Walk Me Down The Hallway

Chapter 17- Hold Me Closer

AN

Sorry for the long wait, I blame writers block.  O,o

But now I has it all planned out! This isn't as long as I'd like, but its good enough, and hold on, because things between Mal and our favourite Analee are about to get steamy... ;) [just... not in this chapter.]

read, comment, VOTE! (:

Mal POV

I gripped Analee's arm, immediatly swinging her into my chest and shielding her eyes from the skull.  That was not something this seventeen year old needed to see, especially not in the dark.  The worst part was that I knew that despite being scared stiff, she'd still be up and ready tomorrow to move around it and down the passage that it blocked.

There was no way in hell that that was going to happen if she planned on going by herself.

"What the hell is that?" Analee choked out, wrapping her thin arms around my waist.  I slowly moved backwards, tugging her with me out of the cavern type room.  When we were safely in the hallway. and the door was shut tightly, I bent down, scooping her legs out from underneath her and hefting her into my arms.  "I can walk!" She protested, squirming around.

"Sweetheart, keep squriming like that and I'll begin to get the wrong idea," I warned, practically sprinting towards her bedroom. Analee went silent, just as I had expected her to, blushing.

I burst into her bedroom, stalking towards the bed and setting her down on her messy blankets.  She was pale, staring up at me with wide eyes.  That skull frightened her more then she would've liked to admit.

"Where are you going?" she called, as I turned to walk for her door.

"I'm going to tell your mom about the south wing.  It needs to be shut down, it's dangerous."

"NO!"  She moved faster then I had expected, scrambling off of her purple covers and diving in front of the door, holding her arms spread out to block my way. "You can't do that!"

"And why not?  That was a human skull, if you didn't notice.  That means that there's probably more.  We need to tell your parents."

"No! We can't! I spent the last eight years of my life trying to get into that wing!  You can't ruin that for me now!" 

This was ridiculous.

"Analee," I began slowly, "We don't know what went on in that wing.  There could be a lot more bones where that came from, or traps, or biohazardous material.  It's dangerous."

"I don't care!"  She slapped away my hands as I reached for the doorknob. "You can't tell them!"

"I'm telling them Analee."

"Mal!" she whined, jutting her bottom lip out in a pout.  "You caaaaaan't!  I admit, I was scared.  I didn't expect that.  Whatever I did expect, well, it wasn't that.  But it's just a skull!  We walk over them all the time in graveyards!  If you go tell my parents then they'll ban me from searching, and my mom will probably want to have people tear that wing down and then I'll never find out what happened to those kids, and I'll never solve the mystery of the south wing!"

I sighed heavily, watching as her chest heaved from her rant, before my eyes met hers.

"Fine.  But we do this on my terms. My terms," I repeated, when she looked like she was about to protest.  "Or I go to your parents."

"Name them."

"First off, you are not to go into the south wing without accompaniment.  And seeing as you won't tell anyone about it, that means I am to be with you every time you go in that general direction, got it?"  When she slowly nodded, I continued. "We will explore the wing, but as soon as I find something that can be deemed as dangerous, we're out of there, and your parents are notified, understood?"