The Light Between the Trees Ch. 03

His tea arrives and he pours for himself, adding milk and then sipping. Only when he replaces the cup on the saucer does he finally look up at me.

"Where would you like to start?" he asks.

"Let's start with the name," I reply, "Covalent."

"Okay. A covalent bond is where two atoms come together to share electrons in order to gain stability that they would otherwise never have achieved on their own. I like the metaphor."

"Really. So, would you say you're looking for a bonding opportunity?"

I'm secretly pleased with myself, and I smile at him. Your move.

"If the conditions are right. There needs to be an affinity."

He drinks his tea, watching me over the rim of the cup. The corners of his eyes indicate he's enjoying the chat, but otherwise he's unreadable. Covalent doesn't seem to be the kind of person who beats around the bush, so I decide on the direct approach. I'm hoping that hard questions yield definitive answers.

"What are you looking for?" I ask.

"As you suggest, someone to bond with. What are any of us looking for?"

"And you think us?"

He smiles. "I really have no idea. That's why we're meeting. I want to see if you fit the bill."

"Which is the big question, isn't it? What are you looking to fit me into? I know nothing about you."

I watch him drink his tea, contemplating me. I take a mouthful of coffee, determined not to be the one to fill the silence; I know how this works. However, he doesn't say anything, and the silence lengthens until eventually I crack. As I speak, he smiles, as if he's won.

"For example, what do you do for a living?" I ask, "I guess you know all about me."

"I do. I saw your profile. I was quite taken aback that you were running the core engineering team at Kikster."

"Why, because I'm a girl?"

"No, because you're so young for such a responsible job."

"I got in early, when we were only thirty people."

"And now your team alone must be bigger than that. You run the core of the business, from what I can tell. You control the spider in the middle of the web. You tell it how to think."

He's done his research on me. "And what do you do?"

"Similar, actually."

"So, you're into AI?"

He actually laughs, "No, just I."

"I?"

"Non-artificial intelligence. Maybe call it BI, biological intelligence. I do the same thing as you. I tell people what to think."

"So you're a psychologist?"

"Oh, God, no. I'm more of," he replies, breaking off to wave a hand in the air, "You could say I'm an influencer. I'm contracted to convince people to alter their thinking. I'm a trouble-shooter."

I'm watching him as he speaks, and there's something about him. He's older, sure, but there's a settled assuredness also. His features are distinctive without being handsome, well dressed in jeans and a casual shirt, but it's not that. There's just something about him that makes me want to continue the conversation. He sips his tea again, but I'm going to let him fill the space this time. He looks up at me suddenly, and I'm staring into those washed-out grey eyes.

"I saw the press release on the investment in your infrastructure. The founder sounds like he's angling to start another capital raise, which means he's got to look good. I can appreciate the pressure you're under. It has to be hard with all that going on as well as coping with the aftermath of the siege."

I stare at him. Talk about cutting to the chase.

"Yeah, it's... uh, yeah I have been...," I stammer, caught off-guard.

"I can see why disappearing is so enticing for you."

"Yes."

It's all I can manage. The mention of the siege has me on the back foot, struggling.

"Which, as I told you, is what interests me also, disappearing someone," he continues, "But, tell me, have you given much thought to it?"

"I guess."

"Ah, okay. Good. So, I think we need to draw the parameters."

"Parameters?"

I realise I'm just parroting his words, that I've lost my train of thought. I take a drink of coffee, trying to find my focus again, but it's the mention of the hostage taking. I hadn't even thought about it, but here I am again: with a coffee, sitting in a café with a man who has just walked up to me. I don't know anything about him, what he's capable of, what he'll do next. My heart is hammering, fuelling my fight-or-flight instinct. Worse, I can't tell whether he triggered me on purpose or by accident.

"Of your abduction," he says.

I stare at him in silence. He's talking about kidnapping me, in broad daylight in the middle of the park. I look down at his hands and I realise he's finished his tea. Am I about to get taken? Is that why he wanted to meet? Should I scream?

"I find that generally, we need to be very clear on consent, on boundaries," he says, "How long to disappear you for."

He's looking at me expectantly. I can barely breathe.

"Then there's the manner of the abduction. What do you envisage? Assault? Coercion? How would you like to do it?"

"I don't know."

He nods. "Fair enough, well, we can work on that, whether you want to be surprised or you want to see it coming. Which leads me to the part after the capture. How would you like to be transported?"

"I really don't know."

He stops, and I detect something in his demeanour: disappointment.

"Ah."

He calls the waitress over and pays for his tea, then turns back to me.

"It was nice to meet you, Raven."

I blink. "You're leaving?"

"I think so."

"Why?"

He makes as if to get up from his seat, then he pauses.

"That's the thing about fantasies, Raven. They're alluring, but so hard to make real. I have been looking for someone for a long time, which is why I was so eager to meet up with you. But I don't think you feel the same."

He's about to get up and walk away. It's like an awkward coffee date. It feels familiar after the men on the apps: not every match was someone to go to bed with. This felt like old ground. The only difference is the strange knot in my guts, the feeling of running out of air. What he's proposing is dangerous; I'd be a fucking fool to take this any further. I have no idea what he could do to me.

"Then tell me about your fantasy," I say.

He pauses, lacing his fingers together, and then he begins to speak. I let him talk, listening in silence as he explains. I stare at him, like I'm watching a slow-motion car crash, where I'm the victim in the car, being told what he wants to do to me.

He's looking for a woman who wants to be disposed of. That stuns me. He wants to make her disappear. He lays out the plan, how he would capture her, how he would transport her to an isolated location where he'd be able to have her to himself, cut off and completely removed from the outside world. He could keep her like that for days, or for months.

"Months?" I ask.

"Months, or years," he replies.

There is a strange look in his eyes, a need.

"Or, permanently," he concludes.

"You can't do that, you can't keep someone forever."

"If I can do it for months, I could do it for longer. I could imprison someone indefinitely, to the end of her life."

"Decades?"

"That depends. She may decide she wants to be completely disposed of, eventually."

"What do you mean?"

"Raven, you know what I mean."

It's true, I do: to be disappeared completely.

"You can't do that. It's murder," I tell him.

"People go missing all the time. Not everyone gets found. If that was what she wanted, I could do it."

"That's awful."

"Is it?"

His eyes bore into mine, and I realise I'm flushed. I don't understand my response.

"What's the point of living forever," he continues, "If you never get to experience that rush as you live out your wildest dream?"

He gets up out of his chair.

"Thanks for the talk. It's been so nice to meet you. Let me know what you think."

He moves around the table and leans towards me. I don't move. He kisses me on the cheek and then turns away, walking out of the café and back across the grass, retracing his steps. I'm stunned, immobile, lost for words. But there is a feeling, like vertigo, like a little voice in my head telling me to get up and follow him, like he's the Pied Piper, to my doom.

I stand up, torn, watching him recede into the distance, begging my body not to follow him, holding myself there until he disappears from view and I'm released from the awful, overpowering urge. I leave the park hurriedly, find a cab and tell the driver to take me home, the conversation playing over and over in my head. The offer is monstrous: to be removed from the world and then to be ended, to be used and discarded.

I get home, bursting through the front door and stripping out of my clothes as I walk. I throw myself down onto my bed and spread my legs, pawing at my sopping crotch. I don't tease and caress, I'm already way past that point, thrumming my clit with one hand while I plunge the fingers of my other hand deep inside me, frantically. I feel the heat building up, the tingling tightness of my climax, then it hits me from out of nowhere all at once, until I cry out, muscles locking, riding the searing wave of pleasure as it overwhelms me.

At last, I sink down, my body buzzing with the afterglow of my staggering orgasm. It feels so good, so much better than Travis, or Toby or any of the guys I'd had, better than everything but that one bright white moment on my knees on the floor in the café with his gun in my mouth.

Eventually, I haul myself off the bed, my slick thighs rubbing together as I bend down to my jeans and extract my phone from my pocket. I open up my messages and begin to type.

Really, what's the point of living forever, anyway?

---

[Next chapter: Chloe solves her Travis problem, but finds herself in a new predicament, as Covalent removes her right to release and puts her into denial.

Extra points for spotting the cameos, and the mild spoiler for the next book...!

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