Page 14 of The Black Rider
Leif waved two DVD boxes at me.
“Your pick, Speedy. Wonderland or Hans Gruber?”
“How about both? Let’s have a movie marathon and pretend my dad isn’t the Antichrist and trying to unleash Satan on the world.”
Aeron practically tackled me and threw me on the bed.
“A Nephilim after my own heart. Maybe these movies will trigger some memories. When we chatted on the phone, you said you’d seen all of them, but your movie preference was always super weird, dark movies.”
“I’m putting the Alice movie in first because you’ve made me stare at Bruce Willis way too many times for comfort.”
Leif started the movie and jumped into bed. He didn’t touch me. I could tell he wanted to, but he was giving me space because I couldn’t remember much. And I wanted to remember him so badly. I liked what I knew of him so far. The guy tried to find my favorite movie when he should have been looking for ammo and food. Who did that, anyway?
As soon as the movie started, I fell into a memory. My father never let me watch television or movies. I didn’t even get to watch fiction movies in school if my teacher was out. They never played us movies based on books we were reading. The school he sent me to was strict. They still used paddles on students, and there was pretty much no joy allowed on campus.
I was allowed out of my bedroom to go to school, and he sent a car for me right when the bell rang. They immediately brought me home and escorted to my bare room. That is, until he came to get me to bring me to that padded room to draw something for him.
When I ran, Miss Mable was the first person I met. I don’t know why, but I trusted her almost immediately. I barely had a dime to my name after the deposit on my apartment. She came over to my threadbare apartment, and I was reading my worn copy ofAlice in Wonderlandagain. She asked me which movie version was my favorite. I couldn’t answer because I’d never seen a movie in my entire life.
Miss Mabel wasn’t hearing that. She had a big screen TV and a vast movie library. This was before streaming services became available. She had two different versions of Alice movies. Before I knew it, I was sitting in front of a cookie buffet in her living room watching both.
It was like my entire world lit up, but a part of it came crashing down. I realized what I had been missing my entire life, but it also made me hate him even more because he deprived me of something as joyful as movies just because he could. Almost as soon as the movie ended, I burst into tears. I ended up sleeping on her couch because I cried myself to sleep.
There was no crying tonight. I’d seen this movie thousands of times. It was one of the first things I bought after I had enough money to furnish my apartment and buy a television. I had an entire collection of rare Alice movies I’d collected over the years.
I wasn’t sad to watch it again after everything. I was watching this movie with two men who had risked everything to find me. I don’t know what would have happened to me in that locked room if Aeron hadn’t found me. Maybe I could have gotten the door open, but I would have had no idea what I was looking at when I did, and I wouldn’t have known what the Rage Heads were or how to kill them. I wouldn’t have even had a weapon.
I nuzzled my face in Aeron’s chest, but something was missing. I was all wrapped up with Aeron because I’d spent more time with him, but I was excluding Leif. We wouldn’t be here with air conditioning and movies if it weren’t for him. Leif helped find me too. I may have just met him, but Leif had done a lot for me as well.
“Leif, want to make a snuggle pile?”
“Only if it’s okay with you, milady.”
“I wouldn’t have asked if it wasn’t.”
“Then, fuck, yes.”
Leif spooned my back, and I just felt this sense of calm settle over me. I was smashed between two gargantuan men, and I just knew they could keep me safe. We could do this. We could stop the end of the world and beat my father. We could do anything.
Chapter 12
S
ince I couldn’t remember pretty much anything, including movies I’d seen, I was pretty engrossed in aDie Hardmarathon.I wasn’t getting any flashes of watching this before as I had done withAlice In Wonderland.I could just relax and enjoy being held. There was something to be said for double the snuggling.
Until it happened. A character in the movie said something, and I remembered something significant. It wasn’t in my past. It was pretty fucking recent, and it involved Aeron and his angelic murder horse. I bolted to a sitting position and poked him in the chest.
“Youdid notquote this movie when you tried to have your murder horse plow through those people using that woman as bait to rob us?”
Aeron stuck his hands behind his head and just smirked. That asshole looked quite proud of himself. He seemed proud of me for finally getting his movie reference when he tried to run people over with his horse. Leif just chuckled.
“We have all these beautiful, proud Enochian battle cries that have been used since the dawn of time. This fucker now quotes John McClane like he’s part of the angelic choir that writes for us.”
“The angelic choirsnevercome to Earth. They are behind on the times and ain’t nobody got time for the big flowery mouthfuls they write.Geronimo, motherfuckergets your point across in much fewer words and has a nice ring to it,” Aeron said.
“The man has a point,” I said.
Leif threw up his hands and laughed.
