My New Stepbrother

29

Angel

Once Blake finished shopping, he tossed tons of bags in the trunk, including one bigger looking bag which I assumed contained the tent. I guess he was being serious, we really were about to live off the land.

He got back into the car, not saying a word to me, which was fine with me.

We drove for about two hours after he finished filling the gas tank, until we wound up at an admittedly, pretty place. There were mountains and a big waterfall, that was flowing right into a big sparkling blue lake.

That's what it looked like anyway, but I couldn't see much thanks to the way he had me laying down in the backseat. We drove for about thirty more minutes before the car finally came to a stop.

Then he climbed out of the car and immediately came around to my side. He unbuckled the seatbelts and untied my ropes, not even looking at me. Then he went around to the back of the car to get all the groceries.

"I chose this spot because it has a nice view of the waterfall." He said, after a while.

I carefully approached the edge of a pretty large cliff, admiring the view of the waterfall, watching the water rushing down quickly then mixing in with all the water that was already at the bottom. It was mesmerizing.

"I'm surprised more people aren't here." I said.

"I rented this space out for a week. I'm just glad they didn't check social security cards or anything because I had to give them a fake name." He was grunting while placing some of the heavier bags on the ground. "They were fine with the big wad of money in their pockets, so they didn't really ask any questions." He said.

"Figures." I replied, taking a seat on a spot that had wooden planks—seemingly for a place of sitting and viewing the waterfall.

"This is much better then some stuffy old ranch anyway. And once I find out where to get us more fake names, then we're leaving this state." He said. "I'll probably go Deep South next time."

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked, glancing at him.

"Who are you going to tell?" He replied. "I'm going to be watching you even harder then I was before my darling."

"Blake. Can't you just let me go? Why don't you escape with some pretty girl? Why does it have to be me? I mean I'm sure I'm not as pretty as I used to be anymore. My whole entire face is probably swollen, my stomach still hurts—and I'm still limping. I probably need a hospital."

"You're fine, you don't need a hospital. If anybody needs one it's me—I think you broke my nose. Besides, you're still beautiful under all those bruises."

If he would've said that a year ago, I would've been blushing; but right now all it did was make me turn my head in disgust. I was beautiful underneath all the bruises that, he was the cause of.

"It's kind of cold out here." I said after a while of silence.

"That's because we're right by the water. Naturally things are cooler by water."

"Do we have any blankets?" I asked, while he was busy taking out supplies for the tent.

"I don't know, go check the trunk." He said, clearly struggling to put the tent together.

So, I limped to the trunk of the car and found a few blankets. They all looked like they hadn't been washed in weeks, but at least they looked warm. I wrapped one of the blankets around me and went back to sit in the spot overlooking the waterfall.

"This really is a nice spot. I mean I should be hating you and fussing at you right now—but I'm too busy watching the water."

"Yeah." He replied, sounding out of breath. "And I should be beating your ass for all the things you said in the car, and for almost getting us caught, but instead I'm putting together this tent. This area must be some magical, peaceful place."