Chapter 16

*Thanks for all the feedback!  I will try to respond to all the comments ASAP.  Hope you enjoy this chapter!

-Nikki*

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Thump!

In a sudden thud of commotion, someone mounted the bottom step. Miriam could only blink in shock as Eliot pushed his way in front of her, blocking her view of the doorway. He moved so fast, she barely saw him—like a blur of fire and ivory.

“Are you expecting anyone?”  He demanded in a growl.

Miriam shook her head.  “N-no one.”

She didn’t like how his jaw clenched at that or how his shoulders stiffened into firm lines that seemed cut from stone beneath his dark sweater.

It was…odd, now that she thought about it.  There was practically a full-blown blizzard outside and here he was, dressed only in a simple sweater.

It was almost as if the cold didn’t affect him one bit—

“MIRIAM!”

Startled, she stumbled forward and nearly collided with Eliot’s back.  The voice seemed familiar, but it wasn’t until another shout echoed off the walls that she realized the voice was her father’s.

“Miri?”

She could clearly recognize it now, frantic enough to match the hasty footsteps climbing the stairs in an unsteady tandem.

Boom!  Thump, thump!

“Miri!”  He shouted again in rising pitch.   “Miriam?!  Where are you?!”

With a gulp, she stumbled her way past the hulking shape of Eliot to stumble to the door.

“I…I’m here, Dad.”

He appeared in an instant around the corner leading to the stairs, looking more haggard and worn than ever.  Black shadows lined his brown eyes while flecks of thick snow still dotted his hair.

Miriam couldn’t help but think that he almost looked like a reanimated corpse, who crawled from his grave.

When he caught sight of her, those tired eyes widened with instant relief.

“Miriam, thank God!”

Without warning, she found herself engulfed in his slender arms, crushed to a painfully thin chest.  Despite all those promises of her ‘favorite spaghetti’ she could tell that he hadn’t eaten much.

He smelled odd as well.  His scent was similar to mint gum and cheap deodorant—as if he’d been washing up in the bathroom of his office instead of taking a real shower.

He seemed too fragile to even wrap her arms around fully.  She allowed them dangle uselessly at her sides, as ice cold fingers began to stroke her hair.

“My God, I was so worried,” he breathed into her scalp.  His arms tightened and Miriam realized that this physical contact was the closest she’d been to him in a while…

After four months on her own, she’d had almost forgotten what it was like to be in his embrace.

These days, she was lucky to get a nod, a handshake, a simple touch—anything that didn't involve him coming closer than it took just to sprout off the same old tired lines.

‘Catch ya later, kiddo!  Blah, blah, blah, I’ll make spaghetti.’

It had been so long since he’d actually hugged her like this.  Hell, maybe not even since she’d been small enough to curl up on his lap.

Way before her mother…

“The principal called yesterday,” he croaked, snapping her back to reality.  “She said you weren’t in school.  I tried to call your phone, but with the storm I couldn’t get through…”

“Dad,” she said softly.  “I’m fine…really…I just wasn’t feeling good yesterday…”

“Right,” he accepted the lie with a hasty nod.  “But you still should have called me!  Do you have any idea what went through my mind when—”

He paused abruptly then pulled back just enough to look her in the eye.

He seemed so damn exhausted; Miriam wondered how he was still standing. She had a suspicion that a missed school day and poor cell phone reception weren't the only reasons why he looked so relieved.

Something else haunted those dark eyes.

“Dad, what’s wrong?”

Without thinking, she reached out to touch his shoulder, feeling the bones even from beneath his lab coat.

He flinched.

“You didn’t hear?”

“Hear what, Dad?”

He frowned.  “Even with the snow, it’s been all over the news…”

“What, Dad?”

He grimaced, his hand reaching out almost without him realizing it to ghost her chin.  “They found a girl last night,” he said in a trembling voice.  “Dead.  In the snow.”

Her entire body grew numb.

“W-what?”

Her father nodded slowly. “They found her this morning…the police aren’t saying how she died but…it doesn’t look good.”

“T-That’s horrible…”  She stuttered through dry lips.  “What…what happened?”

Her father shrugged.  “I don’t know.  The police aren’t releasing anything definitive—not even to the morgue.  With all the snow, they couldn’t even get the body to the hospital.”

Miriam wondered if he would have to be the one to do the grisly honors; slicing open the young girl to determine the cause of death.

She shivered at the image, but the grisly thought wasn't the only reason chills ran down her spine.

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t erase the dark gaze of the strange boy from the night before…

…or Eliot’s fear when she mentioned him.

“Do they…know what happened?” She stammered, if only for a distraction.

“No," He answered firmly.  "They only know her to be a local teenager. She might have even gone to your school but there’s nothing definitive.  Nothing but…” he sighed and ran a shaky hand along the growing stubble on his bottom chin.  “There are rumors…horrible rumors…and the description of the girl that’s floating around sounded an awful lot like—” He shook his head and gathered her in his arms for one final squeeze.  “I’m just glad you’re alright.”

She looped her arms around his neck and hugged him back carefully, the same way someone might treat a nervously horse.

“I’m fine, Dad,” she insisted, patting him gently on the shoulder.  “Really.  I’ll make sure to call next time.”

“I tried to have your Uncle drive over to check on you,” he blurted, “but with the roads closed, he couldn’t get through…”

To her surprise, he held her for almost a full minute, his slender arms shaking as they held her tight.  Then, all at once, he pulled back and glanced over her from head to toe.  The look in his eye transformed him in an instant from worried father to shrewd physician.

His gaze probed her forehead as if he wanted to peer inside.

“You still weren’t in school yesterday.”   He tucked a stray piece of hair behind her ear.   “Was it another seiz—”

“No!” She blurted out, cutting him off.  “I just had a stomach ache. That’s all.”

His mouth tightened into a frown.

“Okay, Miri,” he said finally, on a sigh.  “Just…just let me know next time.  You could have left a message on my office phone.”

“Okay,” Miriam said.

She didn’t feel the need to mention that his office phone mailbox had been full for the past month.

She knew, because the same thing had happened four weeks ago—a seizure on the way to school—and she had to forge his signature on a Doctor’s note when she couldn’t get a hold of him.

“I’ll call.”

“Good.”  He smiled wearily.

It was a smile that could almost be mistaken for his old, happy go lucky self.  Back before the alcohol bottle he kept beneath his pillow was the only thing that could make him laugh again.

Almost.

“So, have you just been holed up in here all day?”

She shrugged as he glanced critically around her bare, dusty room.  She had tried her best to make it somewhat homey.  She had finally managed to drag her old curtains from the depths of one of the boxes and frame the only window.  Her pink throw rug had also been scavenged from the packed stuff.

Besides the furniture, that was about it.

“Were you rearranging downstairs, kiddo?”  He asked.  “There were boxes everywhere; I almost tripped over an old…what the hell?”

Miriam flinched at the sharpness in his tone.  Her head jerked up to find him gazing with narrowed eyes at something beyond her head.

Crap.

She felt her heart thump as she finally remembered Eliot.

Months of evading the truth may have made her into an expert liar, but there were just some things you couldn’t explain away.

Namely, why a brooding, strange boy was currently in the middle of your bedroom.

“Dad, I can explain!”  She blurted, while her mind raced to come up with something even remotely convincing.

‘He’s just a freaky stalker who, for some reason, thought I was in danger and rushed to my rescue,’ didn’t seem like it would do it.

“I—”

“Don’t bother,” her father growled, stalking past her to march to the bed.  “I can guess.”

Heart in her throat, she whirled around, preparing to face the hulking shape of the red-haired teenager.  “It’s not what you think…”

She watched, eyes bug-wide as her father only stooped to snatch her baseball bat from the floor and held it up like incriminating evidence in a murder trial.

“What do you mean, ‘it’s not what I think?’” he demanded angrily.  “Miri, why didn’t you tell me you were afraid in this house by yourself?”

“I…what?”

She blinked, hoping that the motion would make Eliot suddenly reappear on the empty spot of carpet by the window.

Somehow, she wasn’t that surprised when he didn’t.

“Miriam, answer me,” her father ordered.  “Why did you tell me that you didn’t like being alone?”

He looked almost tortured as he glanced down at the bat.

“I…I…”  Her shock kept her from even coming up with a good lie.

She could only stare as her father gingerly set the bat onto her bed and crossed his wiry arms.

“Is this why all those boxes were stacked by the door?”

Miriam shrugged and stammered for a logical excuse.  “I…I was j-just—”

“Don’t lie to me!” he demanded.  “It’s my fault.  I shouldn’t have taken all those overnights…”

Miriam didn’t know how to answer.  So she crossed her arms instead and tried to glance around her room without making it obvious that she was looking for something.

Or someone.

How in the hell had he moved so fast?

He couldn’t have used the door and the window was firmly shut…

No, she thought biting her bottom lip.  Eliot still had to be there, hiding somewhere.

The closet?

She peeked at the closed door from the corner of her eye.

It was too small.

Under the bed?

“Miriam?”

She turned back to her father, who watched her with an odd expression.

“W-What?”

“I said I’m going to try and be home a lot more.  Especially now with a monster on the lose.”

His words made her shiver.  “You mean, they think that girl was…murdered?”

“There’s nothing definitive,” he insisted, but the look on his face didn’t reassure her one bit.

He didn’t want to scare her.

Funnily enough, he had no idea that she needed no help in that department.

Eliot had to be somewhere.

Under the desk?

Behind a stack of boxes?

He couldn’t have just faded into thin air…

He couldn’t have.

“I’ll try to have someone come keep you company from now on,” she heard her father say.  “Maybe your cousin Sheena?”

Miriam nodded, even though she barely knew her cousin and the older girl certainly didn’t seem to like her very much.

She was surprised that he was speaking to her at all.

Holding an actual conversation—one that involved asking questions that actually required an answer.

“S-sure.”

“Good.”  He almost smiled with a twitch of his mouth.

Then, he frowned.  “I wish I could stay now, but I have to get back.  With this storm, who knows how many people could get hurt.”

“You mean you’re leaving?”  Miriam jerked her head to glance out of the window where thick sheets of snow still lashed the window in white fringes. “But aren’t the roads closed?”

“Everything is closed,” her father replied tiredly.  “But I managed to convince another doctor to let me borrow his four wheel drive, and I bribed the police to let me through.”

Miriam wasn’t surprised.  When her father put her mind to something, nothing could stop him. Still, a four-wheel drive didn’t seem that safe to drive out in a massive storm like this one.

“Do you have to?”  She hated how tiny her voice sounded—pathetic, hopeful.  Like her six-year old self begging her Daddy not to go to work today.

Just this once.

“Wouldn’t it be safer if you…”

Just stayed, she meant to say, but he shook his head before she could even finish.

“I have to get back.  We’re stretched thin back at the hospital—but,” he said the word carefully.  “You could come with me.  I’m sure they could use some volunteer help.”

It sounded tempting.

Going into work together, for once.  Play the role of father daughter duo.

It could have been just like the old days.

But in those days, she hadn’t had to worry about something like a flash of indigo blue.

“It’s alright,” she said quickly.  “I…I have homework.”

“O-Okay.”  He tried to smile again, but this time his mouth only formed the motion half-heartedly.  “I…I’ll be home tonight—I swear.  Will you be alright by yourself for a few hours?”

She nodded, even though the motion nearly hurt.  Her throat felt tight, her head throbbing.

But she forced a fake smile as she lied again.  “I’ll be fine.”

“Great…”

She felt frozen as she watched him go.  Ice encased her as she heard the door slam shut.  Winter chilled in her veins as she heard the rumble of an engine roar to life and heard the crunch of snow giving way beneath a vehicle.

But none of those feelings chilled her quite as much as the icy fingers that brushed the nape of her neck through her hair.

“Do you like doing the opposite of what’s best for you?”  Eliot asked coldly, making her jump and whirl around to face him.

Those red eyes were mocking.

“Or do you just have a death wish?”