07

MY FIRST INSTINCT is to scream. To let the air from my lungs fly out with so much force I'm able to shatter glass, but I'm restricted when a hand comes from behind and covers my mouth, another up to grab the back of my neck keeping me in place. "Scream and I'll break your neck." there's a whisper in my ear, voice deep and breathy.

My voice is muffled into the hand, my body trembling in his grasp. I think of how I could break free but I'm no one near stronger than the intruder and I realize that the moment I'm not able to turn around and get a look at his face because of the grip he has around my neck. So I try to do the next best thing. I raise a free hand and try to land a punch, but the man quickly evades it before grabbing my hand and turning me around so quickly I almost get whiplash. Before I can even have time to register what's going on I'm pushed onto my bed, a hand still covering my mouth followed by the pressure of body weight overpowering me so I can't get up.

When my senses finally come to and I'm able to register my surroundings my eyes immediately grow large when I see the man hovering over me. High cheekbones and a tattooed neck is the first thing to greet me. His eyes locked down on me like a wolf to a sheep, a different type of fire in them hotter than any flame. I begin to squirm underneath him, praying somehow I'm able to slip away and possibly throw myself out the window if that's my only way to escape.

My voice was muffled by his tight placement over my mouth. I can taste the sweat on his palms, the dirt soaked into his skin. He smelled like outside and gunpowder, the confusing scent making my nose twitch.

"Shhh," He says through gritted teeth, peering down at me with hard eyes. "just be quiet and listen," he whispers.

I squirmed a little more but after a while my muscles grew tired and my breath was hitching in my throat from being able to not breathe properly so I gave in and accepted defeat.

"Shhh," he says again, hand slowly lifting off my mouth. He presses a finger to my lips, his other hand rising to own his mouth before pressing a finger against his pink lips. I raise a brow at him. "good boy." he whispers.

He removes the finger from his lips. "Where's the hard drive?" the words come out of his mouth all nice and slow as if to make sure I understood every word.

My eyes flutter at him, my brain trying to comprehend what had just been asked of me because clearly, he didn't say what I think he said. My face automatically shifts from frightened and anxiety-induced to a more puzzled look, brows furrowing and head tilting. "Really? You broke into my room for a fucking hard drive?" the words come out of my mouth so fast and with so much force I barely understand myself.

He quickly presses a finger to my lips again, pinning me deeper into the mattress. My heart starts to race again but after a second pass, he lifts his finger from my mouth allowing me to speak again. "You broke into my room for a fucking hard drive?" I repeated the sentence in a harsh whisper as if he didn't hear me the first time.

"Where is it?" His words are short and simple, not even his face inclines emotion other than sternness. He's very hard to read, even in a situation like this. I exhaled a low breath, one that started to keep my heart beating back to normal before I nodded toward my closet on the other side of the room. The trench coat which I think is safe to assume is his is hanging from the door. "It's in the pocket where you fucking left it," I tell him.

He pushed himself off of me and walked over to the closet grabbing the coat. I sat up from my position on the bed as I watched him fumble inside the pockets until he pulled out the hard drive in all its glory, a low breath escaping him. He inspected it for a moment,  before turning back to me. "Did you plug this into your computer?"

"I was gonna lie to you and say no but since you're risking your life climbing through a five-story window for a damn hard drive I probably shouldn't," I stand up from the bed fixing the towel that's barely clinging to my waist at this point because of him. "so yeah, I did. Why? Was I not supposed to do that."

I wait for an answer.

He slowly shakes his no like a school teacher.

I groaned aloud. "Aw man, is my laptop gonna get a virus?"

"Where's your laptop?" he asked and I gestured over to the desk in the room where my laptop sat already opened.

I watched him as he walked over to it. He closes it shut before picking it up. I eased a brow at him, arms crossing against my bare chest. The look on my face when I see this son of a bitch grip my laptop with his big two tattooed hands, raising it in the air before slamming it down onto his knee splitting it open — my entire soul left my body, an inaudible sound coming from me as my hands tangled in my hair. "What the fuck man!" I try to contain my voice, not wanting him to put his fingers on my mouth again so it comes out like a loud whisper.

The man places the broken laptop back on the desk. "If I didn't do that you would've had a swat team at your door by tomorrow morning," he says to me, dusting off his hands. He's drenched in sweat, dirt and what looks to be a little bit of blood right now but my laptop is what he gotta clean off of him? Oh, okay. I take note of the gun stuffed in the waistband of his pants but I try not to stare at it too long hoping if I ignore it so will he.

"You just destroyed my laptop," I said to him as I made my way over to my desk. "my mom got me this as a birthday present. Do you know how much laptops cost nowadays?" He doesn't answer me, his eyes are too busy bouncing around my room for that. They go from my black and grey bed sheets and curtains, the U-turn and One Way street sign that hung on my wall, and the large 8ball rug beneath us. I grew a little embarrassed after a while. It's not like my room is dirty or anything. It's clean — always! But then I had to find something to wear . . .

"Great, you got your hard drive now leave." I find the bass in my voice again, a hardened look on my face as I point toward the open window. He doesn't say anything. He just peers out the window and I do the same to look down and see the police officers down below with flashlights and sniffing hounds.

I'm tempted to scream out for the police and let them know that the campus intruder is in my room right now for a fucking hard drive but this man has a gun on him and blood on his shirt.

"Fuck," he curses under his breath, a hand coming us to rub the bridge of his nose.

"Oh hell no," I shake my head, a hand reaching down to adjust the towel around me once again. "you gotta get out of here."

"And go where?"

"To hell hopefully!" I could feel my face strained from the force of the words I let out. I turn around away from him, a hand coming to run through my damped head of curls. "You have to get out of here. If someone catches you in here . . ." there's a sudden knock at my door. We stared at each other, a silence stretching over us in the room.

"Yo Lo, uh can you come out for a second." Semaj's voice calls out for him. Oh God, not now. I point a wanting finger at the man with no words needed but I don't think he caught that it was supposed to be a threat because he just made a confused face at me.

I walk over to the door opening it only a little. "Wassup?"

"Campus police is doing room inspections. We're up next." Semaj informs, a tired look still in his eyes. "I heard someone say the intruder could be in our fucking building."

"That's crazy . . ." The reply was almost automatic. I'm not a good liar, it's something my mom told me my entire life. Lying is like acting and I'm just not a good actor. Telling the truth is way easier. "let me change into some clothes real quick."

Semaj nods and I close the door and turn around to the man, a pained look on my face. "What the hell are we gonna do now? Look, you ain't gotta go to jail but you gotta get the hell up out of here." I whispered as I walked over to him and tried to shove him towards the window but the man is made of brick and doesn't budge, not even a little.

"I can't go back out there. They're right on my trail."

I stopped trying to move the brick wall and let out a low breath, eyes wandered around the room for a moment. "The closet!" I said to him, rushing over to the closer and opening it.

"Are you stupid? That's the first place they would check." He tells me.

I made a face at him before I started to look for another hiding spot. "I'm sorry I must've skipped the Hiding Criminals 101 class last week," I mumbled, reaching out for clothes in my closet. "anyway I have to get changed. So you figure out somewhere to hide."

I'm in nothing but a towel with a strange tattooed man in my room. In any other situation, I would love this, but the cards aren't in my favor tonight and I'm in the one scenario where the tattooed man is a gangster with a gun who can probably kill me if he wants to and get away with it just as easily. I found a pair of underwear first, turning back around to him to see if he had hidden somewhere but all I see is this dumb ass still in the same spot, his eyes immediately landing on the grey pair of briefs in my hand. He notices me looking at him and his eyes go wide and I quickly turn back around.

"I said I'm changing. Don't be a creep. Turn around."

"Hurry the hell up." I could tell he was starting to get irritated like he was one in a towel with an intruder in his room. The nerve.

I can hear him shuffling around behind me and I tried not to look back as I put on the clothes I just randomly grabbed which consisted of nothing more than a graphic t-shirt and pajama bottoms. "I'm changed." I turn around and he's nowhere to be found, the room eerie quiet.

Am I free? Did he die? Disappear into thin air? Have the Gods smiled down on me?

My rejoicing comes to a bitter end when I lean my head down a bit and see the man under my bed, a pile of my clothes on the floor shielding him. "You're not serious." was all I could manage to say to him. This guy has to be like 6'whatever so how the fuck did he manage to fit all of him under the bed so easily? I know it's all squished together under there.

"You got any better ideas? No? Oh, ight then shut up." He barked back, a little sass in his voice that time that catches me off guard. "and clean your fucking room man." he pushes away an open gym bag not too far from him, followed by a pair of slippers, four forgotten chapsticks, a book, and a leather belt.

I don't that time to argue back because there's a sudden knock at the door. "They're here." Semaj voiced from outside the door. I send him one last look, pointing another finger at the bed — or under it at least.

I open the door and I'm immediately met with the face of a police officer. He's oddly tall, with tired eyes, and his vest clung to him like a baggy T-shirt. I scanned him up and down before returning I met his sleepy stare. Mind you these are the motherfuckers we suppose to call when we're in danger.

"Is everything okay officer?" I asked.

The policemen steps into my room without much of a warning. "Just checking to make sure you two are alright, that's all. There's an intruder on campus."

"Well I just got out of the shower," I run a hand through my damp curls for theatrics. "but I got out as soon as I heard the alarm."

He moves around the room again, black boots tapping against the tiled floor. When he gets a little close to the edge of the bed I find myself coming over to him, the proximity between us closing. There's an obvious uncomfortable feeling on his face and he backs away from the bed. "Well you seem to be doing just fine," he says and I use his distracted state to kick my towel on the floor under the bed giving the man more coverage.

Why am I helping him?

"if you see anything or anyone you don't recognize please let us know, alright?"

I nod. "Will do officer," I follow him towards the door, a forced smile on my lips. "I promise if I hear or even see anything suspicious I'll be the first to let you know." My hands reached behind my back, two fingers crossed. I hate lying even when I have to.

"Alright, you take care now." The officer said to me as he walked out of the room. Semaj is standing in the middle of the open living room looking confused and sleepy at the same time. The officers leave our apartment and we both wave goodbye one last time. I exhale a breath I didn't even know I was holding, wiping the water residue from my damped hair from my forehead and nose.

"What the hell is going on at this school bruh like you can't make this shit up. What the hell do you mean we have an intruder!?" Semaj yells from across the room wrapping himself in his blanket.

"Right, but uh I'll right back out I gotta finish handling this . . ." My brain starts to short circuit when I remember what I have under my bed right now, and I know Semaj wants to talk about this and so do I but can't because I have other shit to worry about. I started speaking in Spanish to throw him off which I know just sounded like gibberish even to someone who understood the language. I never learned how to speak it properly.

I come back into the room. My back pressed up against the door, a low sigh escaping me for a moment. When I open them my eyes immediately go straight for under the bed. "You have to get out of here. Now!" I rush over to him as he slides from under the bed, the frame moving a bit with him. Oh hell no he messing up with my furniture.

Once he was from under the bed he stood up and dusted himself off. He hovered over me, looking down at my folded arms and a hardened expression. "Your Spanish isn't good." He tells me.

My face immediately scrunched up at him. "Who the fuck cares about Spanish right now? You need to get out of here."

"Don't you think I know that," he returns the expression with one of his own. "obviously I can't leave right now since they're still looking around. I have to wait until the trail is cold —" his words are cut short by his sudden wincing, a small groan escapes his lips and that's when I see the blood from his shoulder. A small gash just above his bicep. He looked surprised to see it there let alone leaking down his arm. "Shit." he cursed using his other hand to cover it up.

I quickly smacked his hand away from the wound. "Don't touch it with your dirty hands are you insane," I tell him and he just stares at me. "Sit down," I tell him as we make our way back over to the desk and he has a seat...

"Take off your shirt," I tell him.

He sends me a side glance but he surprisingly obliges, unbuttoning the bloodstained shirt and tossing it to the floor in front of him. Like everywhere else on his body there are tattoos on him. His pecks and stomach were nearly covered in the black ink that swirled into different designs. I've always said I wanted tattoos but I've never acted on the idea. Tattoos are so permanent and I'm such an indecisive person that I'm pretty sure if I got one I'd grow to hate it a week later.

We sat quietly as I inspected his wound. He was grazed by a bullet wound. That's when I look at his chest seeing a few other wounds on his chest already. Just two, but still I could tell what they were. Two healed wounds. This wasn't his first rodeo. "You've been shot before." I didn't mean to state the obvious out loud but I did and he looked at me like I was stupid for pointing it out. Thankfully this new wound is nothing too life threatening.

"Do you know what you're doing?" he questioned me, raising a thick brow as I inspected the wound.

"My mom's a nurse and I went to school for medicine for a semester or two so I know more than most," I replied smartly. "whoever grazed you got you good but thankfully there's no leftover material or rust in you so it's nothing life-threatening. I'll be right back." I tell him as I walk back over to my door, slowly peaking a head out to see Semaj asleep on the couch in his blanket snoring his life away.

I run into the kitchen and grab the first aid kit before running back into my room undetected. I reach into my bag grabbing some cleaning supplies and begin cleaning the wound and around it in silence but it doesn't last long because my mind begins to wander on a lot of things, and I just have to speak my mind or else it'll eat me up inside.

"So are you part of the mafia?" I found myself asking a question I'm pretty sure I already knew the answer to but I just want to be sure.

The man snickers under his breath like it was a joke or something but I was completely serious, but it's the first time I've seen him make a face other than a glare so I freeze a bit at the sight. "I think you know the answer to that med school." I blink up at him before I start to dab a cotton ball into the graze on his tricep. "I'm not in school for medicine anymore," I tell him lowly under my breath.

There's a silence again.

I hate the awkwardness in the air, and the silence only intensified it more so I open my mouth to speak again. "I can't believe this all happened tonight like this is movie shit."

"It's your fault," he replied after a while and I immediately shot him a glance, my brows shooting at him. "How is it my fault? You're the one that broke into my room and snuck onto campus for a stupid hard dive. This is not my fault at all." I scoffed.

"You're the one who had my hard drive."

"That wasn't my fault. You picked up the wrong coat."

"Even still why would you plug a random hard drive into your laptop? You better hope since I broke your shit that no one else hacked into the system already was able to detect you because I can guarantee you don't use a VPN and if you did it was some cheap shit that couldn't keep your iCloud account safe let alone the information on the hard drive. If you're lucky the police are able to track you down from the hard drive before someone else because it's better it's them than some other people who I know for sure would do anything for this hard drive."

I paused in my movements, medical aid coming to a halt.  I blinked up at him, confused. "Are you saying people are gonna try to kill me over that stupid hard drive? It's not that fucking serious."

"But it is," he breathed, face hardening again. "I would've killed you for it," he admitted bluntly.

My heartbeat started to pick up again, and breathing became hard to do for a moment. I find myself sulking a bit, shrinking into myself. "I don't wanna die," the words crawl out of my mouth in a low mumble, eyes motioning to the ground for a second before turning back up at him. "can't you do something? Tell them, hey, the college student actually didn't mean to take the hard drive and try to guess the password?"

His eyes widened at him. "You entered the password?"

Oh, that's not — maybe I shouldn't have told him that. "It wasn't correct. I just kept getting errors on the screen." I threw my hands up in defense.

"Do you have a death wish?" he asked me, completely baffled with me.

"I would never waste a wish on a death," I tell him, arms crossing over my chest. " I can't die. My mom would be so sad and then she'd be mad because of the way I died she might just dig me back up and whoop my ass. I'm not a macho mafia boss like you I can't defend myself on my own. Buy me a gun!"

He kissed his teeth at me. "I'm not buying you no damn gun. I don't even know you."

"Why not? You're the reason I'm in this mess in the first place."

"I didn't make you plug the damn thing in and tell you to start playing around with it."

"Mr Mafia sir," Crazy how after three run in with one another in a span of a couple of days his name is still unknown to me. My hands found their way around his arm — the uninjured one. I looked up at him and he beamed down at me with those fiery oakwood eyes that could melt steel and pull away almost immediately. "please you can't let them kill me. I have a whole life ahead of me. I at least want to graduate first, and also maybe get my first solo performance, and then I wanna travel around the world like maybe Paris, eat a lil cheese with a baguette drinking wine —"

"You're rambling,"

"Fuck uh . . ." I cursed myself under my breath. "what I'm trying to say is that you have to help me. I'm just an innocent bystander in all of this. I don't want to die. I'll do anything, I swear!"

The room grew silent for a moment, each second feeling like a minute as we stared at one another. The man's thick brows creased together and his face tensed. He makes his face straighter than a poker player. When he sees me inspecting it and he says, "Anything?" for a fraction of a second the corners of my mouth twitch downwards at the way he said that until my conscious mind asserts control again.

I swallowed the lump in my throat. I'm gonna have to suck dick, aren't I?

"What's your schedule like for next Monday?" I'm caught off guard by his choice of words. How did we get here? I titled my head at him. "On Monday . . . I'm done around three with classes. I don't have dance either so I'm free in the afternoons. Why?"

"I guess you'll have to wait and see," he simply said, eyes trailing back to his wounded arm and that's when I noticed I never finished cleaning him up. I return to it but he opens his mouth again. "but you have to promise me something."

"A promise?" I repeated the word like it was foreign to me.

"A promise," he says again as he shifts in his seat, wincing at the slight pain in his arm. "you have to promise me you won't go to the police about any of this, and that as long as I'm giving you protection you do whatever I ask of you."

I blinked up at him. "I can get behind the first part because I'm no snitch, but the second part . . . you're not gonna have me become your sex slave are you? I'm shy." I admitted to him, a hand reaching behind my neck sheepishly.

He makes a face at me. "Why can't you take anything seriously?"

"I am being serious!"

He kissed his teeth at me. "No, I'm not gonna force myself on you what the hell kind of person do you think I am?" I didn't answer because I knew if I did he'd only get mad at me again.

"I promise," I said.

"If we're making promises we're gonna do it the Bellerose way," he says to me, and my face twisted up at him. Who the fuck is Bellerose? He fixes his posture in the chair, facing me all the way now. "do as I do." he said. I watch him as he uses his index and middle finger to draw a cross over his heart. He paused and turns his attention to me waiting for me to mirror and I try not to chuckle out loud because why is this big bad mafia man doing some middle school shit but then I see the look on his face and he was very serious about this so I do as followed.

"State your promise," he said to me, the fingers still lingering on his heart.

I blinked at him. "Uh . . . I Kylo Johnson vow to not snitch to the cop about you and that fuck ass hard drive that has ruined my life,"

"and," He drawls out the word waiting for me to continue.

"Do whatever you ask of me," I say it more like a question than a statement. "except have sex." I quickly added my words so fast I doubt he even understood. He reaches and grab ahold of my hand and places it over his exposed bicep, guiding them in drawing a cross over his heart. He pressed my fingers to my lips and I'm caught off guard by the act.

"I promise to make sure you don't get your ass killed because you want to be nosy and do dumb shit like play with hard drives." he states aloud, fingers crossing over my chest. His warm touch sends an odd chill down my body that I try to ignore. He kisses his fingers before returning his attention to me.

"I take my promises serious." he said.

I nod at him. "I can tell," I mumbled it lowly before I turned my attention back to his wound. "I have one more request."

He raised a brow up at me.

"You have to tell me your name," I simply said. "it's only fair since you know mine."

He stared at me for a moment before his lips parted. "Stone." was all he said.

Stone.

I repeated the name in my head a few times.

Stone Stone Stone.

"All done!" I quickly break away from him, gesturing down to the injury, which was now cleaned up. I grabbed some more bandages and wrapped them around his shoulder securely, to keep the wound from getting anything in it. He stands up from the desk chair, stretching out the wounded arm adjusting to the bandage. Once adjusted he tosses his shirt back over his head, all stained and dirty now. He walks over to the window and peers out of it cautiously. I assume it's safe now because he opens it back up without saying again.

"Don't forget your promise," was all he said to me, a harden look over his already cold face. He makes his way out the window sending me one last look before he drops away from my view. Finally in the car alone in my room my head immediately fell against the desk as I exhaled a breath I didn't even know I was holding. I quickly shoot up from the desk and make my way to the window and look out to see he's already out of my view, nothing but the slowly rising sun in the horizon  now.

What the hell did I just get myself into?

••••

EXCUSE ANY MISTAKES OR ERRORS

KYLO: