"There is an interested party," Aaron had said earlier in the evening, "but he will contact you." Jane remembered these words as she bent to unlock the old Saab's trunk. She unceremoniously dumped her textbooks into the dark interior and grabbed a worn copy of ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST.
The rumbling that had punctuated her instructor's lecture only a few moments before had now become a determined plop-plop-plopping of raindrops. Jane hadn't the slightest idea where her umbrella was. The magazine would have to get her around to the driver's side door. Unfortunately, even as she shut the trunk, she felt as though the paper-shaped tent was merely funneling the rain into her collar and down her spine.
Distracted by this sensation, she was startled to find a man staring at her over the closed trunk lid. Blinking the rain from her eyes, Jane dropped the magazine and managed a "What do you want?" before the stranger could utter a word.
"I'm in your class," is how he began.
"I sit in the back and you sit up front, so maybe you haven't seen me. It's your mythology class with Professor Pater..."
Jane couldn't believe that she had not noticed him. He was a tall, sturdy blonde man with the strangest colored eyes that she had ever seen. They weren't exactly blue or green, nor were they the brown of his jacket.
"So, what do you want?" Jane said, absently wiping at the wet tendrils of hair clumped against her forehead.
"What chapter were we supposed to read? I know that we've skipped one. Do we read ten or twelve?"
Relieved at this innocent question, Jane chuckled. She bent to retrieve her ruined magazine. As she rose to answer "Ten," the man lunged at her.
"What the...?!" was all that Jane could manage to utter before they tumbled to the asphalt. There was a brief struggle as the stranger wrangled Jane's keys from her. He straddled her wriggling form, covered her mouth with his left hand, then unlocked the driver's side door with his right hand.
Jane shuddered beneath his weight. Why was this happening to her? 'Help me, Aaron,' her mind pleaded.
"Get in the car. You'll be driving," the man said as he roughly helped her off the ground and into the Saab. He buckled her into position and reached across her heaving chest to unlock the passenger side door. Jane couldn't help but notice the powerful odor of patchouli that emanated from her attacker. Looking around wildly for any means of escape, she wondered if she would have time to free herself from the belt and open her door before he got to the other side. She didn't think so.