Bretdon lost his last thread of patience. He couldn’t let her walk away from him, and clearly, he couldn’t let her take him to a hospital. It was time to get rtough.
He raised his gun and pointed it at her. “Pick up the damn knife and finish the job, or I swear you won’t be able to do anything else,” he was bluffing, of course, but she didn’t know that.
She paled visibly, even in the dim light of the sunset. “There’s no need to─” she started saying, but she didn’t sound as scared as he expected.
In fact, she sounded enraged. “Yes, there is, you can’t leave me like this, bleeding and unable to access my control system,” he pointed out, in an ice-cold tone, handing her the knife again. “Just do it!” he snarled.
She grabbed the knife and for a moment, Bretdon thought she would use it on him. She didn’t. Instead, she grabbed his arm and finished the job.
Ophelia was so mad at the man, she finished cutting his skin without even feeling sick. Who the hell he thought he was, threatening her that way?
“There, it’s done. Happy now?” she said, dropping the knife again.
“No, but I will be,” he mumbled, reaching the main control system and feeling the buttons.
She looked at him intrigued. “What are you doing?”
“I need to enter some codes, but I can’t see what I’m doing,” he explained.
She looked at the small panel and back at him. She couldn’t believe she was about to say that, but what the heck. “Tell me and I’ll do it for you.”
He looked at her surprised. “I thought you couldn’t look at blood.”
“I guess your gun cured me,” she shrugged. “Tell me the codes, before I change my mind.”
Chuckling, he told her the codes and she punched them in, one after the other, releasing him from the chains that enslaved him to the humans. Once she had punched the last code, he jumped to his feet and held the patch of skin against his body, and allowed the nanocybots to do their job. A couple of minutes later, the skin looked as if it was glued to his body.
“Thank you, you were quite helpful,” he said, picking his knife and his gun.
“You’re welcome.” She looked at her car, still against the tree and sighed. “Do you think you could help me out with my car? I doubt I’ll find a crane around this place.”
“Sure, why not? I need a ride out of this place,” he agreed.
She looked around at the growing darkness. “I’m not going anywhere at this time of the night. I just need you to take the car from where it is, and I’ll set camp right here,” she replied, shaking her head.
It was too dangerous to drive during the night. There were no lights and no one ever knew when they’d hit a destroyed section of road.
He ignored her words and walked to the front of the car and pushed it away from the trees, as easy as anyone else would push a toy.
The vehicle was a bit damaged, but he was sure it still worked perfectly.
“We can’t stay here. This is my last known location and if we stay here, we’ll be caught,” he said, putting the vehicle back on the road.
“What? Who would catch me? What the hell are you talking about?” she protested, looking at him with a deep frown.
“The soldiers. I don’t have time to explain, right now, so just get in the car and let us get the hell out of here,” he ordered.
“No, I’m not going anywhere. It’s too dangerous to travel at this hour,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her chest.
“It’s too dangerous to stay here,” he said, opening the passenger’s seat door and walking towards her.
Before she could guess what he was about to do, he picked her up in his powerful arms and carried her to the car, securing her in the seat and locking the door.
He was behind the driver’s seat in a blink of an eye.
“Hey, you can’t do this, this is my car and I decide if I want to leave or not,” she protested, struggling to free herself from the safety belt.
He glanced at her, with such an ominous expression on his face that she stopped what she was doing. “Consider your car seized. Now be a good girl and enjoy the ride.”
Ophelia looked at the man, furious. He had turned her into a virtual prisoner, in her own car. It was outrageous.
“You have no right doing this, it’s my car, not yours.”
“I believe we’ve been through this, already. It’s my car now, and you are my hostage, in case I need one,” he explained in a very cold tone.
She looked at him as if he had announced the end of the world, and started struggling again with her seat belt.
“We’re traveling at more than eighty miles per hour. If you jump out of this vehicle, you’ll die,” he said, in a stern tone.
“I rather die than become a toy in your hands,” she started saying.
“Oh, please, quit the drama.” He interrupted her, though the idea of playing with her was so hot he almost groaned. He hadn't been with a female in too long. “As soon as we get far enough away, I’ll give your car back and I’ll let you go,” he interrupted her, impatiently. “I just need to get as far as possible from here.”