Lost Highway (12 page)

Odessa

A
fter returning to me in the
woods, Quill is a beast in a different way. He wants me unconditionally. His
body fucks the same, rough and hungry. When his dark gaze focuses on me, he’s never
been so open. Quill wraps me in his arms and stares at me as if afraid to look
away.

I know how he feels.

Though I believed in my heart
he would return to me, holding onto positive thoughts proves tricky in this
place. By the time I heard his voice, I had wondered if I was fooling myself. I
even considered how to end my life if he didn’t return. Suicide was preferable
to life without him.

But Quill did return, and now
he won’t leave my side.

We spend long hours in bed.
When we aren’t making love, he nearly crushes me in his embrace. Quill craves
me closer than I can manage. If I’m quiet for too long while we rest in bed, he
lifts my chin so he can see my face. I never imagined him demanding so much
reassurance, but there’s no way I’ll complain. Quill’s neediness is the sexiest
thing I’ve ever seen.

“My turn,” he says one day and
wraps a metal cuff around my wrist. “You trusted John to tie you up. Do you
trust me?”

“More than I trust myself.”

Quill saved me from the Death
Dealers, from the Lost Highway, and even from himself. He’s earned my trust,
but this is the first time he’s cared enough to ask for it.

Exploring every inch of my body
displayed for him, Quill even touches and kisses the back of my knees. He wants
to know what I like and how my body works. He spends long hours between my
legs, teasing my pussy in excruciatingly brilliant ways. I almost feel
invisible when the two of them get together to play.

I teach Quill everything I
know, and he’s a model student. In those first days after our night apart in
the woods, I wait for him to lose control of his inner rage.

Except that part of Quill died
the night he believed I was gone forever. After feeling as if I’d stolen his
power, he’s regained it by facing a pain and fear he hadn’t experienced before.

While I can’t imagine spending
a lifetime knowing only death, I do understand how it feels to be under
someone’s thumb. I gave my power to John to avoid feeling or thinking. I wanted
to remain weak because the fog of that life allowed me to stay the
sixteen-year-old distracted by lust long enough to lose her sister. As long as
I didn’t change, I would never forgive myself.

Now I have my power back. For
good or bad, I’m responsible for me. The pain of bad choices and the
consequences of weakness are all on me.

Quill is free too. He traded
his masters back in the old world for the hunt here in the Lost Highway. He was
still trapped in his former way of thinking. Kill, wait, and kill again were
all he knew.

We’re different now, and I
can’t help wondering why we were gifted our happiness while so many Death
Dealers know only madness and butchery.
Why had we gotten so lucky?

“Have a Skittle,” I tell him
after night arrives.

Quill doesn’t object. He normally
hates eating and says wanting food is a crutch. Now he opens his mouth, so I
can drop the candy on his extended tongue. I eat one too and then place the
mini bag into the cabinet with the rest of our treats.

“Have you ever danced?” I ask
while starting the CD.

“I don’t like that music.”

“Neither do I, but it’s all we
have, so we’ll learn to like it.”

I sway to the strumming guitar
and head toward Quill. He gives me an odd frown. No doubt he’s thinking about
how to avoid my groping hands. Slapping them away was how he once handled them.
Now he endures my fingers on his hips.

“Sway to the beat,” I say when
he only stands robot-still.

“I’m not interested.”

“I don’t love Skittles or this
music or living in the woods, but we need to find the joy in the small things,
Quill.”

Hearing his name, he loses the
frown and allows me to guide him. I take his hands, and we sway to the rough
country beat. Outside the cabin, monsters lurk and the Lost Highway schemes.
Inside, I’ve managed to make Quill smile while trying something new.

If living in this place is a
battle, we’re definitely winning.

Quill

I
turn the woods around the cabin
into an obstacle course of traps and early warnings. For too long, I ignored the
night-dwellers like the one that attacked Odessa. The creature hadn’t come into
the light of the cabin, so I felt she wasn’t a threat even as her kind became
savvier about the traps.

The Death Dealer I nearly
failed to kill also provided a wake-up call. I’d felt invincible for too long.
Or possibly I hadn’t anything to lose until Odessa. Either way, I allowed my
standards to slip. No longer would I take for granted that I was on the top of
the killer food chain.

Odessa decides we need to burn
and bury the trophies. She says we must cleanse the house of Tom’s past deeds
to make it truly ours. I don’t argue, even if I’m unconvinced the voices in the
basement are tied to the remains in the trophy room.

“I was wrong,” I say later that
night. “They’re gone.”

“For now. I’m not getting my
hopes up,” Odessa says, wrapping a leg over mine. “Either way, I’m relieved to
have them out of the cabin. Now we have a spare room since there’s no way I can
get the other room cleaned up.”

Odessa gave up on wiping down
her old room after realizing she’d waste our entire cleaning supply to complete
the task.

“The scavengers take things
from the accidents on the highway. Can we do that?” Odessa asks another night.
“We could get in the habit of staking out the highway to see if we can get dibs
on supplies.”

“The Death Dealers will be out
in force. We won’t take the supplies easily. I don’t know why they allow the
scavengers to take things, but they won’t be so forgiving with us.”

“With time, maybe I’ll be
enough help that we can get supplies without having to rely on the scavengers.”

“In the Lost Highway, we have
nothing but time.”

Odessa smiles at me, taking my
words as an agreement to her plan. I don’t mind the idea of hunting and
scavenging with her one day. For now, I need her safe at the cabin where I
won’t lose her.

“I love you,” I say with more
ease at every utterance.

Odessa reaches up and kisses me
quickly. She pretends to be interested in the movie we watch every few days. I
have no doubt
The Bridge on the River Kwai
wouldn’t make the grade in
the old world. Today, she embraces anything to keep us sane. I’m learning to
care about the movies, music, and food too. If they extend the time we’re together,
I’m willing to do anything.

Too many years ago, I found my
way to the Lost Highway and believed the killing was what drew me here. I
hunted and waited while never certain what exactly I was waiting for besides my
next kill. I assumed I retained my sanity and humanity because I was superior
to the other Death Dealers.

Now everything possesses a clarity
the Lost Highway rarely provides. I had nothing before arriving here while
Odessa was broken. We couldn’t make sense of who we were meant to be.

We were lost until we created a
piece of heaven together in the depths of hell.

Odessa

T
he Lost Highway never relents.
It provides no escape or explanation. This place simply exists. If we want to
survive, we’ll learn to accept the rules rather than fight them.

I still think we’re dead. Quill
claims we’re in a parallel universe. Neither answer is right or wrong. The Lost
Highway is our home now, and we’ll never leave except through death. I’m not
even confident that’ll provide an escape.

Despite the predators in the
Lost Highway, I’ve never felt as safe or blessed. Since Athena’s death, I
remained stuck at the age of sixteen. All I wanted was to suffer for my
mistake. Now that I’ve found forgiveness, I’m finally growing up.

Quill is teaching me to fight.
He’s made me strong, and I believe I’ve helped him too. Quill never felt he was
lost, but he certainly wasn’t happy with his life. I don’t think he even
imagined he ought to enjoy happiness. Now he expects it.

We will fight for our
territory. No matter what we face, we’ll keep our home safe. I haven’t enjoyed
a sense of belonging since I was a teenager. Now I do with Quill, and I will
die to protect what we’ve built together.

Most days don’t involve
fighting, though. When the storms roll through, we spend entire days in bed, distracting
ourselves from the noise and light.

After we trade heads for a deck
of cards at the outpost, Blackjack becomes our newest distraction. Quill
quickly learns my tells, so I lose most hands. His reward for winning is control
in bed, making me the winner too.

Embracing love and laughter is
the key to staying sane. We keep our minds focused on what matters rather than
allowing them to become prey to the voices haunting this world.

The Lost Highway might not be
the devil, but the saying about idle hands still makes sense. As long as we
enjoy the small joys – a tender caress, a card game, the occasional M&M –
we will remain the Quill and Odessa, who discovered love and forgiveness in a
place drenched in darkness and horror.

L
iving in Indiana with my three
sweet sons, three wacky cats, one super mom (and her ugly dog), I love writing,
Denny's, 1970's rock, Beanie Boos, and sitcoms canceled before their time.

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