Sensibility

Chapter 3

Zayn, whose gaze still holds mine, darkens from Tori's scream. His eyes widen, and without another word, quickly sprints from my room. I follow behind him, yet again feeling drawn to his shadow. My subconscious, in her fucked-up fame, is hanging from a red light telling me to stop immediately or prepare for the car crash. The outpour of emotion from just Tori's scream is the kind I've avoided my whole life, yet here I am chasing it down without hesitation. But it's Tori and from the bizarre encounter with Zayn I just had, I know I'm long past 'keeping it together' tonight.

I receive a blast of radiation as I enter the living room. The mass of people are huddled together at each wall creating space in between them. I instantly see lights and chaotic waves striking and blending into one another in a frenzy. This isn't good.

Louis and another man I don't recognize stand in the center of the crowd. Tori stands behind Louis, her hands pressed to her mouth. Her feelings switch from nervousness to fear rapidly.

Louis and the man face each other with grimaces on their faces. The other man is much bigger than Louis, and he towers over him dominating him with a fierce presence of midnight black. Alcohol seeps from his every pore, and his eyes gloss over in a lazy focus. Louis' face is tight and his fists clench in anger. A deep red falls from him, and I flinch from the fiery sight.

My instincts tell me to back away, to run in the opposite direction and not throw myself into such harmful energy. Then, I see Zayn. He is standing in front of me surveying the fighters in the middle of the crowd, but suddenly he sprints towards them.

"Did you fuck her," the taller man seethes spilling a straight line from himself to Louis.

"What are you even talking about?" Louis counters filling his own bubble with tangled waves.

"Whoa," Zayn interjects stopping between the two angry men. He holds his arms outstretched to each man as if parting two fighting children. I see the two men withdraw from Zayn's presence but their feelings still rage on clearly before me.

"Who the fuck are you?" The taller man slurs turning his straight waves toward Zayn.

Zayn doesn't back away. He doesn't even flinch. He stares at the drunken man with concentrated eyes. "Calm down," He says forcefully, and in a blink of an eye the impaired man's waves shrink. The tangled black mess of darts and arrows fall back into him, and only a small glow remains. I quickly glance at Louis. He too has shrunk under Zayn's presence. He stares dumbfounded at the man, and he blushes a soft beige of calm.

Zayn slowly lowers his arms and looks between the two men as if to check that the danger is gone. Then, unexpectedly, he turns to me. I catch his dark eyes, too stunned to move.

"Hey, sorry man," the bigger man finally says extending a hand towards Louis. Zayn steps back as Louis embraces the offering of peace.

Tori smiles behind them and runs a hand through her hair. She huffs, places her hands on her hips and turns to me as if to say 'well look at that'.

Yeah, look at that, I say to myself. What just happened?

.....

After the, well, I'll call it excitement, I retreated to my room for the rest of the night. If I wasn't sure after our initial meeting, I was positive now there was something different about Zayn.

For a moment I wanted to run to him, demand answers, and deal with the repercussions later. But it didn't take long to shut down that impulsive plan. Zayn was something else, something I had never experienced in my life and the control he showed over emotions told me he was nothing like me. Who knew where his emotional control came from? It was best to leave it alone, and leave Los Angeles still intact.