Hanna

A loud thud turns me on my heels and I leap out the door to a heap of a man on the ground. “Fuck!” I squat next to him and turn his head to me. “Mike! Wake up! Don’t scare me like that, please!” My own anxiety rises. “Come on.” I dig my fingers into his jacket and shake him, leather fabric creaking in my clutches. All I receive back is heavy thunder outside accompanied by haggles of our motel neighbors.

My panic skyrockets. He’s out. I don’t know when he’s gonna wake and what to do to help him. I’m alone. What if more men track us? What if he dies? What if—

Unable to hold myself against the onslaught of terror I find a key in his pocket and step out into the hard rain, scanning the street. The hum of the downpour fills my ears and I inhale. “I killed a man.” The reality finally catches up with the present moment. “I killed another man.”

I slam the door and lock it. “Think calm, think calm, calm.” Lost, I stare at Michael on the floor. “I should do something. Hanna, do something—” I realize I’m talking to myself and stop. Cursing I grab him by his armpits and one listing step after the other drag his hefty frame to the bed, then limb after limb shove him on it.

Instead of taking a shower I grab the gun and sidle up to him, covering us with a blanket and laying my arms around him. Only now when he’s wounded do I feel the significance of his presence, the sickening tranquility he evokes in my mind when he can protect me. So I hold onto him, whether he likes it or not. And he’s unconscious anyway.

“What do I do?” I whisper. “How will I survive without you? Now we’re both fucked up mentally. We’ll end up killing each other.”

“Yeah.” His hand lands on my head, fingers spearing through my hair as he inhales deeper.

I shoot up to my elbow. “God, you scared me!”

“Wouldn’t be the first.”

“I hate you so much.” I rest my head on his sweat-covered chest.

He wraps his arm loosely around me. “I hate you too.”

I frown. “What? You hate me?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I? You fucked me up.”

“Please, you were susceptible to change. I just gave you a little nudge.”

A long pause follows. “You know, I wish I was different.” He slurs his words.

I prop on my elbows to look into his half-lidded eyes. “You wish?”

“Mm, have a normal life, free of pain.” It’s clear as day his mind is hazy at least until he comes back to full alertness.

“And did you wish for it your whole life?”

“Started just now.” A corner of his lips twitches up as he imagines. “It feels so good, so peaceful. I see a house and…”

“A what?”

“A woman,” he lets out a trembling sigh, his fingers squeezing my side. “But I can never have it. I can’t.”

“Why?”

A tear runs down his cheek. “It never worked that way. My mother, she wanted to be a writer, got lost in her dreams so much me and my father became her second priority. She ref-refused to see us and the life around for what it was. Once my drunk father tied me to a chair because I was hungry and annoyed him,” he pauses, his words as heavy as the lines of weariness edged into his face. “Mom untied me. You know what she said to me?” He chokes up. “You wait, Mikey, you just wait till I get that writing deal, till father makes enough money for that fucking deal.”

My body stiff I stare at him.

“I waited and nothing changed. I waited while I was beaten, she waited while she was beaten. And-and she didn’t do shit to stop him, to be there for me. Father saw it too, when he was in his clear mind, but on that night he went on a drunken rampage. He beat her with a broom. I tried to help, but he flung me through the open window of our trailer. When I woke up the neighbors were there, but no one dared to go inside. I went inside. I grabbed a kitchen knife and climbed on a counter and I stabbed that son of a bitch into the back of the neck. I remember mom looking at me in shock. ‘What have you done, Michael?’ She screamed at me, finally awake. ‘Murderer,’ she called me.”

I stifle a gasp. “She blamed you for it?”

“She did. I thought she came back to the reality, but she only blamed me for it. Why wasn’t I patient? Why wasn’t I who endured like she did? ‘I got thrown out the window!’ I shouted at her. She hit me in the face and then I knew it would’ve been better if she were dead. If she were gone, my father wouldn’t have had to worry over her stupid dreams, and- and we would’ve lived normal lives, making money, worrying over food on the table and not some idiotic dream,” he struggles to sit up, eyes tearing up, and presses on, unworried or not even aware of the fact that he’s revealing his past. “So a few days later I found her swinging from a kitchen lamp. She left a note. I’m sorry, it said. I threw it away, with all my heart wishing she always was in a suicidal state so her mind would’ve been clear.”

His head falls to his chest, containing all this torment inside his shaking body. I have no words.

“I can’t have a house and a woman, you see, because if I start chasing it, I’ll hurt people, I’ll hurt myself.”

I tilt his head up by his chin. “You have no people to hurt, Mike. But death, death is what hurts people. Victim’s family, friends, acquaintances. That’s how you hurt people. Already. Not somewhere in a dreamland. Here and now, people suffer because of what you do.”

“But I save them from the greater pain.” He wets his lips. “From those goals, and dreams…”

Feeling the weight of his head grow heavy I take it into both of my palms. “How can you know that all of them will have the same fate as yours was? How?”

“I-I…helped your brother.”

I drop his head and recoil, sensing something I won’t appreciate. “How?”

“When I met him. I was twenty, he was a kid.”

The hair on my nape stands up. “Met him where?”

“In a gang.” Shia used to be an adventurous dreamer. Shia wanted things. He wanted to be a designer. But once our parents left and he hit the streets his ambition vanished. Drawings got forgotten, replaced by fighting skills and foul language.

Michael snarls, his lips twisting. “Kid wanted to be a designer.”

I slap him so hard my palm burns. His grin vanishes as fast as I retract my hand, realizing that all I did was reinforce violence for bad behavior. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done it.” I bow my head, then will myself into calmness. “He was a child. He wanted things, but you didn’t kill him? Why?”

“He was a child. It’s easier to convince kids otherwise.” A speckle of hard belief flashes through his face as if what he did was the greatest thing in the world. “I might’ve saved you from the same fate as mine.”

“Might’ve,” I repeat, my tone falling an octave lower. “You did things you had no right to do. Decisions you had no right to decide! Maybe Shia would’ve become a designer who’s clothes you’d now wear!” I grab his jacket and pull it up to his face. “Or this bed you sit on! The choice you made wasn’t yours to make!” He jolts from my voice, but I can’t contain the animosity that pours from every pore of my body. “You killed a dozen people!” He draws back, avoiding me. “Don’t you turn on me, you bitch!” I grab his face, nails scraping the flesh through his stubble.

“Freckles,” he bites out. “Please, don’t hurt me.”

Once again, I retract my hand as if it touched fire. “I didn’t mean to. God, I didn’t.” I back away, but he touches my arm, halting my movement.

“That you didn’t is enough.” He lays his head on my shoulder. “I’m sorry for all I ever did to you.” Before I know it his hand slides under my jacket and reaches for a gun. He retracts it, turning it to his head. Shock bolts through me like lighting and with a yelp, I push him back on the bed, jumping on him and grabbing his wrist with the gun. A shot thunders through the room before I pin his wrists at his sides, a gash opening in his forehead and pouring blood onto his face and hair. He loses consciousness at once and my body locks, sitting on him like a statue.

I…didn’t see that coming.

The world around me fades into the distance but for the rain, hammering the windows, and gale, rolling against the motel walls with resounding bangs.

When my perception returns, what must be a minute later, his right side of the face is covered in red. I press my hand against the gash in his forehead. “Michael! Oh God!” I put a pillow to the wound and, tripping over all and everything, jump to the duffel bag. I flip open a med kit and find a bandage, then wrap it around his head, securing it tight.

A knock on the door makes me yelp and slap my bloody hand onto my mouth. Gasping, I straighten. “Hello?”

“We heard a gunshot?” A worried male voice says.

“Yes, we did too. Are you sure it was a gunshot? Sounded like something falling. I don’t know where it came from,” I say aloud, pressing my bloody hands to Michael’s head. “I’m not leaving this room.”

“Yeah, let’s hope no one will call the cops.” Whoever came decides to move away just in time, because I yelp again at Michael’s voice. “Freckles?” He parts his eyes.

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I run a wet towel over his face, wiping the blood. “It’s okay. You can rest.”

Once he realizes what he’s done, or failed rather, a shiver shakes him and panic settles into his eyes, together with tears. He turns to his side and a cry erupts out of him.

I observe him for a minute. This man, crying in a bed of bloody sheets, crying like I cried dozens of times. There’s so much blood dyeing the white bed, the stale scent makes me want to puke.

Careful with my movements I lay next to him, my hand on his bloody head, and he wraps his arms around my waist, probably unaware of his fingers digging into my back. He buries his face into my chest, sobbing, and I try to slide my hand over his head but can’t as he squeezes the air out of me. Instead, I clench my teeth, gripping the bloody sheet. Pain stems from my waist.

“It’s okay.” I doubt he hears me, so all I do is endure the pain this man can no longer confine inside his broken soul.

…

I wake with the morning sun and check his head, wondering if I should tie him up in case he wants to hurt himself again. Yet, for now, he seems to be deep in his sleep and I decide to let him rest for another hour or so. Instead, I tiptoe to the window and crack it, allowing fresh air into the room.

Picking dry blood from my hands I lean on the wall with my shoulder and peer out into the street through the crack in the curtains. Though the edge of the horizon harbors more storm clouds the neighborhood is tinted orange, overnight iced rain thawing in the morning light.

I glance at Michael over my shoulder. It feels like we’ve switched roles. I have to be strong now, I have to lead him and take care of him, which I don’t want to do... or maybe I do. After all, it is my fault. I forced him into it. And I feel obligated to finish the job. At least until I figure out where to go myself.

Back on the bed I try to maneuver myself away from the huge blob of blood. So much evidence we’ve scattered on our trail. I hope the rain washed the bodies we left in the field. Michael wiped the fingerprints and we used gloves most of the time, but who knows? The feds are known to be persistent.

I lay, observing his for once relaxed face. His stubble is a beard now and the bags under his eyes add to a picture of a fatigued man, so easy to read from small creases around his eyes and forehead, visible even through a thin layer of blood that covers his pale skin. Only now do I take in the features of his crude face — curved nose, a little too big for his face, low-set thick, unfitting eyebrows, and, actually, his beard with a little shade of ginger in it. It makes me chuckle. In something we’re alike.

Despite myself, I admit that I fully Stocholm-ed to him, for there’s not a single thought in my head that would want to bring him harm. He deserves a life, deserves redemption. And, for me, fixing his twisted psyche would be enough.

He grunts in his sleep, reminding me of what might happen should he wake and still want to kill himself.

I find zipties and tie his hands to the bed frame, above his head. As I finish he parts his eyes and squirms with rising panic. I put my palms out in a calming gesture. “I’m not gonna hurt you. It’s for your own safety. I did not go through all this trouble for you to kill yourself,” I pause, munching on my lip, then unable to control my disappointment snap. “You scared the fuck out of me! What were you thinking?”

He blinks at me a few times, tense against his bonds, then forces the sound out, “it felt so awful.”

“It’s cowardice.”

“It’s my choice. You don’t have the right to make it for me.”

I gape, lost for a second. “It’s a good choice! And I do get to make it for you!”

He frowns. “A bit hypocritical, isn’t it?”

“No, because after all you did to me you might as well owe me your life!” I thrust my palm at him, tears gathering in my eyes. “I don’t want you to die.”

“Why not? Why not revenge, freckles?”

“Because lives are precious. And because I need you.”

The frown deepens. “You need me?”

“Yes. You kidnapped me, should’ve taken into account Stockholm’s.”

A sigh escapes him. “Should’ve taken Lima’s.”

I search my mind, then remember that term used to describe the opposite of Stockholm syndrome. “It’s hardly Lima Syndrome,” I give a morbid chuckle.

“It’s a mess.”

“Yes, yes it is.” I lean in closer to him. “Promise me you’re not gonna kill yourself.”

He doesn’t concede. “What about the feds you wanted to send after me?”

“I can’t. I killed a man. Two now,” I sigh, still working over the fact that I’m a murderer. A part of me still says it was self-defense, even though I had a choice. And I chose to kill the second man. I could’ve just ran, but… in a split second I couldn’t bear a thought of Michael being shot in front of me by those thugs. “And I would’ve sent them after the old you. Not the mess you are now.”

He bites his lip tightly. “You have an awful lot of hope in me, freckles.”

“I do because it’s valid.”

“Valid,” he snarls. “I killed fourteen people now. How can it be valid?”

“It’s valid because all I’m doing is giving you a little push. The rest happens on its own. If you were a stubborn cold-ass killer I wouldn’t bother. But you aren’t. You couldn’t kill me because of the things you believed and you started cracking as soon as I didn’t conform to your ideas of the world. That makes any hope valid. You’re soft underneath all this.” I point at his chest. “You’re alive in there.”

Avoidance rids his face. He doesn’t believe me.

“You crying only proves it.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t remember?”

He tilts his head to the side, dubious. I turn and lift my shirt, showing scratch marks on my back. “You hugged me, bawled your eyes out.”

It takes him a few seconds to register, then he turns red with embarrassment. “I-I’m sorry.” The last thing he’s used to is being vulnerable in front of other people.

“It’s okay.”

“But how do I do it?” He shifts, his eyebrows curled. “What do I do to prove hope?”

“Baby steps.” I shrug what seems to be obvious. “Practical steps that bring results. Have a vision, a desire in mind but act too. Not just daydream and hope for it to happen. Simple as that.”

Confusion mars his eyes and his breathing slows. It’s hard for him to talk about it. “Example?”

“Well,” I roll my eyes up. “Do you want something?”

“Water, food.”

“Like besides the basics. Something, uh… deeper.”

He thinks about it. “No.”

He’s so rigid in his thinking he has troubles wanting the most basic things like friendship and human connection. How do I make him feel something? He did feel it. In the car when he kissed me he felt desire, the closest emotion he can get to right now.

I lift my arms and pull off my shirt, staying in my bra.

He strains. “Freckles.” Zip ties dig into his wrists and he snaps his head to the side. “Put it back on.”

“I’m not going to force myself on you. Calm down.”

“Why then?” He intently stares at the weak rain, sliding down the window covered by the transparent blinds.

“Look at me, please.”

Reluctantly, he serves me a flat look. I slide my hands behind my back and unhook my bra.

“Freckles, please, dress,” the tone of his voice falls. “And untie me.”

“Do you want me?”

“No.” When he peeks at me I slip my bra down.

“Imagine your hands all over my body,” I add sweetness to my words, wishing they reach him.

He gulps, his throat and every muscle in his arms tense and defined. “Jesus, Hanna, you’re raping my brain.”

“You do want me?”

His gray eyes glint and snap at me. “Yes, I do.”

“But why keep stopping yourself? It’s not like you care I’m seventeen.”

“You don’t deserve it. Don’t deserve to be fucked like a whore.” It rings true. That’s what he believes.

“What do I deserve?” He chokes up and I know I hit the right spot. “What do I deserve, Michael?”

A muscle in his neck pulses. “Something better.”

“What?”

“Someone you actually love, okay!” He cracks. “Someone who makes you happy. You deserve to be happy, to have everything work out for you at the end! I want that for you.” His enraged voice dies down as he finally admits it to himself.

“It’s possible. For me and for you,” I whisper. “Want anything else?”

He heaves a sigh, observing me while he forms his thoughts. “God, I don’t deserve a hostage like you. A fucking hostage who tries to make me better. Who’s as kind and understanding as you.” My smile reaches my eyes, and he scoffs. “And then smiles at me like I did a good thing.”

“Can you still imagine that house?” I ask. “And a woman?”

He looks at me as if he’s committing a sin. Of course, he can. “Can you imagine that woman being me? Imagine me happy, with my happy ending.” He gapes in protest, but then, as if pushing against gravity itself, tips his chin. “How would you treat me?”

“No. You won’t end up with me,” he states.

“But if I did you’d treat me nicely, with care and love—”

“Shut up. Don’t you see what we’re doing?” He strains. “We’re running away into these damn fantasies!”

“No, we’re still here. I’m still naked. You’re tied up with a bleeding head. We’re on the run in a shitty motel. That’s the reality. Look around you. We’re not in a dream land.” With a scan over the surroundings he seems to ease. “And it’s okay to want things, to want more than a fuck as you put it. A connection, trying to make each other happier. It’s mutual, you know, with all the people. You help each other, support each other. And your baby step right now is realizing that.” I cover my breasts with my arms. “That’s how I lived. And who are you to decide it’s not how it works just because it didn’t for you.”

He slackens against the bed, expression vacant of emotion as if lost somewhere in the void. I think my point registered. I take a knife and reach out with one hand to free him.

“Don’t,” he says.

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?” He grumbles with a hungry gaze down at my body.

“Well, you can control yourself, can’t you?” I cut the zipties.

He jams his hands into his armpits and turns away. “Please, dress.”

“I liked when you kissed me you know. I liked when you were playful and responsive.” And if I forget who we are and everything else between us I truly did like it. “It resembled normal. Not just a senseless fuck.”

“Will I have to dress you?”

“Please,” I chuckle. He runs a hand over the bandage on his head before he sits and grabs my bra. “Wow, you do want me to dress.”

He rotates my bra in his hands, his movements jerky. “It’s tangled.” He extends it to me. “Untangle it.”

As I take it I feel his hand touch my back and his thumb runs over the scratches. A breath escapes me, rendering me afraid to lose my own control. I pivot my shoulder to him and look at his face, so close to mine.

“Thank you,” he says under his breath. “For sticking with me.”

I peck him on the lips.

“It’s wrong,” he breathes.

“Fuck wrong. You want a connection. Connect.”

I see it in his eyes, the moment he surrenders to the entirety of the sensual desire. His lips press against mine in a demanding kiss and his arms occupy my body. He pushes me on my back and on a mass of bloody sheets, pinning me down with his weight. A sharp metallic scent worms into my nose, briefly daunting, but is overtaken by the heat of his naked chest. I kiss him back as hungrily, tongue entering his mouth, and squirm against every inch of his unfaltering body. I grab his waist, hungry for something I’ve never felt and all but grind against the bulge in his pants. At that moment, what he is and did loses all relevance, replaced by blissful ignorance and sweltering moans escaping me as I dig my fingers into his back. He descends down to my chest, leaving kisses all over my breasts, my midriff. I sink in the abyss of carnal euphoria, an experience I wanted to receive for so long—

He halts, taking a full lung of air.

Panting, I lift my head. “You okay?”

“No.” He props on his arms, on his fours above me. A soft groan escapes him. “I’ll never heal if we keep making out.”

I put my hands on his biceps and he rolls off of me, slumping nearby. I peck him on the cheek. “Well, good, you didn’t want to fuck me anyway.” I wouldn’t be against it though. He’s the first man I’m making out with and to be honest I don’t regret a second of it. Call me crazy. You’re crazy, Hanna, my inner voice utters, but I don’t care anymore.

“I need rest.” He runs a hand over his bandaged forehead and it comes off glistening with sweat. I rest my arm over his waist, relaxing. “You’re quite wild for a church going innocent girl of seventeen,” he murmurs.

I chuckle. “Wildly curious.”

We share a long look, a calm and quiet way of connection. “Have you ever looked at each other like that with a hooker?” He pulls his lips tight and I figure I shouldn’t make the same mistake again and push him too much. “It doesn’t matter.”

He swallows and runs a hand over his forearm, processing all I’ve put into his head. “What are we going to do, freckles?”

I burrow my face into a clean corner of the bloody pillow, “I’ll come with you. I have nowhere else to go. I’m a criminal too and I don’t want to go to prison.” I wait for his response, hoping for approval perhaps, but he gives me nothing. A distant part of me pulls me back home, but shamefully I admit that I’m terrified of leaving Michael. Not only because of how twisted he is, but because I’m absolutely attached. I shove these feelings away and switch the topic. “Last I checked we’re running out of food. I should visit the store.”

“We need some warmer clothes too,” he says.

“I’m afraid we’re not rich enough for warmer clothes. And we need another med kit.”

He nods in acknowledgment. “Be quick, though.”

“Yeah.”

I lay with him until he falls asleep, then leave the motel.