Five minutes later he had a key. It was one of the old-fashioned keys attached to a red plastic ring where the room number was half worn away.
He drove us around to the back of the motel, parking the car where the license plate was pointed toward the room instead of where anyone driving by could see it. It was these little details that kept reminding me how deep in shit I was now. I didn’t know exactly what this guy was a pro at, but I knew he was a pro.
I got out and followed him inside. There was only one queen-sized bed.
“Why didn’t you get a double room?” There were only two other guests staying around the front side of the motel and none here at the back. They would have rooms left with two beds. If he didn’t have bad intentions why hadn’t he gotten me my own bed?
Shannon sighed. “One bed, you’re my wife or girlfriend. Two beds, and you’re an unknown variable. Two beds invites questions of who you are to me that makes someone remember me beyond the few minutes it took to check in. It’s never good to create questions in people’s minds. If you want to be a ghost, you have to learn that now.”
I hadn’t said I never wanted to reintegrate into the normal world. Just not right now. I still hoped I would regain my memory and then at least have some sense of solid ground underneath me before having to deal with nosy curiosity.
I tried to remind myself that this guy actually had friends, that he explored abandoned theme parks for fun. What had he called himself? An urban explorer? That sounded like some hipster nonsense. I couldn’t even imagine how that Shannon meshed with this one.
Once inside, I used the bathroom then came back out to the main area. The place was a bit run down, but clean. Well, clean enough. I didn’t have a black light to shine on the walls, and I probably didn’t want one. Sometimes a place just looking clean was enough.
Shannon put the chain on the door and scooted a chair underneath it like he thought we were going to be under siege any minute. Yet none of his movement was frantic. It was all calm and calculated, and once again, I thought he was going to kill me.
“Lie down on the bed.”
“W-what?” Or rape me.
“We’re going to sleep.”
I wasn’t convinced by his explanation, but he’d kind of blocked me in here. And I’d gone along with most of the steps along the way. Suddenly something flashed into my head. It was like a memory, but I wasn’t sure if it was anything attached to my life personally or just some random bit of general knowledge my brain had held onto. Don’t let them take you to a second location. Fight like hell to avoid it.
I kept telling myself this was my fault somehow. I never should have asked him not to involve the cops. But if Shannon was really bad, he could have done whatever he’d wanted anyway. As if he would have called for real help if he were evil. Who was I kidding? This guy had clearly done evil things. Me not being a target of it... yet... didn’t change that basic truth.
“Elodie, I’m tired. I want to get on the road early tomorrow. My house is much nicer than this. You’ll have your own room there.”
Room or basement? Or garden shed?
He started to look impatient. I didn’t want to escalate things, so I lay down. For better or worse, this was where I was now, and there was no real way out of it that didn’t escalate into violence. I had a very strong feeling that if I fought him too hard, that thing in his brain would click on again and he’d decide I was too much trouble.
Shannon undid the nylon holding my borrowed pants in place and ripped it out of the belt loops. Before I could process what he was doing, he had my hands over my head and tied to the headboard. He could have used the rope in his bag, but I got the feeling he wanted to move into and own my space.
The headboard was older and solidly well-made with slats to run rope through. Maybe Shannon was just super lucky. Or maybe he’d done this before. Though I was sure, even without such a convenient way to tie me down, he would have easily figured something else out with whatever the room had offered him instead.
“Please, don’t do this.” I was crying and blubbering, and right on the cusp of a panic attack. And despite my best efforts not to become too much trouble for him to keep dealing with, I struggled, however vainly. But it was nothing to him and didn’t slow him down more than a few seconds in his goal.
Once I was secured, Shannon shut off the lights, kicked off his boots, and lay down on the other side of the bed, turning his back to me.
“Go to sleep. Things won’t seem as bad in the morning.”
Shannon was a man who obviously knew how to create trauma but didn’t know the first thing about undoing it. Nearly everything he’d said or done from the moment we’d met had triggered one fear or another. He’d kept me on a razor’s edge of anxiety, but somehow I didn’t think it had been intentional.
Even so, it was well past the point when Shannon’s breath deepened in sleep before I could find my own fitful peace for the night.
***