Running from Shadows

Icy heart

I gripped the wheel with my hands. My knuckles had turned white both from cold and fear.
What would I do? What would I do without them all? I stared through the ice covered wind shield, and wondering whether I was at the end of a street or about the fall off a cliff. Either way it didn't matter.
I had been driving for hours and it was dark, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere even if I wanted to.
I had been sat here just pondering on what to do for about 40 minutes, and I had to turn the engine off to save fuel. I could already feel my body shivering with the cold.
It felt like the cold was seeping through my chest to my heart, and everything seemed to feel numb.
It felt like this was a bad dream, and I was going to wake up against Daemon's chest and be back in the warmth of our  bedroom, in crisp sheets.
But no. I was going to sleep in this car with the thickest jacket I could grab as I was leaving the house. I'm pretty sure it was Daemon's but it's length made it look like Archers. But I was happy in it. It covered my shoulders and my legs so I curled up in the back seat and just dozed off into a dreamless sleep.

I woke up to a police officer tapping on the window. It was bright and the sky was clear, barely a cloud in the sky, the policeman figure had cast a shadow over my face.
I squinted at the glare. I quickly got up and rubbed my eye, and opened the door.
"Miss" he said calmly, "aren't you aware, that you can't park on the side of the main road and take a nap whenever you feel like it".
I stood outside the car and tried my best to smooth down my hair and my clothes.
"I'm sorry" I grumbled as my throat was dry "I didn't know where else to go. It was dark. I was tired."
"You do realise there is a town three minutes down this route" he said suspiciously with his eyebrow risen above his sunglasses.
"Oh" I said, and held my hands over my eyes and stared at the horizon, and sure enough there seemed to be a cluster of house, but there couldn't be that many people there. Probably 1,000 at most.
"I will go and check it out, Thank you officer!" I shouted back as he was walking back to his car.

Two years later

I still look up the long road I drove down that day I first arrived in this town. There wasn't much here at all, there was not guaranteed electricity or radio signal and the majority of the population were over 45. But this is what I came here for. A new start. Undetectable. It turns out I'm only a 7 hour drive from Veronica's house. But with a town which consisted of a bar, police station, bank, cafe, car garage and a library it wasn't exactly a utopia, but it was good enough.
I live in a flat above the library and above me is my new neighbour Sally and her daughter, Polly, generic I know but they are good company and Sally is in her 30's and one of the youngest residents here. There are about six to seven families who have lived here for five or more generations and were determined to be buried here along with there stubborn ancestors.

When I arrived, I decided to keep busy my working in the library, which only considered of books on fishing and easy cooking. I worked with an elderly couple, Ted and Paula who leant me the flat above. They allow me to pick out new books for put on the shelves and I give them a list each month of books to order when Ted goes into the city.
"Who don't you find yourself a nice boy, Claire?" She would say in her typical southern accent. Claire is what I decided to call myself here, it was simple and not too unusual to turn any heads.
"I don't know, Paula" I say, every time she asks me "I like my own company and I ain't in the mood for just anyone".
"Who said 'just anyone'?" She would say sitting in her chair behind the counter with staring at me with her purple rimmed glasses on the brim of her nose, with a string of beads which connected her glasses her her. "I know every suitable bachelor in his town since they were at least 6 months old. I can find you someone...." her grey hair seemed to stick up on end as an idea came to her head. "...I have a nephew coming to town in a few short weeks..."
"No!" I interrupted her.
"Why not?" She said grumpily "you don't even know what I was gonna say!"
"Paula" I exhaled "I have just gotten out of a....relationship and I doubt your nephew would appreciate being set up with someone like me."
Paula slowly got up from her chair and came around to the other side until she was merely inches from me, she smiled at me and her face turned into a crocked face of wrinkles and freckles. "He would be lucky to have someone like you" she said kindly,  I dismissed her with exhaled joined with a high pitched giggle.

It felt weird to say that I felt safer in a community of fragile humans than surrounded with the strongest beings in this world. But it was true. There was nothing to hide from and nothing to protect myself from, apart from the dodgy sloppy joe in Albert's Cafe. It meant I didn't have to learn to control my new powers, all I had to do was suppress them. Learn to hide them. Learn to hide myself from the world. Maybe I wouldn't be living but I would most surely survive.

Hi guys! I hope you enjoyed the first section of the sequel to Now and Forever. Due to the stressful education system in the UK, I am currently completing my A levels! Yay! So I may be slow in uploading sections of this new edition. But I am determined to try and be more regular.

I am more than open to any suggestions, whether it is plot or particular sections, please feel free to comment and I will answer you all as well as I can.

Thanks guys ❤️
Georgia xx