Loving The Temperamental Adonis
Chapter 140: She’s gone!

Chapter 140: She’s gone!

Mia Harrison was a complete enigma, and as he stood there, a memory in his childhood flashed through his mind. It was a time in winter when he’d asked if she’d play outside in the snow, but the little girl had pouted her little lips and shook her head. ’I hate snow. It’s makes me sick, I don’t like playing in it.’ she had told him. And ever since then, he’d never asked her to play in the snow with him again.

Nonetheless, here she was now, all grown up and playing in the snow. She’d even told him earlier that she liked playing in the snow as a little girl, which he’d thought wasn’t true but didn’t point that out as he knew her memories were messed up. People change, and Mia Harrison must have gone through a big change through out the years he’d been away from her, Neil thought as he waited for her to reappear at the glass wall again.

If there was one thing about this Mia that intrigued him the most, it was her unaffected wholesomeness. At first, he’d been half-convinced he was imagining that aura of prim innocence, but last night he’d discovered that she barely knew how to kiss! It made him wonder if that bastard fiance of hers had ever even touched her. And what sort of inconsiderate jerk was Owen that he hadn’t introduced her to foreplay? She’d jumped like a startled rabbit when Neil touched her breasts. If he didn’t know it were impossible in this day and age, he’d almost think she was still a virgin.

He had once told her to remain a virgin, but what right did he have on her to tell her what to do? Those words had subconsciously slipped out of his mouth then, and he wasn’t expecting her to follow his words. In this day and age, no woman of twenty-six would remain a virgin because she’d been told to. Nevertheless, he’d liked the feel of her full breast in his hand, if she hadn’t stopped him last night, nothing would have stopped him from taking her to bed.

Neil realized where his thoughts had ventured and he uttered a silent curse, then he turned in surprise at the sound of Mia coming inside the house through the back door.

"I...I need some clothes to put on the snowman," she said with a brilliant smile.

"Why don’t you wait until tomorrow to finish it," he said, and her smile died.

"But I...I’m having fun!" she protested, sounding desperate.

"What pleasure can you possibly get in denying me something to do to occupy my time!"

"I’m not a demon!" Neil snapped, hating the fear and mistrust in her brown eyes.

"Then let me finish my—my snowman!" She snapped back at him.

"All right," he said with an annoyed sigh. "Fine, go do whatever you want."

Another one of her innocent smiles appeared, lighting up her entire face. "Thank you."

Neil melted beneath the radiant heat of that smile. "You’re welcome," he said and was surprised by the gentleness he heard in his own voice.

On the television playing in the background of the house, another news came up and the reporter said they had another development in the Neil Wayner escape that would follow the next commercial break. Trying to hide his reaction to her behind a curt nod of dismissal, he watched her race into the bedroom, then he walked into the living room and turned up the volume on the television before he walked back to the kitchen.

He was pouring himself a cup of coffee when the reporter said something that made him stop dead in his tracks and all the colors drained from his face, "Ten minutes ago, an unnamed source at the prison in Novaria infirmary phoned with the information that Kai Martinez, who attempted to escape days ago with Neil Wayner, died this morning at 9: 20 while being transferred by ambulance to the City hospital..."

Mia was walking out of the bedroom, the snowsuit hidden behind her back, when she heard the reporter’s words followed by a bellow of rage from the man in the kitchen and an explosion of shattering glass as he hurtled his coffee mug against the wall of the kitchen.

Out of his direct line of vision, Mia stood, momentarily paralyzed with terror, while Neil hurtled everything he could pick up against the walls and floor, shouting vivid offensive words and violent threats at the military and the entire country. She saw the toaster crashed against the floor, followed by a blender and the coffee machine, then he swept his arm along the counter sending dishes, cups, and glass container crashing into shattered heaps on the floor.

He was still cursing when the counters were clear, and then, as quickly as his anger had erupted, his explosion of maddened wrath seemed to come to an abrupt end. As if he’d exhausted both his rage and his strength, he braced his flattened hands against the counter top. His head fell forward and he closed his eyes as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

Snapping out of her mesmerized horror, Mia wisely abandoned all hope of destroying the other snowbike with the screwdriver she planned to take out of the drawer beside his hip and hurried down the hall, her back pressed to the wall. As she opened the door, the eerie silence in the kitchen was shattered by his tortured groan,

"Kai...I’m sorry, I killed you, too. Forgive me, I am sorry I let you down as well..."

***

The frightening scene she’d witnessed rolled around and around in Mia’s head as she raced through the swirling snow to the garage and stumbled through the doorway at the side. Her fingers trembling in their haste, she changed into the snowsuit, pulled on the gloves and helmet, then she began dragging the snowbike toward the door, afraid to turn the machine on for fear of whatever noise it was going to make.

Outside, she swung her leg over the seat, struggled with the strap on the helmet, and pressed the start button on the snowbike. The snowbike sprang to life with much less noise than she expected it to make, and moments later, she was moving in speed over the snow toward the woods at the far edge of the yard, struggling to keep her balance, praying that the snowbike wasn’t loud enough to be heard inside the house.

Shaking with a combination of exhilaration and fear, Mia sped through the trees, fighting for control of the machine beneath her, sideswiping pine branches and avoiding boulders beneath the snow. When she was well out of sight of the house and certain he wasn’t following her, she would turn the snowbike toward the main road and follow that down to the highway, but for now, she was glad of the need to keep in the woods. Beyond the woods shelter, the wind had already risen to a howl and the snowstorm was working itself into a full blizzard.

Five minutes became twenty, and a sense of success and freedom gave her courage, but its joy was unexpectedly diminished by the memory of the grief she’d witnessed in the man she had left behind. A thought occurred to her that it seemed unfitting, in fact, almost impossible, that a cold-blooded murderer would feel such anguish at the death of his cellmate.

Mia glanced over her shoulder to make certain she wasn’t being followed, then cried out in alarm as she nearly hit a tree, but she was quick to swing the bike wildly to avoid it and almost overturned the snowbike.

***

Shoving himself upright, Neil looked blankly around him at the broken appliances and broken glass on the kitchen floor. "Fuck," he cursed dully and reached for the wine cabinet. He poured some of the red liquid into a glass and tossed it down his throat, trying to numb the ache in his chest.

He kept hearing Kai’s cheerful voice, "Brother Neil, My dear Mom brought me a homemade chicken soup, I saved some for you." He remembered, then gulped down his wine as Kai’s voice repeatedly rang in his mind. "I can help you with your escape plans, my family has deep connections."

Neil had let him help, and now Kai was dead because of it.

Standing at the glass wall, drinking the wine and staring blindly at the hideous snowman Mia had been building, Neil could almost feel Kai’s cheerful presence beside him. Kia had found such delight in stupid little things. If he was here, he would probably have been out there with Mia, building the snowman... Neil froze, the wine glass suspended partway to his mouth, his gaze searching the yard.

Mia!

"Mia!" he shouted, rushing toward the back door and jerking it open. A blast of snow hit him in the face and he had to put his shoulder to the door to force it open in the rising wind. "Mia, get in here before you freeze your..." The wind hurtled his voice back in his face, but Neil didn’t notice. His gaze had shifted on the deep footprints already filling up with snow and he found himself running, following the footprint that lead him towards the garage at the back of the house.

"Mia!" he thundered as he slammed the side door of the garage open. "What the hell do you think you’re doing in here_" Neil drew up short, momentarily unable to believe the answer he saw with his own eyes as his gaze moved from the snowbike sticking out from beneath a tarpaulin to the doorway. There, a set of snowbike tracks began and led straight into the woods.

A few minutes ago, he would have sworn that he was incapable of feeling any angrier or more desolate than he had at the news of Kai’s death, but the explosion of fury and dread he felt at that moment overruled even that. His hands clenched into fists.