He's Not What He Seems

After I was freshly washed and changed - with the slight struggle and pain here and there - I existed the bathroom. As I passed out the door, a tall floor to ceiling mirror was fixed against the wall beside the door. I must have not noticed it. A second later I stood before it.

The clothes weren’t much, a simple black tee and black skin tight jeans and I had tied my hair into a bun with a rubber band I found in my old jean pocket. It felt like looking into the past, to a me that no longer existed.

I shoved my hands into my pockets, when a fierce heated pain spike from my stomach. Tears brimmed at my eyes. I looked down towards the source and lifted the front of my shirt up, enough to see the disfiguring slice just left from the centre of my stomach, and was round about eight or nine centimetres wide.

For something so small, it was so very painful.

“I’ll take you home after you’ve had something to eat,” Adrian’s voice came from behind me.

I quickly pushed the tee down and turned to face him. He had a soft butter-would-melt-smile perched upon his lips, which made my heart skip a beat.

He stood with his hands tucked into his jeans pockets, with his shirt sleeves rolled up his arms, to reveal tattoos of flames lapping up his arms, from the wrists upwards. A satin black tie hung loosely around his neck. He no longer looked like the nerd I thought he was.

He brushed his fingers through his hair nervously, as he waited for a response. I bit my lip and looked away.

“Thanks, my mum and dad are going to be so happy to have their only daughter and child home after two weeks,” I laughed lightly.

He rocked back and forth on his heals slowly. “Two weeks, that’s rough for them.”

I shrugged, “they brought it on themselves. Truth is I don’t want to go home. I can’t cope with being treated like a prisoner,” I sighed.

He gestured over his shoulder with his thumb. “Shall we talk and eat?” he asked, with a raise of his eyebrows.

I shrugged and bit my lip, before nodding. A second later I was following him into another cobbled room; only this was filled with marble tops, cupboards, draws and the average kitchen appliances.

“Nice kitchen,” I commented.

He nodded in appreciation and pulled out a chair for me to sit on, at an oak table.

“Thanks.” I sat down at the table.

Adrian drifted over to where a frying pan which sizzled away.

“I hope you like spicy chicken raps, I haven’t been out shopping, so I improvised,” he chuckled while he stirred the frying ingredients.

I laughed. “Yeah I do.”

He laughed to his self; before he asked “Wouldn’t you rather be kept as a prisoner than have no home? What are you, seventeen, eighteen?”

“Nineteen,” I corrected.

“You’re still a young adult. You should be spending time with your family, not on the streets,” he continued as he turned off the stove and put the fried ingredients into a bowl.

“You can’t tell me what to do,” I frowned.

Adrian picked up the bowl and removed a plate from the microwave holding wraps. He came over to the table and placed bowl and plate between us, before heading towards the fridge.

“Beer?” he asked waggling a bottle of magners cider.

I nodded. One beer wouldn’t hurt. A second later he sat on the other side of the table, popped open the caps and hand me one.

“Continuing with the conversation, your right I can’t tell you what to do, but I can only give advice, so take my words and consider them. When I take you home, tell your family you love them, tell them you’ll never runaway again and explain to them why you ran away, then they may give you more freedom if you do. It’s never a good thing to bottle up your emotions and your thoughts.”

I looked up from rolling a wrap. He was right, it never is a good thing to hide all my emotions and thoughts like this, but how did he know about all this.

I took a bite out of the wrap before asking, “How do you know all this?”

He took a swig of the cider before answering. “I was like you once; I wanted freedom, so I ran away. I thought if I did I was able to calm my emotions and thoughts, but it didn’t, it made them worse,” he sighed.

We fell silence once more, I sat eating the wraps and he sat staring at the beer, twirling it in his hand taking a swig here and there.

“Adrian how did you get -” I paused a moment, wondering if it was polite to ask.

“You can ask, I don’t mind,” he reassured, not looking up from the bottle.

I chewed my lip nervously, before asking “How did you get that scar on your face?”

“I was born with it,” he sighed. “People thought I was abnormal with having a birthmark like this.”

“Oh, that must have been hard?”

He nodded and glanced up from staring at his bottle. Slowly a soft honey sweet smile crept onto his lips. I looked away and began to chew my lip.

“You like to chew your lip a lot,” he laughed.

I looked up to find him grinning now.

“I’m sorry, I do it when I’m nervous,” I laughed lightly.

“Don’t apologise, I understand you’re nervous around me. I don’t bite,” he chuckled, taking the empty plate from me.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I asked changing the subject.

He shook his head and sat back down opposite me. “I ate before you woke up.”

I nodded and looked away. I began to fiddle with my bottle.

“I know you have questions; I can see it in your discomfort.”

I looked up in surprise, he was right I did have questions, but I didn’t realize my discomfort was noticeable.

“You can ask me anything you want and then I’ll take you home,” he smiled before downing the last of his drink.

“Okay, first question. Why is your house like a lab underground or something?” I asked.

“One, because we are under ground and two, because I am a scientist,” he answered.

“Why do you live underground, I mean wouldn’t you like a lab above surface?”

“It’s more privet and less noise when I’m trying to concentrate on my work.”

I took another swing on the bottle while I thought of another question, that’s when the question hit me.

“Why do you live on your own?” I asked.

That caught his attention. He looked up slowly, frown creasing his forehead.

“Because what I do is dangerous,” he spoke darkly, a slight growl to his voice.

He stood up and left before I couldn’t ask any more questions.

I sat there alone, pondering what to do next. Should I apologies for something I don’t know I have done? Or sit here and leave him until he takes me home?

Taking the first option, I pushed back from my chair and stood up. I headed over to the door, when before I could turn the handle, I heard a fierce growl come directly from behind the door.

I froze and quickly and quietly I headed back to my seat.

Time ticked by in silence. When I finally had the courage to see what was wrong, I took a deep steady breath, before pushing the door open just a crack.

I peeped through the gap to find Adrian sitting at the edge of the bed I woke up in. He was sat with his head in his hands. His body shook fiercely and his shirt lay shredded at his feet.

I pushed the door open further and his head tilted my way slightly. His eyes met mine briefly, before he looked back towards the floor, but in the brief moment, I saw so many mixed emotions. Sadness stood out the most.

I drifted over to him slowly, keeping my distance at first, before sitting down beside him.

“Adrian, are you okay?” I asked my voice soft with concern.

He sighed and sat up straight, his hands dangling between his legs, his stare still glued to the floor.

He was silent a moment, before he began to speak. “When you asked me why I lived alone, it brought back a bad memory, a memory I never wanted to see again.”

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” I apologized, feeling bad for doing so.

He shook his head and this time looked up to answer. “It wasn’t your fault, I told you to ask me the questions, it was clear you were going to ask and I still let you go ahead.”

His stare dropped down to where my wound was hidden, before looking back up.

“How is it?” he asked.

I rolled my tee just high enough for him to see it. “It’s fine, thank you. It stings, but it’s not as bad anymore.”

He nodded and I let the tee fall back down into its place.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you home. Grab your stuff.”

He pushed his self from the bed, collecting his shirt and tie with it. I followed after, only I headed to the bathroom where my clothes were folded.

When I left the bathroom, Adrian was just buttoning up a leather black trench coat, which fell just past his knees, before slipping on a pair of leather gloves. A second later he took a rather large floppy black hat, which shadowed his eyes.

I looked at him confused, as I grabbed my bag of the stand beside him. In response a dark seductive half smile crept on upon his lips.

I rolled my eyes and flung my back over my shoulder, after shoving my clothes in the bag.

“I’m not going to ask,” I said as I followed him through a door and down a long corridor.

He shook his head as we come to a dead end. With a flick of a switch, I felt myself jerk upwards. A second later light began to seep through a set of doors opening above us.

When the lift finally jerked to a halt, we stood in an empty alley, nothing but a silver Harley Davidson motorcycle sitting idled against the wall.

Great I was going home on a bike, with the driver that dresses like Van Helsing.