7. A Dark Line Crossed (D1)

__ Ardy sat at the fortune-telling table while Munson worked in the kitchen. She heard the clink of a knife in a jar, the refrigerator open and close, heard the fsst of the Pepsi being opened, and smelled faintly the aroma of peanut butter.
__ Munson kept coming back to the door, looking in on her to make sure she hadn't moved. He'd left off the handcuffs, but denied her a change of clothes. So, Ardy sat in a nightshirt and panties, awaiting her captor's meal. Even if she could escape, she wasn't sure she wanted to. Something weird was happening to her. She was actually able to enter his mind from time to time: flashes of the future, glimpses of his memories, and absent times filled in. It was all very strange and, she thought, somehow connected to him. After all, she couldn't see the future until the second before he walked into her psychic parlor. Huh. Irony.
__ "You got milk?"
__ She looked up. He was standing in the doorway, his dark eyes wide and demanding. "Huh?"
__ "Milk. You got any?"
__ Ardy shook her head slowly. "Just the Pepsi." She was a little ashamed to admit her habits for keeping a tidy refrigerator and a stocked cabinet were a little lax. Ardy wasn't a gypsy, or a real fortune teller -- well, at least until a couple hours ago. She didn't have any family or friends. She lived alone in the back of this roadside psychic reader parlor.
__ It used to be a farmhouse, but the land was bought up by a farming conglomerate and the family that used to own it took the money and bugged out. They had planned on keeping the house separate from the farm, but soon found there was no reason to live glued to a rural route if you weren't going to farm the land around it. So, the two acres surrounding the house and tractor barn were left out of the deal with the conglomerate and consequently went for cheap when the family left. Ardy continues to get buy-out requests from the company, but hasn't been ready to give up her solitude yet.
__ R. Lee Munson came out of the kitchen with a glass and a plastic Disney tumbler emblazoned with Mickey Mouse. He set the plastic cup in front of her and the glass at his place, then he returned to the kitchen and came back with a couple of peanut butter sandwiches on wheat bread. All she had.
__ "Sorry I didn't have more," she shrugged.
__ "Shut up!" Munson's tone was suddenly agitated. His eyes were still wide, but this time they were fierce and tiny droplets of sweat ringed them and dotted his forehead. "Did I say you could speak?" He was yelling now. "I got the gun!"
__ She didn't need the proof. Her side still throbbed, but Munson pulled the Glock from where it was tucked in his pants and pointed it at her face. If it went off now, even by accident, she doubted there would be a psychic journey into his apologetic mind. Ardy winced and lowered her head. She held her hands up and leaned back in the chair. "No. Don't."
__ "Don't what?" He came forward and smacked her hands down, pressed the hard square barrel of the Glock into the top of her head. "Don't what?!"
__ Ardy started to cry again. How could she be so wrong? She had been inside his thoughts, his deepest thoughts when she was unconscious. He's troubled, yes, but he's not as bad as he's acting. She wished she could fly into his mind now and see where he was going with this torture, why he was suddenly so violent.
__ "DON'T WHAT?!" He roared again. The barrel pushed down hard enough to force Ardy's chin down and her shoulders up.
__ "P-Please don't k-kill me," she whimpered. Then, the pain radiating from the weapon's metal barrel became too much. "Oww... Please."
__ "What!?" He breathed hard through his nose. The tension, the fury was rising in his vibrating muscles.
__ Pain pushing her, Ardy ducked her head and twisted away from the gun. "You're hurting me."
__ "You don't know what hurt is!"
__ Ardy looked up at him, agape, and before she could stutter a response, the black blur of the Glock swung down at her temple. And everything went black and cold.

__ R. Lee Munson looked down at Ardelene Jacobi's crumbled body. Her nightshirt and lifted up above her hip and he cocked his head, tracing the curve of her thigh with his eyes.
__ No. No, it's not right. Stop it. She's not your wife, yet. You can't do what you're thinking.
__ Leave me alone. I'm not gonna. I'm just lookin'.
__ Munson took a deep breath through his nose and tucked the Glock back in his pants. Then he turned away from the overturned chair and Ardy's sprawled unconscious form, and sat in the fake throne to eat his peanut butter sandwich.
__ Maybe I should just kill her so I don't have to debate this with myself.
__ Then how will she become your precious wife? How will you get your life back.
__ Shut up!
__ Oh, you're going to start yelling at me now? You're going to what, turn the gun on yourself and knock your own ass outta the chair?
__ A jolt of fury waved through Munson's arm and he reached out with a swoop, flipping Ardy's plate and cup of soda onto the floor. The Pepsi hissed like an angry snake as it spread across the hardwood.
__ Real smooth, dummy.
__ Shut up!
__ Maybe you should kill her? It'll calm you down.
__ Maybe I should.
__ Maybe you should... what?
__ Kill her.
__ That's when Munson rose from the throne.
__ That's when a car pulled up outside.