Before, I was never one for astronomy or had been so intrigued by the sky, but the blanket of stars and full moon have me mesmerised, like a real-life aesthetic floating above me as I lean against the glass, imagining the sound of the shallow waves against the barrier.
I'm fully aware that there is a search out for me, but I'm trying to settle into some sort of peace with my surroundings. I can't bear the thought of leaving, to go back to my parents' place and pretend that I'm okay, because I'm not.
The worst part isn't that I'm feeling this way because of my failed relationship with Robbie, or because of my dad ordering me around as usual, it's because I don't know what is making me so hollow, making my chest feel like it's caving in while I struggle to keep above the surface of whatever I'm drowning in.
I'm shaking, but I'm not cold. My chattering teeth and trembling limbs won't stop, no matter how much I rub at my arms and curl into myself. It's as if I've overdone my caffeine intake, but I've not had any in months. I have bad anxiety at times, even before we were trapped in this glass prison, it riddled me.
Closing my eyes, I mumble the words to The Cranberries-Zombie to myself, rocking back and forth to generate some heat, my eyes fixated on the water.
Focus, Danielle.
"Another head hangs lowly; child is slowly taken..."
Time passes quickly, and the high-pitched buzzing starts, making me stop my repeated song words to look around. Darkness, everything surrounding me is black, and I'm not sure if the noises are in my head, or if my dad has sounded the alarms within the dome to search for me.
"With their tanks, and their bombs..."
I should stand up.
"And their bombs, and their guns..."
I should try to walk.
"In your head, in your head, they are crying..."
But I can't, nor do I want to.
"What's in your head..."
The words die in my mind, and I feel a tear trickle down my cheek.
Instead of finishing the song, I close my eyes and let the noises of car engines from memory settle me, the gentle imaginary wind lulling me to sleep.
_______________________
"Dan..."
I feel a warm hand on my face, someone's voice dragging me from my deep darkness, where I had been back at school and gossiping with my late friends about Robbie Murdoch asking me out, and instead of blushing as I had originally, I grimaced and looked down at him, as if I could see the future and how he'd make me feel.
"Fucking hell. You're shaking. Are you cold?"
The hollowness is still in my chest, my head aching more than before.
No, I don't want to feel any of it, I want to sleep, but the annoying person in front of me insists on whispering my name until I make some sort of sound to show I am, in fact, awake.
"Dan..." The voice is louder, closer, a thumb running along my cheekbone. When I try to open my eyes, heaviness making it harder, I see Eric bending down. He removes his hand, like the touch alone has burned him, and he crouches as he shakes his head, looking around us. "You're a fucking tit, do you know that?"
I stay silent, watching him, my teeth chattering so much I think they may crack. Eric sees a tear fall, and his face relaxes, reaching up and grabbing the back of his hoodie, yanking it off so his hair becomes dishevelled.
Leaning forward, he pulls it over my head, his manly scent infiltrating my senses, the warmth of him inside it, cocooning me as he moves my hair away from my face. The dark hoodie is massive on me, and I'm able to tug it down over my bent knees and lean back against the glass.
I'm not sure how much time passes, but I keep hearing Eric telling me to breathe, to slow it down, to try to relax and imagine the waves behind me. It's close to what he did with me before, when we sat here to calm me down, and now he's here doing it all over again.
Poor lad.
But he knew where I'd be.
I'm certain that his hand rubs over my knee a few times as I close my eyes and concentrate on every inhale and exhale, focusing on the oxygen filling my lungs.
He knew exactly where I was.
"What do you want?" I manage to ask, wincing and grabbing the sides of my head as I try to stand, noticing a rucksack on the ground. "How long was I asleep?"
He takes my forearm, holding me while I try to find my balance on my feet, my free hand against the glass. "Can you not hear the alarms sounding? Your dad has had a search out for you for the past half an hour."
I blink, another blink, and again, trying to rid my hazy vision. "Oh."
He looks at me, studying me as he moves my hair from my face again. "You're pale. Well, more than you usually are," he points out, brows furrowed as his eyes flit between both of mine. "Are you alright?"
Am I alright?
I have no idea.
I narrow my eyes at him and try to shrug his hand away from my arm—failing. "If I say yes, will you leave me alone and not tell my dad where I am?"
He inhales deeply, nostrils flaring, and I try not to focus on his touch, try not to be comforted by the warmth of his hands against my clammy skin. They were literally just all over someone else. "No," he replies. "He has every single one of my guys out searching for you, Dan. You can't just run away... it's dangerous in here, and you know this."
I can smell alcohol on his breath, but he isn't drunk, doesn't have red eyes, and he's not slurring his words like before. His dark hair has a slight curl to it, falling onto his forehead, but the rest of his hair is short, blended and shaved in at the sides, making him look well-groomed. The blues of his irises are dancing under the moonlight, full, colourful, and the different shades have me staring far too long before I manage to squeak out a shaky response. "I needed to breathe."
He nods, as if he understands me. "I'll give you ten minutes before I contact your dad." Stepping away from me, I instantly miss his touch. I clench my jaw, dig my nails into my palms, and I try to give him the best possible smile that says thank you without speaking. "Why did you run?"
"My dad was—"
He shakes his head to stop me. "No. I mean from my place."
The question catches me off guard, and I really have no idea what the answer is. I can't say that I was seeking him out for a form of comfort without him thinking I'm strange, and that the sounds of girls giggling coming from his room somehow hurt me. So, I simply shrug and follow him as he sits down against the glass, the exact same way we were earlier.
Yeah, today has been crappy. If I hadn't just finished my monthly then I'd put my foul mood down to that, but these unwanted feelings have been circling me for years and I'm struggling to contain them. What if my traumatic time in the Neurock has something to do with keeping my emotions in check?
To my surprise, Eric leans forward, grabs his bag, pulls out bottles of beer, opening them and handing me one. "Don't tell your dad. I'm not allowed to drink with you or spend any time with you outside of work."
I tilt my head, taking the bottle. "But I live with you?"
"Which means that I've not had a day off in weeks." He clears his throat, tossing his head back to drink. "Tonight was my time off, and you still managed to mess it up." A smirk pulls at his lips, so I know he's not being completely serious. "So, Dan, why have your parents got the entire dome out looking for you? Your father was pretty vague on the details."
I take a sip of the beer, grimacing at the bitter taste as it burns my throat. People really drink this stuff? Where's the vodka? "We don't need to do this, you know? Talking, or you pretending to give a damn as to why I'm upset. You only tolerate me because it's your job, and I only tolerate you because I haven't got any other choice. Just like everything else in my life."
Eric looks down at his beer bottle, tugging at the label. "Maybe I should have brought something stronger for your bitchy mood."
I scoff, but a wave of something unfamiliar takes over me as I see his dimple denting in, trying to hold back his laugh. "Maybe you should have," I reply, tipping the horrid liquid into my mouth again, gulping three times and fighting the vile rift fighting to erupt from my chest. "I'm sorry that I ruined your... your, um... fun."
Staring at my bottle, I absentmindedly copy Eric and peel away parts of the label, noticing him raising a brow in my peripheral. "I wasn't fucking them."
Why do I feel relief?
Can he see my shoulders relaxing?
"Okay," I respond in a low tone. "Whatever you were doing. I am sorry for messing it up."
He finishes his drink, pulls out another two and fills the holder with the empties. "I was having a drink with my friends, Dan. I gave them access to my place for the night. If you didn't run off, you'd have seen there were guys and lassies there. Does having a bevvy with someone mean I'm fucking them?"
"No," I say quietly. "I thought I heard..."
He huffs, the back of his head hitting the glass, staring up at the blanket of stars as his voice lowers and looks at me again. "I wasn't shagging anyone, alright?"
Nodding, I gulp down more of the beer, until it's empty. The back of my hand wipes away the excess from my lips, and I turn to him to see he's already looking at me. I break his gaze by handing him the bottle. "Alright," I repeat his word, smiling. "How much longer do I have before you ruin my night and call my dad?"
Eric laughs, his perfectly straight, white teeth, dimples, and oceanic blue eyes, make me swallow hard. "Do you feel better?" He ignores my question, asking me his own. "You're not as pale anymore."
"Yeah," I reply, shifting to lean against the glass next to him, shoulder to shoulder, both our heads against the dome as we look up to the sky. "I just felt too much, I guess. I really hate this place."
"You and me both," he mumbles before clearing his throat, looking down at his trainers, elbows on his knees. "Nothing from that wanker?"
I shake my head. "I'd rather not ruin my night even more by talking about him."
Comfortable silence follows us for the next half an hour, and I'm on my fourth beer, a slight buzz heating my cheeks as the odd traitorous ball of gas runs out my throat, making Eric laugh as I try to cover it up with a strangled cough.
He eventually talks to me about Orion's belt, pointing to the brightest flickering pin dot in the sky and having a full-on argument with me about which one is the North star, calling me a fanny repeatedly when I spill my beer down the front of me, all over his hoodie as I burst into fits of giggles.
I randomly tell him a fact I learned in school, that stars are luminous spheres of plasma, kept in place by their own gravity, and he raises a brow, muttering under his breath that I'm a fucking geek who needs to get a life.
I feel at peace again, like the pressure has been lifted, and I almost forget why I was losing it in the first place.
The alarms are no longer sounding, and I think Eric may have sent my father a message that he'd found me, but he's ignoring the multiple beeps coming from his band.
I stare at him as he peels away another label with a frown. I'm taking in his features, something I've been doing quite a lot lately. He's extremely fit, handsome, toned, a slight tan to his skin, and his cheekbones are defined enough that I could probably sharpen a knife on them. Eyelashes to die for, thick, dark, and long. His arms are completely covered in dark inked designs, and I know his back and torso are, too. I also know from waking up that confusing morning, where I had to wrap myself in his bedding as he lay on his front, that he has the batman symbol on his left butt cheek.
I shake away the indescribable feeling, trying to push it to the back of my head, never to think about it again. "Do you like working for my father?"
Does he ever think about that night?
"Sure," he replies.
Does he remember what happened?
"And you never feel weird that you're the youngest out of all of his men? Well, before the new recruits."
Does he remember how we ended up at his place?
He contemplates his response, glancing sideways at me. "Maybe when I started, but not now."
I try to shake off the unwanted thoughts, the flashbacks of his hands on me while we danced, hearing him whisper Happy Birthday in my ear. Biting my lip, I turn to him, my shoulder to the glass, temple against the cold barrier between us and the rough waves.
"I thought you were a cocky little idiot when I first met you."
He smiles, a genuine one that has his eyes dancing as he looks at me. "And now?"
"No change. But I prefer you off duty because you're less of an arse."
He rolls his eyes, glancing at me through his tipsy haze. "When Richie told me he had a teenage daughter that was completely off-limits, I was kind of worried that you'd be distracting. I was nineteen when I started, and a hormonal shit who wanted to shag everything in sight. It was probably a good thing that you were only fifteen and annoying as fuck."
I feel my cheeks heat.
"And now?" I ask, biting my lip to fight a smile. "Not much has changed, right?"
His eyes drop to my mouth, and he quickly looks away, drinking more. "Still annoying as fuck."
An hour has passed since we'd sat down here, and still no sign of my dad coming to drag me away from my calm.
Eric's initial ten minutes has become void. And I'm either drunk, or I'm still foggy minded, but he looks his age right now, not the bodyguard who wants to follow the rules. Instead, he looks like a normal twenty-six-year-old sitting on a pile of dirt with a girl who can't stop biting her lip, and he appears to be enjoying himself.
"So, tell me, Eric. How did you, at the age of nineteen, bag yourself a job as the head of security for the wealthiest man in Scotland?"
He's quiet for a long minute, and I watch his throat bob, as if he's trying to find a suitable answer. And he takes a deep breath, swallowing once more before he pulls himself out of it.
He winks at me with a smirk, handing me another bottle, settling back against the glass to mirror my position, watching me. "Some things are better left in the dark, Dan. Trust me. You'll gain absolutely nothing from knowing my past."
He turns to look back up the sky when I don't say anything else, and I do the same, but not before noticing a name on the skin of his forearm.
Vanessa.
And from there, we stay in silence until our beers are done, the odd glance at each other before he takes me to his place. I feel myself slipping into oblivion on his bed as soon as the alcohol hits me, hearing Eric telling my dad that I'm staying here and not to worry, that he'll send me to their house in the morning.
I fall into a deep sleep, his hoodie cuddling around me as I curl up, trying to put a face to this Vanessa.
________________________
As I look up through the glass roof of my room at my parents' house, I watch little zaps of electricity travel through the transparent tubes that run along the structure of the dome. The mesmerising bolts of light meet in the middle, straight to the small room at the top—the control room.
It's somewhere I'm intrigued to check out, but only my father and Eric have access to it. I tried once, but when I scanned my band on the screen within the lift that takes you up to the top, it lit up red and alerted the security team. I'd never felt true fear until the group of suited men came barging at me, Eric at the front shaking his head, as if I'd bloody killed someone.
I've also not felt the tightness around my wrist for a few weeks, and I must say, I miss not wearing something that controls everything that I do. Huffing, I look down at my new band, tight and large. It has a bigger face than before with apparently more security, a tracker, a body scanner, and access to my place, Eric's, Ainsley's, and here. Oh, and he thinks that I haven't noticed, but I also have the education sector on my accessible list.
Could this mean that he is contemplating letting me work? I don't want to ask, to push him, to make him even more mad. I'm lucky to even be alive with the rage he's had since I ran away.
I can still see his face, the anger spouting from him as soon as I walked through the door.
We argued.
I cried.
And now I'm grounded... at the age of twenty-two.
Thankfully, when I got to my bedroom, Ainsley was waiting for me.
She's barely left my side since.
My house is also nearly ready for me to go back, just a number of security checks to be carried out and I'm good to get back to normal. I think Belinda will be sad that I'm moving back out of my parents' place. All Ains and I have done is sit and chat away to her while she cooks, laughing as she shakes her head every time a silly statement drops from Ainsley's mouth.
I wouldn't have her any other way.
"We have a town meeting soon," Ains says, turning her nose up at my pile of books. "Did your dad tell you why? They usually mean something has gone wrong or he's imposing more rules."
I shake my head, shrugging. "He hasn't mentioned anything."
"Has Eric?"
"No," I reply quickly. "I haven't spoken to Eric in a few days."
"Weird. He's usually on your arse constantly," she says, raising her brows. "I saw him out running with the dogs yesterday morning, maybe he's taking time off to train them some more?"
I shrug, acting indifferent, as if the days of silence from him haven't affected me. I shouldn't care, but I do. I contemplated that maybe my dad warned him to stay away from me, that he somehow found out that Eric and I decided to get drunk instead of bringing me straight home. But that doesn't explain why he hasn't been around the manor, considering he would be everywhere I looked before.
Well, he was here for an hour two days ago.
I didn't properly see or speak to him, but I did get an eyeful when he was behind the house with some new guys, talking to them about basic self-defence training. I watched as he yelled at one falling over, swallowed hard as his veins popped in his neck and temple when one of them had done something wrong, and I held my breath, dropping to the ground of my bedroom balcony as his eyes drifted up in my direction.
When I had peeked at him once more, he was jogging with the trainees, a smirk on his face. I closed the balcony doors, fighting my blush and biting down on my lip with an idiotic smile.
But who the hell is Vanessa?
"Oh, before I forget. Robbie came to me while I was at work. He looked pretty messed up, said that he's been trying to get to you for weeks, but your bodyguards won't let him near you." She shrugs, attitude on full bloom. "I told him to get fucked."
I sit down on my bed, huffing. "Awesome."
Surely, I should be inconsolable about our breakup?
Why am I more concerned about my bodyguard than my ex who I was with for years?
"And I told Beth that we're all going to the club tomorrow night."
Beth is her new girlfriend, or she's someone she sleeps with when she's bored. I'm not too sure, she changes her mind an awful lot.
I glare at her. "I'm grounded, remember? Even if I wasn't, I'd never be allowed to go."
Her brow raises, crossing her arms. "We're going."
I roll my eyes, knowing I'll never win.
________
Sorry it took a week to update; I hope you're all enjoying it so far!
Thoughts?
Any idea who Vanessa is, or... was?
I know it was a tad filler-ish, but I wanted to show you all a side of Eric away from work.