TGH * The Witness ch. 2
Chapter Two—Run
Gia woke up randomly and without any reason, it seemed. She raised her upper body and looked around the dark room, her eyes falling on the still figure of Jason Morgan next to her. He slept in jeans and not much else, she noted with a slight blush. She watched the rise and fall of his chest, noticing how troubled and angry he looked, even in his sleep.
She turned back around, trying to make herself fall back asleep. After a few minutes of fruitless sheep counting, she gave up and quietly rolled off the bed. She was hungry and had noticed the owner of the hotel kept an all night convenience store just next to the office. Deciding to go get a bag of chips or something else to snack on, she crouched on the wooden floor, her eyes immediately finding the glowing pile of white her dress created on the floor. Searching in the folds of the skirts for her wallet, she finally discovered it without so much as a whisper from the lace and satin. Pulling a twenty from it, a diamond twinkling back at her as it fell out with the bill. Gia caught it easily, staring at the costly ring. Funny how now it had no value for her. She didn’t want it with her, she realized, placing it on the scuffed, wooden floor near her. It was a reminder of a life she didn’t have anymore, a life she left behind. She’d decide what to do with it in the morning. She replaced her wallet back in her dress.
She stood up and went to his duffel bag. Ruffling through it, she came across a button up jean shirt. Slipping the oversized top on, she knotted the shirttails at her waist, buttoning up until the lace part of her slip was covered. The buttons slipped easily into the well-worn holes. Satisfied that she was appropriate for public viewing, she decided to go barefoot as she did not know where Jason had placed her boots. The store was on the same strip as the motel rooms, if she followed the wooden patio, she wouldn’t have to step into the dirt.
She left the room softly, taking the key and shutting the door quietly behind her. Once outside on the dimly light patio, she quickly walked to the end of the strip and entered the deserted store. She walked through an aisle, diplomatically ignoring the look of interest the forty-something man behind the counter gave her. His white nametag read John.
Grabbing a bag of pretzels, she spotted the only other customer a few feet away, one box of a home pregnancy test in each hand. His head was lowered and flicking back and forth in between each box in apparent confusion. Gia smiled at the stressed husband and maybe father-to-be. Walking over to him, she tapped one box lightly, surprising the young man.
He was in his early thirties and handsome. Gia smiled at him reassuringly and he took one look at her less than threatening apparel and grinned back nervously.
“This commercials say this one can tell earlier,” she said, her tone amicable and open.
“Thanks,” he said, obviously relieved. Putting the other box back, he sighed self-deprecatingly. “You’d think after two kids, I’d be able to tell which one to get.”
“Oh, you’re already a father?” Gia grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator behind them.
He nodded eagerly. “Two twin, five year-old girls.”
Gia let out an affectionate noise. “What are their names?”
“Valerie and Michelle.”
“So are we hoping this one is a boy?”
The man’s grin was enough of an answer for her. “We don’t even know if she’s pregnant for sure.” He held up the box. “But we’re hoping.”
Gia could immediately tell what had happened. His wife had told him of her suspicions that night and unable to wait a moment longer, he had run out to the nearest drug store. She stuck out her free hand. “Gia Campbell.”
He shook her proffered hand enthusiastically. “Trevor Fielding.”
They were about to walk toward the checkout counter when they heard a man’s yell of outrage. Behind the short racks of chips and candy, they both watched mutely as two men in black had barged in the quiet store. One immediately pulled out a gun and aimed it at the now terrified clerk. John raised his hands in the air, it was obvious he was shaking even from where Gia stood.
Trevor hit the floor right away, pulling Gia down with him. They crouched behind the racks of food, listening carefully.
“Just take all the money,” John pleaded, nodding toward the cash register.
“We want Morgan.” The man without the gun growled, his voice low and controlled.
“I don’t know—”
“Do you want a hole in your head?” The other man shouted, looking around the empty store before facing the frightened man behind the counter, waving the gun. John shook his head furiously, his hands still lifted near his head. “Then tell us where the hell he is!”
“I’m telling you, I don’t know any Morgan.”
The one without the gun was less volatile, something Gia was not too thankful for. She pressed her ear against the rack, trying not to disturb the crinkly paper the chips were contained in.
“I’m a patient man, John. May I call you John?” The clerk nodded furiously. “But you’re really making me lose my temper. Now, for the last time, where is Morgan?”
It was then Gia saw through her fear long enough to realize that she knew Morgan! He was sleeping in the bed she had shared with him. Unsure of what to do, save the clerk or Jason, Gia decided to keep quiet until she could see what the men wanted with Jason.
“I don’t know!” John pleaded. Gia could hear the tears in his voice.
“I don’t want to have to kill you, but I will,” the calm one said, his pleasant voice holding a trace of apology.
She had decided this had gone far enough. Prepared to stand up slowly and let her presence known, she shifted. But before she could move and inch more, Trevor stood up quickly.
“He said he doesn’t—”
Gia watched through a hole in the rack as the man with the gun whirled around and fired. The silencer worked to dull out the sound of the bullet escaping, Gia wasn’t sure what had happened immediately. Then Trevor’s body fell on top of her, and she smothered a scream. She could vaguely hear the two men arguing. The calm one was yelling at the one who had shot Trevor, who was defending himself loudly.
Gia’s body shook as she lifted Trevor’s head off of her lap. Blood was everywhere. She herself was soaked in it, there was a pool of it lying where Trevor’s head was now. She had never seen a dead person before. She tried to avoid his now blank stare, which had once been filled with excitement and kindness. She raised her tremulous hand to cover his eyes, when she pulled away from his lifeless body, his eyes were closed and he looked almost peaceful.
She could hear the calm man telling the one with the gun to see if the man was dead. She could hear the footsteps coming closer. Not being able to swallow the sob rising in her throat, she let out a choked sound and sprang to her feet. She nearly slipped when her feet met the blood leaving Trevor’s body, but she quickly regained her balance and shot out the door, leaving both of the men yelling behind her.
Her bare feet left red imprints on the wood she was running on. It became all to clear that she was an entirely too well-lit place. Running off course, she headed for the darkness in the trees. Hoping that the foliage would cover the shine of her ivory gown, she ran blindly, looking back occasionally, only to be met with blackness.
As she sprinted, she thought of Trevor’s wife. Was she pregnant? Would she have a girl or a boy? Would Trevor’s twin girls remember him when they were all grown up? She let out a sharp cry when someone’s hands grabbed her waist. Whirling about, she elbowed him in the stomach and used that element of surprise to push him blindly away.
Then she ran, her heart pounding so hard she thought it might break through her ribcage. She felt nauseated. She could smell the blood. She could taste it. Soon she realized she didn’t know where she was. But she couldn’t seem to make herself stop and try to figure out where to go next. If she stopped, all that she was running from would overpower her. If she stopped, she’d never be able to move again.
But no matter how hard her arms and legs pumped, she couldn’t outrun the image of Trevor’s warm eyes suddenly growing blank and cold. She couldn’t escape the sight and stench of blood, warm and sticky, enveloping her. She couldn’t run from it because it was coming from her. And no matter how hard she tried, he couldn’t outrun herself.
She couldn’t breathe anymore, her lungs felt as if they were about to implode. When arms shot out of nowhere and enveloped her, she didn’t make a sound. She fought like hell, pushing hard on the chest the arms were crushing her toward. But eventually, the arms won out and her arms were folded between the two of them. She realized she wasn’t being attacked, but held. She sunk into the embrace, too tired to fight any longer.
When the arms deftly lifted her gelatin legs off the ground, she collapsed like a sack of potatoes, her head falling against one of the shoulders that was linked to the arms. She closed her eyes and he thought she had fainted or passed out from exertion and distress. But Gia simply wasn’t that lucky; darkness in her mind would have been a blessing. It would have blotted out the soft *thwap* of the gun, the dead weight on her as Trevor fell, and the red sea that coated everything it came across.
She remained silently awake as the arms carried her to a motorcycle. She stared at it unseeingly as the arms lowered her gently on the back of the black leather seat. Her body swayed like a reed and he quickly mounted the vehicle. Reaching behind him, he grabbed each of her limp wrists and pulled her to him. Linking her bloodied fingers together, he let them drop lifelessly around his waist. Sighing, he prayed that she would stay on even in her catatonic state.
With a roar and cloud of exhaust, they were gone, the only proof of their stay there a few smudges of blood coated in dirt from Gia’s feet.
-------------------------------------
Jason found it as easy to get her off his bike as it was to get her on. She was malleable and soft in his arms. Her stare was vacant and looked through him as he propped her against the door of their new motel room while he unlocked it.
He stared at her face and body while he ran warm water in the bathtub. A spray of blood had caught her in the face, a diagonal strip consisting of dried blood made its way down her forehead to her neck. From there down, it got worse. Her purloined shirt, once upon a time his, was soaked in blood as was her satin slip. The blood soaked bottoms of her feet had caught dirt and grass, leaving them covered in debris.
When the tub had a sufficient amount of water in it, he turned off the tap and grabbed a small towel from the rack near the sink. Dipping it in the water, he carefully wiped away the angry rivers of blood from her face. Her dark eyes stared at the wall behind him and he wished they would focus. He didn’t know how much longer she’d remain in this empty state, he just knew it wasn’t healthy. She should be venting emotions right now, crying, yelling, carrying on. She should not be sitting there like a shell of a person. She had witnessed a horrible crime; that was for certain. He only wished he knew what.
When she had left the bed, he had sensed the weight shift immediately and had watched her as she searched for her money. The moonlight had illuminated her figure as she pulled on his shirt and fashioned it to suit her. When she had slipped out, he had tugged on a shirt and followed from a safe distance. He had been about to enter the store after her when he had heard two men coming from another direction. Taking in their dark clothing and heated whispers, he had quickly hidden from their view.
Uneasiness sweeping over him immediately, he slipped back inside their room to throw away Gia’s wedding dress in the woods near the motel, and shove her wallet and boots in his bag. He had searched through the trash for any stray things that might prove that they had occupied the room. He found a silky garter in the bathroom. His mind immediately leapt to the image of Gia wearing it and his throat tightened. Shoving it at the bottom of his bag, he hefted the bag over his shoulder and stowed it on his bike.
At the reminder of the surge of desire he had felt for the woman sitting before him, Jason snapped out of his memories and focused on cleaning her throat. She had only buttoned up the shirt to just above her breasts. Rinsing out the soiled cloth in the tub, he set to work wiping her upper chest. When his fingers grazed her collarbone, she shivered. He froze and looked up. She was still staring blankly out into nothing. And yet, she had responded to his touch.
Shrugging off the pleasure that thought gave him, he quickly unbuttoned his shirt from her, undoing the knot at her waist deftly. It was better if he remained unattached while undressing her. If he let himself be aware of her body as a man would be of a woman, he’d never forgive himself for mentally taking advantage of her current state of mind. He tossed the soiled shirt aside and cleaned her soft hands, trying not to notice how well they fit into his own. Instead, he focused on how the two of them had gotten here in the first place.
When he had crept back to get Gia and beat a hasty retreat, he never made it more than a few yards away from the store. The red footprints practically jumped off the wooden patio. He immediately knew them to be left by Gia’s bare feet. The distance between each print suggested she had sprinted off the wraparound patio and into the trees. His gut wrenched at the thought of the possibility of it being her blood. Cursing, he smudged the prints so that they were nothing more than red blurs. He then took off after her, tearing through the shrubbery pragmatically as opposed to her frantic sprinting.
He had soon seen her just ahead of him and tackled her. Bad move in retrospective. Adrenaline had been on her side and he hadn’t factored that in the equation. He had ended up on the ground for a second. But soon he had found a shortcut in the general direction she was heading in. She had virtually run into him and rather than physically restraining her, he had simply quelled her. It had worked and eventually she had allowed him to carry her.
It had been then he noticed the blood all over her. How could she have lost so much blood and still be alive? Panic seized him for the first time he could remember in a long time. Soon enough, he realized that it wasn’t coming from any wound on her. Gratitude swept through him for some unknown reason. Truth be told, as cold as it sounded, if Gia had lost that much blood and she did in fact die, it’d be easier on him. Quick escapes worked much better when done alone, so why, then, was he so thankful for her continued existence?
He had not been able to answer that question then and he sure as hell couldn’t now as he remained in contact with her soft skin and undeniably attractive body.
Letting her remain sitting on the covered toilet seat, he stretched out her legs so that her small feet slipped into the now pink water noiselessly. The water immediately turned a deeper shade of pink as grass and dirt particles floated in the tub.
He dried off her ankles and feet with a fresh towel and let the water drain. He carried her to the next room, letting her sit on the foot of the bed. He rummaged through his bag until he found his longest shirt. He held it in front of her. Nothing. Sighing, he talked to her for the first time since they had said good night.
“Gia?”
Nothing.
“Gia?”
Silence.
Giving up, he helped her stand up. He aimed his eyes in the general direction of the wall space above Gia’s head and tugged on the hem of the slip. In one fluid motion, he divested her of the slip. Blindly searching for the armholes of his shirt, he shoved her arms into them. Only then did he allow himself to look down, she was sufficiently covered, except the gap that ran straight down her chest where the ends of the shirt had yet to meet. His hands buttoned up the front of her shirt, hesitating only temporarily when they came to the valley between her breasts.
“He’ll never know.” It seemed to have been so long since he had heard her voice that for a moment, he didn’t recognize it. When he looked down at her, her eyes were filling up with tears. He nearly thanked God.
“Never know what, Gia?” He asked, hoping to keep her talking. He gently pushed her into a horizontal position. She only sat up again, her legs folded beneath her, clutching his hands with her own.
“He’ll never know,” was all she sobbed, her voice high and frantic. Her nails bit into his wrists, but he didn’t feel it. Instead, he was too caught up in the raw emotion of her face. She repeated the three words over and over again, like a sacred mantra.
Jason came up behind her, wrapping his arms around her. She turned into the curve of his elbow, her hands clutching his forearm as she buried her face into the warmth he provided.
She thought of Trevor’s wife who would soon hear that her husband would never return, she thought of the twins who would not have any more memories of their father, she thought of Trevor, who had been ripped apart from his family without any chance of finding out if he would be a daddy to another child.
Suddenly she was crying. Crying so hard she didn’t think she’d ever be able to stop.
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