering me for a while."

I glanced over at him. "What's wrong?"

"When I grabbed you, any normal person in your circumstance would have cried or screamed but you were pretty much silent until when I brought you back. I think you cried the first night, but even then I wasn't quite sure if you were actually crying."

"I tried to escape, didn't I?" I asked with a little half smile.

"Sure, but your reactions just seemed..."

"Unnatural?" I supplied for him, feeling bitterly amused at his confusion. "I suppose that might be true."

I thought over his line of reasoning, I suppose it would have made sense for me to scream or cry when he first kidnapped me. I had definitely been scared enough to do so, but even in most ordinary circumstances my reactions are far from normal. In the stress of the moment I had reverted back to old habits rather than thinking that it would probably be a smart move to make some noise.

"Still waiting for an answer, Indigo." he said impatiently after the pause stretched into a longer silence.

I glanced over at him feeling frustrated. This wasn't a conversation I wanted to have, and he wasn't someone I wanted to have it with. Not even my foster family knew the entire story.

"Indigo." He growled again. My silence must have been really concerning to him, his voice sounded dangerous and raised goosebumps on my arms.

"Jeremy liked to make up games when I was younger. He thought they would make us... stronger, I guess?" my voice was a little too halting and unsure for my liking, but I ignored it.

"Who's Jeremy?" I could tell he was trying to contain his anger at me, I wasn't making this easy for him to get information.

"My brother."

"Are you really going to make me pull this from you piece by piece." He asked.

"Probably." I admitted.

He sighed, tapping a finger against the wheel. "Fine. Bottom line, what does that have to do with you not crying or screaming when you're in danger."

I mulled over his question, trying to figure out a way to answer it without saying too much.

"I'm... desensitized?"

It came out as more of a question and I cringed as the words came out. When I looked over to see a muscle twitching in Zeke's neck, I knew I had made a mistake; it was too vague an answer to be fully satisfying. I waited for the slew of questions that I was sure he would throw at me, but he was oddly quiet instead and didn't say a word for the next hour.

We pulled into another hotel parking lot; this one looked a little nicer than the one we stayed at the other night but still seemed very cheap. There were a few people seated in the lobby which featured a small table with a coffee maker and some donuts. A kind woman checked us in and gave us our room keys, directing us to our room
\. I felt a little nervous walking next to Zeke, I could practically feel the animosity coming off of him in waves. I was still confused as to why this seemed to bother him so much, what did he care what my reactions were? They weren't thatstrange.

"Why don't I go grab us dinner?" I asked as he shut the door and threw the bag in the corner.

He shot me a glare and in two long steps he approached me, bent down to grab me around the hips, and then hoisted me across his shoulder.