Chapter Five

Refuge

Bleak emptiness, the hushed voices around her merely echoed in her hollowed heart. She wrapped her arms around her body even though a warm coat hung over her bowed shoulders. Vision blurry from the incessant tears, Rue swallowed against her dry throat. She was alone. Again.

Even though Gray sat just a few feet away, merely watching her while filling out a police report form, Rue did not acknowledge him. She could not. Uname was dead. Her only friend, dead. One of the police officers who came to the scene reported that she’d fallen more than six feet to her death. But how could that be? The seat she had been found underneath was the very seat she’d been sitting in before Rue left the theater.

There were impressions of fingerprints along her jugular as if someone had strangled her before dropping her a few feet down. The impact of the fall snapped her neck in half, the cause of her death. At that point, Rue broke down once again. Uname was dead and she was alone.

Why hadn’t she endured the movie and stayed inside? Protected her friend in some way? Rue sniffed back her tears and rubbed her cold fingers. At this movement, Gray chose this time to step forward and squat in front of her. Rue shifted her gaze to the floor beside him. She could not look at him. She wanted to die in place of Uname. Her smiling, kind-hearted Uname.

“Do you want to leave?” Gray whispered in a stilted tone as if he was unsure of what to say.

She shook her head. Where else could she go? Not back to that house, to that fence of dark trees where murder lay, where Uname would never come. No…

Just as he opened his mouth to respond, clicking of heels stepped behind him and Gray lifted his head. A grim, weary face of a police officer stared back at him. Gray unfolded to a standing position and stepped aside so the man could address the grieving woman.

“Miss…” the man started to speak when Gray cleared his throat. Catching the younger man’s warning gaze, the police officer nodded and continued. “We have yet to receive word from the coroner so it is probably best if you go home and get some rest.”

I have nowhere to go! Rue cried out from within but no words escaped her lips. Her body was stiff, heart hollow.

From her blank stare, the police officer shifted his gaze to Gray. “If you need me to call a cab or something–”

“It’s alright. I’ll take her home,” Gray amended, shoving his hands in his pockets.

The man sniffed. “I will call the number you gave me when I receive anything.” With that, he gave Gray a nod and a sympathetic half-smile toward Rue before walking away, heels echoing down the hall.

Rue bowed her head again desolately. This didn’t go unnoticed by Gray and he shifted his gaze back to her. “Do you have any other place you can stay for tonight?” he asked softly, breaking Rue’s heart again.

When she didn’t respond, Gray leaned down and wrapped an arm about her shoulders. “Come… I know a place.” With that, he lifted her in his arms and this time, Rue did not protest. Her spirit was much too weak.

OoO

Erratic, incessant breathing. Patting feet against hard, cold pavement. Swirling wind slamming against frozen, damp cheeks. A sob escaped parted, chapped lips. Stumbling to the floor, the young girl cried harder, her tears falling silently and evaporating once it hit the ground.

Engine rumbled behind her, white foggy light beamed down her back, scorching through her skin as she struggled to rise. Muscles, bones ached and cried out in pain. She winced at her aching body, her weak heart slamming hard against her bruised ribs. Each breath inhaled sent scores of excruciating pain through her body. She wanted to die. To escape from the light that loomed closer. Straining for the darkness, she opted to crawling, the grainy cement grazing her knees.

Suddenly the engine stopped and the light stayed behind as she scurried away. A car door opened and slammed close, followed by heels clicking against the floor.

Just then, she felt the hem of her shirt tug backwards and she whimpered, already feeling the hot breath of the person above her. “Please…” she forced out through her constricted throat. “Please.”

A low chuckle rumbled around her, shaking her inner core with crippling fear. Tears streamed down her face and she squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to see those glistening teeth and gleaming eyes. A cold air swept up her bare legs once the man’s gloved hands pulled at the bottom of her pants. “No!!!”

Gasping for air, she snapped her eyes open to a soft darkness around her and a springy mattress beneath her. Hush silence surrounded her like a warm blanket and she welcomed it although her frazzled heart raced violently. She clutched the sheets beneath her, eyes darting from left to right, searching for those glowing eyes in the darkness. Nothing.

The muslin curtains swayed from the evening breeze, pushing through the open window. She swallowed hard, the sound echoing in the silent room. A huddled form to her left told her she was not alone. She squinted her eyes and immediately noticed the dark-skinned man who carried her away. Gray.

She rubbed her eyes and blinked twice. Where was she? The room was compact, white and gray stripes running down the walls. No furnishings other than the bed she occupied and the dark chair Gray slept in. Was this a hospital room?

Just then, the form beside her shifted and she quickly lay back on the bed and shut her eyes, heart picking up speed again. Even though her back was turned to him, she could feel his eyes on her and held her breath.

“Rue… You awake?” his soft voice broke the silence of the room and she swallowed again, muffling the noise against the pillow in front of her face.

He waited as if he knew she was awake. Rue finally sighed. “Yeah…”

“Good. We need to talk.”

She stifled a groan and kept her eyes straight. She heard him rise from the chair, heard his footsteps cross the floor until she found two long legs and narrow hips standing in front of her. Rue closed her eyes.

Gray crouched beside the bed and folded his hands over the mattress. “Rue, please. We must talk.”

There was a soft but urgent tone in his steady voice that made Rue open her eyes again and study his carefully. She didn’t see any pity or sympathy in them, but there was no hardness or evil intention. Something within her whispered that she could trust him. Still guarded, she nodded slowly.

Gray’s shoulders relaxed. “Do you remember what happened last night?” he began, gaze steady on hers.

She nodded, the hollowness she’d felt earlier now returning. Uname was dead.

“You were not in the room when it happened.” It was not a question, a statement that all but confused her. Of course she was not in the room. She should’ve been though.

He must’ve heard her thoughts because he then spoke again. “It was not your fault that it happened. Rue, understand me.”

At this point, she could only hear echoes of his voice as she tried to picture Uname’s face in the darkness of her mind. Grief gripped a hold of her entire body, her vision blurred and her breath grew shallow. Gray stopped speaking and watched speechless as Rue hiccupped back the sobs that threatened. Her face contorted painfully, struggling to hold back the excruciating pain.

Closing her eyes, Rue did not notice Gray rub his face helplessly and she wrapped her arms around herself, mourning once again for her friend. Why hadn’t she stayed in the cinema, swallowed the fear of the movie and protected her from whatever killed her.

“You couldn’t have protected her, Rue. Nothing human could’ve,” Gray’s voice penetrated her thoughts and she snapped her eyes open, meeting his steady gaze. His mouth bowed in a strained manner as though it pained him to admit it.

“W-what do you mean?” she immediately recalled the woman’s words from the grocery store concerning the girl who’d died a few days ago. Whatever it was that killed the girl could not be human…

Gray nodded, his gaze shifting now to the open window behind Rue’s head. He swiftly rose, faster than she’d thought possible and reached over her to close the shutters. The cool wind zipped away, leaving a stuffy residue behind. He then returned to his position in front of her. “Rue… The bruises, the cuts. They were the same. Both died before falling to their dea—”

“Stop!” her voice echoed along the room‘s walls, shaking both her and Gray. She blinked rapidly, gasping for air. “No. I don’t want to hear it. Please stop.”

“Okay,” Gray muttered as Rue shifted away from him, covering her head with the bed sheet.

Just then the door opened and a stout, dark woman clad in a traditional white flannel gown and a headscarf wrapped around her head bustled in, holding an old-fashioned lantern.

She scowled at Gray kneeling beside the crouched figure on the bed. “What be all the noise?” she snapped evenly in a whisper. “We all asleep.” Her gaze shifted to the shaking figure in bed and scowled. “You tell her, you not?”

“I did,” Gray muttered and unfolded his lanky frame from the floor, towering over the woman.

She began mumbling in a foreign language, her speech broken as not to wake the entire house. Then she sighed heavily. “We explain in morning. Go sleep. She need alone time.”

He did not argue, didn’t speak. Rue kept her eyes closed, waiting. She wanted to see who he spoke to but could not turn her head. Wouldn’t dare. Next thing she heard was a soft sigh and then two sets of footsteps shuffled away from her bed. The door closed a few minutes later and after taking a deep breath, she quickly turned her head. Her heart skipped a beat. He’d gone. The room was empty and for the first time since yesterday, Rue was free to sob openly.

Gray leaned his head against the door, listening as Rue’s unrestrained cries seeped through the walls and into his heart. He gripped his fists, wanting to return in there and wrap his arms around her. Just then, a cool yet rough hand pressed against one of his bunched fists and Gray glanced down at the woman’s cool amethyst-colored eyes. “Tomorrow,” she merely said and shuffled down the darkened hallway, her flickering light leaving a trail for him to follow .

He had no cause to argue. This was her home, she was his guardian. He would wait. Taking one more glance at the closed door behind him, Gray released a sigh and followed the trail of light to his own quarters.

end of chapter five.

Copyright. DeeKay 2008

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