Chapter 2 – Jael

 

          I shut the door and leaned against it for a moment, head down, fists clenched. What the hell was that? I was dizzy, adrenaline pumping through me, heart racing. I caught him, and was chiding him for being stupid, and when he went white as a sheet I made sure he wasn't getting an infection from that nasty cut, and he looked into my eyes...For a minute there, I thought he was going to...to kiss me. But that's absurd. I brushed it from my mind. Didn't happen. I was just imagining things. I walked down the stairs, determined to never think of it again.

          "Hey, how's that guy you brought in doing?" the innkeeper asked when I reached the bottom.

          "Much better. Thanks." I walked out the door, still not able to rid my mind of the moment in our room.

 

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          I'll give him this: It sure didn't take him long to get back on his feet. A couple of days had passed, and Elijah was already up and moving with no signs of infection and every indication that he was going to heal just fine. In fact, I think he's itching to leave. Something's on his mind. I can tell.  He seems...nervous, on edge, like he expects someone to pop out and surprise him. 

          I had learned very little about the blue-eyed stranger I'd tripped over in the rain. He was around the same age as me, he was a fast healer, and that was about it. He wouldn't tell me who had wounded him, or why, or who he was running from. But in spite of the fact that I knew almost nothing about the guy, I was certainly starting to like him. He didn't lie, an automatic plus in my book, and he seemed to like making people laugh. And he had a special talent for it. 

          No other unusual incidents occurred, and we didn't talk about that first one. Elijah acted completely normal around me, and I tried to do the same. Some feeling I couldn't describe was growing inside of me. It confused me, so I ignored it. 

          Elijah seemed rather sad at first, and he didn't say anything, but I knew that he had woken up crying in the middle of the night more than once. He tried to hide it, barely making a sound as the tears slid silently down his face, but my hearing was too sharp for it to remain hidden. He didn't seem to be the kind of person who easily expressed himself, hiding behind his jokes and light attitude. I suspected that the person behind the mask was deeply thoughtful and calculating with feelings that were different from what he showed to the rest of the world. He wasn't all lightness and jokes, but an actual person who could feel pain, sorrow, and regret. The complete opposite of what he really showed. It made me wonder just who he was and what he could possibly be running from.

          We had started taking long walks after meals, to help speed Elijah's recovery even further. He was already mending at an incredibly fast rate for a human. I could tell he wasn't a shape-shifter like me. We smell differently than humans, and his scent was purely human. Most peculiar. But then again, there were many things that were peculiar about Elijah. 

          We turned to walk back. I watched him walk confidently.  He didn't act like his twenty three years of age; he acted like he was older. He seemed completely sure of himself, at ease, ready for anything. I wasn't sure if that was really him or the mask he showed to the world, the one that hid the confusion and unease deep inside of him.  I was unusually good at reading people, mostly because I was a shape-shifter with a superior sense of smell, but I was finding it difficult to read all of his emotions. It was disconcerting to say the least. He was so in control that I often couldn't tell if he felt anything at all, even though I suspected that he did.

          We entered the inn and sat at a table to have a mug of ale. I watched Elijah's cold blue eyes sweep the room as we entered and saw that coldness melt after he scanned the room. We sat, and I motioned for the innkeeper to bring us two mugs of ale. He placed them on the table and left. 

          A cruel laugh came from the opposite side of the room. I ignored it until I noticed that Elijah's eyes had gone icy. It wasn't until then that I looked over my shoulder to see what had pissed him off.

          One of the customers was pulling a barmaid by the arm into his lap. She was twisting, trying to get loose, but the man was a giant. "Come on, just a kiss and then maybe later we can do something else." He grinned, leering, showing his missing teeth. I could smell the lust and alcohol coming off of him in waves. It sickened me. 

          "Please, sir, I have to work now." She tried to pull away again and failed. "I'm not allowed. Please let me go!"

          The man's face darkened dangerously. This was going to turn violent very fast. The man was too drunk for it to go any other way. The innkeeper came rushing in, trying to calm the man down, but he just brushed him off. The man stood, pulling the barmaid into his embrace and leaning down to kiss her. She slapped him and tried yet again to pull away. He drew his hand back and moved to strike her, a snarl of rage on his face. 

          Then suddenly Elijah was there, holding the man's arm to stop him from hitting the girl. "Let her go," Elijah said, each word an icy dagger. The man instantly released her, turning on Elijah, the rage deepening on his face. Elijah easily ducked his wild punch and hit him once in the stomach. Just one hit and the man doubled over in pain and slowly crumpled to the floor. Elijah moved in to finish him but stopped, frozen, confusion on his face. A minute trickled by, and no one moved or spoke. He abruptly turned and went up to our room, leaving the man lying unconscious on the floor.

          After a moment, I swiftly followed him, afraid of what I might find. I thought I had mostly figured Elijah out, but his actions just now had proven that he was far more complex than I’d ever expected.

          I found him sitting on the bed. Just sitting, staring out the window. I closed the door and pulled the single chair up next to him. Then I waited for him to speak. 

          "I almost killed him. I had the very image of it in my mind: the sound of his face crunching as I stomped on it, the flowing red blood." He said it without emotion. "Is that all I am? Is that all I ever was?" he said to himself. He drew his knees up and hugged them, burrowing his face into them. I sat quietly and listened to him. I might learn more now than I could ever figure out on my own. But he seemed to blockade himself inside, holding tight to something he didn't want anyone else to see.

          I wanted to comfort him. The compulsion confused me. I wanted to comfort him like one lover would comfort another. I wanted to rub him on the back and kiss him until the pain I knew he was hiding from the world went away. The impulse was so strong that I was dizzy with it. What the hell's wrong with you? I wondered. He's a guy. 

          We sat there, me trying to explain this sudden compulsion and him battling his own inner demons, for a long time. Finally, he lifted his head, and the last rays of the sun caught his short brown hair, dazzling my eyes. He turned icy blue eyes to me. "I have to leave. Tomorrow I must go. I thank you for your kindness, but it isn't safe for me to stay in one place for any longer than I already have." I said nothing. He smiled thinly. "Am I so boring that you don't give a damn if I leave or not?"

          I swallowed. "It's your decision," I said quietly, refusing to meet his eyes. 

          His smile faded. "Fine then. Tomorrow I go." He lay down on the bed on the side that wasn't injured and pillowed his head with his arm. In a few minutes, I knew from his breathing that he was asleep. I pulled the cot I slept on out from under the bed, grabbed my blanket, and settled down, too. But I couldn't sleep. I stared at the ceiling, playing with my hair and thinking. It was something I often did while lost in thought.

          Truth to be told, I didn't want him to leave. I had grown to like him an awful lot, and I wanted to learn more about him. He was a very interesting and complex person, and I felt that if I spent more time with him, I would learn how to decipher what he was thinking and feeling better.

          Why don't you just go with him, then, idiot? Did you bother to think of that?

          I smiled, satisfied. If Elijah thought he was rid of me that easily, he was dead wrong.

 

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