100,000 or the girl? (Chainedkitten & BlisteredBlood)

As soon as he left the room Asa was up and opening the door to exit. But when she found others in the hall and recognized one of them from when she came in she closed the door and went to sit on another couch, not the one he placed her in. Just to be difficult. She couldn’t leave that way because people would know she was not willing to be there and they would return her, simply to keep her from telling where the safe house was or because they knew how mad the man would be when he found her missing.

When he came back she glared at him. “I don’t care if your boots are ruined! You abducted me and shot someone in front of me. Let alone the fact that it was my father. You deserve some puke on your boots. And I’m sure with whatever amount of money you got for killing him you can buy more!”

"Yeah? And you deserved that smack in the face just like I'm gonna give you again if you don't shut up!" Vincent snarled in response, stepping closer to her to further the sense of intimidation on her. "Frankly, I haven't cared much for that bitchy attitude of yours ever since I brought you here."

He then glanced to his fellow associates and gestured his head to the side for a moment. "Get the fuck outta here. You guys were only instructed to watch the place. Besides, I found her first." He demanded. After a bit of grumbling from some of them with reluctance but knowing who the bigger man was here, the five of them soon left, leaving Vincent alone with Asa.

"Now then," Vincent spoke again after watching the five of them file out then suddenly gripping her under her chin and shoving her hard against the wall. "Are you gonna play nice or do I have to beat some sense into you?" He asked simply, gnashing his teeth together as he spoke.

“I’m supposed to have a good attitude about this situation?”

As he moved towards her she backed away from him. No need to get within striking distance of this man, he was dangerous! But no matter how she moved she found herself held against the wall, trembling while he threatened her. “Please… nothing comes from hitting me. I don’t know what you want from me! I didn’t do anything to you, there is no reason for me to be here!”

One of her hands came up to rest around the wrist that held her to the wall, her other hand pressed against the wall, steadying her from her fear.

"What do you think it is I want from you...?" Vincent answered, narrowing his eyes and frowning at her scornfully. "I want you to behave lke a good little girl and know when you've been put in your place...!" He seethed again while tightening his grip on her jaw, almost threatening to rip it straight off her face if he wanted to.

"Can you do that...?" He asked his again, but his tone dropped to a lower register while still keeping that same threatening hiss in his voice.

Frightened out of her mind she tried to nod but his heavy hand kept her immobile and she instead spoke. Her voice cracked and was weak and thready. “Alright… I’ll say nothing more on the subject.” Asa had a horrible feeling that if she protested anymore that the vicious slap he had given her before wouldn’t even compare to what he would do to her if she ‘misbehaved’ in front of him again. “I promise.” Her voice was slightly stronger but more dejected then frightened. Her eyes fluttered down to his hand where he held her against the wall. Hopefully with her promise he would release her.

"Good." Vincent answered quietly, eventually slipping his hand from her face but still stood there in front of her, his hands on his sides while gazing at her. "We can work on this more tomorrow morning because I've about had enough for this night." He spoke again, stepping away from her and heading towards the kitchen with slow lumbering steps.

"I suppose something to eat might settle your stomach first," Vincent spoke once in the kitchen. "Because I think this has been a rather rough night on you as well." He added, poking around in one of the cabinets.

When his large body turned away from her she nearly fainted in relief. His presence wasn’t dominating over her anymore. He was still the dominant in the room but at least all that bulk wasn’t up against her body or restraining her anymore. As he moved to get her food she swallowed and followed with a couple of steps towards the kitchen. “Yes. I am hungry. I’m also very tired.” Her voice was soft, unsure that he even wanted to hear that much out of her mouth.

While watching him she rubbed her jaw where his thick fingers had held her. It hurt so she rotated her jaw and touched her face, hoping it would easy the stress from her jaw.

"That's understandable." Vincent replied, nodding a few times in response as he withdrew a jar of very well homemade soup down on the counter and a bowl to go with it. After placing a spoon into the bowl, he stepped to the side for a moment and gestured his hands at what she was eating. "This isn't much, but I need to check my bank account later for a few things." He said. "Besides, I might need to make a withdrawal to go food shopping with." He added.

"That reminds me..." He muttered to himself and left the kitchen for a moment to head back to the bedroom.

Moving to the food that was obviously for her, Asa poured soup into the bowl and heated it up in the dingy microwave. After a couple of minutes in the microwave and she pulled the bowl out. With a yelp she set the bowl down and stuck four fingers into her mouth. Moving against the cabinets she slid down till she sat on the floor and started crying.

It was strange that burned fingers made her finally cry and not being hit or watching her father killed or being kidnapped. Pulling her fingers from her mouth she looked at her very red fingertips.

Vincent was in the process of rooting arond for his cell phone once more when he heard a yelp from the kitchen. Taking the phone with him and heading back into the room, he spotted Asa sitting on the ground, crying her eyeballs out.

Sighing a little and stepping over to her, Vincent slowly pulled Asa up from the floor and guided her over to the sink, operating the knobs for the faucet until the water's temperature got comfortable enough to put her burned fingers in. "Just keep them there for a little while. After that, I'll need to get your fingers bandaged up." He said.

Bodily lifting her and bringing her to the sink she struggled for a moment until her fingertips were under the water. Using her shoulders she wiped her eyes and looked down at the cool running water. Her eyes fogged up again with tears but she managed to keep them from spilling over.

When her fingers seemed less hot, though still very uncomfortable she pulled them out from under the water and looked at them. He seemed to be on the phone so she just went back to her soup and instead of picking up the bowl she just used the spoon and kept the bowl where it was. Blowing on her hot soup she ate slow bites, licking the spoon.

Nodding once she pulled her hand away from the water, Vincent glanced over to the phone he had in his hands and pressed a sequence of numbers on it for a moment before lifting it to his ear.

An automated voice system from his bank picked up the other line.

"Thank you for calling... -" BEEP! Vincent grumbled a moment when he heard this, stating that he heard this all before. Following this, he listened for his account information.

"You have... $225,453.67 in your account. A deposit of $100,000 was transferred to your account. If this is correct, press... -" BEEP! The automated voice line was cut off when Vincent hung up the phone.

"Musta wired it." He muttered as he hung up the phone and walked into the living room and placed the phone on the coffee table. "At any rate, I got what I earned." He muttered again.

When she finished her food and her stomach hand stopped grumbling she moved back to the sink and turned the cold water on. Cupping her hands she drank from the sink before putting her fingertips back under the cool water. After she finished with a second dunking she turned and looked at Vincent. He was off his phone call and was looking at her. Looking away she spoke, “What is your name?” Asa knew that if he was to be her kidnapper, murderer and or rapist she should know his name.

Turning to face him she watched his large body move. Her eyes were still red rimmed and she didn’t look happy but she wasn’t going to provoke him on purpose.

"Vincent," He began. "Vincent Cooper." He concluded, glancing over to Asa with an arched eyebrow - the scarred one - as he spoke. "How about you? What do you go by around these parts?" He then asked, figuring that if he was planning on raping her, killing her or whatever (in no particular order), he might as well get to know who this girl is before delivering the final blow to her head if the situation ever gave rise to it.

He then turned to face her completely while folding his broad arms across his chest and keeping that same scarred eyebrow raised, waiting for her reply.

“My name is Asa. You already know my last name.” He was an impressive figure. One might say he had a rugged attractiveness if you didn’t know that he was a cold-hearted assassin. A man who kills and kidnaps with no remorse. But she knew, so she only saw regret in his form. Wasted, on a man no woman could ever appreciate because of his defective mind.

“You said you would bandage my fingers. I can’t. Would you do them now please?” He was the only one around who could effectively wrap her fingers, might as well not piss him off until after he does it.

"Yeah, wait here." Vincent said, turning back around and heading towards the bathroom to retrive his burn kit. Once he came back out a little while later, he took Asa's burned hand and began to bandage it up after he he applied some cold dream on the burns to keep the skin from blistering.

"Never leave home without one of these." He mused to himself aloud as he finished wrapping her fingers a few minutes later.

Asa’s hand was much smaller then Vincent’s. It made her realize in a new and freighting way how different they were, not only in body type. “I know you deeply desire me to know my place here, but, you have neglected to tell me exactly what that is. What are you going to do with me?”

When he finished she pulled her hand from his grasp and cradled it in her other hand. “I mean… logically it makes no sense to heal me if you mean to kill me so I hope that my fate doesn’t include death, the only other terrible options are torture and rape. Neither of which I can say I want. But… no offense, you don’t seem like the kind of man who would care what I want let alone go easy on me. You kidnapped me for heaven’s sake.”

(POST 100!)

"Normally, I used to be a nice guy. That all changed a while back." Vincent answered with a shrug of his broad shoulders. "Unfortunately, I don't feel like telling such a story. As for what I might do with you now that you're here..." He added, looking at her for a moment. "Well... I don't really know. I'll figure something out when the time comes. Don't expect me to let you know about it." Vincent concluded, pointing a finger at her like an admonishing school teacher. "Besides, some things are better off unsaid." He spoke again, returning that hand to his hip.

"In the meantime, after you eat, you should probably get to sleep. I got a few things to do tomorrow morning, and I guess I'll have to take you along for the errand I gotta run." He spoke one last time before turning away from her and heading towards the living room to sit down on the couch.

Asa watched him. “How can you use whatever happened to you as justification to hurt me? I never hurt you, I never hurt anyone.” Putting her own hands on her hips she looked at him oddly. “And I wouldn’t exactly be a good prisoner if I didn’t try to escape. I am not going to follow you like a well trained dog all the time. I mean I will try to keep myself out of danger but I will try to escape if I find a way. I will not let you kill me if I can prevent it.”

This was where Vincent got a little annoyed with her as indicated by the narrowing of his eyes and a frown being worn on his face.

"Look," He began in a surly manner. "I found you, I brought you here, and I'll be damned if you think you're going to try to get away from me. And if it means keeping you in your place, then I swear to god I'll smack you around like the little bitch that you are." He added, his tone once again becoming seething.

"Case in point." Vincent spoke once more. However, his left hand struck her palmfirst into the face, knocking her to the floor. "You continue to act like that again, and I'll give you what for! Ya got that?!" He snarled bitterly.

Once again Asa found herself with her head swimming in pain. Only this time she had been struck hard enough to hit the floor. Moaning in pain she closes her eyes and rolls onto her side, trying to get up. Fairly quickly her cheek began to change color until she had a large red handprint where he had struck her.

Using the counter to hold her up she backs away from Vincent, cowering in a corner. “Please… don’t hit me anymore…” Pressing her hand into her eyes she presses her body closer to the counter, as if the extra inch of distance it gave her away from him mattered at all in the scheme of things.

"Good." Vincent answered icily as he turned to the side and folded his arms across his chest, despite his hand was stinging from giving Asa that smack, drawing air through his nose and nearly blowing steam out of it.

Why can't you listen to me...? Vincent then thought in annoyance, fighting himself between apologizing to her and remaining firm.

"Now finish eating and get to sleep." He demanded again, not even turning back around to look at her. "Besides, we're going shopping tomorrow." He added, leaving the kitchen and heading towards his bedroom with his fists clenched.

Nodding was all she could do. Her jaw ached like it had never before so speaking was out. Asa stayed in the kitchen while Vincent left to go to his own room. She didn’t want to be anywhere near him in case he lashed out again. Tears gathered in her eyes as she watched him shut his bedroom door. Figuring it was safe to find someplace for her to sleep, Asa looked around the room for a cot, or second bedroom, but found nothing.

Knowing she only had the couch; Asa flipped off the lights and went to her bed. Swallowing hard she sat down on the couch and pulled off her slippers. She was still dressed in her nightgown and it was pretty flimsy. Curling up on the couch she closed her eyes. Perhaps tomorrow would be better. Though as soon as she thought that she knew she was dreaming.

Once Vincent was in the bedroom, he simply laid back on the bed while looking up at the ceiling lost in thought. Strangely, he wouldn't have all that much to think about after a mission, but there was something about Asa that just seemed to make things harder and harder for Vincent to even get any sleep whatsoever. Growling to himself as he sat up and walked out of the bedroom, he stepped out into the living room and headed over to the kitchen, opened the refridgerator and looked around for a moment for a moment, trying to find something to drink.

He would eventually settle on a small flask of his whiskey and took it out from the refridgerator then stepped over to the counter to fetch a glass for himself in silence.

On the couch, Asa was curled up in her satin nightgown. Her hand was still framing her red face, which was quite a contrast to her pale skin. Her breathing was light and even, just like it should be. And as she slept her toes slowly rubbed together. Her autumn colored hair spilled over the couch and dusted the floor; the length was, even for a woman, impressive.

With a tiny moan she turned on the couch till she was facing Vincent, though she was still curled up and sleeping. It had been a long day, and no matter how upset she was her body had demanded sleep, and the moment she had touched the couch she was out.