“Where are we?” I asked, peering out the window. Anxiety began picking up tenfold as James’s words replayed through my mind.
“I’m just driving you to the restaurant,” Jared glanced at me like I had more than one head.
“We’ve been driving for a while…and it’s getting kind of dark,” I noted as I bit my lip in anxiety. I couldn’t conceal my apprehension.
“We’ve been driving for twenty minutes, Rachel,” Jared’s voice was entirely condescending.
Yes, that sounded about right. Why was I acting like such a loose cannon?
“Right,” I responded with a nervous laugh.
As if to spite my sanity, Jared took an abrupt turn into a restaurant parking lot. An Italian restaurant, to be specific.
He parked his car in a very dark section of the lot, away from the other cars. I tried to ignore the spider-like chills trailing along my arms and back as Jared turned off the car and turned towards me. There was a darkness in his eyes that I hadn’t noticed seconds before. That’s because his eyes were entirely innocent seconds before.
“I want to talk with you,” he said curtly.
“Talk?” I squeaked.
“Yes, talk. Perhaps I will start with why I took you out tonight,” Jared drawled.
Wasn’t it because he liked me? Simple as that?
“No, not at all, really,” he laughed.
Jared’s teeth gleamed dangerously in the darkness, and I clutched at the door handle. The car door locked instantly, before my hand could even reach it. He had answered my question…and I hadn’t voiced it.
“Cut it out, Jared. You’re scaring me.”
“That is the point, darling,” he responded, “Look, I know you know who I am. Look into my eyes and tell me you do not recognize me.”
When he noticed my hesitance and need to get away from him, he grabbed my arm with a rigid hand. It was warm and uncomfortably clammy. “Go on. Do it.”
I did as he said, shivering with fear. “I don’t know what I’m looking for,” I whimpered, yanking my skin from his clutch.
“It is a good thing you are so pretty, Rachel Cooper, because I would pin you as completely useless. Honestly,” he sighed as he said this.
Shakily, I looked into his eyes again, dwarfed with the sudden knowledge that had piled on top of me. “Cornelious,” I breathed.
“Bingo,” he bit out.
My body lurched to the side, and I collapsed against the car door. “Let me out…Let me out now, or I’ll be sick. I’ll scream.”
Black tendrils of smoke curled around the two of us, making it hard to breathe. The face that I had once recognized as Jared’s quickly morphed into something else. Something terrifying and different, just for the plain fact that it had changed right before my eyes. This wasn’t a dream and I knew it. This was reality and quite honestly, I wasn’t able to take it.
“What did you do to Jared?” I whimpered.
“I was Jared.”
My blood turned to ice. Pure, churning ice.
“Someone, help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, slamming my hands against the windows.
“Are you forgetting about my mind talents so quickly? I can change what people see…What people think…What people see me as. As of now, you are a dog to the eyes of others. A yipping one, to be exact. They are not concerned about you. If anything, they would like for you to shut up. Please do, so that I can explain.”
“Get me out, now! Oh God, this is too much to take!” I screamed, slamming against the windows in one last futile attempt.
“Stupid girl, will you listen to me?” Cornelious grabbed my face in his hands and jerked my head so that it faced him. His lack of contractions reminded me of the first time we met. He never shortened his words.
“What?” I screamed, near hysterics. “What do you want with me? And don’t touch me!” I slapped his hand away with as much force as I could muster. The distance between us was as large as possible, considering my body was virtually attached to the side of his vehicle.
“Rachel, honestly. Stop acting so… juvenile. I just need to speak with you,” Cornelious put enough conviction in his voice that I almost believed him. His words were so calm and precise.
That’s when I realized what he was doing. I slapped my hands over my ears abruptly. “Stop playing with my mind! This is not happening right now. Please… just leave me alone. Let me go and I won’t say a word.”
I was too far into my hysterics to even feel embarrassed about my whimpering.
Cornelious looked up to the ceiling of his car, shaking his head in irritation. “Look, I am not going to hurt you,” he said. “Just shut your mouth for one second.”
My sniveling halted.
“Thank you,” he sighed, reclining more easily in his car seat. “Now what I am about to tell you is crucial. And I never make trips like this. Consider yourself…special,” he said dryly, though a sparkle touched his eyes.
My fingers inched towards the car lock without me realizing.
“You are one of a kind, Rachel,” he told me. “You do not even realize your talents. You would be a valuable member to our…branch of work.”
“What?” I sniffed, “Are you in a gang or something?”
Cornelious chuckled lowly. “I suppose I could be labeled as part of a gang.” His words were scaring me in the darkest ways. I was shivering, and it wasn’t from the nighttime air.
My fingers rested on top of the lock. “Go on,” I urged.
“You need to pay attention to me,” he growled, thrusting his hand in my face. “That means to remove your dirty hands from the car lock!”
It wouldn’t budge anyways.
“Please stop yelling at me!” I moaned in return, slamming my hands over my ears in an attempt to block everything out.
“I am trying to tell you something important and all you can think of is escape!” Cornelious glared at me as he shouted those words.
“I can’t deal with this,” I screamed, slapping my hands against the window. My sweaty hand left an imprint against the window, outlining my fingers and palm.
A muffled voice from outside the vehicle stunned me. “Rachel?”
It took a few seconds for me to recover. “William!” I screamed loudly, slamming my palms against the window. “William, in here! In the car! Help me!”
I shouted out, only to be muffled by Cornelious’s hand. “He can only hear howling. You are a dog to everyone’s eyes, you must remember.” Cornelious assured me, though anxiety was evident in his features. He started up the vehicle, bringing the engine to a loud roar.
“William!” I screamed, slamming my hands against the windows again. With sudden determination, I whipped my shoes off of my feet and slammed them as hard as I could against the window. The glass shattered on impact and I made a solid effort to climb out as Cornelious grabbed my waist and reversed from the abandoned lot.
I saw William’s worried face staring at the scene unfolding against him. His eyebrows were pinned upwards in anxiety, unsure of what he was witnessing. William looked to be arguing with someone to his left, flinging his arms out in desperation. To his right, Johnny stood in anxiety. As if deciding to do something that would forever label him as a psychotic, William tossed his arms forward and suddenly the windshield shattered. Cornelious sat there, stupefied.
Cornelious was at a brief loss, shattering the dog illusion for a fraction of a second. The only reason I knew that was because I felt a heaviness suddenly release off of my body, and then slam back down ten times stronger.
That was enough time for William to spot me, shake his head out, and alert Johnny in a loud voice. With desperate hands, Johnny heaved the door open, practically tearing it off of its hinges. William then grabbed my panicked body and yanked me out of the moving car.
Cornelious leered over William, a foreboding expression crossing his eyes. And just as soon as we both spotted it, it was gone, and so was Cornelious. He vanished like the wind.
Looking up into William’s eyes, I succumbed to my sudden fatigue and clung onto him with desperation. I trusted him to bring me to safety. Somehow, I knew he would find a way. Answers would be expected later on, that was for sure.