Cover Your Tracks [HS][2014 VERSION]

74. Robbers

"I'll give you one more time, we'll give you one more fight. Said one more line, will I know you? . . ."

The piercing crescendo that belongs to none other than the wired telephone pierces through the silence shared in sleep, startling me awake. Eyes slowly fluttering open, I focus on the dipping of the bed just as the obnoxious blaring abruptly comes to an end. I can feel him next to me, hear the gravel weighing down at his morning voice as he greets whoever waits on the other line. Harry's words are soft, whispered.

"Hello?"

A muffled, distorted voice manages to surpass the sound barrier, reaching my ears though the words are indistinguishable. The bed dips further and a hand comes to rest on my shoulder. Touch feather light, as if not to disturb me. Heart erratic and untamable in its delicate cage, I pray that his palm fails to near it. Every cell of my frantic being puts effort into feigning sleep. Although the feeling hasn't been there in a long time, a familiar surge of adrenaline that comes with the fear of being caught wracks at my still form and I tense, frozen.

My body goes rigid in his palm. I've all but cursed myself aloud when his hand comes to push back strands of hair from my face, knuckles brushing softly along my cheek.

"It's still the same, yes." Harry's voice is contained, forced.

Uncomfortable and dying to move with each and every touch, I settle on rolling over so that my body now faces away from him, front at an angle so that my mouth presses into a pillow. I wasn't sure how much longer I could manage a poker face whilst he touched me in such a delicate, absentminded way. It filled my stomach with butterflies, provoked goosebumps along my skin. Surely he could sense the reactions he'd been provoking. The signs were all there.

"I can assure you, there won't be any problems." Distorted, calm voices. All indistinguishable but there just the same, tearing away at my insides like they were meant to hurt me. "You have my word."

A chuckle on the other line, followed by a sigh. The cool temperature of the telephone cord as it rakes along my thighs. Eyes screwed shut, I will the voices to fade out until there's nothing left but the sound of our breathing in the small room. But even that wouldn't be enough, for distant voices bleed in through the walls and suddenly, we're not alone anymore. I'm reminded of the life outside these walls.

"You're correct," Harry assures for what seems to be the hundredth time.

I try to drown out the sound of his clipped voice, try to push the situation from the brink of my mind and awake in a new one. One without voices and telephones, one with only us, here. Together. Only, this is not a dream from which I can wake up. This is reality, and reality is that we were never supposed to make it. We were never even supposed to be, let alone stay.

His touch has practically skimmed along every inch of my exposed skin by the time his attention is refocused in the here and now. The conversation has long ended but I still hear it as my mind reels to decipher the distorted voices. It plays over and over in my head, so much so that it distracts from the ghosting of lips across the nape of my neck. They linger there, coaxing me from sleep as they retract and leave a tingling sensation in their wake.

"Harry?"

My soft call is fervently answered, dark curls tickling at the shell of my ear as he draws away to look at me. The very breath from my lungs is stolen upon meeting his gaze. Eyebrows carve out frown lines across the marble of his forehead. The green of his eyes is frozen over, as if recently undergone an unusual chemical imbalance. His tone raspier, too. A puzzle I haven't yet had the chance to solve.

"I'm sorry, I hadn't meant to wake you."

I merely hum in response, stretching my sore limbs until my hands have reached a dead end at the bare skin of his chest. "Good morning," I yawn.