By Your Side. (Sequel to Art Girl and Wolf Boy)

By Your Side. (7)

Phoebe's POV:

I sat on my bed, staring at the wall.   "Stay." My dad had told me. Did I really look like a golden retriever to him?

He shut and locked the door behind himself, from the outside. The windows were painted over so I could only barely crack it. Of course. So that meant there would be no escaping Phoebe, and happy Tony. Or so he thought.  

"Stay."I wrinkled my nose. Like hell I was. Archer had been avoiding me like the plague (or so Dylan said), and if he wouldn't come out of his room there'd just have to be a plan B. Cause' I've already lost enough sleep over him. Dark circles are not attractive, plain and simple.   

I waited a few minutes until I was sure that he was gone, the stood up and tiptoed over to my closet. Pulling it open, I dug around until I found the slab of wood I was looking for. There was a small notch, barely noticeable, but if you knew what you were looking for you could find it. I gently slid a fingernail under it and pulled. It came loose. Pressing two hands to the slab, I slid it over. It fell to the bottom of the closet with a solid 'thunk'. I winced and waited. When the door didn't fly open, I crawled into the space left uncovered.

When we were little, Archer and I found this spot to hide during hide and seek. It led out to an empty closet near the back door.

Starting to crawl and listening hard at the same time, I stood up in the closet this place led out to. The area seemed to be pretty quiet, so I pushed open the door...  

Just to have it slammed back in my face as someone ran past.  

I knew that blonde hair. I looked between the crack just as he practically flew out the back door, a complete blur.  

I knew where he was going. And I also knew that this would be one of the only chances I got to speak with him alone. Taking a deep breath, I followed him.  

Time to face my fear.  

Archer's POV:

I ran as hard as I could without running into anything. I circled the place I knew I would eventually end up at until my breath was rasping in my lungs and I could barely stand, let alone go and fight Tony.   Concentrating hard, I shifted. I climbed up the rope ladder to the tree house with wobbly legs, collapsing to the floor in a heap.  

Just as I smelled her, she spoke.  

"Hey."  

I sat up and turned my head.

We stared at each other for a moment, silence falling like a blanket. The sky was dark now and the stars had come out in their full glory, the way you'd never be able to see the in New York City, or Chicago. They winked at us through the open roof of the tree house.  

She looked just as tired as I was. There were hints of shadows under her eyes and her blonde hair was wild and curly, the way it got when she didn't run a comb through it everyday. She was wearing a plain white t-shirt and jean shorts with long black socks, speckled with mud from walking through the forest. But her eyes were what I focused on.  

They still held that innocence, but in a different way. As if she had seen a part of what this world could be like and had accepted it. I stared, slowly shaking my head.  

This could not be happening to me.  

Yep. That's her.  

"Archer? What's wrong?"

God. Her voice is just...   "N-nothing." I stuttered.

Oh yeah, Archie. There's nothing wrong. You just imprinted on your best friend, who you've been ordered to stay away from, by the way, and your dumb wolf won't shut up.  

"Um, here." She threw me something. I automatically reached up and caught it in midair. Spreading it out, I realized that they were gym shorts. "Thanks."

I put them on.  Uncomfortable silence settled over us again. I tried not to stare at her and she avoided my eyes. "Look Archer...I have a confession."

"Okay."

"You know when that guy injected me with that stuff and I couldn't move?"   The thought made my blood boil. I cleared my throat. "Uh, yeah. What about it?"

"It wore off while you were still fighting. And I didn't do anything to help you because I was too afraid, it's my fault that you even had to kill the guy and I'm really, really, sorry, it's understandable if you hate me--"

"Phoebe."

"Wait, I'm not finished. And then, I realized that I'm actually afraid of YOU."

I flinched. Ouch. She held up two hands. "Wait, wait, that came out the wrong way. Um...I'm not afraid of you, I'm just afraid of what you can do. That new Archer, the one that killed that guy, he was scary. But at the same time...you were just protecting me. And I've been really, really unfair to you, I do realize that. I've been thinking of you as some kind of criminal when really, you're a hero Archie." She sighed. My stomach knotted and unknotted and flipped and I prayed that she didn't see this goofy expression plastered on my face. I was really going to have to work at that.

"So anyway, that's all I wanted to say." She bit her lip. "Say something, Archer."   I walked over to her and without a word, I put my arms around her. "Thanks for that. I was afraid you were going to think I'm some kind of a monster or something."

She laced her arms around my neck and squeezed back, hard. "Bffl's for life, right?"

"That would sound really gay coming out of my mouth, so I'm just going to say 'right'."   

She laughed. "Come on. I'm tired. I haven't slept at all."

"I don't wanna go home yet."

"Why not?" She pulled back, looking into my eyes. "I saw you running, Archer. Tell me."

I scowled. "Your dad's a jerk."

"He says I can't see you anymore. He thinks I'm still afraid of you and anyway, he just doesn't like you. He locked me in my room , you know."

I held back a growl. I already want to kill him. You're not helping, Phoebe."   "Sorry."

"Let's just go to sleep, okay? I already know we're going to be paying hell for this tomorrow."     "The mattress?"

"The mattress. Just like old times."

She grinned and pulled out of my arms, unpinning the tarp from the floor. I could see her in the dark but I knew she could barely see, so I just pulled it up and threw it to the side. I grabbed the blanket off the matress and spread it out. I looked at Phoebe. "On or under?"

"It's not that cold, so I guess we can sleep on it."   I sat down on the edge and crawled on,flopping down. It smelled strongly of mold in this tree house, but it was almost..comforting. Phoebe crawled up beside me and snuggled close. I held my breath.

"Goodnight Archer."

"Night."  

I wrapped an arm around her waist and pretty soon, I was out like a light.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 No cliffie! Yay! You'll find out about Archer in the next chapter, you know, the mysterious stuff. I suck at sappy confessions so tell me if this sucked or not ;P. I did more telling than showing, but that's the only way I could get this thing to make sense.