The Morgan Effect: Life's Chronicles of a New Era

Denying the Moon

Chapter Ten

            She found herself running for her life for the third time in the same night. Desperate for normalcy she knew would never come and vowing that when she finally caught her breath she'd never lose it again, she kept her pace. Her feet crashed upon the ground, and scattered the dust of a path long forgotten by most of the Parisians. Her heart beat in her chest and her brain worked double time to analyze facts she wished she never realized.  Home was nowhere to be found; Black was nowhere to be found; Max was dead; men were chasing after her for God only knew what reason.

            Her day had gotten progressively worse, and as she turned the corner, she knew she wasn't done falling from grace and comfort. She caught her footing just in time enough to no bump straight into the last person on earth she wanted to see. Silently, she wished she was back in New York.

            His hands, seemingly on autopilot, reached to steady her, and as they slid down her arms, a chill followed them down her back. She was scared and angry and his proximity only gave her fever. When she shivered out of his reach his immediate reaction was sarcasm:

"It's not nice to run away from people who are trying to help you."

"'Help me'?"

A look close to lunacy crossed her face, and Augustus himself nearly took a step back. He could see she was close to a cliff she probably didn't even know was coming because the glare in her eyes was more than simple fear. For a moment he was taken back to the last time he saw her father alive. Before he had collapsed in Augustus' arms, before they fought like mad men over peace, he had a similar look in his eyes. Augustus hadn't realized then what this look meant, but seeing it on his daughter's face he knew: This was determination; this was a threat of indescribable danger, but only if he kept pushing. Unfortunately, it seemed he had to.

"You killed him. You killed Max while I was sitting right next to him... stay away from me Augustus."

            Her eyes were on the verge of leaking and she had begun shaking her head. She took shaky breaths as she stepped backward in a vain attempt to separate herself from the problem that was the very existence of Eirini Augustus.

 The sky was stormy and more clouds were pouring in by the second. Her heart was racing, and she was raging. She'd never been so angry. Her fists clinched around the book in her arms, and her emotions blurred her vision. Pain and terror poured out from her eyes and mixed with the first few drops of rain. Blush blossomed on her innocent face.

"I did no such thing; how could I kill him when all my men are dead or gravely injured? What about the fact that he killed them?"

"You could have done it yourself. Don't fool yourself into thinking I'm stupid, or in anyway, gullible. I don't know what's really going on here,—I almost don't want to—but whatever it is: I want no part. Leave me be, and don't come after me."

"I canny do that."

            Her face was swollen with indignation and her heart raced yet again with a mixture of fear and hatred. She didn't know which she felt more, only that both were very present and very annoying. In her life, she usually tried not to do anything without completely thinking it through, but here, of all times, she just reacted. Her left hand reached out and slammed across his face.

            The smack was loud and resounding, taking on an echo for all to hear. She opened her mouth and let go.

"You son of a—damn you! How could you just kill him like that? He was so kind, so sweet. He was going to—he was giving me—you bastard how could you kill him like that. You just shot him in the back!"