The Avenger's soulmate

Six: Meeting at the mall.

"You met your soulmate and did not tell me?!" Lydia was yelling, she had been yelling since Ophelia had come down for breakfast. So for, thirty minutes.
"Yes the last and hopefully final time, yes."
"Why didn't you tell me yesterday."
"I left early."
Her friend sighed, "And I said we'd leave early if you wanted."
Ophelia rubbed jumper sleeves together, "I tried to find you but I wasn't in the mindset to think straight."
"I understand that but you walked home, that's not a short walk."
"I'd left my phone at home; walking home wasn't that bad." It was a lie. One Lydia could see through easily by glancing at the blisters scrawled across those already scarred ankles. Unfortunately that was another issue. The issue running through Mikalin's mind was that man: Her soulmate.
Who was he? Last night she'd tossed that thought away as she marched home, casting furtive glances at her back, into the alleys, glaring at the city's crevices. And yet as soon as she hit her mattress, her thoughts ignited—Chattering ceaselessly about that man. He'd only been seen for a moment, a short glimpse but she'd plucked a few features of importance: eyes of electric blue, a height dauntingly taller than her, and muscles of a God. He didn't look mortal. Or real. It made her toss and turn. Sigh and chunter. All through the night's long hours. She'd heard Lydia's keys in the door, her raucous laughter as she stumbled over the doormat. The door's lock clicked. She'd lay in bed, listening to her friend's shuffling, glimpsing the opening crack of the door as she'd checked she was home. Sleep abandoned her as the questions followed in pursuit of one another, demanding answers she refused to get.
So what if he was her soulmate? Was he? Or just a man trying to get the elevator and she should've let it stay open for him. Her options laid out in front of her in the morning, while Lydia grumbled discontentedly, Ophelia was stuck.
He'd seen her.
She'd seen him.
What happens now?
Maybe she would never meet him again. It was all confusing, this war of fate and reality. Did fate work on its own does it require her intervention, her spur-of-the-moment will to stand up and march forth to that tower once again? It was silly. Her soulmate wouldn't be there—
"Mikalin?" Ophelia perked up, noticing her friend's stare of worry, "did you sleep?" Lydia asked.
"Yeah, lightly though," her friend lied, rising from her seat. Shuffling towards the living room, the blonde stopped her, "Where are you going?"
"I need to go to the mall."
"You alright going alone?"
There was a silence. Ophelia's halted, hand on the doorknob. Was she? Alright to be alone? Vulnerable? In truth she was never alone, those darkening shadows always hung behind her, following her. Even before they were injected into her veins by various concoctions, she'd been safer alone. No one was sticking needles in her arm, frying her brain, bending her will to theirs. Those men had taken her when she was with people. In the end, is she not better alone? Today, her gut said otherwise. "I'll be alright," she said with a frown, disbelieving her words.
"Okay, I'll be off to work in ten so be careful."
"I'm always careful," Mikalin's voice faded from the doorway, "have fun at work." Then the door was shut, locked. And she was scuttling down the pavement, hailing a cab.

Strings of chattering girls piled through glass doors, lining the shelves with manicured hands, tossing many items into the metal baskets clinging to their arms. Couples dotted the mall, smiling and laughing. Men trudged to the candy, lingerie, and jewelry shops for their soulmates. Women mirrored their mission too. It was all around her, soulmarks gleamed. Sparks flew. Ophelia plucked a shampoo bottle from the shelf and gazed out across the sea of faces. People were educated around soulmates, taught of their soulmark's significance, and told of its history when they began their final years of primary school. Ophelia didn't even make it to her first year. No, she was taken, ripped by her limbs away from education, her parents, and necessary knowledge she was soon stripped of. The number of marks scrawled across her wrists was now erased. Her knowledge of love was never implanted; Missions were in its stead. Mindless killing and countless deaths, all at her hands, no tender touches and soulful embraces. It was this time. Now. When Ophelia gazed across these happy civilians and felt utterly alone. It would be better if, like Jackson, she had no soulmate.
Instead of knowing nothing of the soulmate she had, she'd be reassured by the knowledge of not needing to know.

Ophelia was worried now. She'd paid for her items and was heading towards a clothes shop. And something was grating her nerves. It tugged at her gut, plaguing her mind, and scattering her thoughts. Something had pulled her to this damn mall and she was beginning to feel the painful realization of why: her soulmate was here.  That one from the night before; That godly countenance burnt into her mind. He was here somewhere. Did he feel the pull too? Ophelia glanced nervously towards the exits of the mall, it would've been best to leave then but maybe, maybe it's in her head. Her shadows bored of their cage attempting to free themselves. Hesitantly she plowed on, marching into the store to swiftly, annoyingly collide into someone's chest. A spark sprang; An electric pulse cut through their skin.
Oh dear.
That was something you didn't need a textbook to tell you.

Blue eyes gazed into hers but she was already backing away in shock, "hey" he raised his hands in a surrendering gesture, "I just want to talk."
Ophelia's head shook, "I—" I-what? I don't want to listen. I wish I'd fled when I had the chance, from you, from commitment. She didn't know what to say or do. Her mind was blank. Her shadow's whispers not even paying their usual contribution. The exit was only a few shops down. If she ran now...
The man's voice perked up then as if he sensing her intentions, and spoke, desperate for her to not act on them, "Please hear me out."
"Hear you out?" she echoed.
"Yes."
Crowds curved around them. Ophelia glanced at them, their normal lives and loving soulmates. She recalled her ache for that earlier and sighed, "Alright."