Shadow & Smoke

Chapter 6

I know that I screamed but I couldn't hear my own voice. I know that I tried to run but was held in place by the hand in the shadows.

Then, as if in slow motion, the hand that gripped mine—the one that up until that moment I could only feel, not see—reached further from the shadow, crossing slightly into the growing dawn.

It was then that I saw that it was indeed a hand—seemingly human but couldn't possibly be. I was unable to move partly because of the hold on my hand, partly because I was frozen in terror.

First, the hand crossed into the dim sunlight, exiting the shadow it had cowered in for months. Then, as I pulled back in what effort I could muster around my fear, more of the entity emerged.

Hand...forearm...shoulder...body.

The most beautiful—and most broad man I had ever seen stood before me.

I opened my mouth but still, no words came out. What the hell was I supposed to do anyway, scream? Little good that would do, considering the assailant in my bedroom had just appeared out of thin air—or rather the fucking shadows.

Wanting to run, I couldn't force myself to do it. Instead, my entire body cramped up with tension and fear and in fight or flight mode, I suddenly chose fight.

And that's when I swung as hard as I could.

I always did have a mean right hook.

Granted, the shadow man was at least six-foot-five as he towered over me and broad, with dark, tense features. He was shadow incarnate. When my fist hit his face, I expected him to evaporate into mist and disappear like the figment of my imagination that he was.

But, he didn't disappear.

The second my fist made contact with his cheek, it felt like I had eviscerated my hand into a million pieces. Surely, I'd broken ever single bone with a single punch.

Screaming in pain, I recoiled my hand back and clutched it to my chest. Instantly, in a continuous blur that made my stomach turn like the drop of a crazy roller coaster, I was gently placed on the bed by the man was kneeling beside me, his hands over mine.

"Are you fucking crazy?" He snapped at me.

His voice.

Fuck, his voice was so familiar and haunting at the same time. It sent chills over my entire body instantaneously.

I had heard that voice before.

More than once.

He was the voice from the bookstore. The one that had scared me out of the attic and into Eli's arms. It was also the voice that I swore had whispered in my ear randomly at night and that drifted in and out of my recurring nightmares.

"You." I snapped as I pulled my hand back defiantly. The pain was immediate.

"Don't." The entity ordered, pulling me back into his grasp.

Instantly, the pain was gone.

It was his touch. He was taking away the pain in my hand.

No, he was healing it.

After a few moments, he released me. My hand was completely fine and pain free and once I realized that, I scurried to get as far away from that monster as I could.

Because he had to be a monster of some kind.

What else could he be?

He appeared out of the fucking shadows for goodness sake and he just seemingly healed my mangled hand with his touch.