Hey everyone! Here is Chapter 7! Hope you like, and if you do, don't forget to vote and comment! ;) And tell us what you think of Ace! xD -M&N
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I can't make it to the bathroom, so I open the janitor's closet and settle down. Might as well be comfortable when I'm bleeding. I snuggle to myself and wait for the pictures to unfold before me.
A woman with a baby stroller stands beside a slide "Mommy! Catch me!" a little girl giggles. The woman turns around, looking for someone.
I know this place...She's in the ancient playground in Central Park. Oh my god. Is it going be the lady or the baby girl? I feel a tear trickling down my right cheek.
"I love you, mommy!" Her tiny shoe falls under the slide.
"Love you too, baby" the woman smiles and kneels down, trying to get the shoe.
No! No! She's a little girl! She needs her mother! No, please, no!
Four nails start loosening and the slide starts to shake.
Get out of there please. I'm aware I'm sobbing now. The slide crumbles, falling on the woman's head and trapping her under its weight while the baby girl starts crying for her mom to get up.
I'm breathing fast. My body is trembling, and my lips are quivering. My palm is bleeding. Not as hard as it does every time though. I struggle to get myself together and walk to class, but I just can't budge. I rest my head against the wall and close my eyes when I hear the closet's door opening. Ace is looking down at me, shaking his head before he kneels down beside me and puts his hand on my wound.
"God, go away please, I can't deal with you right now, Ace." He tilts my chin up with his finger and makes me look at him, his intense blue eyes pouring into mine.
"You need to take care of this before it gets infected." He mutters and I stare at him, confused. What the hell is he doing here? "Come on." He stands up and stretches his arm out for me. I shake my head no. "Well you can't stay curled up here forever. There are cockroaches in this closet you know."
That has me jumping out my hiding place with a yelp, tripping on a broom, and ending up in his arms somehow. His arms move instantly to support me before I fall forward and take him down with me, and the next thing I know, we're standing in the janitor's closet, the classic make out place, with our arms around each other.
Life just doesn't want to give me a break, does it?
"Okay." I whisper, "You can let go now. I won't fall again." My face pressed against his jacket, I can't help but inhale his leather minty scent.
"Oh, but this is kind of nice, don't you think?" He replies, smiling one of those brilliant smiles that are bordering between gorgeous and insane, but he let goes anyway. He grabs my arms instead. "Come on, Princess."
I root my feet in their place. "Where?"
"Oh will you please just come with me for once without arguing? I'm not kidnapping you for god's sake." I roll my eyes and he starts walking with me-more like pulling me-towards his locker.
He opens his locker and starts looking for something. Curious, I try to peek over his shoulder and watch as he pulls out a little First Aid Kit. He takes my hand, which is practically a mess of dried up blood, and new blood. He starts cleaning it up, his fingers feather-light as they move across my hand.
"She shouldn't have said that, you know." He whispers, eyes still on my hands as he finishes cleaning the dry blood, making my hand seem human again and not like some mutated limp. "It was out of line."
"She shouldn't have done lots of things." I mumble, chuckling humorlessly. "It doesn't matter anymore." I shake my head, looking down. I groan, "And I probably gave her more reasons to gloat by running out like that."
"What was she talking about, Eternity?"
"Why does it matter to you?" I ask, staring at him, getting lost easily in those blue orbs, and I'm only snapped back to reality when he pours a brown liquid from a bottle on a cotton and starts touching it to my wound. I let out a sharp yelp of pain. "What the hell? You're supposed to count to three!"
He chuckles. Jerk! After putting away the bottle of liquid torture, he grabs a white bandage from his locker and starts to wrap my hand with it.
"So," He starts. "She just started treating you badly. Is that what happened? Is that why you don't talk to anyone?"
I shake my head, a dark chuckle leaving my lip. "I wish." I mutter darkly. "That was one of the reasons. Other than the fact that she started to actually throw it in my face whenever she saw me, telling me it was all my fault. That I-" I choke on the words and my eyes brim with tears.
"That you what? What's your fault?"
"You can't see me like this." I mumble, turning away from him as I wipe my eyes with my sleeves as best as she could, my voice coming out hoarse and muffled up.
"It's okay. I won't look." He says softly. He wraps his arms around my shoulder and pulls me closer to him until my head is buried in his chest.
I stiffen in his arms, trying to be repulsed by the heat his body radiates into mine. But I find myself giving in, letting him just hold me and having that sense of comfort and calmness indulge me. I was tired. Tired and broken and barely hanging on. And suddenly I just couldn't do it anymore. I try to say something sarcastic but find that I can't. Just for this moment, I decide to let it all go and let out a sob as his arms surrounded me.
He starts to run his fingers through my hair, and when he reaches to brush my bangs from my face I shrink away from him, but the look on his face tells me he's already seen it. "Where'd would you get that?" He whispers.
"I-uh, I bumped my head." I lie through my teeth, mumbling the words as I start to move away from him. What the hell was I thinking? Letting Ace Moreno, of all people, comfort me?
He grabs my arm to pulls me back, a strange look flashing in his eyes. "What did you just see, Eternity?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Right now, what did you see? Was it in a park? Was it Central Park?"
My eyes flash with alarm, and I rip my arm out of his grasp. "I don't know what you're talking about." I say firmly before I walk away from him.
***
Cold air welcomes me as soon as I get off the bus. I know I should have never left home at 10 p.m. It's true this city never sleeps at night, but I do! Hold on, Eternity, you're saving a life. I tighten my grip on the tool kit I just bought and tug on my jacket. I look like your typical handyman. God, why didn't it ever occur to me that I might need tinkering later on in life? It's okay; how hard could tightening a few nails be?
"Central Park" read the iron arch.
Good, no one's there. I can easily maneuver my way into the Ancient Playground. Piece of cake, Eternity, piece of cake. I make my way into the playground, looking for the slide I saw in my dreams. Here it is: the silver slide I saw in the vision. I walk towards it and circle around it, trying to pinpoint where the loose nails are.
"What are you doing here?" I could have mistaken this voice for a guard's, but I know better. This deep, husky voice belongs to my one and only nightmare, Ace. The hot, sexy, wound-bandaging Ace. I mentally slap myself and turn around to face him.
"What do you mean what am I doing here? This is Central Park if you didn't notice. I needed some fresh air," I lie smoothly. Wow, I'm getting better and better at this.
"Really? So you figured you'd catch some air when everyone has gone home? Look around you, Eternity, the park is closed! Are you sleep walking?" Ace says as he starts to move closer
"Stay away, Ace! You're a stalker!" then I see the tool kit he's holding. "What is that?" I say, pointing to it.
"Well, I tried asking you about the visions, but you were so damn stubborn to admit." I stand there gaping at him. "Sit down, Eternity, I need to talk to you." He motions for me to sit beside him on the bench. I obey for the first time, my mind so distracted to register what I'm doing.
"Those visions, how do you know about them?" I look into his blue eyes.
"I have them too."
"What? How? I thought I was the one causing them; I thought I was so immersed in my misery that even my mind is a magnet to death and mourning. I thought it was some form of PTSD, hell even ESP."
"Well, no. Those things are not related. You've been exposed to some kind of...darkness. You can say that your soul has been tainted. So, no, you're not the one to blame; this fucked up universe is. So you don't have to beat yourself up for it."
I listen to his words like he's speaking in some sort of alien language. I can barely make sense of what he's saying. I wonder though...
"How did you get them then? What was the darkness that tainted your soul?" His eyes darken and he looks away before he regains his perfect composure.
"That, sweetheart, is not relevant now. You've got your secrets and I've gone mine."
"Fair enough," I shrug.
"Now, let's get this done, shall we?" He says and offers me his hand.
I grab my tool kit and take his hand as he leads me to the slide. Huh, I got a partner; no need for tinkering lessons after all.
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Did you see that coming? Did you? xD