Victoria
There were only a few things in a girl’s life that could get her blood pumping the way Victoria’s was now. Okay, well, there were a lot of things, probably. Acing an interview for your dream job, getting engaged to the one you love, getting married, having your first child. Unfortunately for Victoria, she didn’t have any of those milestones to compare this to.
And besides, it probably felt a lot different. She wasn’t sure how to explain the feeling of trying to dispose of your first dead body, but it was something that she wasn’t sure she was going to experience again. And if she never had to deal with something like this ever again in her life, that would be great. Really great.
They were still at the safe house. There was only so much two people could do when they were surrounded by trees and trying to figure out what to do with the body of the dude Darren had just shot.
This had gone from a boring, forced stay in the safe house for both of their safety to really interesting real quick. And Victoria had an idea about how they were going to deal with this – she’d already told Darren a few minutes ago. His reaction hadn’t been the best, but they were going to go with it. All they needed to make the occasion more somber was the sky opening up so rain could fall on them.
“I put the car in the garage,” Darren answered her question.
They couldn’t stay here. They were going to need to take this man somewhere, and it would have to be somewhere remote, far away. At least an hour away, anyway. That probably meant the city. If they drove an hour in the opposite direction, Victoria wasn’t sure where they would wind up. It was better to just go to a bad area of town where this entire situation could be dumped off on someone else.
“Okay.” She nodded. “Go get it. I'll stay here.”
Darren paused, looking like he was having doubts about leaving her here. And he was. What kind of man would he be if he just left a woman – Victoria, especially – on her own, especially after someone had just come here looking to kill them? If not kill her, they were trying to kill him, anyway, and that spelled out bad news for Victoria too.
“I'm not going to leave you out here by yourself.” He knew Victoria was tough, and he knew that she thought of herself as just that. But that didn’t mean that he was going to abandon her.
“Someone has to stay here,” she said. She interrupted him, already arguing before he could even think about exactly why leaving her there was so bad. More than bad. Even though it was definitely unsafe, he didn’t think he’d want to leave her out here on her own even if there wasn’t someone out here dead, and presumably more waiting to come and slaughter the two of them.
Or maybe not kill them, but in this case, death was probably the kinder option, and he didn’t want to consider the alternative. Maybe she would be fine on her own. He really, really didn’t want to leave her there, though, even though he knew that sticking by her side was just going to get her into more trouble in the long run. Them talking – well, yelling at each other – was the entire reason they were in this situation in the first place, but now it was even worse.
“Just go,” she said. She rolled her eyes at him, and for a second he thought that she was going to fist one of her hands on her hip. She didn’t. “I'll be fine.”
“Promise?”
“That’s been coming up a lot lately,” she grinned. “Be careful or I might think you’re getting feelings for me.”
He didn’t bother with responding. There was no way to. And that hurt Victoria, just a little bit; part of her wanted him to have feelings for her. She knew she was starting to get feelings for him, and, much as she hated it, there was nothing she could do about it.
He finally agreed to go. He was going to rush, though. He didn’t say as much, but she could tell. Everything about his body language screamed rushed.
She stood on the porch, looking out into the driveway while he ran off. It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal for him to leave her here. In most houses, the garage was right in front of the driveway. Usually.
But the safe house was not usual. Its layout was confusing, and the garage was all the way around the side of the house, a long walk, given the circumstances.
She watched Darren make his way over to the side of the house. She tried to follow him with her eyes as best as she could, but he disappeared out of sight quickly. She didn’t want to turn into some kind of paranoid woman, but she started to wonder exactly what she was choosing to do.
The trees all around her were blocking her line of vision. She wasn’t sure where she was supposed to expect Darren from, but she kept looking around anyway. She felt some anxiety rise in her chest, and struggled to push it back down.
She couldn’t freak out right now.
She just couldn’t.
Even still, her eyes kept going to the dead body at her feet. She raised both of her arms to each other, holding them in an attempt for warmth. She heard the sound of an engine. Her glances around became more worried, more fervent.
Where could she hide if she needed to?
There was nowhere for her to go. She felt the anxious feeling that was in her chest bubble up even more now, big and dangerous and something she had no way of escaping from.
But just as soon as that feeling came, it disappeared. She looked up to the car just in time to see Darren through the windshield; he was behind the wheel, making his way over to her. But he was having a hard time driving. The driveway was narrow. There was barely any room for any type of vehicle there, and she wondered if he was going to screw up and hit a tree or something.
That didn’t happen, though, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. Darren stopped the car just a few feet from where she stood at the front of the house. In the few seconds she was wondering exactly how this was going to work out, he hopped out of the car and came to her side.
“Okay, so.” He rubbed his hands together in the imitation of some kind of talk show host. He thought maybe the dark humor would make this whole situation better for her; it did. “I'll get the arms, you get the legs?”
Victoria had to acknowledge that she hadn’t really thought about how they were going to get the guy in the car. And the thought of moving him was starting to make her feel sick. But it had to be done. She just wasn’t sure she wanted to do it this way.
“How about you get the legs and I get the arms?”
It made more sense that way. His legs had to weigh way more than his arms did, and there was no way she was going to be able to pick that much of a man up, even with help. Hell, she argued that she might have a hard time picking up someone even smaller.
He agreed. “Okay. Lift at the same time,” he said.
Both of them made their way to the guy, getting on either side of him while Victoria struggled not to be sick. Darren looked disgusted, too, but neither of them said anything. And when they both finally got a grip on him, they kept up the silence. Victoria was holding onto his arms, and Darren was holding onto his legs, with Darren walking backwards, his vision blocked.
“Be careful,” Victoria said. She felt like his mother. Crap. That wasn’t the best thing to be feeling right now, but whatever.
He knew what to do. He had more experience with this than she did, in any case. “Just make sure you tell me what to avoid,” he replied.
And she did. There was a thick silence between them, save for the occasional “be careful” or the order to move to the left or the right. He was trying to avoid the trees. He’d parked the car as close to her as he could, but he was still some feet off, and he wasn’t really thinking about what he’d have to walk past when he parked it. She yelped when he almost hit his leg on a patch of stone, but he avoided it. Narrowly. Great.
This was not a good start. There were only a few more steps for them to go before they reached the car, though, and it wasn’t that difficult any longer. Even still, Victoria’s arms were starting to feel heavy.
Luckily, they were able to make their way to the car, as difficult as it was for them to keep going. She wasn’t sure that it was actually difficult for Darren, though. Still, her eyes were focused on him, making sure that there was nothing Darren was at risk of crashing into.
“So are we taking him to the trunk, or...?” Her voice came out too loud in the quiet morning air. Their feet crunched along the gravel, especially when they stopped, the heels of their feet catching on the ground.
Darren didn’t reply for a few moments, and all that did was make Victoria feel weird about everything. They continued on in silence for a couple of seconds before Darren turned his neck at a weird angle. Victoria had no idea what he was doing, but then she realized: he was looking behind him to check…something, and then he was looking to her because he had something to say to her about it.
His hands adjusted their hold on the guy’s arms, and that was when Victoria realized that they were both having a hard time holding onto him. Victoria’s issues with it were almost definitely related to strength; Victoria didn’t think that that was the case with Darren. It wasn’t. He was trying to hold onto the guy with one arm, his other hand going to touch the car as he tried to wrench open the trunk.
“Would you mind getting that for me?” he finally asked, as his hand went back to adjusting the weight of the man in his arms.
Making her way around Darren and the guy, she got to the trunk. She put both of her hands on it for a moment without thinking, but then she realized she was fumbling around for the handle. She finally found it, and tugged on it, only to realize that she was trying to pull open the handle for the window on the back of the car. Great. She wasn’t used to seeing those on anything other than SUVs, and she hadn’t had to be in one of those since she was a child. But she felt like she should’ve known that, and the fact that she didn’t was all the more embarrassing.
Taking a deep breath, she wrenched the trunk’s handle. And the car alarm promptly started screaming. The door itself hadn’t actually opened. As she tried, she found a resistance there, and then the horns started to blare.
“Um,” she said.
“I forgot to give you the keys,” Darren said. He sounded way more collected than she felt, and, probably, sounded way more collected than her own voice did.
“Oh,” she paused, making her voice sound even smaller than she felt like it probably did. “Right. Um. Would you mind passing those to me?”
He threw her a look over his shoulder that just about killed her on the inside, but then he started laughing. “My arms are kind of full, Victoria.”
“Oh. Right,” she said. “I'll just grab them, then.”
She made her way over to his body and tried to avoid the other body he was actively holding in his hands. She wasn’t sure where he’d have the keys, but she guessed they were somewhere in his pocket. But which pocket? She didn’t know. Her hands went over to the pocket on his hoodie, only to bump into something and –
“Left jacket pocket, princess.”
She felt a surge of heat, embarrassment, and anger flush through her, but she said nothing. She’d kind of earned that humiliation; the entire situation was ridiculous. Finally, she managed to fish the keys out of his pocket, and then she unlocked the car with a beep. Then she threw open the door.
Just as soon as she did that, Darren threw something else. The body landed in the trunk with a small thud, and Victoria tried hard to contain her wince. She succeeded. Mostly.
“Do you think maybe we should cover that?” She nodded towards the general direction of the trunk. She was okay with dealing with this, but she didn’t really know how to talk about it.
“Nah, it's fine,” he said. He looked around him for a second before putting his hand on Victoria’s side, and then pressing his palm out towards hers. “Pass me the keys.”
She glared at him for a second, but she wasn’t really sure she wanted to be driving anyway. And for this, she would have to be the navigator. She put the keys in his hands, and then, without waiting a moment to hear a word he said, opened the passenger’s side door and got in.
He followed.