He was sitting at the kitchen table.
"I... I didn't see anything." I tried, not knowing where to look. I was curious enough to take glances at him. His dark hair was flopped into his face to obscure his chiseled jaw. He laughed out loud.
"What exactly didn't you see, Harper?" He said my name as if tasting it. He sauntered over to me and stood a little too close. I pushed back against the kitchen counter. He guided my chin, so that we saw eye to eye. His eyes were the color of thunder showers.
"That's what I thought. You saw everything." He seemed glum about it and let my chin go. He guided me to the kitchen table and sat me down.
"This might feel a little uncomfortable, but unfortunately it's necessary." He held up his hand and blue sparks of electricity zapped between his fingers. I tried to get up, but a hand on my shoulder kept me down. It happened so fast, I didn't even scream. I felt a surge of fear before it was ripped apart as his fingers touched my head. I bit my bottom lip and tasted metallic blood. And then it was over.
I was confused. I knew I was home. I knew who I was. Harper Scott. But who was this man? Why was he and I in the kitchen in the middle of the night? And what had just happened?
"I should get going. It was a pleasure to meet you, Harper." He smiled and let himself out.
————
"It must have been a migraine if you blacked out," Andrea said and took an obnoxiously loud bite of her carrot. She was my friend or at least one of the people at school that talks to me.
"I guess so. I had a really vivid dream though with his man in a leather jacket and stormy eyes." I couldn't say to rest. Something about a duel of sorts and the man shooting electricity from his fingers. I ran my tongue over the inside of my raw lip. I wasn't making this up. He was there. He shot someone with blue lightning and was hit with a beam of smoke, and then he came to my house. It sounded unreal to me.
"Sounds like a book boyfriend," Penny said, adjusting her glasses at the bridge of her nose. Penny was the other person, who talked to me at school.
"More like the villain of a story," I added before I could stop myself. Penny looked at me and smiled,
"That's the best kind." I looked at her, aghast, and she blushed. I think I just discovered the Penny hidden behind glasses and a book. Andrea put her head back and laughed.
I walked home Thursday after school. The weather was warmer and at least it wasn't raining. I took the foot path again, trying to find the location, where the shooting had taken place. I needed evidence, something to prove to me that I wasn't imagining what happened. I wasn't imagining him. I didn't have a crush on him. I wasn't the kind of girl, that had those and I wasn't going to start now, but there was something about him that kept grabbing my attention.
A branch had been broken by someone who passed by, the leaves wilted. It could have been the men, then again it could have been me. I looked around. This was the place. I didn't see anything. There wasn't a body in the middle of the path, blood, or trampled shrubs and foliage. It was as if it didn't happen.
I closed my eyes and replayed the episode in my mind. I wasn't crazy. It was here. Someone must have cleared away the body and any evidence. I closed my eyes and tried to quell my rampaging thoughts. When I opened them again, something glinted on the forest floor. I picked it up. A ring. I really wasn't crazy. It could be anyone's ring, but I was confident it belonged to the man who died. It resembled a signet ring with a a flame or smoke etched in to the surface.
At home, I set the ring on the kitchen table as I checked the news. Surely, the local news would report a shooting or a murder in a small town. There was nothing. My thoughts were a wild roller coaster ride between believing what I thought I saw and telling myself that it was a nightmare concocted between a migraine and a dream. I was dizzy and perplexed.
"Hi there, Harper," a man's voice announced in the middle of the kitchen. I hadn't heard any noise.
"How did you get in here? Who the hell are you? Want do you want?" I could hear myself ranting in fear and anger, surprisingly mainly in anger.
"Hold your horses," he said with a smile that turned him from a marble statue to a moody model on the cover of a glossy magazine.
"My name is Brandt, and you have an electronic alarm system." He snapped his fingers and a small blue flash appeared. I backed away from him, remembering how he had used that energy on me yesterday to make me forget.
"What I want is a bit more complicated. You see, you witnessed something you shouldn't have seen and you're poking your nose in it." He eyed the ring on the kitchen table and picked it up. The ring went into a pocket of his leather jacket.
"Okay, let's go," he said cheerfully as a menace about to do harm.
"I won't say anything," I pleaded and quietly reasoned with myself that no one would believe me anyway.
"We are beyond that, sweetheart." He grabbed my arm and guided me out of the house. His smile replaced by a scowl. There was no room for negotiation. I was leaving with Brandt.
YOU ARE READING
Crossfire - a sizzling slow burn with supernatural powers
Teen Fiction"I... I didn't see anything." I tried, not knowing where to look. I was curious enough to take glances at him. His dark hair was flopped into his face to obscure his chiseled jaw. He laughed out loud. "What exactly didn't you see, Harper?" He said...
