Undercover Badge; Next Generation

Chapter thirty one

CHAPTER 31

                 The drive to Chicago took four hours.

     I spent it in the passenger seat, my arms holding my knees to my chest and earphones stubbornly shoved into my ears like some insurgent teenager. I'd forgone giving a damn about Matthew's opinion of me and was huddled into my most comfortable clothing; a dark pair of thick, chocolate colored leggings, my favorite cream knit sweater that hung off my left shoulder and had sleeves that reached well past my knuckles. My hair was up and back in a curly ponytail that was loose enough not to annoy me and tight enough to stay put, my glasses on the bridge of my nose.

I kept my chin hidden behind my knees at all times, my shoulder and head resting against the car's window on my leather jacket, folded into a pillow. Thick, woolen candy-apple red socks kept my feet warm and my leather boots were lain on the floor in front of my feet. And I stayed like that for four hours. Well, almost. We had to stop twice to go to the bathroom and stretch our legs, but otherwise I sat in his car and kept my mouth stubbornly shut.

   It was Friday. School had ended three hours before Matthew had told me to be packed and ready by, and so at six pm we set off. Matthew hadn't tried to talk to me- he knew it was futile and I was angry and that it was rightfully so. I'd spent most of the week bruised, battered and beat up. I'd broken my leg tree times, my collarbone once and had shattered six ribs in the days between Sunday and Friday. Monday through Thursday had been showcases of my own pain and while I healed extraordinarily, the pain hadn't been dulled by the rapid healing. Much less, how could I feel for a man that had injured me that way? How was I supposed to react when I could feel my collarbone give way under the palm of his hand when he tackled me to the ground? How could I let that very same hand cup my chin, of the back of my head as he kissed me? How could I feel those palms skimming the surface of my flesh without envisioning the way they'd caused me pain?

   Worse, how could I let him press his weight into me, pin me to a mattress when I'd felt that weight aimed behind a kick that caused my shin to splinter?

Was it Stockholm syndrome or was it an abusive relationship, pure and simple?

And above all, how could I handle the fact that each time I looked up at him from my position on the dirt, broken to pieces, I'd seen a mask of indifference as he told me it would heal. I'd watched his impassive expression while I'd screamed from somewhere low in my gut. It wasn't high pitched. It was a primal animal yowl of pure agony, and he'd stared at me like a faking child.

The only time I'd spoken to him was when he almost ploughed into a roadside tree while quite obviously unfocused on the road ahead of us. The resulting swerve landed me almost falling off my seat. And if I didn't feel as angry at him as I did at that point, I wouldn't have made the statement about what I'd observed over the past few weeks.

"Could you suck more at driving?" I'd snapped, righting myself. His jaw had clenched and the steering wheel creaked and I think in Matthew's mind, the leather in his tightening hands was my neck.

"You need to quit it with the Bitch act, Nexcov."

"What are you going to do about it, Matthew?" I snapped. "Break another bone? Grind me into the dirt another time? Pull over, you can do it on the tar just so we can have a little variety this time."

He reached one hand out to me, stopped halfway, clenched it, put it back on the steering wheel and ground his teeth. Most of the rest of the ride went down that way. Twenty minutes before we reached our destination, Matthew's phone came out and he began to rapidly text and talk into it. My concern over his driving with the added distraction of his phone mounted, but I held my tongue. When the clock showed 9:26, I could see Chicago's lights in the distance. By 10;20 we were stuck in light Friday night traffic of partygoers and cabs, and I couldn't resist looking out of the window.