Page 3 of Noah
My foot caught in the first root it found and slid through the loop emerging from the ground, and that was all it took. I slammed to the ground and grunted at the impact, unable to breathe or think for a long moment.
Too long.
Angus was on top of me within seconds. He flipped me over and slammed me back to the ground, his laughter harsh and threatening. And I knew this would be the end. I didn’t know exactly what was going to happen–I was only six, and didn’t have any idea what boys could do to girls–but I knew it was going to be bad. I’d seen this boy with a stray cat, once. I might not have understood my own body, or his, but I knew what he did to creatures too small to defend themselves.
I wanted to fight. I wanted to scream and kick and scratch his eyes out. But my body wouldn’t obey me. Something was wrong and my brain couldn’t control my hands or feet. It was like my brain had already given up.
So I shut my eyes, hoping it would be over quickly.
And then Angus’ weight was just... gone. He was holding me down one moment, his body pushing me into the ground, and I closed my eyes, waiting...
And he disappeared.
I shot up off the ground the moment I realized it, ready to run again, but when my eyes opened, I realized I didn’t have to. Because Angus was on the ground now, and someone else was on top of him. Someone with floppy blond hair and a scrawny back. He was fighting like a scratch cat, though, landing blow after blow on Angus’ face, and Angus was screaming like he was being murdered.
At the second scream, my unknown hero jumped to his feet and screamed himself. “You think it’s cool to pick on kids younger than yourself?” he screeched. “You think that’s okay? Think no one’s going to stop you?”
Angus didn’t answer. He was too busy scrambling to his feet and sprinting away into the fog.
I watched him go, confused. What was going on here? One minute I’d been on the ground ready to die, and the next...
I looked from where Angus had disappeared to where the blond boy was standing, trying to get my brain around the change. Who was that kid, and where had he come from? Why had he come after me?
When he finally turned to me, I gasped.
Because the boy was so beautiful, I thought for a moment I’d been saved by an angel. Blue eyes, set wide and deep in a face that couldn’t be real. A sharp nose and even sharper chin. Hair that draped across his forehead, and an expression that indicated both annoyance and concern at the same time.
He was glowing.
I realized later, of course, that he hadn’t actually been glowing. That had been a trick of the fog. And he wasn’t any sort of angel.
Though for years, I thought he was.
Ijerked awake and opened my eyes, caught on that thought. Noah Michael. My angel. My rescuer. He was four years older than me and practically a god, as far as I was concerned. The boy who ran after me into the fog when he saw another kid chasing me.
It wasn’t the last time he rescued me from a bad situation.
I tipped my head on the thought and put it away, though. Because the ceiling I was looking at wasn’t mine. I didn’t know that ceiling fan–my room didn’t have one–and the window was definitely on the wrong side of the bed.
Shit.
I lay very still, trying to remember what the fuck had happened last night and how I’d ended up where I was. I looked right and then left, using just my eyes, and saw that I was correct; the window was on my left, and that didn’t make sense for my room. And the sheets around me were black.
No hotel in their right mind used black sheets. Or rather... Well, maybe some did, but not the sort I usually stayed in. The only person I knew who used black sheets...
Shit. Double shit.
I bit my lip and prayed I was wrong. Maybe I’d just forgotten that I was in a hotel that used black sheets. I’d had some sort of personality change yesterday and suddenly decided I was goth, and then left the tour we were currently on and went out and found a hotel that specialized in black sheets, dark glass, and chains. I’d turned into some sort of costume-wearing girl who stayed up all night and slept during the day.
I knew I hadn’t. But you can’t blame a girl for wishing. Because the alternative was a whole lot worse.
I heard a deep, heaving breath to my left then, and turned my face slowly in that direction.
Noah Michael lay dead asleep next to me, his hair still spread across his forehead–messier now–and one heavily tattooed arm draped above him.
Oh God. We hadn’t, had we? Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The problem was, I couldn’t remember. When it came to last night, my mind was a complete blank. We were at the start of another tour, I knew that much. Global Authors were going on a bigger nationwide tour this time, starting on the West Coast and traveling eastward toward Nashville, our home base. We were in a hotel in Nashville, though and the tour hadn’t started yet. We were in the lead up, where everyone gathered and did what the managers called ‘team building.’
