I flit around, hissing through my teeth at the sight of that damned knife. “Don’t, please.” I fall on my knees beside him. How can I help him? “Here! I got it!” I grab a fat lock of my hair and stuff it into his palms. “Braid my hair.” I pull his wrists as roughly as I can, forcing my hair over the knife.

Though he looks at me with doubt his hands clutch my hair, throbbing with ire, with loss. “Braid it!” I reaffirm before his momentary shock has ended.

“How is it going to—”

“Do it,” I snap and use his stupor to snatch his knife from his palm. “Breathe, separate the strands and make a pretty braid.” I slide my fingers over his forearm with support. “Come on.”

Jaw clenched, he entwines his fingers into my hair, puts one strand over the other and starts weaving them as fast as he can. “It’s not working.” He pulls on my hair by accident. I wince and to my instant surprise his breathing slows, as if he just did something worse than a murder. With a short glance for my reaction he pulls his lips tight and focuses on his fingers.

Patiently, I kneel as he braids my hair, creating a messy braid. Then, when he’s done, he reaches for another lock and divides it into three. From his posture and face, stiff as if struck by lightning, it’s hard to say if he’s calmed inside. At least he’s not harming himself, so there’s that.

My muscles relax, warming in a midday heat. Thankfully, this road is empty. I can imagine us from the side —a man, braiding a girl’s hair in the car’s shadow— a bunch of crazy weirdos. Yet this is not as crazy as what has happened last night. Damn my nightmares to hell! Since I was already spacing out for the whole day when he woke me my brain was as irrational as a brain can be. No, irrational is an understatement. It was off, revealing my deepest instincts and scarred insides that made me cling to him like a cat to a tree when the ground is full of ravenous dogs.

My third braid falls against my shoulder, bringing me back from my thoughts. He takes his knife and stands. When he opens the front door he leans on it, burying his head into the crook of his elbow as if a wave of sickness overtook him.

“You okay?” I ask. He reclines, his face pale as a sheet of paper. “You don’t feel well, do you?” There’s no denial his perception is shifting. He’s starting to see things he never did, see they don’t always adhere to what his life taught him they should. And it might equal in tons of heavy psychological problems. “I can drive. You can keep your gun on me.”

He takes a moment, frowning over the fact that I can drive, then nods. I subside into the driver’s seat.

He keeps his vigil on me, instructing what roads to take, and we establish a relaxed rhythm, both of us enjoying the switch of positions. I know I certainly do, glad to do something else than stare out the window.

…

At this point, I start hating the motels as bad as roads, but at least the motels have showers.

“I have some things I have to do,” he says as he puts his duffel bag onto the bed.

“God, damn it.” It means I’ll have to roll on the bed tied up again. “Can I go with you?”

“No.”

“Please, pretty please?”

“No.” He pulls out zipties. “I’ll try to be quick.”

“But you won’t.” He sure wasn’t last time. “You can lock me in.” I let him tie my wrists behind my back.

“You’ll escape.” He moves onto my ankles.

I spread my legs and lie. “I won’t.”

He tilts his head to the side but doesn’t force me. “Come on, freckles. I’m too tired to play with you.”

“Why can’t I go with you?” I whine. He grows tired as he grabs my legs and pins them under his armpit. “I hate you,” I grumble as my ankles press together under the zipties.

“I hate me too.”

“At least no gag, please?”

“What’s the point of this if you can scream?” He pulls a rag from the duffel bag and ties a fat knot in the middle.

This time I consciously appeal to his male desires. “You can still kiss me.” I try to joke as I maneuver myself into a sitting position.

He sits behind me. “Stop it, freckles.”

“We can do lots of things you know,” I move my head aside when he tries to tie that dirty cloth around my mouth. “Like make out and—” he tilts my head up and kisses me. I almost choke at the surprise of it. He pulls away and before I realize what has happened I have a cloth in my mouth, secured behind my head with a tight knot.

“You hitting on me makes it way easier to handle you,” he whispers. A corner of his lips tilts and I frown when I realize he’s playful.

“What’s wrong with you?” I grumble a mass of sounds into the gag.

“What? I can’t understand you.” He slides on his jacket. I stare at him, dumbfounded. Did I just wake his sexuality or something? Why is he playing into my dares, and moreover has fun with it?

He stops by the door and looks at me, all smiles vanishing. “Hitting on me, freckles. Ain’t gonna work.”

But it already did.

…

“What’s wrong with you, Mike?” Is the first thing I ask when he unties me.

“What do you mean?”

I rotate my jaw and wipe my mouth into my shoulder. “Do you think I’m blind? You clearly enjoy it, the attention you get. You don’t have to do any of these things.”

“What things?”

“Well, you know, being nice to me.”

“I’m being nice to you?” He lifts his brow.

“You’re doing it now!” I swivel to him. “Are you drunk or something?”

“Nope.”

“Nope? What is wrong with you?”

He leans into my face. “What? Now that I’m responsive to your charms you don’t like me anymore? Do I not conform to your murderer stereotype?” He looks me dead in the eye and it sets me straight. He does this consciously, to give me a feel of what it would be like to actually have him responsive, to actually put his hands on me and crack a smile.

And I don’t want that.

I bow my head with a sigh of clarity. “Sorry, I just didn’t wanna be tied up.”

“Something different might work better,” he says.

“But you kissed me.” I throw my arm out as soon as it’s free. “You, willingly, stuck your hand between my legs!”

“It’s good we both know it’s wrong, right?” He levels my gaze. “And if I hadn’t restrained myself, like I did now, we would’ve fucked already. But you don’t want that, do you?”

I avert my eyes with embarrassment. “No. Not with you.”

“See what I mean.” He walks over to his duffel bag and, with his back turned to me, puts something in there. Looks like some papers.

I stand and shake off my limbs. “Fine, I’ll try not to hit on you consciously. Can’t promise after nightmares and panic attacks, though.”

“Deal.”

“Plus,” he turns, poised to deliver another blow. “Do you know how many whores I’ve been with?”

I draw back. “No. Why would I?”

“Do you know what whores might carry?”

Through my dubious frown I realize what he’s talking about. It sends me straight to the bathroom to wash my mouth. “Oh God.”

“Makes you think twice, doesn’t it?” He leans on a doorframe, arms crossed over his chest.

“Fuck you.” I spit into the sink.

“Oh, I’ve been fucked plenty.”

I look at him. “You’re still doing it! You’re fucking with me and you like it!”

His lopsided tilt of the lip vanishes. “Take a shower and get ready. We’re leaving.” He clearly caught himself enjoying the fun.

“We’re not staying?”

“No. This town is too dangerous.”

“Why did we stop here anyway? I’m guessing paperwork?” I follow him out into the room. “I assume you need some papers to make it easier.”

He doesn’t reply as he zips up the bag. I return to take a shower. I unbraid my hair and inspect myself in the mirror. My face and body are leaner and I too now have dark bags under my eyes, even if little ones. At least my side and my wrists heal as they should and I take some time rebandaging them. A layer of new skin has stretched over my wrist wounds and I’m glad I cut to the side of the major arteries. I figure if I really wanted to kill myself this is not how I should cut.

When I walk out I find Michael breathe a sigh over his remaining money.

“Mike?” I sit on the other side of where he lies stretched on the bed.

“Mm?”

“What happened to you?”

He continues counting.

“I mean, your past? How come you think the way you do?”

His fingers halt, then continue shuffling over the bills.

Who am I kidding? He’s not gonna talk about it. “You know, I got locked in a locker once, for the whole night. It was awful.” He keeps counting. “And once I jumped from a two-story building and broke my ankle. It was awful too. And other time uncle got drunk so much he broke Shia’s nose. But Selena actually broke his. It was a scuffle. I called the cops from under the bed,” I chuckle sadly. “Uncle means well, but he’s a drunk.”

“They all mean well,” he utters, all but shocking me.

“We would have fun sometimes too, he used to work out. Taught me too.”

“What about your parents?” Once again I struggle to believe he’s making conversation. He’s still counting tough, probably recounting, eyes locked on the money.

“They’re abroad, trying to make ends meet. Working day in and day out. I don’t know. I haven’t seen them in five years. We’re not close.”

“So how exactly do you want to get that convertible?” He stands.

“I don’t know. I was daydreaming. And I’ll stop right here before you lash out at me again.”

“You should.”

Yet he asked me how. And it’s clear as day that under the right pressure his cold murderer shell is cracking like an egg, well… it’s a bit stronger than that, like a coconut. He finally met the victim he can’t figure out, the victim that pushes him in all the ways he doesn’t want to be pushed. He does everything to hold this shell of his together. And he’s failing. It’s only a matter of time before what’s underneath starts spilling. Who knows what’ll happen then. For all I know once he escapes he might go completely insane and kill dozens of people.

…

An endless road blurs, absorbed only by the horizon. At least the change of terrain into snow spotted hills and pasture fields is something different, right? I’ve been driving for four hours and now wish I could trade places and get some sleep. Michael has set himself straight and shuffles his vigilant gaze between me and the sunlit road. A few cars travel in front of us and one trails behind, a good distance apart. From time to time, he turns his head to check on it.

“Think someone’s following us?” I ask. My question is met with boding silence. “Better tell me if you want to avoid me being captured.”

“I don’t know. That town was the only place I could get the papers.” He checks his map. “We’ll have to change the route. Next intersection turn east.”

“When are we gonna sleep?”

He rubs his face with his palm. “When we’re safe.”

A few paranoid hours later we pull up into another motel in a small town. We had switched on the road and I managed to get two hours of nightmare-packed sleep.

A small and lush neighborhood shelters our shabby motel and a bunch of kids romp in the playground nearby. I halt in my step, my attention catching on two tykes. They rush around in a furious game of tag, faces split with grins. I observe them, trying to relate to their joy, to birth that bliss inside my body. But my shoulders stay slumped, spine weak under the pressure of all I’m living through. Only one memory alleviates the burden. Home. Back in New York City my brother waits for me, my uncle, and my life with my miniature teenage problems.

“Hanna?” Michael’s baritone voice pulls me back. I wish I could dive into a small gathering of trees nearby, and run, and run.

Once Michael shuts the door he visits the bathroom and succumbs on the bed, face down. I haven’t seen him this exhausted yet. But it’s no surprise. He’s awake for almost two days.

“Eat and go to the bathroom,” he says.

“You’ll tie me up again?”

He grunts for an answer and I grunt with annoyance before I visit the bathroom and take as much time as humanly possible. Everything wouldn’t be that bad if he didn’t tie me up every night. I’d ask him to hold me but being a hard-ass that he is, he’s gonna avoid putting his hands on me like a plague.

I walk out and stop in my tracks, unable to believe what I’m seeing. I must be dreaming.

He’s tight asleep.

My heart speeding up in my ribcage I tiptoe closer to inspect. There’s no mistaking it. His eyes are shut, breathing calm and even. I cock my head at the door. It’s locked and he has the key somewhere in his pockets. The window would be too noisy and he would snatch me in seconds. If only I could restrain him.

I creep to the duffel bag and, glancing back over my shoulder, unzip it. Food, clothing, bullets, zipties, and even rope. I assume he doesn’t want to use it because it’s too messy. I look at his gloved hands, rested at his sides, and just as I need it an idea pops into my mind.

“Mikey?” I say, my voice medium loud to test him. Silence. I tug on my own brown leather gloves and walk over to poke him in the shoulder. Nothing. He’s out like a drunk.

Like the most cautious scientist I slip one ziptie around his wrist and tighten it, making a bracelet, praying for him not to wake. Then do it for the other before I take the rope and freely link the zipties, make a loose knot on top. Holding the ends of the rope I look at the contraption. I’ll be able to pull his hands behind his back and tighten them in less than a second.

Sweet God, what did I do to deserve such a blessing? I can almost taste that bliss now, can almost hold it in my hands.

I breathe out through my pursed lips and swiftly climb on him, pulling on the ropes. It works perfectly.

He jerks awake, but not fast enough as I already have the knot tied, all but screaming out revenge bitch!

“The fuck?” He calls out, straining. Balancing myself on him I manage to secure the rope tighter before he throws me off to the side and stands. I jump up, putting a bed’s distance between us. We lock our gazes and a pleasant, tingling rush spreads from my stomach to my muscles. So vibrant and itching. For the first time I feel like a predator. And I love it.

I have to tie his feet or he’ll kick me out through the window. If he struggles, and he will, I won’t manage with the zipties, so I take off my T-shirt.

He tilts his head, unsure of what I’m about to do.

I dig my fingers into my shirt and rip it, making it longer. It should be enough.

“Freckles, think about what you’re doing.” He bows his head in a predatory manner.

“I have,” I advance on him.

He turns me his shoulder and spreads his legs, ready to kick. “You’re gonna get hurt,”

“I’ve been hurt already.”

I grab the light kitchen table and, arching sideways, throw it at his legs. It doesn’t trip him but it gives me enough time to leap over the bed and dive with my whole body at his feet, grabbing them with my both hands and my t-shirt. He falls on his side with a ground-vibrating thud. I straddle his legs, sitting on his calves, and put my whole strength into wrapping my shirt around his ankles.

I tie the strongest knot I can just in time. He throws me off and flops on his back with a transparent cloud of dust ascending into the air around his heavy frame. I jump on him, stuffing my hand under his jacket for his gun. I pull it out and ram it into his chin. “Calm down.”

He moves his head away as if knowing I’m not gonna kill him anymore than he’s gonna kill me. “Untie me, freckles,” his voice is raw, imbued with coldness.

“I will. I need to talk to you first. Safely.” Before I get out of here. “Why do you kill people who desire things?”

He shuts his lips, breathing through his nose, and focuses on wiggling under me, trying to loosen the ropes with tiny movements.

I pull his knife from his inner pocket and throw it on the bed. “I’m not going to hurt you. I want to know because it’s a dangerous notion to live in the world with.”

He ignores me and the gun I’m holding to his face as he focuses on his restrains. Well, I guess since I told him I’m not going to hurt him there’s no point in threatening him with it. I throw it on the bed also. “What has happened?” I ask, my voice intense. “Tell me please. Because what you’re doing is… I don’t understand it and I want to. I think it would help me move on in the future. Please, talk to me. People desire things, it’s normal. ”

“God damn it! Stop!” He can’t ignore me anymore and I know he’s going to kill me if I untie him now. “You know what it is?”

“No! I don’t! Tell me!”

He changes his mind. “You’re fucking dead.”

“Why?” I call out. “I’m trying to help you. To understand you!”

“Help?” He all but cackles. “I don’t need your help! You’re one useless bitch! Why do you care? You’re a nobody!” He’s offensively defensive and he probably knows it but can’t help himself. Not in the situation where I’m in control. “You- you’re like a poison. It’s true what my gangmates said about women,” he rambles to himself, struggling under me.

“But it’s not the fact I’m a woman. You don’t even like me,” I say. “It’s everything else, just admit it.”

“What?”

“Your twisted psyche!” I throw my hand out, then calm. “You’re not alone. Don’t have to be. Was it from your childhood? Your parents? Friends?”

His face stills and his eyes turn frigid, and for the first time his looks level to his portfolio. If someone told me now this man is a mass murderer I wouldn’t have any objections. “Untie me right now if you want to live.”

Now I won’t get anywhere for sure. As much as I cherish being in control I decide not to show my trepidation. I stand and gather another bunch of zipties, to make sure he’s tied up well.

“God damn it, freckles!” He calls out a little too loud. “Untie me!“

“Shut up!” I growl over my shoulder.

“Help!”

A shiver bolts through me. I’m not the only one who can call for help. I grasp the rag from the duffel bag and hurry back to him.

“Untie me right now!” He rolls on his belly and bends his legs, lifting himself onto his knees. No way I’ll manage to gag him without tons of alarming noises.

In my panic I grab the gun and, twisting it in my hand, swing out. I whip him across the back of his head.

He succumbs on his side, unconscious.

I prop my hands against my head. “Jesus Christ.” Well, now when he gets free and if I’m still near him I’ll surely be dead.

While he’s out I gag him and secure his feet with zipties. I dip my hand into his hair. “Ah, fuck.” I retract it bloody. So much for not hurting him. I find a band-aid and clumsily stick it on the wound. It’ll help a little before it’ll tangle in his hair. After, I put the table in place, stuff his gun into my pants and his knife into my pocket, take the money, the room key from his pocket, and the fake documents he acquired. When I’m done talking to him I’ll call the cops.

A weak grunt tells me he woke. “Oh, don’t look at me like that,” I say as I stuff his money into my pockets. Yet, I feel bad for saying it, because it’s more dread than malice he looks at me with. When I near him he tries to move away. “It’s okay.” I lift my palms up. “I won’t hurt you anymore, promise.” I kneel and help him into a sitting position, leaning him against the wall. He jerks when the back of his head touches the wall and looks at me with an accusatory gaze.

“Sorry about that,” I say. “I don’t want revenge. I want to understand you, you know.” I proceed with caution. “After all you’ve done to me I need to know why.” And whom will I send the authorities after. “Because you see, if I live, I’ll want things. And people will keep wanting. You’ll never be able to stop all of them. That’s the reality!” I feel my voice rising. Finally, he’s tied up and I can do whatever I want. I got him. After almost three weeks of this torture I’ll be able to go home.

It’s hard to believe.

I grab his hair at the back of his head, forgetting all my non-violent promises. “You create suffering, Michael! Not people who have fucking dreams and goals! What-what about the kids we saw at the playground? Do you know how many things kids want? How many ludicrous dreams they have?” I force his head up to face me. “Do all of them deserve to die?”

He looks at me from under his brows, taking deep breaths through the gag.

“Listen to them.” I can hear the voices enter the room through the cracked window. “They want to live, to create, to be! Can you kill one of them?”

A few quivers shake him and he squeezes his eyes shut, but there’s nowhere for him to escape.

“Without people like them, without dreamers, there wouldn’t be things!” I shake his head to make him look at me. “We wouldn’t thrive. Sure not all succeed but without them those kids wouldn’t be playing in this park, you wouldn’t be holding a gun. Look around you! Everything is built by dreamers! What you’re doing is robbing the world of improvement!”

He flinches, his breathing turning into panicky huffs. I blink, letting go of his hair, only now noticing that I tore a few hairs out. He lowers his head to his chest and I worry I might’ve overdone it. I’m shattering his reality after all, forcefully.

I pull out a gag from his mouth. He doesn’t react. “Michael?”

“I’m helping them.” He quivers, then stills, as if trying to hold onto the remains of his beliefs. “How can it be wrong? When it happened to me...” He doesn’t acknowledge me like he’s having a conversation with himself. “It was real.”

“Your experience is one of thousands, of millions. The pain that you saw doesn’t fit everyone in the world. Not the majority of it.”

He shuffles and slumps on his side.

“Mike?”

“Just go,” he mutters. “You’re free. Go.”

“So you go and continue doing the same thing?” I throw my hand out. “So you get an urge to kill people every time someone wants something?”

I grip the gun, resting behind the waistband of my pants. Just how many lives could I save if I kill him now.

But his is a life also.

“Listen.” I bend down to meet his blanched face. “I want to help you, okay? Whether you end up in prison or wherever the beliefs you kill for are what shaped you, but they don’t reflect what happens to the majority of people.”

He gapes, his jaw moving in effort to find the words, but decides against it. I might’ve pushed a little too far, did more bad than good. For all I know I cracked his shell completely, exposing all the pain and rot underneath.

I should call the cops.

I freeze as something I chose to forget and ignore enters my mind. Like death itself, ready to collect all the hope that remains.

I am too a murderer.

“No…” I stabbed a man to death. For all I know I’m wanted now. And I don’t know if I’m going to be able to convince them it was self-defense. I thought about it during long drive hours, but it never overlapped with legal ramifications. I always saw that scene through a haze, and I always tried not to think about it.

“God damn it.” My vision blurs as my dream of home shatters. My life might never be the same.

I garb his head, my fingers jabbing into his cheeks, and turn him to face me. “Do I deserve to go to fucking prison? For a murder I committed because your people were after me?” Tears spill from my eyes as I hold my gaze on his. “Answer me.”

He bites his lip as if restraining from a cry himself. “No. God help me you don’t.”

“And who made it so I might? Who created this pain? Who—”

“I did,” a single tear escapes his eye and slides down, disappearing in his stubble.

He admits it but I feel too numb to focus on it. “I’m sorry for what happened that made you be this way.” I let go of his cheeks. He rests his head on the ground, his hair glued to his sweaty forehead.

I figure I’ve put him in shock so I lay on the bed and give him some space. The door beckons to me, but there’s nothing but pain behind it. Trials, prison, years of legal struggles and pain for my family. My uncle will sure as hell drink himself to death. I’ll have to explain what happened to me, listen to people’s judgements and how I shouldn’t have felt what I felt for the man who kidnapped me. How I should’ve acted differently…

Or I can spend the rest of my life on the run. All thanks to a man who picked the victims who desired things. I swear it would be better if he was a brainless criminal from a gang.

“I-I’m sorry.” I hold my breath at his dejected voice. “I’m so sorry, Hanna.”

I wipe my tears and part my lips to ask how he’s feeling, but muffled rough voices from outside make me bolt upright.

“Which door is it?” A male voice asks. “Are you sure this is the motel?”

“The car is his. I think.”

Michael sits up and we both look at each other in shared horror.

“Untie me,” he says, his voice clearer with a surge of adrenaline.

“Yep.” I jump to him, cut his bonds and back away. He doesn’t even look at me as he stands and sways to the duffel bag. “Gun?”

“I’ll keep it.” I pull the gun. “You’re dizzy anyway.”

“Because you thwacked me on the head,” he hisses. “Open the window at the back.”

I crack the window open and we climb out, our heads low and voices reduced to whispers, then sneak around the motel.

“They’re gone,” I say, observing a line of motel doors. “Somewhere.”

“To the car, hurry.”