Spring Break

episode 16

Your decision: Emma should comply with the man's demands and listen to what he has to say, eliminating the immediate chance of escape.

    A talk. The man wanted to have a talk. Words floating back and forth between people didn't seem threatening. Not like the gun that the man gripped in his hand. A bead of sweat rolled down Emma's forehead as the nerves in her stomach wound into a tight coil.

    "You want to talk face to face?" Emma asked in a low voice, hiding the fearful tremor that lay there. "Then why don't you take off that fucking mask?" she snarled.

    A low chuckle rumbled in the base of the man's throat, his head cocked to the side. "You wouldn't like what you saw" he mused, spinning the gun around his pointer finger.

    A sour laugh slipped through Emma's lips, Wesley's grip on her growing tighter as he truly did have a bad feeling; a sickening premonition.

    "You wanna talk? I'll talk. But first you better take off that mask" Emma demanded, hands clenching into fists where they gripped Wesley's shirt.

    A long sigh slipped through his lips, muffled by the plastic mask. His gloved hand rose slowly where it palmed the disguising plastic, retracting the item that had hid him for so long.

    Emma's eyes grew wide, soaking in every detail of the man's scarred faced. A pink color clung to his deformed skin, red blotches stretched across his cheekbones and chin. Mind working feverishly, Emma finally realized why he looked the way he did; he was burned.

    Crystal blue eyes peered from behind his burnt flesh, gauging the curious shock that lingered on the two's faces. "You satisfied?" the man barked, a hot wave of anger crashing against the swell of embarrassment.

    There was a twitch of recognition on Wesley's forehead, a slow knitting together of the eyebrows. The man's eyes slid to him, unsure of his reaction. "I know you from somewhere" Wesley murmured, Emma's attention whipping towards him.

    A doubting grin tugged at the man's peeling lips, a dark curiosity glimmering in his sunken eyes. "You know me?" he laughed incredulously, slowly shaking his head. "You think you know me?" his voice rose with an infuriated tremor.

    Danger was growing closer, like ominous storm clouds rolling through the sky, blocking out the sun completely, leaving nothing but darkness and an uneasy uncertainty.

    But Wesley persisted. "Yeah. What was it?" he wondered, pinching the bridge of his nose in hopes that it would jog his memory.

    Meanwhile Emma grew all the more anxious, staring at the gun that glimmered in the diluted beams of light. A hot feeling clung to her skin, the walls seemingly growing closer and closer together.

    "That's it!" Wesley exclaimed, his eyes wide and glimmering with the realization that seemed to snap every last piece of the puzzle into place. "You're the teenager! From that spring break accident- what, fifteen-twenty years ago?"

    Emma recoiled in confusion, her hands giving Wesley a soft tug; a gentle reminder of their exact situation. "What spring break accident?" she questioned in a low voice, not daring to take her eyes off of their captor.

    "I remember reading about it in the newspaper." Wesley began to recall, "There was this massive party on the beach, similar to the one they were having recently. There was this group of guys who got drunk. Wasted. Can't remember their own name kind of drunk."