Lost Highway(2)

“Thank you,” I say, lightheaded from blood loss.

“Don’t run again.”

“I won’t,” I mumble just as my legs give out.

The once masked man tosses me over his shoulder and carries me back to where we rested earlier. I see what’s left of the tall, burly man. With his face butchered, he forever smiles at the canopy of trees blocking the sky.





Chapter Two


Odessa




The day is bright when I wake again. How long have I been unconscious? I find myself on a twin-sized mattress resting on the floor of a white room. There’s no sign of the masked man.

My body refuses to move. Only my eyes cooperate by scanning the small room. Bloody hand prints and writing cover the walls. Most of the words are prayers for escape, mercy, or death. I notice scratch marks on the battered door. Someone called this room their prison. Now I am its current occupant.

I try to sit up, but my muscles refuse to hold me. All I manage to do is roll on my back. Rust colored spots cover the white ceiling. I wonder about the person once trapped in here. How long did they suffer before offered mercy?

Eventually, the door opens. I hear the click of the lock first and the squeak of the hinges, but the masked man’s approach is silent.

His face comes into view over mine, and I realize he’s probably in his late twenties like me. Tanned skin contrasts against his nearly black eyes and dark hair. I stare upon a face simmering with violence. My death plays out in his eyes, yet I don’t dare look away.

“Hello,” I whisper.

“Can you sit?”

Shaking my head, I flinch when his hand reaches for me. He takes me by the shoulders and yanks me upward. Without any care, the man maneuvers me against the wall.

Next to the bed rests a small tray with a chunk of bread next to a drink. He sets it on my lap. When I don’t move, he roughly takes my hand and wraps my fingers around the cup.

“Drink,” he instructs.

The water stings my chapped, battered lips. I drink down as much as I can manage, and my body awakens enough for me to reach for the bread on the tray.

He steps back and stands in the doorway. His gaze dissects me, leaving me exposed. He watches me eat, and frowns when I choke after taking too big of a bite.

“What’s your name?” I ask after finishing the chunk of bread.

“You’re Odessa Miller,” he says.

“Yes. How did you know that?”

The man walks from the room. I stare at the open door and think of escape. If only I were physically able and knew where I was and how to find safety. Without those three small factors standing in my way, I would use the open door to my advantage.

Returning to the room, he drops my suitcase and purse on the floor next to the bed.

I stare at my belongings, still shocked by how little I possess in the entire world. Leaving John’s body behind, I took only my used junker with a single suitcase in the trunk.

“How did you find them?” I ask when he says nothing.

“They were on the road.”

“Do you know what happened to the other woman?”

He nods but says nothing.

“Did you save me by bringing me here?” I ask rather than inquiring if he plans to torture me as he did the captive once held in this room.

He doesn’t answer my question. I look around the room and then back at him. He only crosses his arms and studies me for a long time.

“What happens now?” I ask, leaning over until I’m on my side.

The man’s face remains set on violence, but he doesn’t harm me before taking the tray and leaving me in the locked room.

I watch him go and think of how he butchered the man in the woods. My mind returns to the crash and how I ran until the laughing woman hit me with the bat. Her eyes crazed, she even tried to bite me. That was how I gained the upper hand. With her focus on biting my bleeding arm, I shoved the bat backward against her nose.

Now resting on my side in the locked room, I stare at my forearm where her teeth grazed me. I recall how she struggled to steal back the bat from me. We fought for the weapon until she fell to the ground, and I stood over her. Our positions switched, I hadn’t given a second thought to lowering the bat on her face. Panicked, I wanted to live, and she stood in the way of my goal.

If the time comes to save my life with this man, I wonder if I’ll react again so quickly and violently.





Chapter Three


Quill




Odessa sleeps too much. I watch her on the security feed and listen to her labored breathing. She needs to wake up and stop bleeding. I should shake her and force open her eyes. For now, I allow her to rest and dream of her life before the highway.

I hold her wallet in my hands. The ID is a few years old. Her hair is longer and darker now. She lived in Missouri before finding her way to the Lost Highway. I open her suitcase. Like with her wallet, the luggage is old and tattered, perhaps used. The clothes inside aren’t folded. I press a shirt to my nose. No detergent. They aren’t clean. She grabbed them in a hurry.

Nothing in her suitcase feels personal. The clothes are generic. I find no family pictures or trinkets.

Odessa stirs in her sleep. She hit her head either in the car accident or during her struggles against the other Death Dealers. I saw her kill the woman called Velma. She also cut down the bald man from the Winnebago group that arrived some time back. After beating him to death with a bat, she took his ax and tried to kill me.