Adagio (Book One of the Muse series)

36. The Finish

The plane ride home was silent. Tristan was being a righteous dick, and had been perfecting her dickliness since she'd woken up in that shack of a workshop. She hadn't looked at me or said a single, solitary word since we'd boarded the first plane, and she only talked to me before that to make sure I was taking off my shoes in security and standing in the right line. I tried to talk to her once at the airport, one very simple question about the logistics of the airport lounge, and she gave me two pissy, terse words delivered with all the delicacy of a premenstrual cavewoman. So screw it, I thought, we'll travel like mimes today. Fine with me—I was so tired after the trauma, drama and lack of sleep that resting my head on the back of the seat and closing my eyes seemed like the most luxurious indulgence in the world.

I had absolutely every right to be ticked off, too, I reconfirmed to myself as I drifted off. Aside from the whole kidnapping thing, there's the issue of lying. Let's be honest, if you're going to spend years of your life studying non-existent fantastical shit, the least you could do is not lie about doing it. If you've spent years in an Arctic shack writing about vampires, own up to it, for piss sakes!

And oh by the way, I do believe I would choose the emotion of gratitude if my captive had risked her life to save my freezing ass in said Arctic wilderness. I totally could have gotten lost, eaten, or gotten hypothermia and had my fingers freeze . . .

Just then the gravity of my actions hit me like a glacier. Not only had I risked my life, my safety on a gut instinct that Tristan was in some type of danger, but I had risked my HANDS. The same hands I had professionally manicured on a weekly basis to keep them healthy, the same hands I protected from sports due to the risk that I might break a finger, the same hands that were my very lifeline to the musical universe that filled my soul.

Anger. Real, seething, animalistic anger. It consumed me just then, and it was all I could do to stay in my seat next to her. I spent the remaining two hours of the flight staring out the window with my fists clenched, trying to stay in any way calm. How she had gotten inside me was beyond my ken, but I had crossed the line for her. And she didn't even acknowledge it.

The clop-clop of my boots on the airport flooring was a fast and pronounced drumbeat. I didn't give half a rat's ass if she was behind me or not. Let her try to keep up. Good luck to her. She caught me around the waist at the escalator, holding me hard to her from behind. Again, no words, but in her touch I heard clearly that I needed to check myself, that I was still in her keeping, in her charge.

Onto the monorail, out to the parking garage. Clop-clop-clop. It was six AM. A hundred cars were our witnesses at this hour, but no people. She grabbed my arm and I pulled it away.
Finally brimming over with anger, I looked at her with thunder in my stare. "How DARE you!" I spat. I ran; she ran after me. She caught me, spun me around and glared at me with lightning in her eyes.

"Elma, stop this insolence right now and come with me to the car."

"Fuck you," I said slowly and clearly. I ran again, and again she caught me, discreetly but effectively squeezing the shit out of my forearm until I almost cried out. Much to my irate embarrassment, tears (tears, really?) sprang into my eyes.

"Get your hands off me," I yelled as I tried to wrench my arms out of her grasp.

"Get. In. The. Car." It was not a request, it was a warning.

"Never."

She pinned me against a Kia. "As thankless as you are, Elma, I am still concerned for your life, so stop being a petulant idiot and get in the car."

I leaned forward so we were nose to nose, and like a rabid bull, I could almost feel the steam issuing from my nose and mouth.

"You are a liar, Tristan, an ungrateful and demented liar. How COULD you? You rip me from my life, subject me to whatever perverted shit it is your brain has signed on to, and what do I do? I go along with it! I humor you! You haul me all over the fucking world as your hostage, and I just accept it. I listen to your deluded explanations, I go to the enth degree for you, and what do you do? You LIE to me!"

"What are you raving about?" She was incensed. "It is you, madam, who owes me an apology. I have tried so very hard to keep you from harm, and this is the result? I have never for one instant led you astray, Elma. If you think otherwise, you are a stupid, stupid woman."

"You bitch!" I seethed. "You have done nothing but lie to me!" I was screaming now. I could hear my voice reverberating off the walls of the garage, but I didn't care. "Let's go north, you say. We'll find a plan, you say. We'll figure out how to find this Upping, you say. I almost lose my ability to play during this wild goose chase for you, and all the while, it's YOUR cabin, YOUR resort, YOUR perverted command center you drag me to! Tristan, I have played along, I have given you the benefit of the doubt, but you tricked me, and you're still treating me like a fucking prisoner!"

She screamed now too. "Elma, it was YOU who broke our agreement, not I. The moment you tried to escape, the fact that you were so desperate as to do something so utterly mindless to get away from me . . . " A second's pause, her hands running through her hair. "HOW ELSE CAN I TREAT YOU?" she roared. Her voice echoed off every wall of the garage, making her left hook words have triple the effect as they ricocheted through the quiet space.

First, tears of anger made their way up to my eyes. Then a hot flow of fury began to work its way up from my gut, sailing fast, needing to hit their mark. Tristan stared at me with ferocious light, and I stared back at her with a fire of my own that was equal to anything she could dish out. Now I spoke softly enough to make her ears bleed.

"You think I was trying to escape?" There was a rudely incredulous smile on my face as I asked the question; I could feel it. "You asshole, you absolute asshole, did it ever occur to you that I was trying to help? I heard a sound, I didn't see you, so I went looking for you. I almost got hypothermia," I hissed, holding up my hands. As she stared at them, now I roared. "I RISKED MY LIFE FOR YOU! What a mistake."

I turned away from her, hit the elevator button and walked through the opening doors, not caring whether or not she was behind me. She was.

Her face transformed; her expression was now unreadable. She was searching me, confused, wounded. There was nothing else to say, no other barbs to throw as the doors dinged open at ground level. So, I just turned around.