Us Against the World (REVISED)

Chapter Two: Part 1

The first thing I feel is the pain.

It's overarching and rough, like someone's slammed their palm into my lower back. My fragile muscles can't bear the repercussions and a tremor runs through the lower half of my body. Upon my impact with the floor, my breath is stolen, knocked out of my lungs when my shoulders clang against the metal handrail.

I gasp, choking, alarm bells screaming in my head. This is the end. My fingers curl into the carpet beneath me and another creak makes the elevator shake. Shit, this can't be the end. I have so much left I have to do. Damn, I should have waited in the lobby. No, then I would be relying on Natalie's time and Mom...

"Hey." A gruff voice challenges my warped inner thoughts, and my breath is stolen again, but this time it's by the misty gray eyes that look like melancholic puffs of clouds; they capture my thoughts and collect them into a tight capsule that mirrors the effects of a storm, veiling his inner thoughts.

They look like the storm clouds around Sauron's castle, I think as his gaze evaporates my senses. This man reeks of danger. He smelled good, though, even if it made my nose tingle and want to sneeze.

"Are you okay?" There's a bass to his voice, something husky, but tinged with foreign spice. He has an accent, but I can't place which one it is.

His words compute in my mind, and the stunned sparks in my body instantly vanish. Right. Am I okay? Because I'm the weak nobody who can't rely on herself to be safe. My jaw tightens, and I want to – for once in my life – say those exact words, but I recall the argument I witnessed moments ago and decide that today is not a good day to delve deeper into humiliation.

"I'm fine," I say, trying to match his gruff voice. I flatten my lips and try to look aside, but his eyes follow me, and it's then that I realize that he's not looking at my body. He's not pitying the odd, obtuse angle of my arms, or the way my torso is rigid on the floor, or the slight quake that corrupts my shoulders. His gaze makes the hair on my arms stand not because they're sympathetic, but because they're on me. Seeing me. Not just looking at me.

When I look at him again, the storm in his eyes intensifies, and he looks at me like I'm a statue in a museum that he's trying to understand. His head cocks, causing a few ungelled strands of dark auburn hair to tassel around his ear.

This is ridiculous. I shift from one butt cheek to the other and swallow the sudden lump in my throat. He doesn't see who I am. I'm another strange stranger to him who can't get up on her own. Damn, how will I get up anyway? I could ask him if I wanted to, but I don't want to see the pity in his eyes or give him some hero complex. I don't need anyone to save me. If only I could reach the handrail...

The man's eyes narrow, concealing the gray eyes that stared through people, never at them, like he could see the half-baked girl that was once whole.

"I don't like liars," he says sharply, and something about the reprimand in his voice both irritates and stuns me. He speaks to me like he spoke to the balding man moments ago, not as a child, but as a colleague who's earned his ire through their lazy execution.

"How do you know I'm lying?" I retort, wincing when another strike of pain slashes across the length of my thigh. My tendons tighten for every second longer that my legs are out in front of me.

"Because your eyes have dimmed a fraction, and your body is veering away from me," he says coolly. "You look at me like I'm going to eat you, but you're not shaking because you're scared. You hurt yourself."

I scowl. Damn it, he's right. "I'm not lying to you. I can tell you that to your face." I stare into his eyes – eyes like polished ice that withhold every slice of feeling.