All Your Fates (Currently editing/updating)

Chapter 15: Fastest Shooter (Part 2)

"And now I see him nevermore," we sang, with me always a note ortwo behind, "He never knocks upon my door... oh, woe is me; he penned a little note... and these were all the words he wrote."

The man with the soft brown eyes gave my shoulder another tight squeeze. For courage this time?

"Hey," the guard shouted, "This is a restricted area. Go home for the night."

"Home....?" the man at my side slurred. "Home? HOME! Home on the range..." And he began to sing obnoxiously now.

The guard shot me a look that said: Well, do something!

I gave him a weak smile, unsure what I was supposed to do. This isn't any of my fault! Blame the dream! I wanted to scream. But I could hardly tell the guard that.

I began to see several guards approaching from different directions out of the corners of my eyes. The more they approached, the more I could feel the weight of the man, who sang louder and louder... it began to hurt my ears. I could not understand how I had not woken out of this dream yet with the racket he was creating. The guards kept approaching, all smug, with light-hearted eyes but business in the Billy sticks they had poised and ready in their hands. Maybe there were four of them, or more, I could no longer tell. They were cajoling for us to leave, but I could see from the leers of a few of the men they weren't so sure they did not want me to stay.

"Oh, dig my grave both wide and deep," the man sang, returning to the original song. "Put tombstones at my head and feet, head and feet..."

Suddenly, the man with the soft brown eyes swung around and was facing me, groping my sides with his hands and nuzzling his rough whiskers into my neck. He slurred his lyrics, "And on my breast you may carve a turtle dove... to signify I died of love," but when he bent his head down to my neck he hoarsely whispered, "Ready?"

Ready for what? To wake up now? Yes, please!

I just stared at him with wild eyes as he pulled his head up from resting against my cheek to sink his brown eyes over me like a cozy blanket. And then he drew himself towards me and kissed me full on the mouth, with warm soft lips, while the guards began to whoop and holler. Despite his fire-branded breath, I shivered at his touch. And what else could I do but kiss him back? This was all a dream, wasn't it? His hot-coal hands were all over me now... running up and down my sides and tracing into my hair, pinching my waist. I could feel the cold eager expectant eyes watch us. As if they were watching a show.

And maybe they were.

"One," the man with the soft brown eyes said to me so that only I could hear as he pulled my jacket roughly down my shoulders to the ongoing delight of the guards.

"Two," he said again as he slid his hands down my shoulders to the front of shirt.

"Three," he said as he dug his hands into my jacket pockets and then slid them up again. I could feel traces of cold metal snake up the sides of my blouse. All the while he stared at me with a calm, sober look in his eyes.

And without changing his expression I watched as he fired several quick shots in rapid succession at each of the guards. It was so fast my brain had no time to register what had just happened. If it weren't for the loud ringing in my ears and the bodies hitting the ground at my feet I would have insisted I had just imagined it. A cold sweat began to pool down my body.

And then the man with soft brown eyes regarded at me with a sullen face. "You know what you need to do," he said, while he cocked and put the guns away into the holsters hidden inside his black suit jacket.

I gaped at him, my knees locked and shaking and teeth chattering.

"Run, Emma. RUN!" he commanded and suddenly his face was fierce and full of fury.

I turned to face the direction he had nodded his head towards, back where we had come from.

And then I was back at the lecture, about to walk onto the stage, but someone, a stagehand, pulled me backwards at the last second. Someone else was yelling in the audience and I only caught the tail end that sounded a lot like "...SEA FOAM!"

My knees were locked and legs were still shaking and my teeth still chattering and I still felt a heavy ringing in my ears but despite all of the above, I kept whispering to myself over and over: it was a dream, it was a dream, it was a dream.

I looked down at my shaking legs and reached down to hold them and keep my knees from knocking. As I did, so my gaze travelled down to my feet, to the hot pink porno heels, and then I saw it: the smatter of blood mingled with rain dripping onto the backstage planked floor beneath my feet.

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A/N

BAM!!! I bet you didn't see THAT coming! My my my my my...how complicated this little love triangle is going to get with another David in the mix. What do you think of him so far? Could he steal a small place in your heart? 

This is one of the favorite scenes I have written so far in All Your Fates. And I'll tell you why. I wasn't supposed to have written it. It was never supposed to have existed. Right before launch or our first chapter and app, I was super stressed out, and couldn't concentrate on writing any more. And I had a bad day for other reasons and had been crying.

So I put on headphones, listened to Daft Punk's Fall (from Tron Legacy soundtrack),  closed my eyes and just sat in front of the blank screen. And suddenly I had this image of David standing on a cobblestone road with Emma in the rain. Soon I was writing like mad, and I didn't want to break the spell so I put the song on infinity loop until I had finished the chapter. The next day when Tom read it, he said: Holy Shit! You should listen to Daft Punk more often. Which I took as a high compliment indeed.

I won't tell you how significant a role this new David character has developed since...but let's just put it this way: he's taken on a life of his own -- which we will be announcing ALL about it in a month or so. Stay tuned.

<3

~C

P.S. Over 20,000 reads!! I am excite! 

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All Your Fates © 2012 Carrie Cutforth, Jim Martin and Tom Liljeholm. All Rights Reserved.