“You never know how to just relax, do you?” I whispered to the dark sidewalk, imitating my ex’s voice to my best abilities. I can relax! I’m taking a nice, moonlit walk for crying out loud. I grumbled, noticing my fists were still clenched. The sky looked different tonight, the clouds streaked across the sky like stretched cotton balls.
Walking alone in the dark would usually scare me; I could hear my mother’s voice in my head, “You’re going to get raped if you go outside by yourself after eight.” My mother has always been dramatic, maybe that’s why I loved her so much.
I pulled the elastic out of my hair, and massaged my scalp where my ponytail used to be. If I left my hair up for much longer I knew I would get a headache. I laughed, realizing my dark hair probably had a huge kink in it from being in a ponytail, then realized I didn’t care. If people didn’t like my lion’s mane, they could suck it.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something dark move next to me. I jumped, sending my uncoordinated-self stumbling toward a blurred tree. Large arms wrapped around me, pulling me tightly against a cold body. I pushed myself away from the tall black figure and started swinging my fists toward my attacker. Angry that I hadn’t hit anything, I threw in a couple kicks. If this was the end I wasn’t going down without a fight.
“Easy there,” a warm voice said, followed by a laugh.
I backed away, giving up on the fight response and getting ready to run, I kicked my flip flops off just in case I needed to sprint.
“I’m not going to hurt you, I was just trying to pass you and continue my run then you fell over and I tried to help you.” The strange man said.
“What the hell’s wrong with you?” I asked, staring wide eyed at possibly the most beautiful man I had ever seen. “You can’t just sneak up on people like that then grab them, especially at night!” My sassiness started to fade quickly as I noticed how tan and sculpted his arms were. He didn’t have douche bag arms, you know- veiny but still skinny. His arms were thick, with sharp defined edges. I debated how weird it would be if I pretended to fall again, just so he could grab me. There may be something wrong with me. Apart from my obvious issues.
“My apologies, next time I’ll let the pretty girl fall into the shrubbery.” His voice was hoarse, but comforting. “Do you attack innocent trees often?” He asked.
I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or scold him, my heart was still racing. “Only on Tuesdays,” was my best reply. A bead of sweat rolled down the back of his neck, escaping from his short black hair. I blinked, trying to remember he was a scary stranger. A beautiful, scary, stranger.
“My name is Beau,” he said, reaching out to shake my hand.
I hesitated before accepting it, noticing a black aspen tree tattooed on the inside of his forearm. “Kimber,” I replied warily. Dammit, maybe I should have made up a fake name. What if he was a serial killer?
A cool breeze danced through may hair, then instant terror hit me. My lion mane. I quickly tried pulling my hair back up, hoping he didn’t notice.
“My sister does the same thing,” He said.
“Puts her hair in a ponytail?” I asked, “Sorry to crush your dreams but almost every girl does that.”
He laughed under his breath so quietly that I could barely hear it. “Her ponytails also give her head aches, so she takes them out after a few hours,” he winked at me. “Don’t worry, it’s so dark I can barely see the kink in your hair.” His eyes flickered away from me, then his eye brow pulled together as if he just noticed his worst enemy come around the corner.
Before I could ask if he was okay, he lunged at me sending us both to the ground. I let out a high pitched scream as I landed softly on top of him, then he rolled me off and jumped to his feet. My hands frantically searched for the pink pepper spray that dangled from my keys. I clicked the safety off, and pointed it toward him. He had his back to me, and quickly lifted his arms as if he was holding a sword. I watched as a whirl of what looked like a black tornado start between his hands and angrily hissed into an ebony blade. With his back toward me, I could see another tattoo peaking around his gray tank top, it looked like wings on each shoulder- but almost all of it was hidden under the fabric.
A haunting chill ran up my arms, and everything fell darker; it seemed like all the street lights went out. I wanted to scream again but my whole body froze. Usually you want to run away from darkness, but what do you do when the darkness is protecting you? I lied on the ground, stunned. I blinked as the tunnel vision came- knowing I’d pass out within seconds. The last thing I saw were sparks coming off his blade as it collided with the air in front of him, but what was he fighting?
It was still night when I opened my eyes. Beau was sitting across from me, twiddling his thumbs. There was no black sword to be seen, “how hard did I hit my head?” I asked.
“You didn’t hit your head,” he said softly. “It’s their job to lie to you, not mine.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, “Then how did I pass out?” Maybe this guy was crazy, what did he mean by ‘it’s their job to lie to you?’ Was he schizophrenic or something? I was too nervous to bring it up.
“I’m assuming it was either the sword that appeared out of nowhere or the tattoo on my back that started to move. Those are the two things that usually do it for people. “
“Your… tattoo… moves?” I asked slowly, seeing if he would notice how bizarre that sounded if I repeated it back to him.
“So it was the sword,” He said. “Sorry, I was trying to protect your memory. A lot of spirits have sticks up their asses and steal people’s memories because they think you can’t handle the dark things in this world. I fought a few of them off but they will be back.”
I stared blankly back at him. I had never met a schizophrenic person, this could be exciting. “And what ‘dark thing’ were these spirit’s trying to protect my memory from?”
His dark blue eyes studied me intently. “I already introduced myself, or did you already forget?”
To Be Continued…