Eight

Oscar tries to convince his passenger he's trying to help

Oscar was keeping a keen eye on his watch for two reasons. The first was entirely selfish. As part of his training he’d been given a host of information about different emergency service response times. They depended on a number of factors; location, obviously, what emergency service it was, of course, but there were also more subtle factors at play. How regularly would people pass by the place of emergency? How obvious an emergency was it? Did anyone alert authorities at the time? Will anyone be missed? Oscar was running all these questions through his mind. He was doing this while looking at his watch. What was working against him was that it was night time. In the night someone was more likely to notice the fire. Anyhow Oscar had estimated it would be about 5 or 6 hours before the police and fire brigade arrived. Luckily there were no cameras in the vicinity of the house, and those on the house he had disabled, but there were always witnesses. That gave him a fixed time in which he would have to change his plates and find a place to stay. He estimate this time to be about 10-12 hours. While that might seem like a pretty good head start Oscar knew that it was always a good idea to keep an eye on the time. The other reason however, was sitting next to him, motionless in the passenger seat. Oscar had administered the kind of blow he had to the girl on many times previously. He knew how long she should be out for, and he also knew that if she didn’t recover within an hour or so something was very wrong. It was for these two reasons that Oscar’s attention was split between the dark road out the window, and the silver time-keeping device strapped around his wrist.

   The girl, Lucy as Oscar remembered, began to stir. First a slight, subtle moan emanated from her lips. Then she dipped her head and rubbed the large bump that had since scabbed over. As she started to become aware of what was happening Oscar felt the need to try and comfort her.

‘Lucy, don’t panic’, Lucy looked down to her tied hands and feet and across to her captor.

‘What do you want, how do you know my name?’, the girl was terrified, Oscar could tell. He thought he noticed a small tear run down her cheek.

‘It was written on the calendar in the house. I don’t want to hurt you. I’m trying to protect you. There are some very powerful people who would rather you weren’t around anymore, you understand?’

‘But I’m nobody’, Lucy murmured this through almost gritted teeth,

‘It’s not because of you. It’s Herb. He’s’ Oscar stopped himself, ‘he was, involved in something very dangerous. It’s safer if I don’t tell you what but…. That’s why this has happened’. The girl seemed to be considering this, trying to piece together what had happened and draw her own conclusions.

‘He’s dead?’ Oscar nodded ‘And the others?’ he nodded again, ‘If you’re trying to help me, why am I tied up? And why did you knock me out?’, He looked over at the girl.

‘You were struggling. I’m sorry but there was no time’, the girl looked back at him

‘So why don’t you let me out of these now then?’, Oscar stared ahead

‘Fair enough’. He pulled the car over at the next outlay on the side of the road. The two of them sat there for a few seconds while Oscar rummaged around in the bag in the back seat. He then pulled out a knife, at which Lucy took a breath and pulled back. Oscar grabbed her hands and slid the knife through the rope. He then reached down and cut through the rope holding her ankles together. Looking at her, with an apologetic look in his face he put the knife back in the bag. As the two stared at each other Oscar could tell the girl was still scared. Then all of a sudden, she opened the door on her side, ran around the car and started trying to run through the thick grass lining the highway. Oscar opened his own door after a couple of moments and stood out of the car, shouting after her.

‘I’m not going to keep you here forcefully. You can run if you want. But I promise, you’ll be safer with me.’

The girl kept stumbling and standing back up, making slow progress,

‘It’ll take you five hours to get back to the nearest town like that. It gets very cold out here.’

The girl refused to stop. Finally Oscar had an idea. He reached inside the car and pulled out his gun.

‘Here’ the girl turned around to see Oscar fling his gun toward her. She flinched a little as it landed, and looked back over to him, unsure what this offering meant.

‘You can have that, if it makes you feel safer. I don’t know what else I can say’. The girl stopped, trudged slowly toward the gun and picked it up aiming it towards Oscar.

‘Stay back!’, she shouted at him. He didn’t flinch. She slowly walked towards him and back onto the paved area the car was parked in.

‘I’m taking the car’, she sounded unsure of herself

‘I can’t let you do that’

‘I’m not asking! I’ll shoot you’, Oscar couldn’t help but allow a smile,

‘Even if I let you take it, it would be pointless. Without me, they would find you in… a day, maybe. Please, let me help you. Look I know you have no reason to trust me. I get that. You might even think I set that house on fire, but I didn’t. Look at my hands, my clothes. You really think I’d set it off that close? All this shrapnel caught in my coat? I could have driven off, I could have knocked you out and thrown you in the fire, hell I could have just shot you, but I didn’t. All I want to do is for once in my life the right thing. To help someone. But if you won’t let me do that then there’s nothing else I can say’. The girl slowly lowered the weapon, still eyeing Oscar up and down.

‘What’s your name’, Oscar realised he hadn’t introduced himself

‘Oscar’, the girl nodded,

‘I’m Lucy’.

‘Nice to meet you Lucy’,

‘You’re British’

‘Well observed… and you’re American’

‘Well it’s America what else do you expect’, with that Oscar sensed the girl was relaxing, ‘OK, I’ll get in the car. But I’m keeping this’ she gestured with the gun

‘Fine. But if you want to use it you might want to turn the safety off’, and with that Oscar got in the car, and Lucy went round and got in the other side. Oscar switched the engine back on.

‘Where are you taking me?’ The girl enquired,

‘I’m going to find a hotel somewhere, somewhere to lay low for a bit, then we’ll figure out the next plan of action’. The girl looked into Oscars eyes and for a moment he saw the fierce shield she had put up until then drop,

‘Do you know what you’re doing?’ This was a question that took Oscar by surprise, and one he didn’t really know the answer to. But he didn’t want to worry the girl who had only just been able to trust him, even with a gun in her hands.

‘Not really but it’s never hurt me before’, he shot her a wink. She looked confused. Oscar remembered that his dark, very British sense of humour was likely to be lost on the girl.

‘Sorry, stupid joke. We’ll be fine’, then he pulled away with a tense, but at least willing passenger aboard. 

Author's Note

Any suggestions for Lucy?