Dark Country (Detective Loki from Prisoners Fan Fiction)

Part III: Invitation

I turned away quickly from the curtain, and made sure that my front door was locked. I pondered what I’d do as I remembered that I had my phone set to speed dial the cops and a weighty steel bat near me, a remnant from my softball days in college.  

However, thankfully nothing happened at all. It was starting to rain outside as I went about my morning routine, and despite all this I was still thinking of David. This was my new normal now. My mind wandered in all kinds of directions: I needed to know everything about him. Where did he come from? What are his favorite things? Does he have family? Does he have a significant other? 

The more I thought of him, the more I needed to satisfy my longing to know the identity of the man in the black car outside. The constant wondering was consuming me, and the suspicion was like a fly that you couldn’t squat no matter how hard you tried. I peaked through the curtain again and saw that he was still there. 

In a knee-jerk motion I found myself walking through my front door despite the light rain. I was going to approach him no matter what -- it was something I had to do. Acting as if on automatic, I treaded down the road looking straight ahead. 

I still couldn’t make out his facial features through the droplets of rain, but I could tell the stranger was staring directly at me through the wet windshield of his car. This time he didn’t budge and stayed put right where he was. 

Part of me was thinking I was insane for doing this. My breathing became irregular and my heart beat at a million miles per hour as I inched ever so closely to the car. Keep it together, I thought reassuring myself. 

He started rolling down his window, and I gasped as the realization of his true identity hit me like a bucket of ice cold water. “David,” I said in shock. 

“Hello, Emma,” he softly muttered with shame written all over his face. 

“Can I get in?” I impulsively asked. What am I doing? 

“Sure,” he tersely said as he unlocked the doors. 

I walked over and sat in the passenger’s seat. The rain was falling down harder now. We sat in silence at first. The moment was beyond awkward, but somehow, it felt nice to have him so near. I leered in the direction of my house, and saw that it was perfectly visible from down here. “This is a good viewpoint.” 

“What?” He asked in confusion. “Oh,” he said as he realized what I was talking about. 

“So, is there something going on in my neighborhood that I should know about? I’ve seen you a couple times out here.” 

He chuckled, and rubbed his face with his hands. That’s when I noticed the bags under his eyes. The smell of coffee permeated the air, and used plastic coffee cups littered the car floor. Typical cop, I thought. “Did you know you have nine registered sex offenders living within seven miles of you?” He asked with a how-could-you-not-know-this expression. 

My face contorted partly out of surprise and bewilderment. “No, I didn’t know that at all. Did something happen? Is that why you’re casing the area?” My anxiety increased and I almost felt sick to my stomach as I imagined all kinds of hideous scenarios. Yep, that’s why he was here, something bad happened in my neighborhood. 

He tsk-tsked, and said with that typical double blink, “I figured you didn’t know.” He became quiet all over again as was customary with him. He leaned his forehead into his hand as if he were thinking really hard.  

Though his dedication to his job was admirable, I felt complete empathy as I could see how physically taxing it was for him. “Are you getting any sleep?” 

He turned and looked right into me with those big blue eyes, taking my breath away. He clearly had no clue the effect he had on me. “There’s no time for sleep.” He kept his tired gaze on me, and I couldn’t pull my eyes away from his for the life of me. 

“You look really tired, David. Can’t they send someone else to do this?” 

He smiled in a subdued manner, and began double blinking a lot. He seemed altogether too nervous as he nodded his head to the right and left in a “no” motion. “I don’t want anything bad happening to you. That’s why I’m here,” he confessed with a deep sigh. 

I looked away, intaking all of this information. Suddenly, it all began to make sense. 

“A single woman living all by herself out here with no one to look after her,” he started again, “it can get very dangerous.” 

I giggled a bit, but stopped when I saw that he didn’t find it funny at all. Clearly I was still a big city girl at heart. Feeling like a complete idiot for taking the matter more lightly than I should, I answered, “I guess I should have done my research before I moved into the area, huh?”

“Yea,” he smoothly said. Much to my relief, now he was the one giggling. 

His boyish smile was so nice that it made my heart practically melt, and had me feeling rather ditzy and light-headed. Don’t say something stupid, I thought to myself. “You know, I don’t mind you hanging around like this, nor would I mind it if you actually came up to my front door every once in a while.” My face squinched at the horror of what I just said. I was clearly not thinking straight right now. 

He remained quiet at first, and all along my mind was racing as I wondered what in the world he was thinking. “Listen I don’t really do this,” he started saying. 

I interrupted him right then and there: “I know, and it’s perfectly okay.” He looked straight ahead at the pouring rain as he covered his mouth with his hand. I briefly gazed at the tattoo of a small cross next to his thumb and at the sole ring he wore on his pinky. 

Much to my dismay, his face remained blank. His silence and mysteriousness shook me right to my inner core, and a pang of remorse overtook me. At that moment I would’ve done anything to better the situation.“So, I was just making breakfast. Do you want to come in and have something to eat?” 

He seemed very reluctant to respond, and I could tell that he was thinking things through from his inadvertent blinking. My heart started to sink as I learned that maybe I had misinterpreted things, and slowly my world came crumbling down. 

But, at last, he fixated his polar blue eyes on me and answered, “Yea, I’d like that.”