How the Hitman Stole Christmas

Hell, maybe she’ll leave. It’s a risk I run when I tell her she doesn’t have to be so afraid of me. I’ll lose some control. Her pliancy may have only lasted as long as her fear, and considering I did kidnap her and forcibly remove her from her own holiday plans… well, there’s no reason to imagine she’ll take this any other way.

Any sane person would be mad as hell at me. I know that.

“I guess I didn’t want to go alone,” I admit.

The room is so quiet, the bed squeaking as she shifts her weight seems exceptionally loud.

I don’t look up at her. I pause long enough for her to respond, but she doesn’t say anything.

“And then there you were, an eager, friendly girlfriend trying to please a boyfriend I instantly didn’t like. I decided if you were going to go home with some asshole who didn’t deserve you this Christmas, it might as well be me.”

Since she still hasn’t said anything, I look up to see how she’s taking it. I’m surprised to see a small smile playing around her lips. “Nice of you to decide that for me,” she says softly.

“Well, the choice you made yourself seemed questionable. I figured maybe I could do better.”

“The choice I made was questionable,” she mutters, more to herself than me. “I’m fairly certain not as questionable as this one, but…” Looking up, she meets my gaze. “Why didn’t you just ask me?”

“Ask you?” I raise my eyebrows. “You would’ve said no.”

“Well, yeah, but… Jasper, you can’t just kidnap a date for the holidays. I mean… What kind of psycho kidnaps a person at Christmas?”

I shrug. “Same kind that does it any other time of year, I suppose.”

Autumn cocks her head at me, unimpressed. “This was not the way to go about this.”

“It was a way.”

“No.”

“You’re here, aren’t you?” I point out.

Autumn sighs, burying her face in her hands and muttering something about enabling me—I don’t catch all of it. When she pops up, she looks me straight in the eye. “You promise you’re not going to hurt me?”

“I told you, I didn’t grab you to hurt you. I’m not that kind of bad guy.”

“You just want someone to take home for the holidays. A hijacked girlfriend who will do for you and your family all the things I was planning to do for Brady and his.”

I’m not sure what all that entails, but it sounds about right, so I nod.

She nods too, a fortifying nod, like she needs her own confidence boost. “All right. It’s crazy, and I’m probably super crazy for even considering this, but screw it. I have a few days off work, and I need somewhere to go for Christmas, don’t I?”

Is she saying what I think she’s saying? It definitely sounds like she’s talking herself into being my Christmas date.

Then she speaks again and allays all doubt.

“No one should have to spend Christmas alone, so… let’s not. We can help each other out. Not that you actually asked for my consent, but… yes, Jasper. If you promise not to hurt me, I will pretend to be your girlfriend in front of your family. I will go home with you for Christmas.”Chapter EightAutumnMy captor is lonely.

Loneliness during the holiday season is something I understand all too well.

He went about solving his holiday blues in the most psychotic way possible, but I’ve already figured out that he’s not quite normal. I don’t know what kind of criminal he is, but given he thought kidnapping a girlfriend for Christmas was an acceptable option, I think he does more than dabble.

In any case, whatever else he may be, this is something I recognize.

I remember when the magic of Christmas faded for me, when a time of year that once brought excitement brought with it an aching loneliness instead. When something I once felt fully a part of made me feel like an outsider—not only looking in, but desperate to get back in… only, it felt impossible.

My grandma loved Christmas. At least she did until my grandpa died. It didn’t help that he died about a month before, so when the holidays came around, she was heartbroken and lost without the man she’d spent most of her life loving.

I didn’t realize she was the one that made the holiday magical until that year when she couldn’t, and the magic never came.

I figured we would get it back the next year after some of our heartache healed, but Grandma didn’t heal. She didn’t have the will to go on without her life partner. I still needed her, but I guess I wasn’t enough to stay for.

After she died, I spent my holidays with strangers every year. Strangers I lived with, which was even lonelier.

The first year I was in the system, I remember getting my hopes up when Christmas came. It was an older couple I lived with, and in that sense it reminded me of living with Grandma and Grandpa. The couple had already raised kids of their own who had grown up and moved out, so they opened their empty house to a couple of kids who were never going to get adopted—we were too old.