Mallory's Melody

Chapter 21

ERIC ROSSI SAT IN THE DARKNESS and drummed against his steering. His mind had been drifting back and forth for the past five minutes, preoccupied with the unsettling session he just had with Mallory Trent. The competition was no less than hours away. He had to keep firm registration of the moves and steps that made up his choreography with Mallory tomorrow. But no matter how much he searched for focus, distraction kept creeping into his mind, stealing every ounce of reason he'd managed to cumulate. A distraction that came in the form of Mallory Trent, the appeal in her willingness to listen, the softness in her sympathy-bedecked voice. Eric threw himself against his chair and sighed heavily, a smile beyond his will dominating his face. Her touch still burned on his skin, like a fiery fire that kept on igniting no matter how much extinguishing it had undergone. And even though he'd had had a couple of drinks before, there was none as intoxicating as Trent's giggles.

He shook himself back to proportion and slammed his head against the steering. No, no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he was, he wasn't focused, and that fact nibbled at his conscience. For Pete's sake, the competition was tomorrow, and he and Mallory were anything but ready with how they turned their limited hours of practising to full-time therapy sessions, seeming eons of emotional bonding and weaving the threads of familiarity.

"Hey, dufus!" Someone knocked on his window.

Eric rolled his window down and shrieked at the sight of a masked man staring right back at him. He blinked to ensure this wasn't just another figment of his over-reactive imagination, that this wasn't the product of an unsettled and preoccupied mind, hallucinations as this weirdly black-clad man standing outside his car. But Eric knew he wasn't. His voice felt too external, too real...and eerily familiar.

"How can I help you—" Eric was cut short when the man reached out to his collar. At first he tussled to get his hands off, but gave it up when he felt himself getting blue with suffocation. The man pulled him out of his car and threw him onto the rocky slabs of the driveway. Eric was still trying to regain his breath and countenance when a wave of pain flashed right over him. Two jabs through his ribs. Three. He kicked the looming man before he could get a fourth. Scrambling to his feet, Eric held on to his possibly shattered ribs and ran. What in the world was happening? No, who the heck was the deranged man trying to kill him. An assailant. The devil himself? Panic surged through his veins. He couldn't put up a fight. He didn't know how to!

"You can stop now, fool." The man's voice gained anew intensity, his footsteps getting louder, ragged breaths more crowding.

Eric kept on running, but knew he was in futility. One way or the other, he was already roast to this man's break-neck speed. The sudden inclination to call upon his father's god eluded him, but Eric shook his head. Not now. Not until he met death face-to-face.

And he did.

The man caught up to him and unleashed his full-weight over him, treating his face to two hard-fisted blows. Eric rolled aside and fought for oxygen, for a minute to contemplate everything that was happening. The man descended upon him again, and it was then Eric saw in his attacker's eyes, a mix of anger, rage, and something that epitomized jealousy.

He knew who he was, but before he could stand him up, he'd gotten three blows right to the head.

And in that state of partial consciousness, Eric Rossi could only think of two things—

His father's god, and Mallory Trent.