Taint (Formerly Claimed) Dark Midnight 1

Chapter 18

*My apologies for the multiple updates.  I posted the wrong version intiially.  My bad!  Please enjoy this one instead!  --Nikki.*

She couldn’t fight the impulse that had her turning back to that corner of the room; there, a few random boxes stood stacked, full of things yet to be unpacked.  Some of them were heavy, she knew—stuffed with old books and shoes.

If it had been a seizure she could have fallen back into them. Or knocked her head off the radiator nailed to the wall a few feet away. 

A firm blow in just the right place could have meant a concussion.  A bloody nose. 

Or much worse. 

She bit her lip as an icy chill danced down her spine.  It took everything she had in her just to keep from glancing over at Eliot—though she could feel him watching her.

It didn’t take a rocket science to guess what he was thinking behind those burning amber eyes; you see? 

I’m right.  You’re helpless—dangerous alone.

You shouldn’t be alone!

She was surprised that he wasn’t shouting it—gloating.  But all he did was stand there and say nothing. 

Somehow, his silence was so much worse than an ‘I told ya so.’

She drew in a shaky voice and tried to speak, “I’m—”

“Fine?” He finished for her in a grumble.    

She shook her head. 

No…

She was done lying—done pretending. 

I’m not fine, she had meant to say.

In fact, she hadn’t been ‘fine’ in a really long time…

But her throat wouldn’t work right to say the words again.  Eliot didn’t press her on it.  Instead, he let her just stare out of the window and try to keep breathing while he…

He just stood there in the middle of her fuzzy pink rug.

It was strange how she knew he was still there, even with her back turned.  She could sense him.  Hell, she could even imagine the stiff way he’d be standing—with those pale arms firmly crossed over his chest, like a living roman statue.

  He didn’t move an inch.  Didn’t say a word.  Not even as the time crawled past second by grueling second.

The tick of her alarm clock played like the suspenseful music in a thriller. 

Tick...tock...tick...

Everything in the room seemed to hold its breath—waiting.  Who would break the suffocating silence first?

In the end, it was another false flash of blue that made her jump, startled.  Her nails dug into the window sill.  She bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood, before a glance out the window made her realize that it was just the flash of sirens.  Through the woods across the way, a police car darted down the main road, heedless of the thick snow.   

Though, as she blinked she saw that somewhere in the silence, the snow had stopped falling.  The view from her window was crystal clear out over the woods where the flashing blue and red of even more flashing sirens lit up the stark white.