Evolution

Chapter Twelve: Denial

Slowly, creeping through the bottom floor of the home, we found a staircase which lead to the second floor. I stumbled up the stairs, the last of light quickly vanishing with each step I took. Jesse was quick to scold me for my unintentional noise, but it was becoming hard to see, hard to follow just where we were going, where he was going.

The staircase lead to a hallway, a hallway which I used the walls on either side to follow Jesse's footsteps. Each room window had been locked and the thick curtains heavily pulled back with the edges stapled to the walls.

Eventually, Jesse's footsteps came to a stop and the small sound of a quick few pops allowed small amounts of light into the room. The room of a child's where we now stood.

Jesse was now perched at a window a few feet away from me. He had pulled the curtain off of the wall and now peered carefully out of the stained glass.

"Come here" He instructed me with a wave of his hand, his eyes still intent on whatever he could see outside.

I did as I was told and moved towards him, avoiding the teddy bears, the doll house and the clothing strewn across the bedroom floor. Jesse's hand cautiously searched around the bottom of the window until it reached the lock. With a small click, the window unlocked and the glass popped out of place where dust had settled.

"What are you doing?" I asked him

"Give me your bow and an arrow" His voice responded huskily - somewhat attractive

My eyebrows creased as I shook my head "No way"

Jesse's face turned towards me, the movement allowing my eyes access to see what his intentions were. Outside the window were the two creatures, both about 280 yards away.

"I've shot over one hundred creatures before, but never from this distance away" I told him

"Give me the bow and an arrow" He spoke again, this time more forcefully and slowly emphasizing each word as he stared towards me.

There was no way I was going to give him my weapon, the only weapon I seemed to be completely skilled at using.

"No" I bravely spat back out like a child

Jesse's body now turned fully towards me, a move that somehow created little space between us. His height towered over me, his eyes lingering and unblinking as he breathed evenly in front of me.

"We are running out of daylight, we are running out of time and if I have to ask you one more time to trust me, I'm going to lose the intact patience I've seemed to hold together for you over the last few days" He spoke calmly in my direction, his breath running over my face. He was being patient, I could see it, I could hear it, but I could also hear that he was losing his patient with me, not that that scared me or made me shudder, but it did something unknown to me, something that slowly, gave in.
My eyes were glued to his expression, an expression that I suppose I was attempting to decipher, and as I kept alert to his facial features, I felt his fingers trace around my bow and pull it from my shoulder. He then moved his arm closer to my face, brushing past my hair as he pulled an arrow from my bag.

The moment Jesse removed his eyes from me and turned back around towards the window, my eyes fell to the floor, defeated and frustrated. No one had ever won a battle against my fierce and forceful 'no' since I'd lost my family, yet here I was, watching a man I barely knew place my bow strategically in aim in front of me.
I gave a short sigh and mentally shook my head from the strange reaction my body and mind had had and forced my eyes back on what was about to happen.

Jesse retracted the bow string, pulling it back with his fingertips as he held a firm grasp of the arrow in place. His head tilted sideways as he made aim and I watched as not a single inch of his body shook or trembled. He was still, patient, focused, something I found myself to be admiring. I noticed the forceful pullback of the bow, the sheer strength Jesse had to pull it back as much as he was. The wood holding the string together bent ever so gently, struggling to keep balanced and intact until it was released swiftly with one quick movement. My eyes reacted as fast as they could, watching the creatures that had now moved on to a closer house and its untouched glass windows. I waited for the moment they were struck, or more likely, the moment they noticed an arrow being thrown in their direction that had failed. Instead, neither of those moments came.
It was as I watched the creatures that I noticed their heads whip around in search of the small noise I had also heard. Suddenly, their eyes noticed what mine had.
A stream of forceful water poured from a large water tank down a street adjacent to the one we were hiding within. My eyes narrowed, my arrow fletching sticking out of the top of the tank where water gushed outwards onto the road.
My mouth opened to ask what he had done, but before I could form words, Jesse had grabbed my arm and darted from the room, down the stairs where I stumbled and back through the back door of the house.