DogBird (REWRITE)

Chapter 3

Oh god, why did I think this was a good idea? My heart felt as though it were hammering at my ribcage, desperate to escape and go back to the usual and predictable confines of my room. This was anything but what I predicted would happen tonight. The warmth of the giant stranger's arms heated my back and under my legs as he curled around me, a groan rumbling from his chest and vibrating my whole body with the raspy sound.

"What? What's wrong? Y'good, man?"

"This prick landed right on my dick"

I sucked in a shaky breath and the man surrounding me retreated slowly, allowing me to look up into the barrel of a gun. Those black eyes held me at gunpoint; one wrong move and it was all over.

But as soon as the terrifyingly cold glare appeared, those vicious eyes melted into something softer, something enthralling. The harsh  black faded to a sultry velvet, pulling me in like a bottomless well and making me wonder what I could find if I dared to jump in. God, I sounded like a lovestruck teenager. Maybe it was the dark of the night playing tricks on me. 

"Looks like we found a malen'kaya belka (little squirrel) instead of a kotenok (kitten)," the giant commented with a low and gravelly voice similar to an animal's growl. The subtle lilt of a powerful foreign language upped his intimidation level tenfold and I felt my face shutter to hide the shock and fear riding through my veins. My deadpan eyes blinked repeatedly as bewilderment blurred my vision and derailed my train of thought.

A warm chuckle filled the silence that stretched between the two of us and my gaze flitted over to find boyishly masculine features smiling with relief. What I could make out of his amicable face in the dark made some of the stiffness in my muscles relax and I felt a small bud of trust form in my chest. A bud that made me blink again.

Much slower than I should've, I shuffled out of the giant's grasp, earning a couple strained groans that brought a confused blush to my face before I shambled to my feet. A playful voice broke me out of my trance and I found that the light and bubbly voice belonged to one that I had not yet spotted. "You okay? You're not hurtin' anywhere, are ya," he asked me, a smile gracing his delicately handsome features. The shadows of the night hid the details of his face, but I could make out the slight crease to his brow, telling me that he cared about the answer. That alone was enough to shock me into silence, but I gave a sluggish nod a few beats later to soothe his misplaced worries and his smile lost a tension that I hadn't even noticed it had until it was gone. He gave a friendly pat to my back, rocking me on my toes and knocking the air from my lungs. "That's good. It freaked us out t'see a body just fall outta the trees like that. Thought we'd hafta report a murder or som'n." His childlike diction made a smile tickle the corners of my lips, begging me to let a grin slip through, but I released the urge on a huff through my nose.

I glanced up at the tree that I was previously perched in and my eyes widened minutely. Who did I have to thank that a giant guy was willing and able to catch me before I splattered on the forest floor like a rotten fruit. Turning back to the three strangers, I shuffled my feet in the dirt with my arms crossed loosely as a pathetic form of armor, unable to look up from the toes of my black sneakers. "S–Sorry about that, I was trying to find a cat," I mumbled, pausing awkwardly before continuing. "Thanks, y'know, for catching me."

The giant chuckled then extended to his full height and I struggled to hold back the jaw that I so desperately wanted to drop. He had to be almost a foot taller than me, and I was at least five foot seven. "You're an interesting one, malen'kaya belka. But," his eyes became sharper as seriousness took over his features, "I've never seen you around here before."

Before I could stutter out a flustered and fearful answer, the white burn of a phone flashlight had me wincing as it caught my eye. "Oh, hey guys. I see you've met Roe." I wanted to cry in relief at Kyrie's appearance as their stifling stares were pulled from me to him. "He moved into the ranch house at the end of the street," he explained when he noticed the small stilt of silence.