Fire in the Belly

"And I am she."

"She said identical. You don't look exactly the same as her," he said.

This comment drew no response.

There were some differences in nose, lips, and chin, he thought. Caused by environmental factors, maybe? Or ... plastic surgery?

"I want to talk with you, Mister Quinn," she said, "about what you did to my sister."

Matthew raised his eyebrows a little.

"You're making an assumption there," he observed carefully.

"I'm not convinced you deserve the benefit of any doubt, Mister Quinn," she said.

She hesitated a moment, then spoke again.

"Still, be it so, for the sake of justice: I want to know what took place between you and Amy."

"You have questions?" he said. "Ask them."

She shook her head.

"Yes," she said. "I have questions. But, since we are avoiding assumptions, let me hear your side of the story first."

Her expression hardened.

"But I warn you, Mister Quinn," she said, "I'm going to be watching you while you speak, to see if I can catch you lying, telling partial truths, or skipping anything. I'm very good at that."

Abruptly, equanimity seemed to desert him. His face twisted for an instant in apparent anguish, and she thought to detect in the sudden tension of his body a powerful urge to get the hell out of there.

Jesus, she thought, how fucking chickenshit can you get?

She thought of a comment trenchant enough to please her. Before she could deploy it, the man responded.

"Okay ... alright," he said. "I'll tell you."

He fell silent a moment, then sighed, as if suddenly weary. When he spoke, it was in a low, halting tone.

"I was headed to university. My first year. I needed accommodation. There was an ad posted in student services. 'Grad student needs flatmate.' Turns out, your sister posted it. I contacted her, visited, took a look at the room. We swapped questions and ended up finding each other acceptable, so I moved in. I went to my classes, she conducted her research. We didn't have a whole lot of contact with each other; only briefly, mostly in the mornings and evenings."

He shook his head, as if mystified.

"I always thought I was a good judge of people ..." he said softly.

He looked her in the eye briefly.

"After about two weeks," he continued, "her behaviour started to change ..."

***

He continued speaking for several minutes, becoming perceptibly less comfortable as he did so. Her tension grew visibly as she listened, her expression darker.

"Enough!" she said suddenly.

Matthew fell silent. He bowed his head as if in shame.

The woman's gaze turned inward for a moment. She took a moment to calm herself.

"I'm going to ask you some questions now, Mister Quinn," she said then. "As before, I'm going to be watching for any hint of a lie in your answers."

He spread his hands.

"Ask away," he said.

"Did you drug her?" she said then.

And already, it seemed, she had touched a sensitive spot: he did not respond, and she thought she detected indications of uneasiness in his face and body. Her suspicions burned stronger.

Rather than insist on an immediate answer, she decided to see what further non-verbal information she could gather.

"Did you hypnotise her?" she said.

Again, silence.

"Did you try to control her, or change her behaviour in any way?"

No reply. Yet still, the unease.

"I'd like to hear some words of response now, if you please, Mister Quinn."

He hesitated, then answered.

"You're asking if I tried to influence her," he said carefully. "The answer is, I didn't. Not by any means."

"Do you have any thoughts, then, about why she started behaving ... like that?" she asked, her scepticism clear in her voice.

Several heartbeats worth of silence.

He looked at her, at the gun, drew a deep breath.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, I do."

Her eyes widened.

"First, though," he said, "I want to ask you something. I promise I'll answer you after that."

She did not reply, merely observed him. Matthew waited a moment, then decided to take her silence as consent.

"You may not like what I have to ask, so ..."

He looked at her weapon, sighed, then slowly moved one hand to indicate his heart.

"... if you decide to shoot me," he said, "don't miss. Hit something vital. Make it quick. Will you do that?"

For a moment she was at a loss. This statement seemed very much at odds with his previous display of cowardice. As far as she could tell, though, he was serious. Did the guy have a death wish? Was he racked with guilt, maybe?

"Can't promise anything," she said at last, tonelessly.

He hesitated, shrugged, then plunged.

"Well, then ... does your sister have any history of mental or emotional illness? Any history of erratic behaviour? Has she ever been prescribed any psychiatric medications?"

At this, the young woman's face turned truly thundercloud. Matthew heard her teeth grinding.

Anything else he might have had to say, he decided to keep to himself. For the moment.

"Bring it on, Mister Quinn," she grated at last. "Disrespect her again."

"Okay, forget it," he said. "I'm sorry, but I had to ask. I just hoped ..."

He trailed off.

"I don't have much else to say on the subject," he said, "except ... you asked me if I tried to influence her. As I said, the answer is no. I didn't try to influence her ... but, if she didn't have any prior issues, the only possibility I can think of is that ... that I may have influenced her without trying to."

Her eyes narrowed.

"What the fuck are you getting at?"

"I ... don't know for sure. I just noticed that, the more time she spent near me, the more ... extreme ... her behaviour became. Like a proximity effect."

"What ... you think you're Don Juan on steroids?" she scoffed.

"I didn't want to believe it either," he said, without looking at her. "But the evidence was right in front of me."

"And now," he continued quietly, "I'm very much afraid of the same thing happening to you."

She gave a huff of cold amusement.

"Thanks for the warning," she said sarcastically. "Don't concern yourself. I'm not that susceptible to men ... far less to you, Mister Quinn. And the same goes for my sister."

He dropped his gaze to the floor.

"Have it your way," he said quietly.

He glanced at her again.

"Any more questions?"

"That's all," she said, "for the time being."

"So ... what happens now?" he asked. "You planning on holding that gun on me all night?"

"You think I'm not up to the task?" she said.

Despite her defiant tone, he thought he detected a hint of discomfort in her demeanour. She had clearly been at the end of her tether when he had found her in the snow, and less than one hour of sleep was not enough to fully recover.

Matthew decided to run a risk, to try to take the advantage a little.

"Ma'am ... don't take this the wrong way, but ... you really didn't think this little outing through, did you?" he said.

"Hell, no," she said. "If I did that, I'd never get anything done."

"Impulsive type?"

"That's right," she said, the steel in her voice again.

Her eyes dropped to the gun for an instant, lifted again.

"Often enough," she said, "I don't know myself what I'm going to do next."

Matthew understood the hint.

Introducing a hint of amity into the exchange couldn't hurt, he thought.

"I'm getting a little tired," he said. "Do you mind if I hit the sack?"

He risked the tiniest of smiles.

"You can shoot me more easily if I'm unconscious."

"Please don't try to cutesie up to me, Mister Quinn," she replied. "It's insulting."

He dropped the smile, looked her seriously in the eye.

"Let me go, ma'am," he said softly. "I promise it'll be to your benefit."

Keeping her eyes locked to his, the young woman shook her head, very slowly.

"What does your radar tell you?" he asked, showing a little frustration at last. "Am I lying?"

"If only radar were one hundred percent reliable," she countered.

Matthew sighed. His shoulders drooped resignedly.

"On your own head be it," he murmured.

"Worry about your own head," she advised shortly.

Matthew thought for a moment.

"I have a suggestion," he said.

"Fire away, Mister Quinn," she said.

"In the summer, possums steal from my kitchen garden at night. So, I hooked up an alarm to a proximity detector, to try and teach them to stay away. We can put the camping bed against the door for you so I can't leave without you knowing. You put the alarm on the floor next to the bed and point it into the room. I won't be able to approach without setting it off. You get to sleep. I get to sleep."

He paused.

"What do you think?"

"You could still scarper through a window," she said.

"Well ... uh ... I can nail them shut, if you want," he said.

The young woman considered this. She could not fool herself: there was no way she could stay awake all night.

She looked at her captive and reluctantly nodded acceptance of his proposal.

***

"Satisfied?" he asked, a few minutes later, when he had demonstrated the effectiveness of the alarm and immobilised the windows.

"It will do, Mister Quinn," she said. "You can go and sleep now. We'll talk again in the morning. I anticipate a fruitful conversation. Perhaps by then you'll see fit to tell me what you did to Amy, and how to undo it. Alternatively, we can discuss the topics of police ... judges ... prisons."

"Very well, ma'am," Matthew responded quietly.

He turned away and headed for the other end of the cabin.

Her apparent failure to perturb him bothered the woman, made her wonder whether he had something up his sleeve.

"Even if the alarm doesn't work, I'd hear you coming," she called, as an extra piece of insurance. "I'm a very light sleeper."

He paused and nodded, without turning toward her.

"Understood, ma'am."

Serious matters postponed, the woman considered her bedtime needs. She ran her tongue over her teeth and discovered an unpleasant film of slime. Gah.

She regarded him: her host and hostage both.

"You wouldn't have a spare toothbrush, would you?" she asked.

***

Having received the requested item, the young woman retreated to her end of the cabin, leaving the other two thirds to her captive.

Matthew prepared himself for bed, fed the fire, adjusted the flue for a slow burn, extinguished the lights in his part of the cabin, then settled himself on the sleeping pad where his captor had lain, before the fire. A flashlight lay close by.

Head resting on his hands, he lay gazing pensively up through the skylight into night. The odd soft sound reached his ears as the woman moved around, presumably doing whatever women do to prepare for sleep. After a few minutes, her end of the room darkened also, and silence fell.

Matthew recalled childhood days, when no one in his house went to sleep without a kindly wish.

"Good night," he called, urged by force of habit. "Sleep t... uh ... yeah, good night."

No reply.

Perhaps, he thought, she was already asleep.

He decided not to think about their impasse. There was nothing to be done about it at the moment, anyway. Better to sleep on it.

Despite this resolution, his mind roiled mercilessly, until a new and unexpected sound diverted him. Unmistakably, she was snoring, cute as a dormouse. Despite his disquiet and unhappiness, Matthew couldn't help smiling a little.

He found the sound soporific. Minutes later, he fell asleep with it in his ears.

***

The night still held full sway when the heavy layer of sleep blanketing the young woman lifted a little. She became drowsily aware that she was fully clothed. After a moment's reflection, she remembered why: never go naked in the presence of an enemy.

She sat up slowly and listened. The occasional crackle from the fire was the only sound, its light the only illumination, bright enough to identify objects by their outlines, but no more. From this angle, the man was obscured from her vision. Was he still here, or had he outsmarted her somehow?

She carefully felt for and disabled the possum alarm. The camp bed creaked a little as she eased her weight off it. A few steps toward the other end of the cabin cleared her line of sight. There he was, stretched out on one side, facing the fire, motionless.

Okay. He was still there. She could go back to sleep.

She did not do so.

As it had innumerable times before, wilfulness arose within her. She did not question it, but returned to the bed, found her weapon, then soft-footed toward the fire, her socks whispering on the wooden floor, until she was close behind him.

As far as she could tell in the firelight, he was in deep slumber, his breathing slow and regular.

The young woman hesitated, then silently lowered herself to her knees.

What the fuck am I doing? she wondered.

No answer to this internal query arose in her mind. Nor yet did she desist. Instead, she remained still, listening to his breathing. She found the slow rhythm soothing, calming, like wavelets on a sandy shore. The firelight danced mesmerically over his cheek.

Moved by an impulse she did not understand, the young woman carefully laid down the gun, placed both hands on the floor to support herself, then slowly bent over the sleeping man, so that her face approached to within a handsbreadth of his head. She became aware of his odour, and inhaled without thinking. She had a sensitive nose, and he offered a melange of many subtleties; predominantly coffee, perhaps. She smiled. For no rational reason, it pleased her to steal his scent without him knowing.

She reached out a hand, moved it in a caressing motion that came very close to brushing against his face and hair, but made no contact.

I could touch you, if I wanted, she thought. Without knowing why, she exulted in the idea.

A long time she crouched there, breathing deeply, so long that an incipient leg cramp forced her to stand. Even then she lingered a while, gazing down at him meditatively.

At last, she became irritated with herself.

For fuck's sake, can this crap and go back to bed!

This self-castigation tipped the balance. She picked up her weapon and headed back toward her end of the cabin.

She had almost reached the bed when she stopped and put her free hand to her head.

"Oh, balls," she said in a conversational tone, "I'm going to ..."

Her voice fell silent, her eyes rotated toward the ceiling, her legs lost all muscular tension. The gun fell from her hand, clattered loudly to the floor. She sat heavily, then slowly keeled over sideways.

Matthew started up from his slumber. He groped for the flashlight, glanced around in its beam. Nothing out of the ordinary. But, something had woken him. He hesitated, then rose to his feet and padded cautiously toward the door to check on the woman.

Partway there, he stopped, wary of the proximity alarm he had given her. Careful to keep the beam oblique, he directed his flashlight toward her end of the cabin.

When the light found her still form on the floor near the bed, he inhaled sharply.

Forgetting everything else, Matthew hurried to her side. Tense with concern, he played the flashlight beam over her, from head to foot, looking for any signs of injury. Finding nothing untoward, he crouched down, listened to her breathing, checked her pulse, laid a hand to her forehead.

At last, he settled back on his heels, puzzled. As far as he could tell, she was neither ill nor injured.

What could have happened? Had she fallen out of bed? No, the bed was a good two paces away. Had she been sleepwalking? Was this an aftereffect of hypothermia?

He decided not to try and wake her, but lifted her limp form from the floor, laid her carefully in the bed and drew the covers up to her chin.

Illuminating her face with the sidespill of the flashlight, he stood watching her for a while. She looked peaceful, he thought, though she seemed to be breathing more deeply and rapidly than was normal for a sleeper.

He thought of the possum alarm. Why hadn't it gone off? He picked it up, saw that it was disarmed. Had she switched it off? If so, why?

He held it for a moment, thinking, then replaced it on the floor.

He pondered. If he was going to leave, now was the time. He was confident he could make it to the hut, though it would be very cold outside now; dangerous, if you went astray.

On the other hand, despite her hostility toward him, he felt concerned for her, wanted to make sure that she would be safe. She was impulsive, had been through mild hypothermia, and had clearly just had some kind of ... episode.

Pros, cons: he weighed them up as best he could.

It had taken two weeks for her sister to begin to ... change. It seemed very unlikely that ... whatever it was ... would affect this woman before he could get her evacuated and out of his vicinity.

At last, he shrugged. On balance, it seemed best to stay. Let the morning bring what it would.

He turned away, then caught sight of the gun on the floor. He hesitated a moment, then picked it up.

The safety was off.

He thumbed it on, ejected the magazine, saw that it was at least partially loaded. Certainly, the weapon was in shape to kill.

He glanced back toward the sleeping woman. Would she really have shot him?

At the time, he had been quite convinced of her determination to do precisely that. For some reason, though, the thought just hadn't bothered him as much as maybe it should have. A touch of fatalism seemed to have infected him. Not surprising, given the misery he had been feeling recently.

Or, maybe it was her demeanour that had disarmed him a little. Now that their first confrontation was over, she reminded him of a tiny terrier defending its domain. Such an animal would surely bite without hesitation. Ultimately, though, its aggression only added to its charm.

Matthew examined his feelings and was surprised to discover that he had already developed a soft spot for his bold-hearted captor. He wondered what her name was. Her sister had never mentioned it.

Perhaps it was foolish, but he found that he wanted to trust her, to leave his fate in her hands. His ... problem ... had burdened him greatly, even to the point of despair, yet he had been unable to think of any solution but complete isolation. Maybe it was time to see what other people might be able to come up with, even at the cost of submitting to a punitive process.

Accordingly, Matthew did not empty the weapon, nor take it with him, but reinserted the magazine and laid the gun on the floor under her bed.

With a final long look at his slumbering captor, he headed back, fed the fire, then lay down on his pallet once more. He remained wakeful for a long time before sleep took him.

***

Morning was here.

She knew it, first by intuition, then by the quality of the light filtering through her eyelids.

Her body demanded stretching, and she complied, luxuriously.

She felt rested and refreshed; ready for the day.

Taking pains not to make any noise, she sat up and glanced around, seeking the other occupant of the cabin.

There he was, in profile, busy in the kitchenette.

As silently as she could, she slipped out of bed and crept carefully up behind him, circling to avoid detection. He seemed oblivious of her presence. Good. For a moment, she enjoyed observing him without being observed, watching the motions of his arms, the small movements of his head as he worked.

She gave a happy sigh.

How utterly wonderful it was that, out of all the girls he could have had, he had chosen her.

A sudden powerful rush of affection for him welled in her heart. She stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, pressed her body - cheek, breasts, belly, and all - warm and soft against his broad back.

"Morning, love," she said, her voice replete with tenderness.