Black Blood

5

Kieran brought me to his car that was parked outside of the Libby Park's forest, where I lived. I noticed that it was a different car. It was a matte, black car. The doors raised up instead of out like normal car doors. Kieran opened the door for me and helped me into the passenger's seat of the luxurious car. He got in the driver's seat and started the car up. There were blue lights that lit up the inside of the car, almost like an outline of everything Kieran touched.

"Trying to win me over with your choice in transportation?" I joked. Kieran smirked and looked at me from the corner of his eye. His shoulders shrugged.

"Maybe." He said. What is that supposed to mean?! I blushed and then turned my head towards the window. Kieran turned on the music. He turned on a soundtrack from last year of a band that I grew to love. 'Yours Watercolor' was a boy band that absolutely captured my heart when I was younger. I listened to them and would dance in my room with Jackline. We never had much to live off of, but music helped up keep going. Most of the music was in Japanese, but it was still amazing all the same. I smiled softly before Kieran saw me and then turned up the music. He rolled down the windows and put his free hand out his window. I rolled my window down and put my face out the window. I took in the breeze as my hair flowed in the refreshing air. Finally, my favorite part of the song was coming up. I started to nod to the rhythm and softly sing the lyrics.

"Don't you notice that I'm fading? Don't you understand that there's more to me than what you see outside? My life is like a black hole, in the middle of a hurricane..." I smiled at singing that part of the song. I looked at Kieran and he looked at me briefly and smiled.

"And I don't wanna die here!" We both screamed on the top of our lungs. "Don't leave me to cry here! I can't escape this fear that traps me in my own mind!" We continued. The rest was in Japanese and we both blasted the songs. It definitely got my mind off of what I was going through. I appreciated Kieran's attempts to cheer me up. I saw a glimmer in Kieran's eyes that let me know that he was genuinely concerned for me, but was happy that I was enjoying the music. A few more songs came on and I sang along with Kieran until we finally arrived at the salon. Kieran made it to the other side of the car and helped me get out. I took his hand and he pulled me out of the car. I looked at the building in front of us. It was very well constructed. It had beautiful landscaping and had vines and lights crawling up the sides of the doors. It looked pretty expensive.

"Are you sure about this? I really don't want you to take so much pity on me that you think that you have to do this for me." I told him. Kieran stepped in front of me and put both of his hands on my shoulders.

"Look, I'm not doing this because I pity you. I am doing this because I want to protect you." Kieran said. His eyes were so sincere. I swore I saw a gleam of red in them as he said the word "protect." I nodded and let him take me inside the salon. "Besides, you don't want those bad guys to recognize you, right?" Kieran asked.

"I guess you're right. Can't have them looking for a homeless pauper now can we?" I joked with him. Kieran ruffled my hair before walking the rest of the way into the salon. We walked up to the desk to be met with a lady with long, black hair with all different colors of strips going throughout her hair. Her skin was pale and she had blue eyes. She was quite tall as well and was dressed rather nicely. I couldn't help but feel a little bit intimidated by her. I stayed a little bit behind Kieran. He saw the nervousness on my face and took my hand to calm me down. Although the attempt failed and my face became as red as the color itself.

"Kieran! What brings you here today? We haven't seen you for a while." The lady asked. Just how many rich people does he know? Kieran smiled softly but firmly at her.