Collision course

Caleb's POV

Who?

That was the first word that popped into my mind as I tried to realign my thoughts with here and now.

Even though I was now blessedly distracted from the wretched feeling that had been bubbling within me ever since Leo had left, I couldn't relish that relief.

How could I, when that look on Ruth's face was tearing at my heart?

Before I could find my voice to ask her what the hell she was talking about, the answer walked out of the ladies room behind Ruth wrapped in poison green.

This barracuda?

"Yes or no, Caleb?"

Ruth's voice was soft and it allowed me to slowly recall that hazy memory from months ago.

*Halloween party*

"The view from up here is amazing," The office receptionist, Ellen Cole purred in a husky voice that I would have found attractive once.

Come to think of it, she was exactly the kind of woman I would have gone for a few weeks back. Tall, blonde, curvy and perfect.

But now every time I think of the word 'perfect', my mind conjures up a certain brown eyed brunette.

Ellen had pressed up against me all evening and I had found myself getting irritated by it. I did like the attention of course. But I liked it on my terms, and definitely from whom I wanted.

Sad that the one I wanted, the one I had been waiting for, had chosen not to come to the party despite me challenging her on my way out.

We reached an alcove and Ellen pulled me through the thick curtains that opened up to a small balcony on the other side. She pressed up against me, wasting no time at all.

"Isn't this cosy?" She whispered, running her hands up my chest, but all it did was remind me of my brief encounter with Ruth in the elevator a few weeks ago. Damn, why can't I get her out of my mind?

Oblivious to my distraction, Ellen leaned in and pressed her lips against mine. They were soft, sensual... Perfect.

Exactly how I liked to be kissed. She definitely knew what was doing as she took command of the kiss. I liked that in a woman.... Right?

As her tongue meddled with mine, I tried to cast myself into it. To feel anything. Even a fraction of the electricity I had felt with Ruth in that elevator.

Hm, Ruth. Just the thought of her charged my nerve endings. Ruth, with her dagger-like looks and that sass beneath those plain, formal clothes. Ruth, wild-eyed and breathing hard in the dark. Ruth, pushing me against the wall and stepping into me.

Her lips trailed down to my neck as I grabbed her tight against me and moaned, "Ruth.."

Except that, she wasn't Ruth. The thought cooled me off faster than a bucket of ice cold water. My eyes popped open as she looked up at me.

I felt like an ass. How could I use a girl like this? But that feeling lasted only a moment.

She didn't look hurt. She looked predatory. Her focused gaze made me feel as if I had just been spotted by a barracuda.

"I'd have thought your taste in women was as good as your looks, Mr. Cross." She murmured, running her nails over my lips.

"Guess it's up to me now to help you rise over the peasant food and develop your tastes for gourmet food."

So Ruth was peasant food and she was gourmet? If only she knew...

She leaned in again but I'd had enough. I leaned away from her and stepped back so that we were no longer touching.

"I don't think I can afford the gourmet you offer, but thanks anyway... Uh, miss."

I could feel the sparks flying from her, but I'd already turned away and stepped out from behind the curtain heading straight to the exit.

Letting her believe that I didn't even remember her name should do her ego some good.

Her catty remark had successfully squished any guilt I might've felt and I was more than determined now to stay the hell away from her.

She wasn't Ruth. No one else will be, not unless I have worked my annoying assistant out of my system.

On my way out, I picked up a small slice of cake remembering my promise to bring her some, more excited to toy with my straight laced assistant than any Ellen Coles of the world had ever managed to make me.

*Now*

God, that evening felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like that had happened to some stranger instead of me. Funny how things had changed in such a short time.

My eyes flickered from Ruth, who was still waiting for an answer to Ellen just in time to catch a smirk fleet pass her lips and it pissed me off.

How dare she pass that evening off as if I had wanted her when reality was the opposite?

How dare she put that look on my Ruth's face with her childish lies?

And why did it matter now anyway? It was ages ago, way before anything had ever happened with Ruth.

When I failed to respond, Ruth gritted her teeth and asked again.

"Yes or no, Caleb?"

The harshness in her voice was so foreign, so unsettling that it made the first thing running through my mind spill out.

"No! She kissed me."

And I immediately knew that was the wrong answer. Her face went from anger, to shock and then expressionless in the matter of a second. Her gaze slid off me as if she couldn't bear to look at me.

Strangely enough, that was what scared me more than anything that had happened tonight.

"But it meant nothing, Ruth. And it was just a kiss... And, and-"

Even I could hear desperation in my voice as I tried to get everything out. Maybe if she knew that Ellen came onto me.... Or that it meant nothing....

"That was ages ago. At that Halloween party at work.... Before anything had ever happened between us. Before we had even kissed-"

I stopped short when Ruth's gaze swung back to me. And again, I knew that was somehow another wrong answer. Because she was no longer expressionless. She was furious.

"I see. So, your first choice was the ever-perfect Ellen. She was who you had wanted first. She was who you kissed first. And I am what... The one you settled for? The one you make-do with?"

She spit out before turning away from me towards the corridor that led to the front doors.

"My first choice? What the hell are you talking about, Ruth?" For a woman whose head reached my chest, she was surprisingly fast on her feet. I almost had to run to keep up with her as I tried to get her to see reality.

"She isn't my first choice, Ruth. She isn't my choice at all. She came onto me that night at the Halloween party when I was waiting for you. But you didn't show, so-"

"So you went for the greenest pasture, right?"

"Greenest pasture? Are you even listening to yourself Ruth?"

But she wasn't. Neither to herself, nor to me. She pushed the front doors open roughly before the doorman could and marched out straight into the drizzling rain.

"Ruth... Ruth, would you just listen to me?" I grabbed her and swung her back to look at me as she looked up and down the street.

"It's not like you thought I was a virgin before you. What does a stupid kiss even matter?"

"She is my cousin, Caleb! Would you feel the same way if I had kissed Leo 'before anything had even happened with you'?"

She made those annoying air quotes as she quoted me from before and I gritted my teeth. The thought of Ruth with Leo drove me to the edge of insanity.

It reminded me of what my father had revealed about his father and mother It reminded me of the distrust I felt for Leo and now, I had an image of Leo kissing Ruth to add to that.

"That might be the worst thing you could have said today." The rain was getting us both soaked but the cold radiating from me wasn't because of that.

"And that might be the worst thing you could have ever done to us, Caleb."

With that she marched away from me again and towards the side of the building, flailing her arms to hail a cab unsuccessfully.

"So it's unforgivable just because she is your cousin?"

"Yes, because you finally proved what I've fought against all my life. Stop, damnit!"

Ruth snapped as another cab sped past her without stopping and started walking again. Away from me.

I strode to her as she rounded to the entrance of the underground parking lot of the building and spun her around to face me again.

"Would you stop trying to walk away from me? It might be easy for you to come into my life and go as you please but it isn't for me. And I'm not losing you over some childish competition."

"Childish competition? Chil- you know what? You just don't understand."

She turned as if to walk away again, but I blocked her way and yelled, "then make me!"

Cupping her face in my palms I made her look up at me and whispered, "Make me understand, Ruth. Because I don't see how this is worth losing you over."

The faint strains of music mingled with the sounds of rain hitting the roof of cars and streets. A car zoomed passed occasionally in the distance, but other than that, it was all quiet. For a moment, I thought she wouldn't answer. But then she spoke.

"All my life, people have chosen her over me. It has always been like, I'd like for it to be Ellen but if that can't be then Ruth would do. My own parents wished they had her for a daughter, but they can't so they have to settle for me instead."

A car revved somewhere inside the garage and rain soaked through our clothes, but all I could focus on was the pain that was radiating from Ruth as she continued.

"I never believed anyone could ever want me, ever even look at me when Ellen's shadow had always hovered nearby. But then you came along and saw me, just me, loved me as I was. You didn't compare and found me more compliant, or settled for me when she felt out of reach. You were mine, all mine."

She closed her eyes for a moment and stepped away from me.

"Ruth.."

"And now I know you aren't. Never had been. Because you too, tried to get the perfect one first and then settled for me."

"Ruth wait.."

I started to reach out to her again but just then fluorescent lights flooded us both as a huge black car glided out of the parking lot we stood in front of, and stopped in the space between me and Ruth.

Before I could react, or even move a muscle, both of the back doors of the car swung open and a large body stepped out right in front of me.

"No! Caleb!"

Ruth's scream was the last thing I heard as a rag cloth pressed onto my face and everything went black.

It couldn't have taken more than 30 seconds for the man as huge as the hulk to pull a rag over my face and drag me into the car, but it felt the time was dragging, moving too slow to process.

I felt lulled into a daze as I was made to sit straight on a cool leather seat next to the door that slid shut and clicked behind me.

It was probably shock - because what else could it be? - that made me docile enough to be a so compliant as all this went on around me while I was left to stare blindly behind the face-cloth and feel my hands being cuffed behind my back.

Ruth, on the other hand, was anything but docile. Or quiet. Her voice was filling up the space and vibrating off the metal walls of the van as I heard the similar, telltale click of door sliding shut again.

"What the hell do you want? Who are you? Where are you taking us? Caleb? Caleb, can you hear me? Answer me, Caleb!"

She fired questions one over other as the van seemed to shake with her thrashing.

I grunted loudly, letting her know that I was awake and listening to her, but couldn't feel bothered to raise my head or pull this sweet smelling cloth off my face.

What the hell was happening? Some part of my brain knew that we were in trouble and I needed to snap out of whatever this was and act. Ruth needed me. She was counting on me.

But no matter how much I understood the gravity of our situation and the potential danger Ruth and I were in, I couldn't make my heavy arms to move.

Why wasn't I able to react and thrash around like her? Instead of fighting and saving us both from this potential kidnapping, my mind was choosing to slowly fog up turn my limbs into lead.

I took in a stock of my body. I wasn't injured, or even uncomfortable. On the contrary, I felt too comfortable, cosy... Sleepy.

"..... You won't get away with this..." Ruth's voice seemed to be coming from a distance now, and I blinked hard to stay awake.

She was mumbling - or was she shouting? - something about mountains and bulldozers as I felt myself slipping in and out of conscious.

**

Ruth's POV

For one disorienting moment as the van took another precariously sharp turn, I felt like I was transported back to that fateful day in Boston.

Or maybe I was having a nightmare. Because what else could explain the odds of me getting kidnapped for the second time in a month, in a completely different city by the same freaking people?

"Hold still, little girl," grunted the man crouched behind me as he pulled me away from the door I had just been thrown against.

"Mountain? Bulldozer?" I squinted in the dark and turned halfway around to confirm that it was in fact that same mountain of the man who had tried to kidnap me in Boston.

"Aw, look at that, Rick. The little bitch has got nicknames for us. Wanna guess ours for you?" Sneered bulldozer as Moun- um, Rick tied my hands behind my back.

"Oh, and if you pulled that shit you did in Boston again, I'll take personal pleasure in killing you this time." He continued, sounding winded as he heaved Caleb upright.

My heart beat was skyrocketing. Of all the things that had happened tonight, of all the ways everything had gone wrong, this was the last thing even my pessimism could have come up with.

I scrambled to come up with a way to make sense of all this, but it was beyond me.

"But.... I don't understand. You...how are you both even... You were in Boston."

"Yes, we were." Bulldozer replied as he struggled to keep Caleb in his seat in the violently jostling van.

"Had to flee from there, didn't we? The cops were on our tail like hound dogs. And to think that you were nothing but a mistake for which we had to pay so dearly for."

He shook his head and gave me a look of such hatred that a chill of fear ran up my spine. If I had thought I was in danger the last time, this time I felt like I was dangling right between an alligator's jaw.

I looked around me as if some escape would present itself, but the occasional flashes of the street light shining inside only let me see some things.

It seemed to be an unusually large van with two rows of seats before opening up into the empty space at the back. The seats in second row looked new, and made entirely of leather as if installed later.

All in all, it looked like one of those vehicles that children are born to stay out and away from. Just then, his words registered in my mind.

"Wait, what do you mean when you said I was nothing but a mistake?" I asked, squinting in the dark. Peeking back like this was making me slightly queasy, but I was terrified to take my eyes off Caleb.

They had obviously done something to him. Given him something. He was barely awake behind that face cloth, his head lolling against the window.

"You heard me." He answered un-cuffing Caleb's hands and clipping a seatbelt across his chest. But before he could elaborate, a third person spoke up from the driver's seat.

"Stop blabbering, Jeremy. And check up on the boy. We want him subdued, not passed out."

It was then that it occured to me to check who was driving. I squinted and could only catch the back of his blonde head specked with grays.

The parts of his profile that were visible to me made him look clean and sophisticated, as if he was some kind of executive, which stood in stark contrast from his other accomplices.

Bulldozer got up and pulled the face cloth off Caleb's face and sure enough, his eyes we're drooping shut.

"Caleb? Caleb! Can you hear me?" Oh god, what had they done to him? I scooted up as much as I could until I reached him and tried to bump my shoulder against him.

"Caleb? Caleb, answer me. Can you hear me?" I half-expected to be pushed away by one of the men from behind us.

But one look behind told me that Rick, the mountain was busy looking outside the window intently while Jeremy was rummaging for something inside their backpack.

"Caleb, please wake up. Say something, please." Oh God, if something happened to him... No, no I can't even think of that.

It was ironic that just a few minutes ago, I had decided to give up on him. The thought of Caleb kissing Ellen, of all my insecurities being played out right before me was too much to handle.

But now I would willingly trade my soul for his if it came to that. Though I hoped it wouldn't.

"Caleb, please.. Talk to me, Caleb," I bumped my head against his shoulder and that seemed to rouse him just a bit.

He mumbled something and rolled his head towards me on the backrest. A passing streetlight cast a quick glow inside and my heart leapt at the sight of his dark, unfocused eyes gazing up at me.

He made as if to touch my face, but the action seemed too much work because he dropped his hands back down in exhaustion.

"Don't leave me, Ruth... I.. I love you..." He mumbled again, and my heart melted. I reached up and rubbed my nose against his, reassuring him as much as myself.

"I love you too, Caleb. And I'm here for you. I'll always be here for you."

Just as I pressed my lips against his in a whisper of a kiss, the guy in the front seat interrupted.

"Oh, good, he's awake. It's time."

I looked up as the car slowed. And many things happened at once.

The back door of the van opened and Rick announced, "we're ready to go, Noles." And then before my very eyes, jumped out of the van followed closely by Jeremy.

The driver, Noles, threw a swift, concerned look back at us and punched something against the dashboard.

I watched recognition flash across Caleb's face which seemed awake and alert again as he took in everything around us.

But it lasted all for a second before Noles too jumped out of the van, barely a second before the jolt of the crash vibrate throughout the vehicle.

Caleb's arms wrapped around me, cocooning my body with his as the airbags filled up the space all around us.

My screams got drowned into his chest and behind the noise of shattering glass and crunching metal of the van before something thumped against my head and everything went black.