*My apologies for the multiple updates. I posted the wrong version intiially. My bad! Please enjoy this one instead! --Nikki.*
She couldn’t fight the impulse that had her turning back to that corner of the room; there, a few random boxes stood stacked, full of things yet to be unpacked. Some of them were heavy, she knew—stuffed with old books and shoes.
If it had been a seizure she could have fallen back into them. Or knocked her head off the radiator nailed to the wall a few feet away.
A firm blow in just the right place could have meant a concussion. A bloody nose.
Or much worse.
She bit her lip as an icy chill danced down her spine. It took everything she had in her just to keep from glancing over at Eliot—though she could feel him watching her.
It didn’t take a rocket science to guess what he was thinking behind those burning amber eyes; you see?
I’m right. You’re helpless—dangerous alone.
You shouldn’t be alone!
She was surprised that he wasn’t shouting it—gloating. But all he did was stand there and say nothing.
Somehow, his silence was so much worse than an ‘I told ya so.’
She drew in a shaky voice and tried to speak, “I’m—”
“Fine?” He finished for her in a grumble.
She shook her head.
No…
She was done lying—done pretending.
I’m not fine, she had meant to say.
In fact, she hadn’t been ‘fine’ in a really long time…
But her throat wouldn’t work right to say the words again. Eliot didn’t press her on it. Instead, he let her just stare out of the window and try to keep breathing while he…
He just stood there in the middle of her fuzzy pink rug.
It was strange how she knew he was still there, even with her back turned. She could sense him. Hell, she could even imagine the stiff way he’d be standing—with those pale arms firmly crossed over his chest, like a living roman statue.
He didn’t move an inch. Didn’t say a word. Not even as the time crawled past second by grueling second.
The tick of her alarm clock played like the suspenseful music in a thriller.
Tick...tock...tick...
Everything in the room seemed to hold its breath—waiting. Who would break the suffocating silence first?
In the end, it was another false flash of blue that made her jump, startled. Her nails dug into the window sill. She bit her tongue so hard she tasted blood, before a glance out the window made her realize that it was just the flash of sirens. Through the woods across the way, a police car darted down the main road, heedless of the thick snow.
Though, as she blinked she saw that somewhere in the silence, the snow had stopped falling. The view from her window was crystal clear out over the woods where the flashing blue and red of even more flashing sirens lit up the stark white.
If she strained her ears hard enough, she could even hear the ghostly wail of the sirens.
What the…
“Something’s going on,” she murmured, more to herself than Eliot.
She rarely saw the police—or anyone for that matter—out here.
Maybe someone had been run off the road during the chaos of the storm?
Maybe a tree had been knocked over?
There wasn’t much else besides that she could think of, but even those theories didn’t seem likely—not much happened in Wafter’s Point dramatic enough to demand a police blockade...
Then, she remembered the dead girl.
Had it really happened so close?
Close enough that she could even hear the sirens wailing without the smothering effects of the snow?
Close enough to of heard a scream?
The thought of someone being killed just a few yards away…
With a shiver, she pulled back from the window and finally turned to face Eliot.
He stood back, firmly in a strip of shadow—far from the light cast by the window. His eyes looked darker—black even—as he stared through the window.
He had noticed the commotion, too.
His jaw was clenched tight, and every now and again, those eyes would dart to that black house in the distance and back to her again.
“Can you…do me a favor?” She asked, hating herself for asking for help. For needing it.
But so was the curse of being a virtual midget.
More than anything, she needed to know what was going on. Judging from the static issuing from the radio, the television would be her only shot and getting a news report.
Which so happened to be one of the many things still packed up.
Eliot didn’t exactly seem like the Mr. Fix it/move it, type, but the guy had busted into her house, unannounced after all. Not to mention scared the hell out of her.
The least he could do was make up for it.
That ruby gaze narrowed. “What?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she forced herself to walk past him and out into the hall. Her bare feet trembled over the icy floor as she drifted over to the mouth of the stairs and paused.
If he was behind her, she would know it—the wooden floor was old and could creak beneath the weight of a feather.
But, she couldn’t hear any other footsteps.
Annoyed, her head jerked around in the direction of her bedroom doorway…only to come face to face with a mocking scowl.
Once again, he seemed to of appeared from thin air.
She couldn’t hide a gulp as her nose almost brushed the dark fabric covering his chest.
“Are you the great-grandson of Harry Houdini?” she blurted in a trembling voice. She had to force her arms down by her sides just to keep from slapping her hand across her chest like a startled old woman.
That familiar question bounced around her mind like a ping pong ball; how did he do that?
“What?” He said. She didn’t miss the way the corner of his mouth twitched. "What kind of favor?"
Forcing a swallow, Miriam didn’t answer. Instead, she just hastened down the steps—putting as much space between them as possible—and into the foyer where the stacks of boxes towered.
It was like a maze of square tombstones. The drafty, dark atmosphere of the great room didn’t help any at lifting the mood.
She felt like a cryt-keeper as she padded across the freezing floor.
“I need the television,” she finally said as he slipped into the hall after her. Oddly enough, she could hear him this time. His boots made heavy thuds against the old wood; thump, thump, thump!
Almost as if…he was forcing himself to made the noise.
She batted the thought away with a shake of her head. Biting her lip, she surveyed the boxes. It had been so long—she’d almost forgotten which dusty boxes contained what.
The TV was fairly large, so it had to be one of the bigger boxes... Or, maybe it was in the kitchen?
Or the garage?
The movers hadn’t had any sense of order when they brought the stuff and had just kind of tossed boxes of stuff anywhere with enough space, regardless of what was packed inside.
“Television?”
She raised an eyebrow at Eliot’s skeptical tone. It was almost as if he had no idea what one was.
“Yeah,” she said absently, marching over to a dusty stack near the kitchen doorway. “I…I need to know what’s going on. My dad said that…”
It was too creepy to say out loud, so she trailed off.
Even here, she could see the reflection of the police sirens dancing on the walls of the foyer.
A lot of sirens.
It seemed way too morbid to be coincidence. Why else would, what seemed like the entire county sheriff’s office, be out in the woods around here if not for…
A body.
Fingers shaking, she reached for the nearest box and fumbled with the tape holding it shut.
“I need to—”
Icy fingers gripped her forearm, making her words end on an abrupt gasp. She glanced up, eyes meeting a gaze of bloody red.
The look in them was…unnerving to say the least. Almost as if he wasn’t look at her, but through her—deep down, into the pits of Miriam no one else would venture to go.
“Why do you need a television for that?”
Again, he acted as though a t.v. was some strange, useless device.
Like a rock.
“I need to know what’s going on,” she said carefully. “If you don’t want to help me I can just do it mysel—”
His fingers tightened.
Easy Miriam… She had to hold her breath just to keep her heart from jumping from her chest. He was so cold that it made her shudder. A part of her wanted to pull her arm away—but the other half knew better than to even try.
The look in his gaze reminded her of the gleam in a wolf’s eyes that warned you not to dare turn your back on it. Don’t even think about running.
“You don’t need a television to get information,” he all but scoffed, making it sound like a dirty word.
Miriam took a deep breath and tried to remember that technically, it was impolite to stick your tongue out at someone—even a rude intruder.
His smugness irritated her. She felt like a kid on the playground, eager to prove her smarts to the annoying kid who seemed to know it all.
“How else am I supposed to know what's going on?”
“The obvious way,” he said.
Yeah. Obvious.
“You mean the internet?” She frowned at she remembered that her father had never actually paid for the internet hookup at the house yet.
He was never home long enough to power up his lap top and she had never had the chance to remind him.
Which meant that cable was most likely out of the question to.
“Not the internet.” Eliot shook his head. He almost seemed to be laughing at her expense, but those red eyes gave nothing away.
His grip shifted as he turned suddenly, pulling her along after him toward the front door.
“By obvious way,” he began in that haunting tone. “I meant to find out for yourself.”
Miriam gaped. “You mean go out there?”
He glanced back with an odd expression. “Of course.”
“But….but—”
Miriam didn’t know which point to dwell on first.
The fact that there was about three feet of unplowed snow outside?
Or the fact that he seemed to want to barge right into the middle of a police investigation?
Or the fact that he was a stranger, practically man-handling her in her own house?
“I…I don’t have my shoes on,” she stammered instead, feeling helpless as she stumbled in his grip.
He paused and turned back, raising a dark eyebrow. Slowly, those fingers peeled away from her arm, one by one.
Keeping his face guarded, he nodded toward an open box near the door that held all the winter boots she hadn’t hauled up to her room yet. At the time, it just seemed more convenient to shove them by the door.
Eventually, she’d taken that attitude about nearly everything else.
Why take out the silverware if you only needed a fork or two?
Why put away all her clothes, if she wasn’t sure if tomorrow she’d just have to shove them all right back into the box.
Sometimes, it almost felt like living in a warehouse. Taking only what you needed to stay alive and go unnoticed.
Though…she felt nowhere close to unnoticed as she forced herself to walk over to that box. She could feel Eliot’s gaze on the back of her neck—her throat.
Impulsively, she just turned to grab a set of old rain boots from the top of the pile and stiffly slipped them on over her socks without observing them too closely through the dark.
A part of her almost wanted to flip the light switch. Being alone with Eliot in the semi-darkness was…unnerving to say the least.
But something told her that he’d take it as a sign of weakness in his sick little game of scare away Miriam.
Right.
So she just fumbled through another box for an old winter coat and turned to face it as she zipped it to her chin.
Like before, his expression was unreadable—except for a little flicker of something…there, in his eyes that could have been reluctant admiration.
In better lighting.
Without a word, he turned to the door and pulled it open with an ease that made her question just how many times he’d been in her house.
Twice? It made her belly flip over just to consider it.
Her spine prickled as she shuffled out after him onto the porch and dragged the door closed behind her.
Wrong, the wind hissed in her ears as she waded into the thick snow. Stupid little girl…
Get back inside!
Maybe she was stupid, she realized glancing back at the big white house, which looked so safe blanketed in snow.
Maybe…she should have darted right back up the porch steps and locked herself inside?
But outside, where she could fully hear the commotion of police sirens wailing above the wind, she realized that curiosity might have been a bit stronger than fear.
It gave her the strength to stumble after Eliot in the too small rain boots and strain her ears just for a snatch of conversation.
They were too far back to hear the officers clearly—but close enough to make out the grisly scene the uniformed men were cordoning off with thick yellow caution tape.
An area of the woods, just off the road, where blood glistened wetly over the snow.