Chapter 55 Methodical

Chapter 55 Methodical
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Chelsea

✦

Sleep doesn't come clean. It never does, not anymore. Instead it arrives in fragments, jagged pieces of memory and fear shuffled together like a deck of cards dealt by a drunk dealer.

One moment I'm nowhere, floating in the dark space behind my eyelids, and the next I'm somewhere else entirely—somewhere warm, somewhere safe, somewhere that doesn't exist anymore except in my head.

Our apartment.

In the dream, there's no wound. There's only morning light filtering through gauzy curtains, catching dust motes and turning them into gold. There's the smell of coffee brewing somewhere out of sight, and bacon, and the particular warmth of a space that's been lived in, loved in, made into a home.

He's standing at the kitchen counter.

Shirtless.

The sight of him hits me like a physical blow, even in sleep. I know this sight so well—I've memorized it, sketched it in my mind during long afternoons at the library when I should have been shelving books. But familiarity doesn't diminish the impact. If anything, it intensifies it. This is Alex. My Alex. Whole and unbroken and waiting for me.

Those lines.

His Blaschko lines.

I've always been fascinated by them, these swirling patterns that trace across his skin like invisible rivers made visible.

They're a quirk of biology, lines of Blaschko, dermatological patterns that follow the paths of embryonic cell migration.

I'd always been captivated by them. They look like marble, like someone took a brush dipped in liquid gold and painted him, following the contours of his muscles, his bones, his beautiful structure.

They sweep across his chest in whorls and waves, delicate as fingerprints, unique as snowflakes. They wrap around his shoulders, cascade down his back, spiral along his arms.

In the morning light, they seem to glow. His skin is a work of art, and I've always felt privileged to be the one who gets to look, to touch, to know the landscape of him.

I come up behind him in the dream, moving quietly on bare feet. The tile is cool against my soles. I wrap my arms around his waist, pressing my face between his shoulder blades, breathing him in. He smells like sleep and safety, like home, like everything I took for granted before it was ripped away. His skin is warm beneath my cheek. I can feel his heartbeat, steady and strong.

"Chelsea," he whispers, and my name has never sounded so right.

I move around him, slow, deliberate. He turns to face me, and his eyes—those warm eyes—crinkle at the corners with a smile he's barely containing. He lifts me. His hands span my waist, easy and confident, and he sets me on the counter behind me.

The granite is cold against my thighs, a shocking contrast to his warmth. My legs part to make room for him, and he steps between them, crowding me in the best way, the only way. His hands find my face, thumbs tracing my cheekbones, my jaw, the line of my throat. He touches me like I'm precious. Like I'm fragile. Like I'm his.

We kiss.

It's not gentle, not entirely. There's too much hunger for that, too much need. We've been apart for years in this dream, though it was only days in reality. Time moves differently in dreams, stretches and compresses, makes absence into eternity. His tongue slides against mine, and I taste mint and him, always him. We're panting into each other's mouths, sharing breath, sharing heartbeat. His chest rises and falls against mine, and I can feel his Blaschko lines, those beautiful swirling patterns, pressed against my skin.

He pulls me closer, undresses me with hands that know every secret, every sensitive spot, every place that makes me gasp. It's slow. Reverent. This is making love, not fucking. With Alex, it was never just fucking. There was always love in it, always care, always the sense that he was memorizing me, worshipping me, claiming me in ways that went far beyond the physical.

On the counter.

In the light.

Whole.

Safe.

Home.

Then—

The light doesn't fade. It dies. It chokes, sputters, goes out like someone flipped a switch, and the apartment dissolves around me. The counter vanishes. Alex vanishes. The warmth vanishes. I'm left in darkness, in cold, in the place where safety goes to die.

The limo.

The smell hits me first—leather and sweat and copper, that particular metallic scent of blood and fear and sex that I will never scrub from my memory no matter how long I live. The seats are sticky beneath me. The air is thick, humid, wrong. I can feel the vibration of the engine through the floor, through my spine, through my teeth.

Bagly.

He's there.

Of course he's there. He never really left. He's been waiting in the dark corners of my mind, patient as a spider, ready to crawl out whenever my defenses drop.

His smile.

That horrible, hungry smile that never reached his eyes. Those watery old eyes behind small spectacles, looking at me like I was meat, like I was product, like I was nothing. His hands are on me again, heavy and clammy and wrong. His weight is crushing me into the stained carpet, and I can smell everything—the previous victims, the cum and blood and spit he mentioned so casually, the cologne that couldn't cover the rot underneath.

I love threesomes, he whispers, and his breath is hot against my ear, sour with old food and decay. And anal. And everything, really. I'm not picky.

His fingers are inside me. Rough. Forcing. Painful. His other hand is on my throat, squeezing, cutting off my air, my voice, my hope. I can't breathe. Can't scream. Can't fight. The darkness is pressing in, spots dancing in my vision, and I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm—

The mask.

Blue eyes.

Not Bagly's watery gray. Not Alex's warm blue. Something else. Something cold and deadly and focused.

Blood sprays across the partition. Bagly's throat opens, a red smile beneath his chin, and he gurgles, surprised, angry, dead. He falls away, heavy and final, and the blue eyes are looking at me. Always looking at me.

The truck.

The heat.

The silence.

The tent.

His hand on my wrist.

The burn of that touch, the pulse I felt racing against my own, the chemistry that sparked in the dark like a match struck against stone.

I wake up panting.

Gasping.

My heart is hammering against my ribs so hard I can feel it in my throat, my temples, my fingertips. I'm sweating, the sleeping bag damp around me, clinging to my skin. My mouth is open, trying to scream or breathe or both, and I can't tell if I made any sound. I hope I didn't. I hope Livia didn't hear.

"Chelsea?"

Her voice is close, worried, gentle. I turn my head, blinking in the dim light filtering through the nylon tent walls. She's sitting up, her sleeping bag pooled around her waist, her hair a wild tangle around her shoulders. She looks young in the half-light. Young and scared and trying so hard to be brave.

"Chelsea, are you okay?"

I swallow. My throat is dry, painfully dry, and I can still taste the dream—Alex's mint, Bagly's rot, the metallic tang of fear. "It was just a dream," I say, and my voice comes out rough, broken, completely unconvincing.

"Yeah," I say again, clearing my throat, forcing steadiness I don't feel. "I'm fine. Just a nightmare."

She studies me, her eyes narrowing slightly. She doesn't believe me. Of course she doesn't. We've known each other too long, been through too much. She can read my lies like they're printed in bold type across my forehead. But she's exhausted too, traumatized, running on fumes. She lets it go.

"Okay," she says softly. "We're safe now. Try to breathe."

I nod, not trusting my voice. We sit in silence for a moment, listening to the morning. Birds are chirping somewhere outside, oblivious to everything. I can hear water lapping against a shore—the lake or river we parked beside last night. There's no engine noise. No footsteps. Just the quiet of a place that's far from everything, far from help, far from home.

"We should get up," I say finally. "He probably wants to leave soon."

I unzip the sleeping bag, climbing out of its damp warmth. The air inside the tent is cooler than I expected, carrying the chill of desert night. I find my shoes, pull them on without socks. My feet are cold. Everything is cold.

I crawl to the tent flap, unzip it slowly, trying not to make too much noise. The metal zipper sounds loud in the quiet, each click like a gunshot. I wince, but keep pulling. Morning air rushes in, crisp and clean, smelling of pine and earth and distant water.

I step out.

And stop.

He's already packed.

The tent he slept in—the small, efficient military-style tent—is gone. Completely disassembled. The poles are broken down, lashed together, leaning against the truck. The tent itself is folded into a compact bundle, already stowed in the cargo bed. His sleeping bag is rolled tight, secured with straps.

Everything is organized. Methodical. Military precision in every movement, every placement, every decision.

He stands by the truck, loading what looks like the last bag into the back. He's wearing the same clothes as yesterday—the cargo pants, the black shirt, the mask. I can't see his face, but I can see the efficiency in his movements. The economy of energy. No wasted motion. No hesitation.

He sees us emerge. Turns his head. Nods once, sharp and minimal.

"Eat," he says, his voice muffled by the mask but still carrying that rough depth I noticed last night. "Drink. We leave in ten."

He gestures toward a flat rock near the cold fire pit. On it, he's arranged breakfast. Protein bars. Dried apricots and apples. Three water bottles, condensation beading on the plastic. It's not much, but it's food, and my stomach clenches painfully at the sight of it.

We don't argue. Livia emerges from the tent, rubbing her eyes, looking small and lost in the morning light. We move to the rock and sit. I tear open a protein bar—peanut butter flavor, dense and chalky. It sticks to the roof of my mouth, but I chew anyway, forcing it down. The dried fruit is better, sweet and chewy. We drink the water in small sips, then larger gulps, rehydrating after the dry night.

He works while we eat.

I watch him, unable to stop myself. He moves around the campsite with practiced ease, gathering tent stakes, coiling rope, checking equipment. Everything disappears into the truck with systematic precision. The cooler from last night is closed, secured. The lawn chairs are folded, strapped to the roof rack.

When we finish eating, we stand there, suddenly awkward. Two women in dirty clothes, hair tangled, faces unwashed, holding empty protein bar wrappers like we don't know what to do with them.

"Help," he says. It's not a question. It's an instruction, but not unkind.

So we do.

Livia moves first, gathering the trash from our breakfast, collecting it into a small bag. I go to the tent we slept in. Our tent. The one he set up for us with two air mattresses and blankets. I start breaking it down, fumbling with the poles, trying to remember how he assembled it so quickly last night.

He appears beside me.

Silent as always. I didn't hear him approach.

"Like this," he says, and his hands are there, covering mine on the tent pole.

The touch is electric.

Static shoots up my arm, making the hairs stand on end. His fingers are rough, calloused, warm against my cold skin. He guides my hands, showing me how to collapse the pole, how to break down the joint. His chest is close behind me. I can feel the heat of him radiating through his shirt. I can smell him—that leather and gun oil and clean soap scent that I've started to associate with safety, with survival, with things I shouldn't be thinking about.

We finish the pole.

He steps back.

I step back too, too fast, nearly stumbling over the tent stake behind me.

"Thanks," I mumble, not meeting his eyes. I can't meet his eyes. Not after last night. Not after the dream.

We continue packing.

I fold the blankets while Livia gathers the tent stakes. He works on the air mattresses, deflating them with the same small pump he used to inflate them. The whirring sound fills the silence between us, mechanical and loud.

I carry the folded blankets to the truck.

He meets me there.

Reaches for them.

Our hands brush.

Once.

His fingers graze mine as he takes the weight of the blankets. The touch is brief, accidental, but it sends something hot shooting through my stomach. I pull back too quickly, nearly dropping my end. He doesn't react, just takes the blankets and stows them in a dry bag, securing the roll-top.

I go back for more.

The second air mattress.

I carry it, awkward and bulky.

He meets me at the tailgate again.

This time, when I hand it over, our hands touch on purpose.

I think.

Maybe.

His fingers wrap around mine for just a moment before taking the mattress. Just a second. Maybe two. But I feel it—the warmth, the pressure, the pulse I can sense racing in his wrist. Those blue eyes find mine through the mask. They hold. They measure. They see too much.

Chemistry.

Thick and heavy and impossible to ignore.

It hangs between us like humidity before a storm, making the air hard to breathe, making my skin feel too tight.

I step back.

Clear my throat.

Look away, out at the water, at the trees, at anything but him.

"Get in," he says, and his voice is rougher than before. Or maybe I'm imagining that. Maybe I want to be imagining that. "Long trip. Middle of nowhere. No signal for miles. We drive until we hit civilization."

I nod, not trusting my voice.

Livia is already moving, climbing into the back seat of the truck. I follow her, sliding across the leather. It's cold against my thighs, morning-cold, sending goosebumps up my legs. The interior smells like him. Like this whole adventure—leather and dust and something uniquely his.

He walks around the front of the truck.

Gets in.

The driver's seat dips under his weight.

He checks the mirrors—once, twice, methodical and precise. The road behind us is empty. The road ahead is empty. Just red dirt and scrub and endless sky.

The engine starts.

It rumbles to life, a diesel growl that vibrates through the floorboards, through the seat, into my bones.

He puts it in drive.

We roll out.

The grass gives way to dirt, packed and rutted. The dirt becomes gravel, crunching under the tires. The gravel becomes pavement, cracked and faded, a two-lane road leading God knows where.

I watch him in the rearview mirror.

Those blue eyes, focused on the road, on the mirrors, on everything and nothing. Professional. Detached. But I remember last night. I remember his hand on my wrist. I remember the pulse.

The landscape unfolds around us.

Desert.

Red rock formations in the distance.

Joshua trees standing sentinel.

Nothing else.

No cars.

No buildings.

No power lines.

No signs of life.

We're in the middle of nowhere, heading toward somewhere, with a man who won't tell us his name, who won't show us his face, who kills as easily as he breathes but who gave us water and food and safety.

Livia dozes beside me, her head finding my shoulder, her breathing evening out into sleep. She's exhausted. We're all exhausted.

I keep my eyes on the mirror.

On him.

And I try to sort through the jumble in my head.

Alex.

The dream.

The counter.

The love.

The safety that was stolen from us.

And this man.

This killer.

This savior.

The chemistry that shouldn't exist but does, burning like a coal in my chest, making me feel guilty and alive and confused and terrified all at once.

I touch the spot on my wrist where he touched me.

Like I can hide the evidence.

Of a crime I didn't commit.

But wanted to.

Maybe.

Probably.

God.

I rest my head back against the seat.

Close my eyes.

Try to sleep.

Try to forget.

Try to remember Alex, my Alex, waiting somewhere, searching, loving me.

But all I see when I close my eyes are blue eyes in a black mask.

And all I feel is the burn.

And all I know is that this drive—this endless, silent drive through nowhere—is going to be the longest of my life.