placebo's machine

Fall 9

Fall

“You said it was... snow?”

“Yeah. Pretty, huh?”

“Yes.”

Evangeline stuck out a hand, watching with a mouth slightly parted as little white flakes drifted into it, melting on contact.

Gabriel smiled at the sight. He had been afraid that finding out the truth would have changed her forever, but in a few days she had just kind of... bounced back. Not too soon, either, because her going through an identity crisis really wasn’t going to help in the middle of winter.

Though... he wondered if she was just bottling it up, which wouldn’t help much either.

“Do you want to go outside?” Gabriel asked. “The Patrollers shouldn’t be coming around for a while.”

“Can we?” Evangeline looked at him with big, worried eyes.

“Why not?” Gabriel shrugged, standing and offering her a hand.

Evangeline stood, looking unsure. Another glance at the curtain of white outside and she seemed to make up her mind.

She placed one toe out, gently, but then realized how cold it was. “One moment,” she promised, and hurried back to grab a blanket.

Wrapping it around her shoulders, she scuttled back, nearly tripping over the powdery ledge near the entrance to the cave. Gabriel put out a hand, grabbing her shoulder firmly.

Evangeline stepped into the snow.

Her feet (thank goodness she had decided that wearing shoes was important when it was cold out) left small imprints. Her face lit up with glee as she turned her head up to look at the sky, blinking hard when snowflakes got caught in her eyelashes.

“It’s...” Evangeline breathed, seeming lost for words. “Magical. Beautiful. I’m not sure, but it’s wonderful.”

She spun to face him. “Gabriel-” she started, but he was never sure what she was going to say, because he kissed her.

He wasn’t sure why he did it. It just sort of happened. A part of Gabriel snidely whispered that he had seen it coming all along but wanted to ignore it. And that part of him was rather correct.

Gabriel held her gently with one hand on her cheek, the other holding the back of her head. Evangeline stiffened, her hands pressing flat against his chest. But slowly, her shoulders relaxed and her eyes shut, their lashes whispering over his skin.

Gabriel wanted the moment to last forever.

But of course it didn’t.

And it didn’t end by the realization that his feet were freezing, or the fact that Evangeline, having let go of her blanket was shivering, or even by a sudden gust of cold wind.

It ended when they heard the tree fall, crushed beneath a steel foot.

Evangeline was the first to jump back.

The Patroller gazed down at them, though it didn’t have a head, rather a thick torso, long arms and chunky legs. It was undoubtedly a machine, with patches of dark grey iron showing between chipped red. Spindly clawed hands reached out, the fingertips probing the air.

“Run.” Gabriel said, prodding her shoulder. “Run!”

Evangeline took two stumbling steps backwards, then flipped around and sprinted as far away as she could. “Gabriel!” she shouted, making sure that he was behind her.

No response came.

Evangeline risked a look back in time to see the wandering hand of the Patroller sweep him up, jabbing something into his neck with a sharp index finger.