[ WP ] In the dead of night a young girl meets an intimidating man with severe scarring . After the confrontation the man is the one who is afraid .

**-008** 
 **Resolution Challenge** 
 
 She sat behind the counter, swatting flies and suffering the drone of the old ratty ceiling fan. Thump, thump, thump went the blades. She just sat there sweating, staring out on the run down lobby of the motel. The carpet was torn and hideous green. It was something left over from the early eighties. The place smelled like wet carpet and feet. She did n't seem to notice. She just watched the lobby and swatted flies. 
 
 An old man, his face wrinkled and weary and laced with hopelessness sat in a chair along the wall near the foot of the stairs. Like her, he no reason, just a ambiguous reason to exist. Outside, the hot Texas sun, burnt the people, driving them down the sidewalk like a whip. Cars, old and falling apart, rattled and coughed in protest as they struggled to gain another quarter mile. 
 
 She sat behind the counter, a little girl who'd seen too much, and watched swatted flies. 
 
 The door leading to the sidewalk opened, squealing and groaning in protest, and he walked in. His face was a road map of pain, crisscrossed with scars and a destroyed tattoos. His hands were massive and strong. His fingers were thick and calloused, and when he entered the lobby, he did so with an air malice. Fear buzzed around like electricity in a power line. He pulsed with it. The old man near the stairs began to quake with fear and apprehension and fled before the newcomer had crossed half of the lobby. 
 
 The little sat still, studying the guy who entered. She was unimpressed, and tried to look past him to the window and the hot rippling air without. 
 
 He was unused to being ignored, even by some one so insignificant as child. 
 
 `` I need a room,'' he told her, his voice was rough and just as calloused as his hands... and company. He smiled a cruel toothy smile, his teeth were brown and his breath smelled like death. 
 
 The girl looked up at him and rolled her eyes, sighing tiredly. `` Thirty dollars a night.'' She said, flipping open the register for him to sigh. `` Put your name there... if you know how to write. 
 
 He leaned in over the counter and fixed her with hard look. His eyes were agates and could have cut steel. `` You should fear me.'' He growled, the sound rumbling in his chest and spilling out of his mouth like gravel. 
 
 The little girl, for the first time, looked him in the eyes and smiled. Her smile was distant and chilling. Her eyes cut through his hard look like a bullet made of ice and seemed to see everything inside. He tried pull back, but found he was afraid to move. She reached up, using a dirty rag, and washed his forehead clean. 
 
 `` You do n't know where you are, do you?'' The little girl asked, reaching beneath the counter for the little torch she kept there. 
 
 `` What is this? Who are you? He strained against the counter, his calloused hands gripping the edge and his corded muscles straining with all his strength. The veins in his arms stood out like conduit as he fought her compulsion to stay put. It was in her eyes. They held him. The threatened him. The owned him. 
 
 She used the torch to heat the spiked nail laying in the the ash tray. The rusty bent length of steel glowed blue then red the white like the sun. She set the torch aside and picked up the blazing steel with her bare hand. It hissed and sizzled, but she handled it like it was crayon and nothing more. 
 
 `` Here is your room number,'' she whispered, her eyes searching his face like a prison spot slight. `` This will be your room from now on.'' She began to slowly burn the number into his forehead. The skin smoked and hissed, much like her hand had, except, when she set the nail down, her hand was unhurt. His forehead though was a bloody mess with the number five five five cauterized into his flesh. 
 
 The man's fierce demeanor was gone. He screamed in pain and agony as the numbers were carved. He twisted like a child trying to escape his parents embrace, but try as he might, he could n't escape her compulsion to stay. 
 
 She looked away then, and the compulsion to stay vanished like frost before the sun. He scrambled back, recognizing her for the first time. `` I do n't want to stay here. I'll find another place for the night.'' He crawled backward toward the door. 
 
 `` Nonsense,'' she sang, coming out from behind the counter for the first time. The glass in the front of the building began to bubble from the heat outside. `` I've kept reservation all these years. You have no idea how happy it makes me to know it was n't in vain. The glass bubbled in and burst, melting down the wall like hard candy. 
 
 The man's scars seemed pale. The room number carved in his head shown with a dull ruddy red inner light. 
 
 `` Come, Sebastian, let me show you to your room.'' She fixed him with that look again and the numbers burned deeper, charring the skull beneath. He twisted around, straining to break free, but she was in control. He crawled like a beaten dog behind her. She began to climb the stairs. He followed, crawling till his knees bled. `` You have very credit.'' She observed. `` Some people make the reservation and change their mind, but not you. You made reservation and showed up. That means a lot to me.'' 
 
 He was leaving a bloody trail down the stairs, but she did n't seem to mind the mess. He sighed in relief when she announced they had finally arrived. The compulsion to crawl eased and he fell flat, gasping in pain and cradling his bloody joints. He tried not to cry out, but he did cry. 
 
 `` I want to stay someplace else. Please.'' He begged, even as she selected a key from the giant ring of keys she carried. 
 
 `` Nonsense. You're already here.'' She opened the door and summoned him forth. The room was dark and smelled like charnel house. He stood in the open door way shaking like a child waiting to be abused by their drunken father. He soiled himself standing there. 
 
 `` Please.'' He begged. 
 
 `` Entertainment is on me tonight.'' She said, shoving him into the room. The door closed behind him of its own voilition. His screams began a moment later. She stood and listened through the door, smiling benignly. It was important to be good host and she always gave her tenants exactly what they requested. She turned and strolled away, trying to puzzle out the mystery that was the man she'd just met. It was going to take her a very long time to figure out what the tattoo on his face used to be. She was up for challenge.
