Hansel 1-4: The Complete Series (19 page)

CHAPTER FOUR

Lucas
Thirteen Years Ago
 

I hate bathrooms.

She knows this—Mother—so she soaks in that big fucking tub all the time and makes me stay in here with her.

There’s a big, suede couch along one of the mirrored walls, so I usually just lie there while she talks to her damn self.

Some days bad, some days worse… This one is a night. I’m drunk. Red wine. I like to drink a
lot
—and Mother keeps passing out Xanax like it’s candy. Not so much of a mother, am I right?

This woman is a fick suck.

I mean a sick fuck.

I think about it, running away, but it’s so snowy. Lots of snow and no shoes. She’s got small feet. My feet are big. This wouldn’t work.

I sprawl my legs over the arm of the couch and look up at the ceiling. So white. So high. Way up there.

I can hear her splashing, and I close my eyes. The sound of water… That’s okay. I don’t like the mirrors. I don’t like the tile. Because of her. You know who.

Mother’s voice rings through the bathroom. My body twitches, and I realize I’ve been playing with my dick. Oops.

Sleeping in her bed, and I don’t have clothes here. No clothes. A lot of days or weeks—could it be months—and no clothes for me. That old fucking lady wants my dick. I swear she does.

She’s a fucking bitch.

Sometimes, at night, or in the day…I’m always drunk. Sometimes she lies beside me and she grabs my wrists.

Behind the thick veil of wine and Xanax, I can feel my heart pound. Dread. I hope she doesn’t do it tonight.

I should have run when I first got here.

Sometimes when she sleeps I watch her tits and I jack off.

I cup my hand under my balls and jiggle them around and watch the ceiling move. She’s saying something. Something with the water. About Mother Goose and children. Fairy tale children. Drunk kids.

I laugh.

“You’ve had too much wine,” she says from the tub.

I laugh again.

“’S all too much.” Right? I’m fourteen. “Not legal.” I grin. “I like Xanax.”

What I don’t like is those dreams. I’m lost for a little while, trying to outrun them.

“Hansel?” She stands over me, stark naked. She’s a lot of woman. Red lips move.

“Umm hmm?”

“What do you think? Would you like a brother or some sisters?”

“Foster brothers suck,” I tell her, sitting up. I fall over on my elbow. It’s the sore one. Wrist is sore.

Why does it hurt me even though I’m wasted?

Shouldn’t…this protect me?

She sinks down beside me. Her breasts are in my face. “Would you like a brother, or a sister first?”

My eyes roll back into my head. She grabs my wrist. It’s healed…but there’s a scar. I…wish she wouldn’t touch it.

“What?” I open my eyes, and she’s smiling.

“I think we need a girl here, or a young man like yourself. I would like this house to be The Shoe. So many children, I won’t know what to do.” She smiles and twirls a strand of her damp hair. “Do you think I make a good mother?”

No.

I can’t say that or she’ll… I’m gonna keep the peace. I nod a little. “Triplets,” I offer.

“You think I should have triplets?” She laughs. She leans over me, her breasts almost touching my lips, and ruffles my hair. It’s damp from the steam in here.

I pull away from her. I try to let her do what she wants, but…no touching. I blink a few times, trying to convey this.

“I’m too old to be a biological mother, but adoptive moms can be special as well. Isn’t that right?”

“There were triplets.” Three girls—younger than me. They looked just like Shelly.

CHAPTER FIVE

Leah
 

We drive from the MGM Grand to The Forest without a word. I don’t know how long it takes in minutes, but in my mind, it takes like…years.

I’m hyper-aware of him. Every time he slides his hands around the steering wheel, every time he leans forward to see around a car, the motion vibrates somewhere deep down in my throat. Everything about him is so vibrant now: his wavy, dark hair, his hazel eyes, his face, which is still bruised from last night.

His hand has stopped pouring blood, so that’s good. I wonder if it needs stitches. I wonder if he’s really taking me to Mother’s house. When we park in the employee lot behind The Forest and he gets out without a word, I wonder if he’s coming back. He does. This time, I watch the clock, so I know it takes sixteen minutes.

His hand is wrapped in fresh, white gauze, and he’s carrying my luggage, plus another black gym-looking bag. He opens the door to the back seats and sets the things inside, and then he’s sliding into the driver’s seat again. I’m startled by the width of his shoulders. By the scent of him. I swear he has a scent, and it’s a good one. I can’t even explain what it is, but there’s a subtle richness to it.

He pulls out of the parking lot, and I reach around to get my purse. He reaches back at the same time. My arm bumps into his. He jerks away.

“Sorry,” I murmur.

“It’s fine.”

I grab my purse and pull it into my lap. I go through my phone as he drives us out of downtown Vegas. Somehow it’s only just now occurred to me that it’s a long drive to that house. I’m not sure how many hours, but definitely a few. Maybe more than a few. Will we stop somewhere for the night? I guess it depends on how far Denver is from Vegas. It’s been a long time since I lived in Colorado. As soon as all of “Mother’s children” were rescued, my dad took a transfer from Boulder to Atlanta. Before my kidnapping, I didn’t really drive around the states nearby. I’m guessing it’s maybe seven hours. We’ll be stopping for the night, or getting there late.

I inhale deeply.

I can do this.

It’s something my therapists have suggested in the past, but I just never was that interested. It’s hard to think of going back. 

The first two hours we are on the road, moving out of Nevada and into southwestern Utah, he says nothing to me. I don’t know what to think about him—what to think about how he feels for me; about how he treated me before I got out at the casino—so I’m trying hard not to.

I slip my headphones in my ears and listen to some Broken Bells on my phone. I exchange a few texts with my sisters. When Laura asks if I’m home yet, I tell her “yes.” She doesn’t live near me. Not like she’ll know. And if she thinks I’m lying, she’ll assume the worst. They all will. Luckily, Lana doesn’t ask. She says she’s having fun on her honeymoon and that’s it.

Mom and Dad haven’t called or texted, so I don’t bother texting them. Now that my dad’s retired, they’re kind of withdrawn from the world. Not in a bad way, just in the sort of way which means they never know which day is Monday. Good for them. They retired to the Gulf Shores, so they won’t know I didn’t come home on time.

Utah is a pretty state. Lots of rocky, cliff-y mountains. Not huge, but still really pretty. Seeing the mountains with Hansel—Edgar—by my side is kind of a head-trip. There was no window in my room at Mother’s, so I never saw the majestic Rockies all around us, but I knew they were there.

The sun has disappeared behind us, the sky an inky black. I turn the music down because I’m curious about his choice of radio. I’m a little surprised to find he’s listening to something on National Public Radio. I can’t tell for sure, having only listened for a minute or two, but I think they’re discussing the stock market.

I dare a glance over at him, and happen to get a full-on glance at the thick scar on the inside of his left wrist. I used to touch it every blue moon—just the barest stroke of my fingertip over the pink line. I didn’t do it often, because I could tell it made him tense, but once or twice, after I touched it, he twined his fingers tightly through mine.

I’m thinking about that when I realize I have the answer to my question from earlier: he did know I was me. He says he didn’t remember seeing me, Leah, last night at the fight and after, but I can verify that at least part of him remembered. Part of the NDA mentioned him always wearing gloves, and me not trying to take them off, but this morning when he came into the room, he wasn’t wearing gloves. I feel sure he would’ve been had he thought I was some random girl named Lauren.

I bite my lip, because suddenly, I really want to talk to him. I pull my headphones out of my ears and make a show of tucking them, and my phone, into my purse. As I lean down to set the purse on the floor, his gaze rolls over me.

His eyes are cool and distant. I try not to be disappointed.

“The NDA applies,” he tells me briskly, over the droning voice of the NPR anchor.

I frown at him. “Um…huh?”

“Your encounters with me, sexual or otherwise, are protected by the NDA. That includes this trip.”

I cross my arms over my abs and look out at the winding road. “Okay.”

A minute or two later, as we drive between two peaks, he says, “You didn’t find me. Understand? No finding Hansel or any of that shit. I don’t want to see myself on 20/20.”

I exhale slowly and try to hold onto my temper. “If you think I would do that, you don’t know me at all.”

“One look around,” he says, ignoring me. “Then we’re driving into Denver and I’m dropping you at the airport.”

I shake my head. “I want to spend the night.”

“That’s not an offer.”

So strange how his voice is so much the same, and so different, too. We’re driving past a small town, lit up in the dusk, and I turn my eyes toward it so I don’t have to look at him and feel so disappointed.

“I assume we’ll be stopping at a hotel?” I ask my window.

“You assume correctly.”

I turn away from the window and back toward the front windshield just in time to see a sign letting us know that Denver is 500-something miles away. So we’ll be driving more tonight, and then tomorrow morning, too.

I flick my eyes at him. He seems perfectly content to stew, but I can’t go that long without talking. If he thinks he’s just going to sit there listening to boring “market” news, he’s wrong.

I rub some lip gloss on my lips and smooth my hair down. Then I look at him as if he’s normal. As if this is normal. “When did you buy it?” I say in an easy tone.

My words hang in the air only for a moment. He turns down the radio a little and, with a brief glance my way, says, “Eight years ago.”

“Do you go there often?” I ask a few minutes later.

“Not very,” he says.

I see him wince a little as he moves his bandaged hand.

“Is your hand okay?”

“It’s fine.”

So that’s how it is. Okay, I get the freakin’ point.

“This is going to be a long drive,” I say.

“Your choice.”

“Fine. I’ve got a lot of stupid game apps on my phone. I’ve even got two romance novel apps. The one from The Rockstars of Romance, and this new one from Shh, Mom’s Reading. I’m sure I can entertain myself reading about a big, hard cock that isn’t yours.”

I’m looking to get a reaction out of him—something; anything—and I guess I do. He reaches over and, with his bandaged right hand, turns up the volume of the radio. I don’t miss the way his face goes tight with pain caused by straightening two of his fingers.

A minute later, I remember from the other night: there are two volume buttons on the left side of the wheel.

*
 

An hour later, he exits abruptly and parks at the back of a grocery store parking lot. He does something that makes the lights of the dash glow a little brighter, then he turns those Hansel eyes on me. 

Even in the dim light, they’re…sharp. Intense. Which is pretty strange, considering how ordinary his words are.

“There’s a Wendy’s and a McDonald’s here—Richfield—or we can wait an hour or so, till we get to Salina. They’ve got Subway, too.”

Before I can answer, he reaches around into the back seat and hoists the black bag into his lap. I watch him use his teeth to unzip it while his left arm grips it, but I don’t dare offer to help.

He pulls out a handful of organic power bars and two bottles of water. He hands me one of the bars, one of the bottles, and takes one of the bottles for himself.

Before he can do anything else ridiculously stubborn, I grab it out of his hand and twist the top off.

“Here,” I tell him with my eyebrows lifted.

He looks at me for a long moment before taking a long swig. Then he sets the bottle in his cup-holder and, without looking over at me, he asks, “What’ll it be?”

I peel the power bar open and take a bite. It’s not bad. Tastes like peanut butter. “I can wait,” I tell him.

I’m not even finished chewing before we’re lurching into motion again, rolling out of the parking lot and back toward the interstate.

As he speeds up and gets into the left lane, I tuck my power bar wrapper into my purse and dare to ask a question.

“Why does The Forest look like Mother’s house?”

I don’t even get a glance from him.

Feeling stupid, feeling pissed, I put my earphones back into my ears and turn up Lana del Ray. I can’t pinpoint the moment that my eyes slip shut, but the next time I open them, I’m being lifted by a pair of strong arms. Bright light stings my eyes.

“We’re here,” his low voice murmurs.

I tense my shoulders a little, lift my head, and see that ‘here’ is an off-brand, mom and pop hotel with a tan brick and a red roof.

“Don’t worry,” he tells me as we pass quickly through the dim lobby and he starts climbing stairs. “I’ve got your stuff inside your room.” A second later, as he opens the stairwell door to the second floor and starts striding down the hall, he tells me, “Rooms adjoin. But I don’t want your company.”

He lays me on the fluffy, white duvet and looks down at me with his strange, hard eyes. Then he’s going through the door between our rooms.