Bound to You

“What?” Zack hissed into the phone, looking around the corner of the wall to see if Eliza was anywhere near the room. She wasn’t, and he went back to sit in the chair by the desk, pushing a hand frustratedly through his black hair.

“He said it’s the only way we’ll ever get Johnny back, Zackary.” Matt’s voice said gruffly on the other end of the line. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not suggesting that we even do this. But Zack, Johnny is our brother.”

“I know that.” Zack sighed. “I just…Why the fuck does he want her so bad?”

“I don’t know, man.” Matt replied. “We need to give him an answer by midnight tonight, or he’s going to…He’s going to kill him, Zack.”

Zack slammed his fist into the wall, making a small indent in the plasterwork before he sighed angrily. He wasn’t going to let Sean get away with this. They had to do something. There had to be something they could do. Sean had to have some kind of weakness.

“I’m going to talk to Eliza.” He said quietly, hoping she wouldn’t hear him. “Maybe she can remember something about Sean, a break in his defenses or something. Out of all of us, she knows him personally. We can use that; we can maximize our advantage over him with that. He realizes that sooner or later, with Eliza on our side, he’ll be backed in a corner and have no way out. That’s why he took Johnny.”

“Well, we’ve only got about nine hours.” Matt said. “Work fast, or—“

“I know.” He said angrily, before hanging up the phone. He couldn’t talk to Matt anymore about this. He needed to talk to Eliza and find out anything she might know. Johnny’s life was now in her hands, and it was crucial that she tell him everything she remembered about him.

He walked upstairs to find her laying on the bed in the furthest bedroom, sleeping. He smiled at her resting form, her dark hair spread out like an angel’s halo around her head as she slept. Zack walked over to the bed and sat next to her, pulling her head onto his lap and pushing his hands through her hair. After a few minutes she groaned and reached up to wipe the sleep out of her eyes, looking up to see Zack. She smiled, and yawned.

“Hey.” She said quietly, her voice husky from having just woken up.

“Hey.” He smiled at her, leaning down to kiss her lips lightly. “I have something important I need to ask you, okay?”

Eliza nodded. “Sure, anything. It has to do with…With Johnny, doesn’t it?”

Zack sighed and nodded. “Yes, it does.” He said. He wasn’t going to tell her that his life was in jeopardy; she’d never stop blaming herself if things didn’t work.

“What do you need to ask me?” She asked him.

“About Sean.” He said. “Tell me everything you know about him; from the kind of shampoo he uses to his family.”

Eliza sighed. Zack’s question was beyond difficult to answer; it was damn near impossible. Sean was a man of few words and even fewer emotions. In the entire duration of their tumultuous relationship, he had only said he loved her once. It had also, coincidentally, been the night they’d broken up.

So she began thinking back. Zack was right. There had to be something he had told her, at some point in their life together. She just had to remember it. Suddenly, one particular conversation came back to her, and she thought over it in her head. It had been the night they’d met, and though she’d been underage, they’d both been drunk, and the conversation had always stayed with her.

Eliza giggled as Sean wrapped his arms drunkenly around her waist while she fumbled to get the key into the door of her apartment. She finally managed to push the door open, and they stumbled inside. She swatted playfully at his hand when he started moving it underneath her shirt, and turned around to face him.

“Ah, ah, Steve.” She giggled, pulling away. “We just met!”

“So what do you need to know,” He slurred drunkenly as he kissed her neck teasingly. “So that we can fuck?”

She was too drunk to be disgusted by his comment, and laughed. “Tell me whatever you want.” She said. “I want to know…whatever.” She said, giggling the last word. Sean grinned at her and put his hands on her face, kissing her alcohol-tinged lips before leaning back, crashing on the couch, taking her with him.

“My name’s Sean, not Steve.” He told her, his hands touching every inch of uncovered skin he could find. Eliza was finding it difficult to control the sexual feelings she felt building up within herself, but forced herself to not moan. By no means was she easy, and she never slept with people she didn’t at least know a few personal things about.

“I knew that, silly.” She laughed, kicking her shoes off. One landed almost inside the small fishbowl she kept on the table by the wall, and Sean laughed.

“Well…What else do you really need to know about me?” He asked her, again trying to avoid the subject. A weird feeling settled itself in the pit of Eliza’s stomach; something that wasn’t lust. She thought it was strange that Sean kept avoiding her question, and even in her drunken state of mind she could tell that he wasn’t nearly as drunk as he was pretending to be. Though she definitely did recall him being a little bit tipsy, he hadn’t had near the amount of liquor that she had.

She knew that by asking him a vague question such as the one she had asked him already, he wasn’t going to reply. So she decided to use a more direct method of questioning.

“Do you have family?” She asked him. Sean looked away from her, and Eliza saw his gaze darken, as though she’d asked a forbidden question. It took him several minutes to reply, and when he did, he looked almost peaceful, a look she hadn’t yet seen on him.

“Just one person.” He told her.

“A parent, or sibling? Or someone else?” She pressed on.

“Curious, are we?” He asked her, his confidence returning as he pressed his lips against hers again. “What does it matter? I’ve told you one thing about me, now maybe we should go into the bedroom so you can show me a few things about you.”

Eliza giggled, and knew she was too drunk to really question him anymore. She stood up, reaching for Sean’s hands with hers, and led him in the direction of her bedroom.

“Eliza?” Zack asked her, waving his hand in front of her face. She blinked a few times before meeting her gaze, a hand going to her mouth when she remembered the details of the conversation.

“He has family somewhere.” She told him. “I asked him about it once…He said there was just one family member.”

“Did he say where, or who?” Zack asked her. Eliza sighed, pushing a hand through her hair with a frustrated sigh.

“No. He avoided that. But…”

“But what?”

“Zack, I don’t think it’s his parents or a brother or a sister. The look on his face…It wasn’t the kind of look you’d get when thinking of those kinds of family members. I think he has a kid somewhere.”