Among the Shadows: Part 1, Chapter 12
The remainder of the walk to his car was largely uneventful. The earlier escapades and half a night's sleep caught up with me. I yawned frequently as I followed Luke with slow and reluctant movements, trying not to think about the multitude of unsanitary things my bare feet had touched. Walking barefoot on the pavement and street was not my idea of fun, and I sincerely hoped we would reach our destination soon.
"I packed your sneakers," Luke said out of nowhere. Huh? How did he know? I had been kind of walking weirdly, and maybe he had picked up on that. I looked up at his face, trying to read his intentions and emotions. Luke kept his eyes ahead as if focused on completing some unknown goal. To successfully kidnap me? To take me to his lair to have his way with me? To murder and cut my body up into pieces? Once I had considered it, my mind was filled with morbid thoughts and gruesome details. Instead, I tried to think about whether Susie would know that Luke was the culprit. 'But he seemed like such a nice boy,' I imagined her saying.
We had traveled well off campus grounds by now, heading toward a residential area. I had no idea where we were going. Luke led me to a two-story house and began walking up the pathway to it. His gait remained deliberate and unfaltering since the chase, so I concluded that this was not a random house. "Is this where you live?" I asked innocently. He had mentioned a car earlier.
Without looking at me, Luke shook his head. Instead of going up to the front door, he walked the pathway around the house to the side. The neighbor's dog barked at us through the fence. The loud barking startled me, and I jumped, feeling Luke's surprise as well through our conjoined hands. The dog didn't frighten me though. Susie was the one afraid of dogs. Besides, the dog was safely secured behind the fence.
Puzzled, I watched as Luke set down the luggage and with his free hand reached underneath to touch the siding of the house. He made a few taps along that location and must have found what he was looking for, because he smiled. Some people liked to keep a spare house key hidden somewhere in their yard just in case they were locked out. But for some strange reason, Luke had hidden his item on someone else's property. Luke picked up the luggage again, and we resumed walking along the street.
About two blocks later, we reached a parked car, which was a white BMW. When I asked him if the car was his, this time he assented. His answer confused me because the car was an expensive one. I didn't know much about Luke, but having a job that could afford this kind of car didn't seem likely. I reckoned that he could have been given the car, in which case what kind of people had that kind of money? The Florida license plate indicated a long drive across the country, and I wondered if that was where he was intending to go.
Once more, Luke set down the luggage. With the key retrieved from the house, he unlocked the driver's door and quickly pressed the power door lock button to unlock the four doors of the sedan. He opened the rear door and gestured for me to get inside. Though he wasn't particularly forceful, I didn't exactly follow his command willingly. In the struggle, I also scratched the side of the car with the knife. Luke might have regretted handing it back to me earlier. With a quick swipe, he finally grabbed my right hand which held the knife. With some work, he wrenched it free from my grip.
Eventually, I was inside. He slammed the door closed as soon as I was seated. I was elated to note that he hadn't remembered to lock the doors. Quickly, I jumped to the other rear door, but it didn't open. I tried the side I had entered from, which also didn't open. The driver's door was still open, but Luke would be entering from there, so from behind the passenger's seat, I reached for the passenger's buttons, belatedly realizing that this car didn't have a power door lock button on the passenger's door.
By this time, Luke had thrown the luggage and book bag inside the trunk and slammed it closed, and was already climbing into the driver's seat. I was somewhat annoyed upon noticing that he didn't even wince as he sat down. Not even a little. He must already be fully healed.
"Child safety lock," he announced with a grin. Right.
With a frantic motion, I tried to climb through the middle in order to reach the passenger seat. Unfortunately, Luke had both hands free and easily held my body in position. I squirmed as much as I could, but he was stronger than me, and I knew this attempt was a losing battle. With a new idea, I changed my motion and slammed a fist into the horn button located on the steering wheel.
Nothing happened. I realized that the horn had been disabled. Angrily, I bashed the button a few more times anyway while Luke laughed at me, even as he remembered to hold me in place. Seriously? Had the guy kidnapped someone before who tried all that? Dejectedly, I sat down in the back seat.
"Are you done?" Luke asked.
Still angry about being stymied by the lack of a car horn, I mumbled, "Yes." Hell, I was frustrated about all the failed attempts. I didn't understand how he could've planned so well for nearly everything I had tried.
"I know you're lying," Luke replied confidently. "But I am not your enemy." I kicked the back of his seat with my heel, even though I knew that wouldn't hurt him. Turning in his seat to fully face me, he said, "Your parents are Emily and John Soden. They died when you were seventeen. It was a fire in the home."
"Great, now you're a stalker too," I responded. Hearing someone else describing the accident was weird, but it wasn't like that was private information. Anyone could look up their deaths in the news. It was weirder to me upon realizing that he knew my full name since I definitely recalled not giving my last name when we met. I glared at him suspiciously.
Luke took a deep breath before saying, "Your biological parents are Kyra and Nicholas Lane." What? When I was growing up, I had been told horrible stories of adopted kids not finding out until their teens and also finding out in the worst possible way. My parents had wisely chosen to have the talk when I was really young, carefully expressing how much they wanted to have me as their own. It made me feel special and lucky to have them. I held my breath and looked at his eyes, trying to decide if he was telling the truth.
When I was old enough to ask questions, my mother had told me that I was a closed adoption, which meant my birth parents' names would never be revealed. I had never been that good at scouting deceptions, but this man was the first person offering that information. He had said repeatedly that he didn't want to lie, which didn't necessarily follow that he wouldn't lie. I recognized he was only telling me this so I would stop fighting him, but there was always the possibility he actually knew them. I released the breath I was holding slowly.
Once again, Luke asked, "Are you done?"
Resisting the urge to kick again, I crossed my arms and nodded.
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