Chapter 19

*These short chapters are killing me.  I've gotten complaints in the past about my chapters being too long, so for now I've tried to keep them short, but the past FOUR chapters are actually supposed to be one long one.

Cutting them up  Is.  Killing me.

I figure that if no one minds, then the chapters will be longer from here on out.  This means less updates (up until now, I've been managing a new chap every other day)  But they will be twice as long, if not more.  I figure that if you're not invested in the story by now to soldier through a long chapter, then buh-bye.

By the way, Thank you all so much for voting/fanning/commenting.  I will eventually get around the replying to you all.  Every single comment makes my day, and I've been having one hell of a crappy week so far, so you have no idea how much a nice comment helps.

I truly appreciate you all!

-Nikki*

______________________

Miriam tried to keep her breathing steady—she really did.

But the closer that she trudged through the drifts of snow in the direction of the woods, the harder it was to even keep breathing at all.

Every instinct she had was screaming for her to go back—run!

It felt like wading through a pool of fear just to take a single step.

She could hear the officers now—just murmurs and snatches of conversation—but their voices were grim.

Grim enough to let her know that they weren't out here wading through the fresh snow without a reason.

Stern eyes were downcast over the ice as they patrolled the edge of the road, too preoccupied with scouring the area to notice her on the opposite side of the street.

Or Eliot, who strode fearlessly up ahead, where he seemed to blend right in with the shadows that draped the snow beneath the trees.

Despite the pale skin, he could have been made of shadow.

His back was turned.  She couldn’t see his face, but she had a sinking feeling that those red eyes wouldn’t have a shred of pity in them.

Just emptiness.

She had no idea how he could appear so calm.  So unconcerned with the grisly scene unfolding just a few feet ahead.

She almost envied him.  Anything had to be better than the fear; this icy, chilling feeling that slid down the nape of her neck like the brush of a cold finger.

She wanted to turn back.  Screaming.

She wanted to run right back up to her room and slam the door shut to her bedroom—crawl under the covers and forget that this whole day had ever happened.

Maybe…she should have done just that?

But when Eliot turned back to glance at her—just once as if to make sure she hadn't chickened out already—she couldn’t force her legs to turn around.  She just kept shuffling reluctantly toward him until she came level to his shoulder where her feet finally slid to a stop on a patch of ice.

It was slicker out than she realized.

Her boots wobbled unsteadily.  Her knees buckled…

Only Eliot’s firm grip on her shoulder kept her from ramming into a tree.

“You’re scared,” he said before she could catch her breath.  He made it seem like an accusation.  Something shameful.

Scared.

Panting, she stumbled to regain her balance.  Her gaze darted to those pale fingers, still gripping her forearm firmly through her coat, before roving up those piercing eyes focused intently up ahead.

“I’m not,” she lied, even as her pulse throbbed in the back of her throat.  “I just think this is…”

She dragged her gaze away from him to stare out through the trees at the slowly forming crime scene.

“Creepy,” she declared finally, practically on a whisper.

Watching a news report on a dusty television would have been so much more preferable to this…

Some things just weren’t meant to be viewed in all their grisly glory.

“Creepy,” Eliot repeated in a tone that made her head jerk around in his direction.

There it was again.  That subtle hint of amusement that colored his words though, when she looked at him, his face was as guarded as stone.

Still...

She couldn’t escape the feeling that he was gloating—knowing exactly how she felt, but reveling in the fact that she was afraid to show it.

Silly little girl, she could picture him thinking.  I know exactly what you’re thinking…

She tried to put on a brave front.  With a dry swallow, she forced herself to stare at the lines of yellow police tape being strung up between the trees without flinching.

At least…she didn’t think he could see her flinch beneath her thick coat.

“Do you want to know what they’re saying?”  He asked after a moment.  His voice was soft.

From here, the officer’s words reached them in only whispers and murmurs.  She could barely make out a whole word here and there, but they were more than enough to guess the morbid tone of the conversation.

Things like splatter.

Lividity.

Canvas.

She shook her head.

Eliot ignored her.  “There’s saying that it must have happened last night—during the thick of the storm,” he said.

Miriam flinched.

“And,” he added purposely, “they think that this girl was out alone.”

“Stop it…”

Her voice was barely a whisper—he had no trouble at all cutting over it.

“She was out alone,” he stressed the word.  “And she paid the consequences.”

“Stop!”

Violently Miriam turned away, bracing herself against the bark of the nearest tree.

If he wanted to scare her…

It was working.

She wanted to scramble away back to those rickety porch steps of her house.

She should have left him.

But once again…something held her back.  The same something that made her glance over her shoulder to find Eliot watching her with those fathomless eyes.  His fingers flexed at his sides, she saw—anxiously, as if he wasn’t even aware that he was doing it.

Almost as if, her reaction irritated him—much to his annoyance.

He caught her stare and his jaw tightened.  Those ruby eyes narrowed into slits.

Then…

“I’m sorry,” he said almost in a growl.

Miriam blinked.

Him apologizing seemed almost as out of place as a flying fairy falling out of the sky.

She almost wondered if she had hallucinated it.

“You…you don’t have to try so hard,” she said shakily.  “If you want to scare me…”  She broke off and glanced over those piercing dark eyes and the stern set to that pale chin.

Even without the deliberately creepy words, and sudden appearances from nowhere…he was more than intimating just from appearances alone.

“You don’t have to try so hard,” she admitted.

Those pale lips wrinkled.  Confusion twisted in that haunting gaze.

He took a step closer, foot crunching silently over the snow, and Miriam jumped.

He towered over her.  She was forced to look up just to maintain eye contact—which suddenly seemed very important to do.

In the face of that predatory grace, something primitive at the back of her mind warned her to be careful.  Don’t turn your back on him, it cautioned.

It might be the last thing you ever do…

“…huh?”

She blinked once she realized that mouth was moving—that he’d been speaking the entire time.

Those eyes narrowed even more.

He took another step.

“Then…why…are…you…still here?”  He repeated, speaking carefully as if to make sure that she couldn’t possibly miss a single murmured word.

Why are you here?

Miriam tried to mull that over while her heart did backflips in the middle of her chest.

Stupidity?

Or maybe more irrational than just plain stupidity.

Insanity, perhaps?

She certainly felt insane as he only came closer.

Close enough for his height to fall across her like a shadow despite that dark skin.  Close enough to reach out and touch him if she wanted…

She flinched at that.  The thought was unwanted—certainly she didn’t want to do anything more than push him away!

But…the more she thought about it.  The more her heart thudded in her chest.  The closer she realized he was…

The harder it was to ignore the truth.

She wanted to touch him—more than wanted too…

Her fingers twitched with the sudden urge to reach out and trail a finger along that ghostly white neck.

She wondered if the skin felt as smooth as it looked…         '

She had to bite her lip just to squash the desire.  But, as hard as she tried to fight it, she could still feel it there.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Eliot remarked on a murmur.

Deliberately, he shifted so that his massive body was directly in front of hers—blocking her view of the safe white house gleaming in the daylight.  His arm shot out to brace against the bark near her shoulder, trapping her between him and the tree…

Unless she was brave enough to try wiggling between the sliver of space left on the other side of him, she was stuck.

And she would rather…

Well, she tried to tell herself that nothing was worth the risk of pressing her body against the firm curves of the muscles shaping that dark sweater.

Which was still the only thing he wore, despite the cold.

“I have a jacket you could borrow, you know,” she blurted absently, forgetting his threatening stance.  “One of my dad’s old—”

“You just don’t get it, do you?”

The anger in his tone caught her off guard.

Annoyance, she could understand—but anger?

He didn’t know her enough to be angry.  Why the hell should he care anyway?

Her own father didn’t seem to mind what she did, so long as it didn’t infringe upon his damn overtime at the hospital.

What made Eliot so different?

Her mouth opened to say as much.

But then her eyes caught the way the pale light glanced off his chin.  Like the glare of a reflection off a bit of mirror glass.

He’s beautiful, she thought distractedly.

In fact…everything about him could only be described as lovely.  She had never seen a person so pale; he was pure white.  Even his cheeks held no hint of color.

He could have almost been…dead, if it weren’t for those burning eyes.  They, more than anything made him seem painfully alive even in the semi-darkness beneath the overhanging branches of the trees.

Those eyes held her captive, mesmerized, until she found herself doing something utterly stupid.

She reached out to touch him.

Her fingers danced in the air just beyond his chin, and he watched, eyes wide as if he couldn’t do anything else.

He let her come close.  Let her fingers trail within an inch of his skin and even then was more than enough to sense just how cold he was.

Her fingers felt like ice in the bitter winter chill and still...

He was colder.

Colder than ice.

Colder than cold.

Cold enough to burn a part of her wondered.  Determined, she surged her hand forward, fingers shaking, and…

“Just what the hell are you two kids doing out here!”