Chapter Ninety-Two

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"You have reached your destination," the automated female voice announces, breaking the continuous, monotone sound of the running engine.

I'm finally here...after missing two exits, taking more than a few wrong turns, circling the same goddamn roundabout at least three times, and then later getting lost on a road undergoing major reconstruction—which I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would greenlight any kind of extensive road construction during the bloody winter, especially in a state like Wisconsin.

I admit, much like my parallel parking skills, my sense of direction is pretty much shit. It's a fucking miracle I wasn't pulled over by the cops, or that my car hasn't run out of gas and shut down on my ass yet. But at least I'm here.

I think.

I look up at the gates in front of me, my brow arching in surprise, uncertainty, and a hell of a lot of confusion.

Is...is this it?

This can't possibly be his place...can it?

No, there's no way it is. I mean, this looks like the entryway to a frickin' five star hotel, for Christ's sake.

For some reason, my heart sinks at the thought that it is one. How sad and cliché would that be? A married man screwing his whore in a hotel.

But, I mean, what else did I expect? I guess it beats getting fucked in a cheap, run-down motel.

I roll my window down, manually rotating the lanky handle bar as slowly as I can, but with much more force than I need to. I'm lucky I don't break the poor thing. My face is greeted by numbing-cold air as soon as the window cracks, and my eyes start to tear up behind my own glasses when the glass barrier gives way and I come face to face with a large vertical keypad, with all the digits from 0 to 9 on display. It's a really simple-looking pad; a complete contrast to the massive gate in front of it. It's wider than it is tall, made of reinforced, crystallized glass and lined with long black metal bars.

I mean, seriously, who the fuck has a glass gate in Milwaukee?

He clearly has no frickin idea how dangerous this city can get, but then again, that's probably why he's all the way up here in fuck knows where.

I hesitate as I gaze at the pad, my fingers trembling in midair, and it has nothing to do with the deathly low temperatures outside. My eyes stay on the '6' button as I keep swallowing against a reforming lump in my throat. I'm only making my anxiety worse by delaying this, but fuck it, I'm scared as shit.

Just push the fucking button, already, Roni!

If I keep procrastinating, I'll definitely end up running out of gas and freezing to death out here. Or shitting my pants from anxiety overload. Whichever comes first. And from my current vantage point, neither option seems quite as mortifying as driving inside. I actually kind of wish my car would break down right here and now so I would have a legit excuse not to go into the proverbial lion's den. Although, considering who I'm dealing with, I'm not sure just how proverbial that phrase is.

By some miracle, I eventually manage to move my finger further, and soon, I feel my skin connect with the ice cold, rubbery texture of the button. It beeps as the pressure of my finger pushes it down, and the sound startles me. I know it's only because I'm on edge, and the slightest thing can cause me to go into full blown panic mode. I really need to calm down if I'm actually going to go through with this.

A moment passes. And then another. I frown. What the hell? I push the button again tentatively, and it responds with a beep once again, but the silence still ensues afterward.

Fuck.

I must have the wrong place.

I check the Ice Block again, reading the address and cross-checking it several times to make sure I got every single detail right and didn't miss anything.

Dammit. Maybe I should just call him. But, God, I really don't want to. The idea of ringing him up just to tell him I'm lost is not exactly how I imagined our very first phone conversation to be—

Suddenly, a creaking, metallic sound cuts through the windy night and pulls me out of my unfocused thoughts and quite possibly the onset of another mini panic attack.

I let out a deep sigh of relief as I watch the impressive glass gates automatically slide away from each other, revealing a clearly paved stretch of road on a hill up ahead, confirming that I'm at the right place. But that relief only lasts for a few seconds, and anxiety quickly takes over again when I remember that I'm over half an hour late.

I release my foot from the brake reluctantly and hit the accelerator, gripping the steering wheel harder than I ever have before. But I can't even focus on the pain in my knuckles and palms because I'm too preoccupied trying to just breathe. I feel the veins pulsing in my temples, throbbing with blood rush and adrenaline. I move the car further and further ahead, until I see the gates closing behind me in my rearview mirror. My heart actually skips a beat at seeing them close behind me, trapping me inside this compound. I don't even know how to get out from inside. There isn't another pad in sight or anything. There's no going back. This is it.

Just keep driving, I tell myself, repeating the words in my head over and over again in hopes that it'll stop me from going into full blown freak-out mode and backing my car up straight into those gates at full speed.

Abruptly, a strange, loud, stuttering noise breaks through the relative silence. I quickly realize it's my car, protesting against the steepness of the hill in its own version of a whiny voice. The clunky sound ensues as it continues to disapprove of what I'm asking of it, urging it to keep going even as gravity pulls it backward. This car is way too old for this. I really shouldn't be putting this kind of stress on it, but it's not like I can help it. I'm not the one who chose to live on some remote, isolated mountain.

I see the house in the distance, and as I get closer, it looks more and more like an estate, like the types of houses you only see in the movies and celebrity music videos.

About a minute and some more gravity related resistance later, I finally get to the top and pull up to the curb. I bite my bottom lip nervously as I reluctantly put the stick shift in park and turn off the ignition.

I uncap the last bottle of water and throw it back like my life depends on it. I shudder at the thought that it just might tonight, knowing how elusive and unpredictable Frost is. But in my eager endeavor to down the water quickly, I end up splashing quite a bit of it all over myself, and I nearly choke on a gulp that goes down too quickly, and not all down the right pipe. I cough repeatedly, unable to do anything about the stream of water escaping my mouth and rushing down my chin. I feel like a child who can't consume something without making a complete mess in the process.

Still, I force myself to finish every last drop even though my throat burns with every constriction, resisting to swallow from all the coughing, and my bladder is starting to scream a lot louder for relief. The longer I drag this wait out, the more anxious I become. I'm already here. The gates are sealed tight. As much as I want to believe otherwise, there really is no going back now.

Once again, God help me.

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