Muffin

Warning: Contains cliffhanger!

 

 

He was in my goddamn diner the next morning, sitting in the same seat he had taken the first day he ventured in. To my utter surprise, he was talking to Anna, who was grinning ear to ear.

“Muffy!” Sandy happily waved in my direction, announcing my presence to all those that hadn’t yet caught the scent of me.

Asher turned in his stool, acknowledging me with a solid glare. I recalled his harsh voice from the day before, the almost sad smile on his face after I had damned him to death, and I couldn’t help but scowl.

“Don’t you have someone else to stalk?” I grumbled as I grudgingly made my way over to the counter. Pointedly, I sat several stools away, as far away as I possibly could. He might just go Dr. Jekyll and Hyde on me again, after all.

Instead of responding, he picked up his drink and sipped silently at the edge of the cup, ever the polite one.

“No? No business? No houses to burn down, people to shove into walls? Nothing?” Now I know I should have been scared of this man, since there was obviously something mentally wrong with him, and he had a lot of power in his hands—both physically and monetarily, but that just pissed me off more. I had a feeling he always got his way, and I didn’t want him to get his way, especially if it included me sacrificing what little I had. In this case, he was demanding that I sacrifice the most important thing of all… my freedom. And not for any valid reason, no, this was all happening because he had some twisted sense of justice and apparently the scales wouldn’t be even until he ‘repaid’ me. I should have never gone into that alleyway.

“Not yet,” he replied bluntly. I went rigid in my seat while Anna gave a light laugh, because even though she was completely ignorant, I had tasted what he was capable of.

From behind the long stretch of counter, Anna pulled out my favorite green cup. She leveled it on the surface as she fetched her pot of coffee, using it to quietly fill up my cup to the brim. Without demanding that I say please and thank you, she slid the drink over to me. Wow, she was in a good mood today.

“Where is Zack?” I asked quietly, as if that would somehow keep Asher from learning the name or of my intentions.

“Oh, he went… He’s not here right now. You never told me you knew Mr. Pickett.” She changed the subject abruptly. My stomach did a somersault, instantly sending out sparks of nausea all through my core.

“Huh? What? Mister who?” I furrowed my eyebrows, unable to get past the fact that she had, with no grace or elegance, changed the subject.

My sense of nausea grew ten fold when Anna pointed one finger down the length of the counter, to the familiar man in the tawny coat I was quickly beginning to think was one of his personality traits. His suits kept changing, but that coat was the same. Maybe he felt naked without it. I wondered for a moment how he had gotten the blood out of it, but as he turned to let his eyes meet mine, I decided I didn’t care.

“Oh, Mr. Prickett,” I mumbled, raising my cup of coffee up to my lips as I tilted it towards me, allowing the hot, soothing liquid inside to appease the inside of my mouth.

“Don’t be rude, Muffin.” Anna’s expression instantly darkened. “You have manners, put them to good use,” she hissed in what was supposed to be a whisper, except that she forgot to lower her volume. Smooth.

“Mr. Pickett tells me that he’s gotten you a job. I’m so excited for you!” she smiled as she pulled out a worn cloth from her apron, swinging it around to the top of the counter, where she began to slowly wipe at the surface. I knew it was just an action to make it look like she had a purpose standing next to me, but she was only curious about my connection with the psychotic businessman. I didn’t blame her.

“A job?” I chortled, almost choking on my coffee.

“Yes, the one down by the docks,” she trailed off, her big smile fading. “He said he came to pick you up… isn’t that what you two were discussing the other day?” Her hand stopped short of a ‘wax-on’, and it suddenly clicked why she was in such a good mood. Asher had probably explained away all my rudeness for me. Damn him.

“Right... the one by the docks. I uh, forgot that was today,” I quickly picked up on the lie where he had left off. I just couldn’t see Anna so depressed, and thankfully she lit up like a bulb the moment she was assured it was all true. The bad part? I was letting Asher see my weakness; this sweet woman’s approval, and there was nothing I could do about it… yet.

“We should probably get going,” his voice came from my left. His perfect shoes echoed up toward me, their flawless soles clicking where mine would have merely squeaked. He leaned down toward me when he next spoke. “Or we’ll be late.”

Late. Tardiness. Haha, wasn’t he just the clever one?

“I’m not done with my coffee,” I growled as nicely as I could, keeping my eyes locked onto Anna’s smile as I took a deliberately big gulp.

“We’ll get more on the way,” he stated in that matter-of-fact tone of his. Reaching out, he grabbed the bottom of my beloved cup and jerked down, ripping it from my grip. As I began to sputter and gasp in protest, he hooked his grip onto my dirty arm and jerked carelessly, removing me from the seat. Cassandra immediately moved over to clean the unsanitary residue I left behind.

“Oh, I almost forgot. Miss Anna? Could I have a couple of those corn muffins? To go, that is,” he paused at the door, holding my arm well above my head. I had a mental image of it popping out of its socket, so I didn’t pull. Plus, Anna was watching me.

“Sure thing!” she exclaimed excitedly.

Without waiting for her to bag up the treats, or going back to fetch them himself, Asher led me out of the diner. There weren’t many people around so early in the morning, so he easily found a path over to the curb where his car was parked. I immediately noticed the absence of dear Vincenzo and his buddy Alrick. Oh no, who would open the door for him now? And he was crazy if he thought I was going to get into that car. Well, crazier than he already was.

Anna suddenly burst from her diner’s double doors, scuttling our way with her apron still tied tightly around her waist. She came right up to us, by the car, and Asher finally let go of me to open the car door.

Oh shit, I knew what the bastard was doing.

“Here you go now, dear, I put in two muffins for you each. I hope you like them,” she trilled happily after handing me the bag, then gave a brief clap of her hands that could only be taken as excitement.

My throat tightened with guilt. If I didn’t enter the car, it would become obvious that there was no ‘job by the docks’. If I refused his ride and suggested walking, Anna would know something was amiss. I couldn’t back out with her watching me, and I knew that was exactly what he was counting on.

“Thanks,” I conceded, giving in to his scheme and slipping into the car with the muffins in hand. Round one went to the businessman.

I considered darting back out before he could get into the driver’s side—and I was a little shocked he could drive—but Anna stood on the sidewalk and waved until the car was well out of sight.

“That was good,” I derided, with some effort. “Cheap, but good. Didn’t take you for a con man.”

“I do what is needed. Can I have one of those muffins?”

I stubbornly slammed both hands down on the rolled up edge of the paper bag. “No.”

“Fine,” he agreed coolly. The car jerked to the side with a turn of the wheel, and I flew against the passenger door with no seatbelt to ground me. The bag rocked in my hand, the car swerved again, and this time I smashed into the other hard surface on the opposite side—I smashed into him. His shoulder felt like a brick wall.

The bag of muffins flew right out of my hands, levitating inches away from my lap with the momentum of the car’s movement suspending it in midair. A hand snuck out from my left, grabbed the edge of the brown container, and lurched it away from me. By the time the car was back in its lane, and the vehicles around us had stopped honking, the muffins were no longer in my possession.

“What.. what..” I stuttered, hysterically reaching up to my right for the seatbelt, which I diligently swung across my core and buckled into place. Seatbelts were good, yes, very good.

“I do what is needed,” he repeated, retracting one fresh muffin from within the bag. I didn’t try to stop him; I was too busy trying to put back all the imaginary internal organs that had leapt out of my core when the deathtrap was steered off course. Did I mention I hate cars?

“You didn’t have to do that!” I rasped the moment I found my voice again.

“I did ask,” it was a succinct reply.

I remained nervously jittery for the rest of the ride. My hands dug uncomfortably into either side of my seat, and I kept both of my feet in a permanent ‘break’ position, like I was pounding down on some magical pedal that would stop the car. Several times, I thought of jumping out, but the speed always remained high enough to keep me rooted in my seat. I doubted that was an accident.

When we arrived at the docks, I was actually surprised. Really? It wasn’t all a lie?

The moment the car came to a stop, I snapped my seatbelt off and sprung out of the vehicle. It felt oddly fitting to be back on solid ground. I considered kneeling down and kissing the pavement, but I didn’t want to dirty my mouth any more than it already was. Still, I moved over to the curb in the small parking lot and crouched down closer to gravity, thanking its existence.

“You should really take a bath of some sort. You practically blend into the pavement,” his shadow loomed over me.

I glowered. “Good, then pretend you don’t see me and walk on.”

“You would like that, wouldn’t you?” I heard him chuckle. It was actually a pleasant sound this time, but it didn’t last long. “But I’m here to help you, remember?” he ‘reminded’ me, like I really needed reminding.

“And I don’t want your help, remember?”

“A bath would benefit you, as well,” he pressed on.

“Well in my line of work, people don’t take showers,” I immediately took a stab at what he had said the day before. One for the homeless kid!

“Perhaps it’s time to rethink your line of work,” he stabbed back. Damn, two for the businessman.

“DON’T,” I gasped quickly, jerking away when he began to reach down towards me, “… touch me. I don’t like to be touched, fucking damnit, why can’t you get that through your thick skull?” My lips stretched into a snarl as I pushed myself up to my feet, taking a moment to steady myself before I started to walk away from him. “Why do you keep touching me, anyway? Don’t you feel dirty?”

I gasped with a newly born taunt on my lips, spun around, and almost knocked into him again. As elegantly as before, he stopped just short of contact. “I know! You have a dirt fetish! Right? Did I guess it? Huh, huh?” I grinned, jabbing two fingers repeatedly into his chest.

“I keep touching you,” he reached out to grab onto my arm, like the action would somehow merit his words. “Because you only listen when you’re forced to listen. Besides, as nicely shaped as your verbal defenses are, you’re horribly lacking in the physical defense department. It’s easier to push you around this way.” I think I saw another smile.

“RAPE!” I screamed, ready to throw a fit the moment he said ‘physical defense’. He didn’t mind my tantrum; he continued to calmly drag me out of the small parking lot, down towards the water. The slender rows of wooden bridges leading from one pier to another soon came into my line of sight, with the occasional worker pausing to glance up towards us. Oh yeah, and I hadn’t stopped screaming. “RAPE! RAPE! HELP, SOMEONE HELP! RAAPEEE!”

“Oh fuck,” I heard a familiar voice on my left. Calming my fit, I twisted my body so that I could glance over my shoulder at the two figures nearby.

“Mario!” I gasped, making sure to sound thrilled to see him again. Finally, someone that let me push his buttons!

“Oh fuck,” Vincenzo exhaled again, raising one fist up to his head, where he put a lot of effort into uncurling his fingers before he ran them through his silky hair. This was too easy.

“Oh, I love your hair! What product do you use? Grease?” I continued to talk over my shoulder, away from Asher, who hadn’t stopped walking. Nevertheless, the distance between the two goons and us remained the same, because they were walking as well.

“He’s just a kid,” Alrick sighed to his partner. Vincenzo was visibly shaking, though, his short temper already ignited by my brief taunting. I think I saw him reach under his jacket. Probably for his gun.

Asher continued until we got to one of the boats, an old, broken down thing that smelled profusely like fish. Two old tires hung off the sides, in place of lifesavers, and a banded red and white strip of ‘ribbon’ that looked more like worn cloth ran through them. The red cabin in the center bent awkwardly to one side, with the door hanging open against two blue containers. The bottom half of the boat was rusted to hell, with the disgusting brown color even managing to creep up to the faded letters of the boat’s name. I could make out a L and an E, but everything else was too far gone.

“Let me guess,” I snorted when we stopped directly in front of the docked fisherman’s boat, glaring down at how utterly unsafe the whole thing looked. “Lonely”? I took a jab at its name.

“Not today,” Asher responded swiftly. He shifted his grip from my arm to my back, and before my brain registered the transition, he shoved me into the boat. “You’re going to keep it company.”

No. No, no, no. No fucking way in hell. “No fucking way in hell!” I decided to voice my honest opinion.

Asher ignored me. “You’re going to help clean Mr. Steinman’s boat. It is a decent, easy job for a beginner, and I trust it won’t be too difficult for you. You will be paid for your services, in due time, preferably when you are finished.”

“I don’t want money!” I protested. “I don’t want a job! I don’t want to work!”

“Very well. I shall keep the wages and start a savings fund for you.” Again, with his selective listening. Damn.

“No,” I downright grunted. I noticed quickly enough that Vincenzo seemed to be enjoying my frustration, but whatever sign of a smile he had on his sleazy face immediately slid away when Asher next turned to him.

“Vincenzo here will be watching over you. You’ve already proven to me that I can’t trust you on your own,” he explained.

Both Mario and I glanced at each other, simultaneously feeling the mutual hatred double. He angrily clenched his teeth and I snorted in protest, huffing out the air through my nostrils. Well I didn’t care who he had ‘watching’ over me. No one could force me to do something I didn’t want to do, regardless of the circumstances. The angry Italian could have pound me to death for all I cared. I was too fucking stubborn; I wasn’t going to take a bath, I didn’t want to change my clothes, and working was out of the question. I wasn’t a lazy kid, really, but this job wasn’t found by me, and in all perspectives I saw it as a handout. I hated charity. I hated pity.

“Watch away.” I kept direct eye contact with Vincenzo as I sat down on one of the two blue containers. The boat rocked unsafely beneath my weight, forcing my stomach to drop. Queasiness paled my face, but beneath the mask of grime and muck, I doubted anyone could tell the difference.

“But sir…” The Italian turned to Asher, his jaws still uncomfortably clenched.

Mr. Prickett didn’t respond. He turned to walk past his goon, his marvelous tawny coat fluttering behind him as he walked up the pier. Alrick joined him, and the two began to walk off.

“Tell him I ran away,” I spoke as soon as Asher was out of earshot.

“As if you could outrun me,” Vincenzo fired back, understandably still pissed.

“That’s why I said tell him. If I could, I would have already done it. Wow, Italians,” I sighed in disappointment, shaking my head.

“I should beat the living shit out of you, boy,” he growled. He was so easy, and I got a high off his anger. I felt like I had the power, I was the one in control, because every time I pulled a string, he reacted. He was my personal little puppet.

He reached under his jacket again, after a small glance down the length of the pier, and his fingers distinctively wrapped around something. I leaned to the side to try and make out the outline of the object, but his hand jerked away too quickly. The jacket easily swayed back into place, across his belt buckle, sending an uneasy spike of anxiety through my core. I quickly whipped my head around, expecting to see Asher, but he wasn’t there. When I looked back to Vincenzo, he had his phone out and pressed against his ear.

“Buon giorno,” he spoke gruffly. I frowned as he turned away from me, a simple act that doubled the tension between us. It didn’t matter that he was probably going to try to beat me with the butt of his gun or something else as equally blunt a few seconds ago, because now he was clearly in business mode. “Cosa? Quando? Ah... Si. Si… Err… Si, capisco. Certo. Ciao.”

Ciao! I knew Ciao!

“Girl friend?” I prodded, a taunting tone in my voice again.

When he turned back to look at me, it was clear that playtime was over. He shoved his phone back into his pocket and turned to glance up the pier again. “Stay,” he barked.

What the hell?

I watched him strut up the length of the wooden bridge, over to solid ground, and as soon as he was lost behind a fit of boats I was up on my feet. I despised boats, as well as water. Previously, when Asher was watching me, I didn’t want to let it show, but I had a horrible case of motion sickness. Hopping back to an unmoving surface was once again an uplifting achievement, but I wouldn’t be completely elated until I was back on the concrete. So while the villains were out of sight, I scurried up the path to the car. I don’t know what I expected when I reached out to grab the handle, but sure enough, it was locked. The bag of corn muffins on the driver seat taunted me.

I knew how to get back by walking, but to get to the right path; I would have to go to the other side of the pier. That meant walking past ol’ Lonely, and possibly bumping into Asher and company.

“Fuck,” I whispered to myself. I never expected someone else to answer.

“I thought I told you to stay,” Mario barked from behind me. I jumped a good two feet, swirled around, and came face to face with exactly what I was trying to avoid. All three of them.

“Change of plans,” Asher frowned. He looked cooler than usual, back to his arctic personality. “We’re going to take a little field trip, and you’re coming with us, since I can’t leave you alone.”

“How about I wait for you back at the diner?” Yeah right, I planned on running as far away as possible. When I got away, anyway.

“No, I think it best you stay with me,” I noticed this time that he didn’t say ‘us’. “Now do I have to pull you again, or will you be a good boy and walk on your own?” he chided.

“Fuck you,” I lashed out, just to get the last word in. Alrick gave me a faint grin as I turned to trail back out of the parking lot, deliberately heading in the wrong direction. I thought I was heading in the wrong direction, anyway. Vincenzo soon proved me wrong by striding past me, heading left along the docks, and taking an abrupt right behind a fit of boats.

Asher and Alrick walked behind me, muttering about something I didn’t think important enough to eavesdrop on. I slowly moved along the edge of the pavement until the right I was supposed to take came up—then, I saw it. Another boat.

“Yeah, I think I’ll wait at the diner,” I said quickly, twisting back to head up toward the pavement.

Asher reached out one hand to elegantly wrap around my arm, at his ‘favorite’ spot above my elbow, and led me in the right direction.

This boat was in much better shape than ol’ Lonely. It was a bright white, with a streak of baby blue across the bottom instead of rust, but no lifesavers in sight. I shuddered when, as soon as I stepped—technically, I was pushed—onto the boat, the deathtrap smoothly rocked back and forth.

The back of the thing looked awkward, it was flat and open, with no ledges to keep bystanders from going overboard, so I immediately shuffled into the little cabin. While Vincenzo started up the engine, and the other two continued talking, I huddled in the corner furthest away from any openings. I tried desperately to keep my seasickness to myself, but the others didn’t seem to even notice me so it wasn’t a hard task. All I had to do was not throw up, and considering my daily diet of coffee and the occasional bit of solid food, that didn’t sound too hard.

I sat silently in that boat for what felt like an hour, but it could have been anywhere from ten to twenty minutes. For me to remain silent for long periods of time is hard, so I half-expected some praise when we finally came to a stop. Maybe even a cookie.

“Stay here,” was all I got. Asher frowned at me sternly as he bent down to jerk out a suitcase from under my seat, which I didn’t even know was there. I glared at him, keeping my mouth tightly shut like that would somehow drastically drop my chances of vomiting.

The trio made their way out of the cabin and onto the back of the boat, to the thin opening. I didn’t see where they went from my corner, but from the rocking of the boat, I got the hint that they got off. My stomach churned violently beneath my hands, threatening to give out on me.

A sharp whistle came from outside. “Damn, look at dat boat,” an unfamiliar voice spoke.

“Looks brand new. Think they’ll let me keep it, since I set this up?”

My stomach pitched back and forth.

“Naw. Dey’ll prolly take it apart and sell da pieces. But ah bet ya could vouch for da pieces.”

“Man, it’d be a shame to take a boat like that apart.”

I anxiously wet my lips as I shifted in my seat, leaning the tiniest bit to the right to peer out the side of the cabin. I chickened out when I heard footsteps draw closer, and jerked myself back into the shadows. I wasn’t sure what the two men were talking about, but I was progressively growing nervous.

“I bet it hassa bran’ new engeen! Woowee, I’d lurve to take dis baby for a’ride!”

“Want to?”

No, no. Say no. Just say no. Drugs are bad. Say no to drugs. Say no, say no.

“Hell ya!”

Fuck.

“We should wait until the deal’s over, though. They can see us from here, and they’ll probably know something’s up. Plus, if they need back up, and we’re not here, it’ll look bad.”

“Ders only tree of dem, why would dey need backup? Ugh, but yer right. Boss’ll get mad.”

“Yeah, we’ll ask him after,” the second one suggested as the footsteps moved further away.

My heart was going a hundred miles per minute, trying to desperately escape my body. I reached up one hand to flatten its palm against my chest, like that would somehow help calm the frantic organ. Predictably, it didn’t. From what I gathered, my three villains were in trouble, and the boat was next on the hit list. That only meant one thing; I was going to go with it.

Sliding off the bench, I slowly edged out to the cabin’s opening on my hands and knees, careful to watch for any shadows before I popped my head out. I didn’t immediately see anyone, but I was cautious as I headed to the side. The boat itself was tied to a dock along a low pier, low enough not to change much elevation when stepping in and out of the boat. I peeked over the edge, down towards a patch of sand in the middle of a mess of trees.

There were four tents from what I could see, all of them a thick, and dark green that mirrored the swamp-like area around it. A handful of bodies crowded around a table in front of one of the tents, three of which I recognized. Asher looked his cool, collected self, while a shorter, pudgier man spoke heatedly in front of him, gesturing wildly with both hands. It only occurred to me after a moment of staring that a couple of the men standing off to the sides had automatic weapons slung over their torsos. Why on earth Asher would have walked into what I clearly saw as an ambush, I didn’t know, but again I had to think back to the night he was ‘mugged’. I was quickly drawing up different conclusions.

I shouldn’t have been here, and I knew it. I should have been back on the cold, but distinguishingly safer streets of my own neighborhood. Guns and mobsters and whatever they were talking about, that just didn’t go along with my life. I didn’t belong here.

On the left, I noticed two men begin to argue. They were wildly animated, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. It only took one of them pointing towards Asher for me to freak out, though. They had guns. Asher and Alrick didn’t, as far as I knew, and I had never actually seen Vincenzo’s weapon. It was clear what I had to do.

Run. Run far, far away. I wasn’t going to play hero and run out there to warn them. Yeah, I was chicken. I was human. I couldn’t defend myself and this wasn’t my problem.

Ducking back, close to the floor of the boat, I crawled to the shelter of the cabin once again. When I thought no one could see me, I pushed myself up to my feet and slowly swayed towards the assortment of buttons and the small wheel that was supposed to steer the deathtrap. Still queasy, I took a moment to read what I could, but everything was in acronyms or abbreviations. I didn’t know what anything meant. I trailed my fingers over the buttons, mentally demanding them to tell me what they did—it only took me a few seconds to realize it didn’t matter, even if I did somehow develop some sort of magical power to communicate with buttons. I didn’t have the keys.

I stupidly glanced up when I heard footsteps again. Any normal person would have ducked down, but no, I had to look up towards the front window. Straight at a man with a gun pointed at me.

Any sense of nausea or motion sickness shriveled up and died inside of me, along with my internal organs. Fear shot up through my body, my limbs, overflowing me with a sense of panic that had me running out of the cabin door before the guard could make sense of what he had seen; human, or animal?

I darted mindlessly out of the boat, up onto the pier, toward the tent closest to me, and toward the one man I knew better than the rest. I desperately hoped that no one would shoot me down until I reached him. I don’t know why, but at that moment I believed the only way for me to be safe again was to run to him.

Vincenzo turned to look at me in utter annoyance. Alrick looked confused, and I saw Asher’s mouth open into the outline of a question. I wouldn’t have enough time to reach them, I realized. We were all going to die, probably ahead of schedule, and I didn’t even know why.

Asher flicked his hand down across his suitcase as he moved away from his two goons and the pudgy stranger that still frantically tried to get his attention. He headed down the pier toward me, no doubt prompted by the horrified expression on my face. Beyond him, I noticed his two guards shift to the side, but I didn’t focus on them. I could see the others growing alarmed with my strange appearance. The armed guards grew tense, and I didn’t blame them. One glided his hand down across the barrel of his weapon, towards the trigger. I freaked out.

“IT’S A TRAP!” I screamed, like the idiot I was. I didn’t even know what this ‘meeting’ was about, but I was convinced that it was all a trap. A setup. We were going to die. “IT’S A TRAP! THEY’RE GOING TO KILL YOU!”

Everything suddenly moved faster than my brain could follow. I only remember seeing Asher’s hand move down to his belt before a screeching, booming sound smacked against my eardrums. Something hard but warm smashed into my torso. My feet left the ground, rendering me weightless. The sound of wood cracking filled my ears, along with screaming, yelling, shots fired in a mess of colorful chaos that my mind refused to wrap around. I slammed against something solid and rolled once, twice, straight over an edge.

Coldness enveloped me. The icy touch of water wrapped around my throat, digging into my nostrils and windpipe as I sank into oblivion. I didn’t dare open my eyes, but even with no up or down aligning me, I knew where I was going. Down. I was sinking.

A burst of air shot past my lips, up through my lungs, as the urge to gasp hit me. My eyes flew open without my permission and panic once again wrapped its dark, sticky fingers around my heart. I thrashed violently as I tried to get to the surface, but my tattered coat was wrapped tightly around my legs, tangled between the knees that my brain begged me to kick. I scratched at the lack of solidity around me, desperately trying to find a way up, up, up. I needed to get up. I searched my brain for an answer to why I couldn’t move correctly, but the low temperature refused to allow an actual thought process. At that moment, I knew I needed someone to help me; Vincenzo, Alrick, even one of the armed guards, anyone.

Asher, yes, Asher would come. He had to. He owed me his life.

He didn’t come. I didn’t see him come. But a hand grabbed onto the back of my thin coat and pulled me up, up, up. My head instantly started spinning the moment I broke the surface. I didn’t try to see what was happening, I kept my eyes shut while my body slowly remembered how to breathe.

With a splash, I was back on a solid exterior. The brief collision of my back against the hard surface made me cough out what liquid I had swallowed, and after a brief choking period, I relented to just laying there. The water in my clothes and the cold in my bones kept me feeling heavy enough for me not to move, but I groaned loudly as something dripped onto my face.

Drip. Drip.

I groaned again. Struggling with my heavy eyelids, I slowly peeled them back, searching for the sun I knew was still in the sky. Instead, my eyes fell onto a shadowy face, blurred by the drops of water that still hung heavily off my eyelashes. The head dropped closer to me, and with another groan I began to tilt my face away.

His lips locked onto mine, sending not only an unnecessary puff of air into my mouth, but also shots of dull electricity that branched out throughout my body. I went rigid as I felt his mouth move, the way I supposed mouths are to move during mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but I highly doubted that tongue was supposed to be involved. Given, my knowledge on CPR was limited, but really? Tongue?

My brain and body kicked into gear simultaneously; I sat up as my hands flew out, pushing at the chest of the person I assumed pulled me from the depths of the sea. It took me a moment to let my eyes adjust to the light, but I had already recognized him from the light bourbon smell on his breath.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” I wheezed, reaching up to wipe at my mouth with one dripping hand.

“CPR,” he replied easily.

That was not CPR. Definitely not CPR. He hadn’t even applied any pressure to my chest. But before I snapped at him, I stopped to think about the situation. I could take advantage of this! Technically, he had saved my life, and that meant we were even!

“Fine,” I said quickly. Both of my hands moved down to what I soon found to be the lower half of the boat, the part that flattened out toward the water. I scooted back a bit to put more distance between my body and his.

The light fell on him at an angle, outlining his dripping form with an eerie light that bounced off the water lacing his face. I had never noticed it before, but the color of his hair was as strange and murky as his eyes. It was a washed out brown, almost sandy. The messy, tangled strands fell to the side in one graceful swoop, and the way he sat with one leg curled under him, the other bent to his side, it looked like he was posing for the cover of a magazine. His tawny coat was nowhere in sight, and his suit jacket was missing. All he wore now was a thin, white dress shirt that clung tightly to his chest with the added liquid.

“Fine...” I said again, trying to work the moisture back into my throat. “Then we’re even.”

“What do you mean?”

He gave a tilt of his head, an almost innocent movement with the stark expression on his face, and my heart thumped dangerously in my chest.

“I mean… I saved your life, according to you, and now you saved mine. The debt is repaid, right? So, we’re even. No more guidance shit, and…” I stopped, suddenly recalling everything that had happened. I was originally going to say ‘and no more working’, which meant his stupid job of cleaning the fishing boat. But that single ‘and’ had snapped me out of my admiration of the form in front of me, to the shock and fear any normal person would have felt after… after what? I still wasn’t sure what had happened back there.

“No,” Asher smoothly disagreed in that normal, cool tone of his.

“No? What do you mean no? We’re even now. We are, we are!” I gaped in disbelief.

“No. Now I own you,” was all he said.

 

 

 

Reviews:

 

Paputsza: Wow, I’m flattered that you logged in to write a review for me! But sorry, I fixed the prevent-anonymous-review check thing. XD And yeah, the foundation of the story is a bit cliché, but I’m trying my darnest to throw a few twists and turns in there to rile things up. Is it working?

Mirage: I’m glad you find my plot entertaining! And that you like my cliffhangers, cause there will be a lot of them! Yay!

lakuniko: That’s so sweet that you actually thanked me for my story. ;-; Well thank you for reading! And reviewing!

Evensong: Aren’t you curious what his real name is, too? ;P He’s just a bundle of mystery! (not really) But stick around, you’ll find out everything as soon as Asher does.

aoe: Hahaha, no, it’s all an act. Muffin likes to put on a show for everyone, but it changes depending on who’s watching and he has a lot of pride that usually gets him in trouble. He’s still human, though, so the occasional mistake or fear is going to steer him off his course of absolute independence. We’ll see how it goes!

bambi4real: I’m so glad someone noticed! xD Yeah, Asher’s a bit off his rocker, but that’s probably the only reason he can stand Muffin for long periods of time. Frankly, they’re going to be very good… friends. >]

K.Blood: That’s exactly right! Muffin is the bark, Asher is the bite. They make a good pairing; they just don’t know it yet. And hopefully this chapter brought a little more light to what Asher’s into. ;D

Wynja: I’m so glad! n.n!

Thanks everyone, again, for reading and reviewing. And no worries, Muffin’s bath is well on its way. ;D He’ll be getting cleaned up in the next chapter.