I return my gaze to the night. The scratching might be the wolves or whatever creepy crawler climbed into my room. With Quill in no mood for fighting, I feel it’s my duty to remain on guard. A smile crosses my face when I imagine the idea of me battling the horrors prowling the night.
As if to prove my point, a creature’s eyes shine in the darkness. I step back as the woman leaps onto the porch and growls at me. Her face is a mask of white and ugly with broken angles. She’s less human than any of the Death Dealers I’ve seen in this place.
Quill appears next to me and rips the curtain closed. His anger nearly tears the rod free before the woman disappears behind the flowered fabric.
“Stop antagonizing her,” he demands.
“Who is she?”
“How would I know?”
“Will she break the window?” I ask, reaching for a nearby machete.
Quill grabs the weapon. “She won’t come inside.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know!” he yells, startling me a foot off of the ground. “I don’t know what the rules are here! I don’t know why we’re here or if we can leave! I don’t know why she can walk in the darkness while we can’t! I don’t know, Odessa! I don’t have the answers! I’m trapped here just like you and no one ever gave me an operating manual for this place!”
Quill strikes a fearsome figure standing over me with the machete in his hand. His raging eyes are nearly black while his entire body shakes with fear. Trapped in his head, he sees no escape from the weight of so many new emotions.
I don’t know if I should run for cover or hug him. With nowhere to hide in this place, I wrap my arms around his waist and wait for whatever response his furious mind provides.
“The confusion you feel is what everyone feels, Quill. Once the newness wears off, you’ll handle the feelings better. I promise.”
“Your promises mean nothing.”
I look up to find him scowling at me. He’s considering whether his life would improve if he put the machete through me.
“You are not lost,” I whisper. “You know who you are. This place amplifies our feelings, but you can find peace as I have.”
“Your peace was stolen from me.”
“No, I have peace because you gave it to me. I’m not strong enough to take anything from you.”
“I want it back then,” he hisses.
“Isn’t there anything you like about feeling this way?” I ask, becoming very aware of the machete in his hand.
Quill shakes his head, but his eyes reveal uncertainty. Pleasure overwhelms him, driving him mad and tearing away his control. It’s still pleasure, though.
“I can love you, Quill,” I softly say, tightening my hold on him. “I haven’t loved anyone or anything since Athena died. I can love now, and I want to love you even when you act like a robot or when you hold a machete in your hand and feel malice in your heart.”
“I could kill you so easily.”
“Once you kill me, I’ll be gone forever. Are you ready to make a decision you must live with for so long?”
Quill closes his eyes and exhales softly. “I wish I hadn’t saved you.”
“I know, but you did. I can help you.”
“How?”
“When you’re in the storm, I can be your anchor like you’re mine. When the voices drive me crazy, or the storm makes me think I’d rather die than listen to another minute of thunder, I have you to bring me back. I can do that for you.”
“Wouldn’t it be best to die tonight and end our time in this prison?”
“What if we only end up in another prison? Besides, you didn’t give up when you were raised to feel nothing. When Chance killed everyone at the estate, you didn’t give up either. Why would you do so now?”
“I knew who I was then.”
“You’re still you. Look at how your solution to every problem is to kill it, and now you want to kill me. Even if you do, the feelings you’ve stirred up won’t go away.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I’m the catalyst for these feelings, but it could have as easily been Mary or another woman.”
Quill’s scowl darkens, and he pushes me away. “Now I know you’re lying. This couldn’t happen with anyone else. It had to be you, and you know that.”
“I don’t know anything.”
Standing in the kitchen, he sets the machete on the counter and exhales hard. “You’re the nightmare destroying me.”
I walk to the green chair and sit down. “Destroying each other could be what the Lost Highway has in mind for us. I finally forgive myself and love someone, only for that someone to destroy me. You feel for the first time, only to destroy me and end up miserable. We could be each other’s destruction.”
I consider the peace I’ve known since the night Quill lost his virginity. How I can now remember Athena without wanting to punish myself. Whatever this place intended, I’ve changed for the better.
Quill hasn’t destroyed me and neither has the Lost Highway.