Bronze

Chapter 22

"Then why are you covering it up?" She tilted her head as she stared at me, waiting for my response.

What were we doing? Playing twenty questions?

I smoothed out the rest of the concealer and made sure everything was covered. Then, I handed it back to her. 

"I'm meeting someone special," I stuttered, remembering I still had to keep an eye out for the guy. Who knows? Markus might've sent Axel to come and get me. If that were the case, I had to be extra careful.

"Like a date!" She said loudly, her eyes twinkling like chocolate stars. 

"Nothing like that," I frowned letting my eyes sweep the diner. "Just meeting someone. I'd rather them not see the scar."

She shifted uncomfortably in her seat. "Thank you," I said to her with a small smile. She returned it as she stood to leave. 

I was grateful she had taken my mind off the impending doom for a moment. Instead of having an hour to think about my death, I had only forty minutes. Still, the time passed by in slow motion. What should have been a few minutes wait, felt like two hours.

But then I saw him. 

It wasn't Axel or anyone I knew for that matter, but a guy who resembled a world champion bodybuilder. He was tall, maybe six foot four, and had tanned skin. His eyes were thin, squinting in the light of the diner's neon sign. I could've sworn his thigh muscles were the size of my head, and his chest alone was the length of my arms spread out. 

All of a sudden, the slow-motion turned to warp speed. People zoomed past me as I stared into the soulless eyes of the grim reaper. 

Ironically, the guy had a skull tattoo on his forearm. It was encased in red and pink roses and the words, Flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo, were scribed beneath. The mouth of the skull was open and appeared to speak as the man moved his arm as he walked.

I gulped, straightening my back as if it would protect me somehow.

The man walked into the diner, holding the door open for a little girl and her mother. They thanked him, not noticing the evil glare he gave as he scanned to room. 

I sank lower in the booth, hoping he wouldn't see me. 

Unsurprisingly, he did. He walked with a renewed sense of purpose, pushing past everyone that got in his way. I scoffed to myself lightly as I watched. It wasn't their fault he was a living giant. 

When he neared me, he sniffed the air, sighing with a smile as he caught my scent. His teeth weren't all too pretty. They were crooked and overlapping, but white. Not a bright, shining white like most people I knew, but an eggshell color. 

He glared down at me. 

"I assume you're Markus's guy?" I asked nonchalantly. Keep it in, Leah. Hold in the fear. He might be able to smell it.

He grunted, jerking his head to the exit. 

Looking down, I saw the empty plate before me and sighed. "I have to pay for this. Give me a minute?"

He turned on his heels and strolled to the front cash register where a small woman was putting away money from the previous order. He growled, causing her to look up. When she did, she stuttered like she couldn't think straight, holding eye contact with the guy before gripping the counter. 

He was muttering something to her, scaring her more and more as the seconds passed. By the end, she was pale, sweating, and in desperate need of a bed to lay down on. 

He handed me my receipt with a scowl. And then he jerked his head again toward the door.  

Taking that as my queue to leave, I stood and made my way to the door, the giant following hot on my tail the entire time. 

Outside, the wind was calm but nice. Missouri, I noticed, was a mixture of all different types of weather. Sometimes it was cold, other times hot and muggy. It either rained a lot or it was dry for a while. So it was a surprise to me that the day was calm, warm but not scorching hot, and the breeze added to the blissfulness of it all. 

The guy grunted again as he walked by me. I hadn't realized I had stopped until he did that. Sighing, I followed after, trudging my feet in the gravel of the small parking lot.  

I kicked a pebble with the tip of my shoe, sending it flying in the air. I tracked it, watching it as it went straight for the skull guy's hip. It bounced off as if it had hit solid metal. 

I was met with a heated glare. I raised my hands in defeat, signaling that I meant no harm by kicking the rock. But apparently, he was already fed up with me. 

Pivoting, he turned toward me and grabbed me by the waist, heaving me over his massive shoulder as if I weighed five pounds. He was scowling, muttering curse words under his breath at me.

"Oof!"

I balled my hands into tight fists and slammed them against his back. There must have been metal beneath his skin because my hands were doing nothing but wrinkling his shirt. 

"Put me down! Jeez, I am so done being carried like this!"

His hands, which were the size of my actual face, gripped my hair and yanked hard. I cried out in pain and stopped my assault on his now wrinkled back. 

"I suggest you stop that before people start staring," he growled angrily. I nodded as best as I could while being restrained. Confident in his threat, he released me and continued walking out into the highway.

Looking up, I saw the face of the waitress I had talked to earlier staring at me. She covered her mouth with her hands, holding in the gasp that I knew was trying to break free from her. Smiling, I waved at her.

Unfortunately, she didn't wave back.