Worlds Collide (Alimentria, #1) [ON HOLD]

Chapter Fourteen: Frostbite

     "Who are you?!" Brianna asked through the stranger's fingers — though it came out more like "Hoo awoo?" — absolutely terrified and half convinced she was about to die.

     "It doesn't matter. But no one can know I was here," they replied. The voice was muffled and distorted, but it sounded male.

     "O-okay," Brianna mumbled, trying to calm herself into compliance so he wouldn't hurt her. Better safe than sorry. She had no idea what he was capable of.

     Slowly, very slowly, Brianna turned her head to try and see her captor's face, but it was concealed by the dark shadow of his cloak. What she could tell, though, was that he was about 5'9" with dark hair. Something also glinted right about where his eyes should've been that reminded her...

     "Flamey?" she whispered, almost hoping this guy hadn't heard her, for fear she was wrong. And for fear she was right.

     He sucked in a breath, then hissed in a nervous voice, "How did you know?"

     "Your contact lens thingies," Brianna replied obediently when she felt his grip tighten slightly in a very menacing way. Though, she thought, it might've just been his nerves. "I noticed them when we first met."

     In spite of the situation they were in, he still asked, "Why were you looking at my eyes?"

     "Becaaaause I'm not some creep that doesn't make eye contact when talking to you?" Brianna lied her best, ironically avoiding eye contact as she did so. But he shook his head like he wasn't buying it. And could she blame him? Not really.

     After a short, stifling silence, Flamey spun her around to face him, and put his face close enough to hers that she could see past the shadows to whisper, "You can't tell anyone I was here, okay?"

     She didn't quite know if she was endangering herself for asking, but the question slipped out of her mouth before she could stop herself: "Wh-why did you break into my house? If you were here to steal, you'd have better luck where you were. If you were here for... um... something else, we really don't have anything that great or out of the ordinary. We're super typical here."

     And then she realized...

     "Wait, how are you here?!"

     "Too many questions," the boy whispered in response rather hastily, glancing around nervously like those sketchy guys in the movies that were about to get caught doing something they shouldn't be. "All I'll tell you so you keep this quiet is... hm... I didn't come here for my own purposes, and I got here by I following you from the palace. Good enough?"

     Brianna so desperately wanted to say "no," but that's when she glanced to his side and noticed a jagged-looking dagger strapped to his belt that had been previously hidden by his black cloak. So, naturally, she nodded rapidly like the good girl she was.

     "Good," he said, sounding more surprised and awkward than menacing. The awkwardness probably went with the way he simultaneously looked down to see where his hands rested on her, and let go with a blush bright enough to see even with the shadow over his face. Brianna unhappily felt her cheeks burning along with him.

     Trying to forget whatever had just happened and in a desperate attempt to get him to stop looking suffocatingly awkwardly at his shoes, she shoved her hand out as she said in an irritated voice, "Let's just forget about this and shake on this: I don't give away you were ever here, and you never do this again and leave me alone. Deal?"

     There was a moment where she thought he wouldn't take it. He looked like he wanted to run. But, after a second of staring at her hand, he removed his leather black glove and took it (goodness his hand was warm, and so soft), shaking gently as if he were afraid the pact would be broken if he simply shook Brianna's hand too hard. Or maybe—