Freed By A Fugitive

Vivienne had been alone for over two years now. She had grown accustomed to the silence, but had never quite learned to enjoy it. She'd always been a social creature by nature, finding herself energized by interacting with people. She had a way of drawing them in, making them gravitate to her. It wasn't a disingenuous quality. She was truly interested in people; in hearing their stories from grand to mundane. In her life 'before' she had never met a stranger.

Life here was so far removed from her former reality. Here there were no parties, no wine tastings, book clubs, or art exhibitions. Here it was just her, the blaring silence, and the incessant chirp of crickets. How she hated those fucking crickets. But she imagined a grave would be much quieter and was certain that's where she would have ended up if not for this tiny cabin nestled in the woods. Patrick would never think to look for her here or anywhere away from the lures of city life.

Patrick. She had met him at a book signing for one of her favorite authors. She was busy talking with a friend and after departing had backed into him causing him to spill a bit of coffee on his sweater. She of course was mortified by her clumsiness offering to pay for dry cleaning to which he refused good naturedly. They would go their separate ways and she would see him later alone in a more remote area of the bookstore. He would appear withdrawn, pensive, perhaps even sad. She decided then to go to him and formally introduce herself. They would continue to talk and laugh amiably throughout the event and afterwards when he asked her to go to a local coffee shop to apologize for ruining his favorite sweater, she had laughingly agreed.

He was so different from the men she usually dated. She had always been attracted to the golden boys and they to her. Like being attracted to like, the men she had dated had come from perfect two family homes, had pristine educational backgrounds with matching achievements, and had made appropriate money making career choices just as she had. Patrick was something altogether different. Patrick had come from a long line of police officers. The men in his family had been involved in law enforcement practically from the moment they'd stepped off the boat. Patrick, like those golden boys, was tall, physically fit, and quite handsome but the similarities ended there. It was like comparing a wolf to a puppy. The breed might be the same, but life experiences had made those golden boys tame. Patrick's experiences had made him feral. What arrogance she had harbored to believe she could chase away his demons with her light. She had believed this even after the first time he struck her.

Patrick. Even his name had the power to bring back wells of emotion for her- fear, sadness, regret, longing, arousal, and shame. Chief among them all was shame. Shame for her fear, shame for still longing for him, shame for desire that would grip her in the night making her wet with need, shame for being a fool for him at the expense of herself in the first place. Shame that on some levels she had liked being reduced to a kernel of herself, liked the humiliation, liked the bruises that no one else could see, liked the slaps that led to her being bent over and fucked to screaming orgasms.

In hindsight she realized that maybe he'd groomed her by sharing with her his insecurities and vulnerability. Sharing the trauma of his abusive family life, his abandonment by his mother, how she had left home when he was 9 years old and never returned. His memory of this was often followed by periods of melancholy which drew her even closer to him. How could she leave him when he hurt so badly, when he needed her so desperately? But his sadness was merely the calm before the storm and was always followed by rages punctuated by cruelty, lust, or both.

Sex with Patrick was unlike anything she had experienced, so much so that it seemed to keep her in thrall and oblivious to the reality of what her life had become. She had blown off her friends so much until they eventually stopped extending invitations. She told herself that it didn't matter. They didn't like Patrick, thought him too controlling and she didn't feel like defending her relationship with him. He convinced her that his behavior stemmed from his work. That he had seen such horrible things on the job that he just wanted to protect what was most precious to him. She had believed him even when he showed her time and again that he didn't mind beating the shit out of his most prized possession.Then he would apologize. And in those idyllic days he would cater to her, spoil her, make love to her with so much passion that she wept from the beauty of it marveling that someone so filled with pain could be capable of giving such indescribable pleasure.

This pattern would continue and would have continued but for the night he'd gone too far. She had gone to the doctor's that day for a check up. Nothing had been amiss. She had been a bit tired, had lost a little weight, but she hadn't missed any periods. Her doctor was concerned because she had been queasy and complained of poor appetite. She took her birth control pills like clockwork. She told her doctor that she thought it was probably stress. She had a deadline to meet on her manuscript and she wasn't nearly done and she knew she would need to request another extension. Her doctor gave her a pregnancy test as a precaution. To her surprise and delight she was indeed pregnant. She even got to hear the baby's heartbeat on the Doppler monitor. She and Patrick had never talked about children, but she was sure that he would be happy.

She left the doctors office with a bag of prenatal vitamins, books, and pamphlets on pregnancy and what to expect. Her doctor had also called in a prescription for iron supplements. She decided that she would pick them up after she left the market to grab something special for dinner to reveal the news to Patrick. She was so caught up in her thoughts and her excitement that she fumbled her phone into a puddle of water while waiting to cross at the curb. She attempted to shake out the excess water and prayed that it hadn't been immersed too long to affect its functionality, but it had and she soon realized that the phone could ring but she couldn't hear a thing when she answered and the letters wouldn't work to text.

She made it home late, after six. Her apartment was unnaturally dark, so much so that she couldn't see Patrick standing just a few feet in front of her. She turned on the light, but in her excitement she missed the tension in Patrick's body, the rage in his eyes.

"Hey baby, I have so much to tell you," she said excitedly.

"So much that you couldn't answer your fucking phone!" Patrick bellowed as he advanced.

"Wait baby I can explain," she said but he didn't want an explanation, and was too enraged to hear it if she'd tried.

The first hit sent her to the ground stumbling over her bags. "Please, Patrick don't," she screamed instinctively covering her midsection to protect the baby but that wasn't where Patrick aimed his booted foot. His first kick made contact with her temple grazing her the first time and making full contact the second. She must have lost consciousness because she couldn't remember the extent of the beating, but the aftermath would forever be etched on her heart.

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Adam had watched her for the last four days, keeping track of her comings and goings, noting her rituals and routines, seeing who, if anyone would call or come by and visit with her. In three days she had no visits nor a single call. She spent most of her days at her computer. Given her remote locale, her odd hours, and her outrageous coffee consumption he figured her for a writer. He would watch her through the tiny openings of her curtained windows. In these times he is able to gage her humanness, often spying more than occasional sadness. He could see that she did not belong here, seeming oddly out of place or more appropriately- misplaced. She had the habits of someone perpetually singular. She had brief conversations out loud, was her own chess opponent, and at night, God at night she would satisfy herself in ways that made his cock stiffen uncomfortably in his jeans. She was lovely in general but in her passion she was breathtaking.

He didn't have plans to hurt her, but if left with no other choice he would. He was in shit up to his fucking neck. He'd been dodging recapture for over a week, he would have no qualms of taking care of any threat that might send him back to prison. He had survived in the wilderness with a small tent and sleeping bag. He had pilfered some jerky, protein bars, and a few can goods but his stash was running low and he was exhausted, not just physically tired but mentally. Life on the run is all hypervigilance. He needed to stop so his mind could take a break. He had taken the most difficult routes to throw law enforcement off his trail, he'd trekked over a hundred miles on foot and would have gone further if he hadn't detected the smell ozone in the air. A storm was brewing and winter was coming soon. He had been lucky for unseasonably warm weather for this time of year, but he knew that luck wouldn't hold and he couldn't chance being out in the open when Mother Nature unleashed her wrath.

Seven years in prison had taught him the value of patience and mental fortitude because the nature of prison is designed to mentally break the inmate down. The prisoner has no control over anything really which is the hardest part to accept, but he had. He didn't allow himself to waste thought fighting the system over losing battles instead he learned how to work the system to his advantage. He was a model prisoner, catering to the vanity of the guards, gaining their trust, exploiting their complacency. He paid attention to who cut corners, who fell asleep at their posts, who didn't document, who spent more time on their cell phone than watching what's going on on the tier. He knew that laziness and complacency was a result of poor leadership so he knew what security teams to exploit and what teams toe the line.

He used his education to get a 'good' job in the prison law library, as if prison really had such a thing. He hadn't spent time taking classes taught by barely qualified social workers to prove he was rehabilitated just to get turned down by a parole board. No he'd spent his time just as he was doing now, learning the lay of land, waiting, plotting, and planning. Did he really give a fuck about helping people with their appeals? Fuck no. What he cared about was computer access. With that access he was able to make sure the money he'd stashed away was still safe and send coded messages to his brother Maxim.

Adam made his way through prison with no frills, no calls, no financial support. Even at his intake he listed no family, no friends, no contacts. He had plenty, but he didn't need anyone to make sure he had money for ramen noodles and potato chips. No, the only help he needed was to execute his escape and he didn't want to give the Department of Corrections any leads on where that help came from. He never was one to give out too much information. He never gave any indication that the 14 million he'd embezzled was still in his possession. Of course no one believed he didn't still have it, which is why he'd been sentenced to 40 years, but he wasn't going to give them any proof contrary to what he'd told them. They thought they'd hurt him with his sentence. He was unperturbed. He was so nonchalant they'd put him on suicide watch. Little did they know he'd walked in knowing one day far sooner than 40 years that he'd walk out whether they agreed or not.

That day had come just over a week ago. He'd feigned an overdose on the anniversary of his sentencing when in reality he'd just eaten some food that he kept far too long for the expressed purpose of feigning an illness dire enough to require a hospital trip. He'd executed the plan with the laziest shift and the two guards assigned for the trip were no different. The weather had already started to worsen near the university hospital so he knew they would take him to the county hospital. It was smaller, less crowded, less secure, and most importantly less surveilled. He had smuggled in some Remerons the old fashioned way and had let them dissolve in a Coke while the guard was talking on the phone outside his room. The guard had enjoyed every drop of that Coke. An hour later he was snoring like a bear in the corner of the room. The last count had passed at 3:00 am. No one was coming until shift change at 6:00 am. He shifted in the bed until he was able to reach and unlatch the cuff keys at the guard's side. Less than twenty minutes later he'd donned the guards uniform and walked out of the county hospital with at least a two hour head start from law enforcement. He'd made every minute of it count.

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He waited until she went on her daily jog along a short worn path to the stream that ran just southeast of the property to sneak into the small, but quaint little cabin.

He felt how Goldilocks must have felt coming into the bear's cottage filled with creature comforts that he had been too long denied, but he fought the urge to sit, to eat, to sleep. He needed her secured first, so he would bide his time and do what he did best- wait.

Jogging was the only part of her day that she felt alive. She would get into a zone where all she could hear was the steady beating of her heart, the thrum of blood in her veins, and the crunch of leaves under her feet. Her mind had been wandering to home and to her past much too often these days. It was these thoughts that made her push her body beyond the limits of her endurance. She didn't want to return to the cabin to think or to dream and especially not to want. So even while her body screamed to stop, to turn back she pushed forward regulating her breath to go another mile. She stopped only when she was drenched in sweat, when her body hummed with exhaustion, when she was sure her past wouldn't haunt her dreams.

She entered the cabin taking her sweaty clothes off at the door. There was some beauty to living alone. There was no one to complain about her housekeeping or at the moment her lack of it. Her mother would balk at her sweaty panties at the front door. She grabbed an apple off the counter then made a beeline for the shower, she paused stopping mid-step to return to the counter. There were 5 apples left. She could have sworn there should be six. She looked around the small kitchen to find nothing out of order. Perhaps she'd miscounted. It wasn't as if she didn't spend half of her time floating around in her own head, though she knew this to be true she couldn't shake the feeling of unease that had settled over her.

He stood back in the shadows, apple in hand willing her to get in the shower. He shouldn't have taken the apple. He should have known someone who lived alone would notice something like that, but in his defense prison isn't big on fresh fruit offerings. The temptation to feel his teeth sink into the crisp sweetness was too much to pass up. Temptation of another kind threatened to overtake him as he watched her pad around naked less 20 feet from where he stood. Her form was pleasing to him. He respected her discipline. Her body was lean and supple, but decidedly feminine accentuated with curves in all the right places. The last thing he wanted to do was tackle a naked woman, well maybe not the last thing, but he'd much prefer that she be dressed before he tied her up. He figured she would be much more agreeable if she didn't feel like her virtue was being threatened. He noticed that she had gathered clothes from her bedroom to take in the bath with her. Good, when she came out she'd be dressed and he'd be ready.

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She decided against a shower and took a bath instead enjoying the comforts of the antique claw foot tub. Though she had been holed up here in the middle of nowhere she did allow herself a few measures of decadence. Just last week she'd driven over 60 miles until she had found a small salon. She got her long dark hair washed and trimmed. She'd even splurged on lowlights to add richness and depth to her tresses. Tonight she would enjoy her bath oils her mom sent her this past Christmas while she shaved her legs and conducted general maintenance on her pubes. She tried to make quick work of the task as it never failed to remind her of a life long past. Patrick would shave her intimately; having her spread her legs to give him access, noting the changes in her sex, in her scent. He would narrate the entire process while running his tongue across the bruises he'd made on her body. He would ask her intimate questions for which he already knew the answer. Yes, she loved him, no she would never leave, yes she would forgive him anything, yes she was his alone, no no one loved her like this, no one fucked her like this. Vivianne choked back a sob at the memory of it. She scrambled, nearly losing her balance. She had been in here too long, been

here

too long. Solitude was starting to warp her mind she thought as she opened the door to the bathroom to enter her bedroom. It was starting to make her think that life with a damaged monster was better--

Vivienne didn't get the chance to finish her thought before strong hands grabbed her from behind one arm going securely around her waist, the other covering her mouth. She struggled in those arms but they held her with a vise grip. She scratched and clawed, but to no avail. The stranger would eventually remove his hand from her mouth allowing her free reign to scream, though she knew the futility as she lacked a neighbor close enough to hear her screams. He would use his free hand to bring her arm behind her back. She dropped low making herself dead weight. He might be stronger but she wasn't going to make it easy for him. Or at least that's what she thought. He picked her up bodily with ease tossing her facedown on the bed. Pinning her with his body. He pulls rope from God only knows where and begins to tie her. She is winded but she renews her struggles, kicking at his legs, twisting her body as best she can despite his grip on her. One of her blows lands square on his kneecap pushing it back, causing him to stagger. The blow doesn't deter him. It barely slows him down as he binds her hands securely behind her back. He then grabs her flailing legs, one then the other and secures them between his knees while he ties her ankles with rope. He is barely winded when he finishes.

The only sound that can be heard in the room is their labored breathing. She is afraid to turn around to look in his face, too afraid of her reaction to a face she hadn't seen in nearly three years, too afraid of the rage she is sure to have to face. She doesn't have to wait long because as soon as he catches his breath he halls her up none too gently into a sitting position. She tenses, bracing herself for the impact of the blows she is sure will come. She prays that this is not the ending God intends for her, prays that whatever she'd felt for him had died all those years ago. Her eyes are closed, her face angled and downtilted, prepared for a blow that never comes. She opens her eyes tentatively, momentarily starting with shock. He is strong, he is tall, he is ruggedly handsome, but he is not Patrick. She can finally release the breath she didn't realize she'd held.

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He studied her as she breathed a sigh of what? Resignation? No, that wasn't it. She had been relieved, but why? Who was she expecting? What woman living in the middle of the woods is relieved when she sees the face of a stranger who has subdued her in her own home? That brings about a dozen more unanswered questions to his mind. Why would a twenty-something, beautiful woman be living in the woods all alone in the first place? Unless, hmm... He would sit on that thought. It may be the one thing to give him a bit of leverage in an already precarious situation.