Chapter 2: Silver Eyes:

  Just as the blanket had been folded up, I got that itching sensation in the back of mind. The kind that made sure you know knew you were forgetting something, something important. The grass continued to tickle my legs, and I pulled them up to my chest quickly so I could not have all my nerves on end while I tried to think through my subconscious. I ran through today’s events, my good memory choosing selectively to turn on at points, but today came in pretty clear.

  The concert! The moment I remembered I was up and on my feet in seconds, almost too fast as I was about to lose my balance, but George was quicker, grabbing my elbow in just enough to time to keep me from toppling back down. I scrambled over to Cynthia, my watch lying beside her, which I had taken it off when me and Jake had decided to go walk down by the beach. “Shoot, its eight already. I gotta go,”

  “For what,” Cynthia asked, now a little worried, but I just waved her off, the two of them got worried too fast for everything.

  “Nothing much, the concert me and Casey were supposed to go to starts at ten, and she’s supposed to pick me up soon.” I called out a quick goodbye to my makeshift family, making sure to pause long enough to kiss Jake on the head and promise I’d read him his bedtime story tomorrow. George and Cynthia waved, but Jake had already taken their attention away, as soon as our embrace was over running back down to the swing set, bringing the two of them in tow. I chuckled as I made my way up the hill towards the house at a quick pace.

  The back screen door was opened slightly, the hinge never really working properly, and creaked loudly when I flung it open to scurry up the stairs. The stairs passed my feet two at a time, my patience to minimal to be able to take them at a normal route. My feet were still wet from the sprinkler outside, and I was lucky I didn’t slip back down them all crashing into the first floor after the decline of all the stairs. I slid into my room, managing to stop at the edge of the carpet that was laid out in the middle of my oak floored room.

  It would take no time at all to make my hair presentable and my make-up near perfect, but Casey was never late and always expected me to be as punctual as her. Which was a hard feat to accomplish. The concert was a half hours drive away and we didn’t know how long traffic was going to hold us back, but she couldn’t get off her shift at her new summer job soon enough to be able to take off any sooner.

  Casey was one of the first and few friends I’d had in the past four or so years. She saw past all the sadness that had been built up in me for so long, and tried to make me happy when it was clear that I wasn’t. Something about her spirit that had made her wishes come true, and slowly as our friendship grew, so did my optimism about everything. I never went to normal school, so making other friends was out of the question really, having been homeschooled mostly because of the first year’s here my lack of speaking in total. But she went out of her way to take time out of her days to spend as much of it as she could with me, and for that I was extremely grateful.

  I plastered on the mound of make-up that had gathered on my dresser onto my face, making sure I didn’t look too much like a clown. But all the extra make-up was really needed because of the scar that ran on my neck, it helped get rid of the boldness of the dark line across my only slightly tanned skin. It never really worked, instead it only got brighter a bit, and I sighed before stepping in front of the mirror. The car honked outside, an already impatient Casey wailing on her high pitched hymn that erupted from her horn. I was 5’10”, tall but truly I didn’t care, I had always been well muscled so it made up for the lankiness that usually came with girls who had the extra height. But on the other hand, I wasn’t one of those muscle monsters that looked like their face got plastered on top of a bull’s body. My skin was lightly tanned, that never seemed to go fully away year round, but got darker as the summer proceeded. My face wasn’t something I usually liked to look at but I had to or it would look worse than it already was. The scar ran down my jaw line, and up my ear, making an intricate looking design if you looked at it hard enough. My caretakers had said that it looked like someone had placed a heated knife to my face, but the details had faded over the years. I had hardened over all my hardships and my face fully reflected that, the edges growing more defined, and my eyes, now that I noticed had become a steely silver. They used to be a bright green, but must have slowly morphed since I was adopted, just another thing I’d have to deal with. But my hair was pretty much the only thing normal now about my face, it spiked in all directions a short mass of brown on top of my head.

  The horn honked again, she was getting annoyed, so I sighed and snatched up the small handbag that was laid across my chair, before scrambling back down the stairs.

  “Don’t you think this is a bit loud,” I yelled over the booming speakers. Casey had managed to snag front row seating to one of her favorite bands, the name I had conviently forgotten, it probably had gotten beat out of my mind with all the base beats that shook the frames of our seats and the screaming fans that were behind us, swaying with the music like a sea at storm.

  “Not really, I’ve heard louder,” she screamed back, her hands raised high above her head to sway methodically with the cords of the guitar that blasted near us. If she was obsessed with one thing—except being punctual—it’d have to be music, she knew everything that played and every single that was coming out by her favorites, like I said, it was an obsession.

  Loud singing and extreme beating of drums weren’t my thing, but I withstood it because it meant I could get out with one of my only friends. I sat back down in my seat, half soaked in spilled soda and crunchy with popcorn or whatever food had been thrown across a section of the crowd. Even just being in here could make you start breathing heavily and have your heart beat frantically, both causing my head to ache. The last song finished and an explosion of cheers and screams of ‘I love you’ and such ran through the crowd rapidly. Oh my…

  Then came the kicker, they announced they’d like for some of the first row fans to join them at the after-party, their tickets working as a pass. “Great, now I’m going to get mugged for my ticket…” I muttered as the crowd started rushing for the exits. Casey was just a bundle of energy, thanks to the gallon of Mountain Dew she’d consumed in the first half of the concert, after that I had cut her off but it had been too late for recovery. “Oh! Kenz, we just have to go!” she said excitedly tugging on my arm towards the exits.

  “We can’t, we have curfew,” I groaned, hadn’t I suffered through enough of this loud music, my ears were ringing.

  “Please, please, please, I’m begging you!” she said, and she was begging as we entered the lobby, practically on her hands and knees.

  I sighed as I looked at my watch, glowing in the dark of the corner of the lobby. 11:50, my curfew was at midnight, but I was a pretty good kid, what could an hour over hurt? “Fine, but we have one hour, that’s it,” I said sternly, but she probably didn’t hear as she was already jumping in the air with joy, rambling on and on about how she would just have to get an autograph from every person in the band.

  The after-party was just a few blocks away, the darkness and chilly air was enough to get me high-tailing it along with Casey who ignored it all and just wanted to get to the party. Out of the hundreds of concerts she had been to (and counting) she had never been invited to an after-party run by the band. This was to be written down in the history books.

  Big, tall and buff, the bouncers at the door were looking gruff with their black earpieces, most likely connected to the leader of security. A small line off people were waiting outside the doors, but there was a crowd at least triple the size pounding on the gates further back, waving their tickets in the air, but security was pushing them back. “Are you sure we are getting in?” I asked, eying the bouncers nervously, the begging fans crying out to be let in.

  Casey didn’t even flinch, “Of course, we have front row tickets, don’t we?” she said with one of her comfortable smiles.

  “Are they real front row tickets…?” I asked.

  “Of—why wouldn’t they be?” she gasped, glaring at me.

  “Well, I never know, you have gotten fake ones off the internet…” I said trailing off.

  “I can’t believe you’d think that off me—“ she was starting on a rant when the bouncer asked gruffly for our tickets.

  We both flashed our tickets after I searched my purse for a few moments, getting annoyed sounds from Casey. The door was opened for us and we stepped into the club. This was going to be worse than the concert, I could tell that right away, the deep bass beats hitting me with full force by the first step I took into the place. At least there wasn’t much screaming in the people part, but there was a bunch of conversations going on around us. My shoulders sagged; I was going to have such a headache later. The music just seemed to make Casey’s excitement worse, kicking it into high gear as she jumped in place with the six inch high heels she had decided to wear tonight. I was already regretting my heels, and they were only about three inches, pinching my feet painfully, I could only imagine what she must have been feeling.

  “There they are!” she squealed, eying a table over back in the corner near the DJ, three guys and a girl that I recognized from on stage. She was clearly wanting to go over there, so I shoved her shoulder a bit, “Go ahead, I’m just going to grab a drink and sit down a bit,” she squeaked out a thank you then tried squirming through the mass of people dancing to the beat of the speakers.

  I did the same, except towards the bar; which had all non-alcoholic drinks since basically everyone here was underage. Way to take the fun out of partying. After being nearly knocked off my high-heeled feet half a dozen times I finally retrieved a drink and slinked back towards a round table near the walls. Scooting myself up onto the high top seat I finally relaxed, closing my eyes for a second.

  As predicted a headache was already forming, my head throbbing with the ever loud beating of my heart in my ears. Taking casual sips of whatever I had gotten from the bar—I was pretty sure the waiter hadn’t really heard me when I asked for a ginger ale, but it tasted similar to one—I sat with my head in my hands, feet absentmindedly tapping to the regular beat of the music. This wasn’t something I planned on doing again, even though I’d probably have to do a crap-load of convincing to Casey. And most likely I’d lose.

  The song changed, slower and less loud, making me sigh softly, at least that was one less contributor to my increasing aching in my head. Finally I lifted my head to survey the room idly. People were everywhere, every crook and cranny of the place at least had some couple dancing, some group laughing, or someone going totally crazy with caffeine and adrenaline. I re-spotted Casey, still waiting patiently in line for her autographs, and I was pretty sure she would get them to tattoo their names across her skin if she could. She was chatting it up with a guy behind her, some short blonde guy with a big enough ego to be seen from here.

  A big—cheesy if you ask me—disco ball hung in the middle of the club dance floor sending scatters of bright lights across everyone in the darkness, allowing glimpses of the flashes of people’s movements. My eyes swept across the crowd, scanning for anyone else that might recognize me from the city, even though I wasn’t there much often, I was ridiculed for my scar a lot in bright lights. That’s why the only concerts I ever let Casey tug me to had to be at night, it was the only time I really let people see me in public, where darkness could make me look almost normal.

  But in my scanning, my eyes caught involuntarily on a group of guys, laughing and a couple of then hitting others in the group on the backs in a friendly clichéd way. A variety of heights and hair colors stood out among them, and some of the voices I could hear from across the disco-lit and speaker wrought floor. Momentarily after I noticed the whole group, I managed to zero in on the one who was more like a background guy, sitting at the round table they were sharing for their drinks. His black hair hung in front of his eyes as he laughed at some joke that was told, looking down at his drink before leaning down to take a sip. Just the movement of his lips and my mind went rapid trying to decipher what kind of amazing voice went along with that laugh.

  I could feel the corner of my lips tug up in the first smile I had managed to muster all night, just at the sight of him laughing. Why was that? I had no idea. My body shifted slightly away from the wall, and my own round table, so it was facing him a little more. Was I really about to go talk to him? I was never an outright person; sure I might be impervious to a heck of a lot of judgment that had been automatically passed onto me over the years, but approaching a guy?

  But then came the kicker, as if he had felt my eyes lingering on him, he looked up in my direction. It was like someone took a baseball bat to my chest, the moment his silver eyes met mine. I’m not talking gray, not talking very light blue, no they were silver. Like the moonlight when it cast over the sea, a reflection that sucked you in and made you feel at peace. I remembered how I’d seen my own eyes a silver in the mirror, but they were nothing in comparison to his, there was a fire in his eyes that was unexplainable. After the initial shock of his eyes, I realized that indeed he had caught me staring and I snapped my head back to facing my drink, my whole body turning back inwards.

  Hmm… this ginger ale looked awfully interesting… yeah right. My cheeks turned a dull red, at the way his lips had been turning up at the corner too, in an all knowing smirk. Great, now he probably was gaining a boat-load of confidence, thinking he even caught the scarred girl’s eyes. But with looks like that, didn’t he deserve that kind of confidence to go with them? Nah, that would just make him obtain the higher-than-thou syndrome.

  And now I was contemplating his personality? Based only on his looks… I’ve seriously gone off the deep end. I stayed frozen like that, not daring lifting my eyes off the table, instead drawing smudged images with my fingers on the glass surface of the table. Seeing my legs tightly wound underneath around the bar-stool like chair. I waited around twenty minutes, or more appropriately around seven songs worth, hoping as much as I could that he just dismissed it all as a freak thing. Really, it kinda was.

  Finally I looked back up, not seeing him at the table I sighed inwardly with relief. He was gone, that maybe meant he had gone off to another group, totally not noticing the little freak girl who had a weird interest in silver eyes.

  But I just couldn’t be that lucky—my eyes caught on another flash of silver, and I noticed why he wasn’t seated at his table.

  He was making his way across the dance floor, right towards me.

  My eyes widened like a deer caught in headlights, and without thinking, I booked it out of my seat and into the moving crowd. My heels didn’t enjoy the sudden force of being put into movement and managed to almost cause me to do a face plant on the dance floor, but I grabbed onto a random persons shoulder and up-righted myself, “Sorry!” I mumbled, but they didn’t hear, they were already back to dancing. I needed to find Casey.

  The line that lead to the band members was empty, seems like they had stopped signing autographs for the evening. But then Casey should have been heading back to me? Instead she had just disappeared off the club floor. Where was she?

  Then, as soon as I had lost track of her, I picked up on her blonde head bobbing in the crowd nearing the entrance to a separate room. I ran as fast as I could, barely catching her before she stepped in the other room, “Case, we have to go,” I said, grabbing hold of her elbow, causing her to whip around. In front of her the members of the band were lounging in the backroom, furnished plushly with rocker décor.

  Her blonde hair whipped around, still perfectly curled like she had to have it, but an abnormal dirty look graced her face, “Now? I’m just starting to have fun…” she said, her voice lower and somewhat huskier than normal.

  “No, we have to go now!” I said, starting to really get nervous. Why couldn’t she just sense my urgency? But her eyes, normally a crystal blue, darkened. My hand almost voluntarily retracted from her arm as shivers wracked my body once.

  “Then you can find someone else to drive you home. Leave me to my fun, and go be rain on someone else’s parade.” She sneered before walking into the room after the band members, flashing me a dark smirk before slamming the door behind her.

  I stood there, totally and utterly shocked. Never, in the years I had known her, had she ever done or said something like that. The words were a fresh slap in the face, and I stumbled back a step. That abuse of words caused something to snap in me, something that had been very delicate to start with, but now was non-existent. I hadn’t realized how much Casey was my rock in all of this, and there was proof that something had drastically changed in this.

  Tears welled in my eyes, as it hit me. That couldn’t have been the Casey I had known, could it? The music was even more demanding of my attention, and I rushed to the exit. Anything to get out of this place. The nearest exit though had been a fire-exit, and while the tears swam in my eyes, partially blinding me, I slammed into the door. Alarms went off inside the room, and there was an uproar of screams, before it was roughly cut off with a slamming of the steel door behind me. Silence enveloped me, except for the clicking off my heels on the cement. My make-up, what little of it I had managed, was a hopeless cause as my tears melted through it.

  My legs failed me, and I crumpled in the corner of the alley I was in, my tears and sobs my only company out here. I had spent so long building up all my emotions, the depression, the anger, the sadness, all of it, I had shoved behind a dam. And then with one fatal swoop Casey had managed to crack it up the side, unleashing a whole wave of emotions that hit me at once. I was sure that no thing or person, could ever totally make that block go away, but she had sure put a huge dent in it. Nothing seemed to hurt worse than at this moment, the tears came long and hard, until I didn’t have anymore and was left to dry sobs.

 But even after that my voice could only last so long, and eventually I just was sitting there in the empty alley, the lonely corner streetlight flickering in the night, before puttering out and giving in to the utter darkness. It was welcoming though, just as must as the gentle breeze in the leaves of the trees caressing my face even from back here. When I could get up—which involved peeling my heels off my feet before being able to stand—I felt achy and sore all over. An emotional release like that demanded a price. No one had bothered to check up on me out here, not the bouncers or Casey—who knew exactly how I would react to those words. I guess why should they, no one really needed to care for me, my parents didn’t, leaving me alone in this world to take care of my little brother, and I didn’t even dare think of my first set of care-takers who had perished in a fire months after that, leading me to have to cave and go to an orphanage.

  I figured I should start walking, I had no transportation home, and going back in and beating the keys out of Casey didn’t seem like a viable solution. So I made my way out of the alley and out onto the street sidewalks. It was late—I would have been late if I had taken off my car, but that had taken an hour to get here, I didn’t even want to dare to think how long it would take me by foot.

  Slowly, but surely I relaxed at the symphony of the leaves in the trees that bordered the streets. I strolled past all the houses and businesses, until I was only surrounded by the woods, which helped even more, towns always made me feel antsy. The woods were thick and lively, filled with green foliage and trees as tall as houses, coming into a restful canopy. The wildlife seemed to be at rest, in those mere hours after midnight and before dawn, as if settling down for a good sleep, so they would be wide awake for the morning salutations from the birds. Fireflies flickered past my face, making a ghost of a smile spread across my lips, but not enough for my mood to be lightened.

  I heard a wind chime in the distance, making everything that had been quite and enjoyable suddenly eerie and menacing. All of a sudden I wasn’t just another person walking, but I felt something similar to…prey? Like a predator lurked somewhere around me, eyes locked my walking form. I did a quick 360, making sure no one had followed me. Nobody. But the chimes faded away as if moving farther from me.

  Then a low growl grated across the silence that it had left, and I froze, listening intently. It didn’t repeat itself, but I didn’t wait for it to have the chance to instead I picked up my pace. Stupid. How could I be such an idiot to walk home, (alone!) past all of these woods, there could be a freaking rapist/serial killer out there, just waiting. I would have been better off getting a ride from a random citizen in the club.

  There was a crunch of leaves underfoot, but glancing down I wasn’t walking on fallen leaves, and my breath stopped. They continued, something was most definitely out there. My instincts took charge and I ran, fast and furious, getting the heck away from there and whatever was with it. But no matter how fast and far I ran there always seemed to be that crunching right behind me. The beating of my heart, thudded wetly in my ears, my feet slapping loudly on the cement, picking up stones on the soles of my feet, but I didn’t care.

  After running until I couldn’t anymore, I paused. The woods still looked the same as they had, but I was sure I had ran a decent distance. My stood, with my hands on my knees trying to desperately catch my breath, scanning around for the source of the crunching leaves. But another low growl, louder and closer erupted close to me, causing me to leap out of my skin.

  This time, I could hear the breathing next to me, evenly and solidly, as if they hadn’t just run the same distance I had. Two silver eyes appeared in the space of woods beside me, and I stumbled off the curb. Freezing in fright I witnessed as the eyes became not only a face, but the face of a great wolf. All my muscles screamed to run away, save myself, but I was frozen in place, truly a piece of prey in front of the predator. Its steps were slow and deliberate, way too calculated for the normality of the wolves that ran around our property at home every day. The leaves of the bushes rustled as it made its way towards me, and onto the sidewalk. It had a looming presence, easily twice as big as the ones we had seen, and its eyes, silver and menacing took me in, in a way that was way more than animal. Baring its sharp canines, I gulped at the way they looked as if they could tear through skin and bone as if it were butter.

  With its presence right in front of me, I almost didn’t notice the screeching of tires behind me. That didn’t stop the wolf in its proceedings, but it became more ridged and aware. Its eyes flicked to the car coming to a stop behind me, but quickly returned hungrily.

  Then before I could take in a breath, a large, tall form stood in front of me. No streetlights were provided to illuminate their identity but I could make out their outline in the darkness. I wanted to shout at them to run away, this was a dangerous animal, but I stayed mute. A deep, rumbling growl emerged from the man’s chest—he was a man, I knew that much—before a feral snarl ripped from his lips. It was dark, it was menacing, and it had a demand in it that was clear to the wolf. It shrank back a bit, its hackles rising, but only giving a hapless snarl before disappearing back into the foliage.

  My heart wouldn’t restart, shock consuming me, and my knees gave out for the second time tonight. But this time the concrete wasn’t the thing stopping my fall; instead two strong arms prevented me from falling the whole way. Warmth enveloped me were his arms were settled on me, my skin feeling it beneath my dress and small jacket.

 Two silver, and very concerned eyes settled over me, “Are you alright?” he asked, but no answer came from my lips, only the chattering of my teeth in fear.

  The warmth spread further when he picked me up into his arms, my face against his chest, the material of his shirt spread beneath my finger tips. I hadn’t realized how cold I had been, my fingers felt freezing in comparison.

  The car was warm to, as he laid me gently across the leather back seat of the car, that was humming as the engine runned. Driver’s door opened and then shut, the glow of the dashboard illuminating the face of the guy who’d seen me staring at him in the club. He ran a hand through his black hair, causing it to stand up on end on his head. His silver eyes looked worried, and yet determined.

  The fear slowly left me, just as the tears had, and sleep took both of their place, my eyelids drooped, my mind not even registering embarrassment for having been found by this particular guy. He put the car into drive and started driving away and down the road, “She’s fine, she’s fine, she’s fine…” his voice drifted off as I lost consciousness.

  A tiny smile spread across my lips, because for some silly reason I was glad. Glad that I now knew what the sound of that voice was, the voice that had belonged to the form of his laughing lips.