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Thank-you to my reviewers, Saki, Nem, Toughie, Penpal...luv ya all :) Not too sure about this chapter, but hey....


Disclaimer: Don’t own, don’t sue.


Chapter.14.


Three hours and she had barely moved a muscle. She sat in silence, in the wicker bedroom chair that nestled covertly in the shadiest corner of the plain small room that became like a prison to her; an outer shell of entrapment to her coursing mind. Her head ached, her eyes were sore and full, but no tears yet shed. Her damp duffle coat still sheathed her, checked scarf loosely draped about her neck; she had not moved yet to rid herself of these things despite the fact that they were rapidly making the cold set in. Even her shoes, those ineffectual trainers that had let the sludgy puddles seep into their gaps, continued to cover her feet, spreading a chill up her but she cared not. The smooth handle of the switch blade was still heavy in her hand. Her thumb intermittently traced the two brass screws on its flank, the brass plate it affixed steamed with the body heat and left the spiralling print of her digit every time she pressed it down onto it. But in its ephemeral nature, it disappeared no sooner than it had been made.


She’d forced herself to pick it up from the bed, after gazing across the dark space at it, where it had lain, next to them on the sheet where they had made love. And so she had taken it into her hand; steady fingers clasped around and now she sat. The murky afternoon sky was still heavy; the snow shower had come and gone. Everything was consistent in its temporality and in its temporality alone.


The girl with the knife....She had been right here all along. No matter how far, how fast she ran...SHE would always be with Ororo; her malignant spirit. For the first time she wished to be anywhere but here---rued the fact that they had ridden so steadfastly, so blindly towards this. But they hadn’t been blind had they, at least not he...He had brought them here knowing that it could only lead to one place. A road with no turn off routes, no place for refuge and that angered her. It made her furious at him. She didn’t stop to consider the curious absurdity of blaming this place for stoking the sleeping demons within her, the past that she had tied with a ball of string, locked away in the attic. It would have come back to her at some time---but now, at this juncture, it almost seemed...prophetic.


The weeks behind them, their journey up this vast country, their journey into each other had been a wonderful dream. To believe that all else had been left, stowed in those dank lonely rooms in New York City had been folly. Escaping from who they used to be would not be so easy. It wasn’t like the shed of an outer skin, the change of familiar clothes, and perhaps, she began to realise, one couldn’t even find it in the arms of a lover. A fresh start was much easier in hypothesis than real life.


The knife handle slipped through her thumb and forefinger deftly, cold on the brass, palm warmed on the solid moulding of the black plastic. She swung it around, repeated the motion again---and again until her thumb stopped over the button at the top. She rubbed over it, circling in gentle pattern, tempting it, but withdrew. It cradled in her palm once more, her long warm cocoa fingers folding in to cover over it. She would hold it longer, the solid proof to remind her that just like Logan, she could run no more. Maybe she could understand after all...Her eyes blurred hot, she stared for as long as she could, putting off the blink until she could bear it no longer; the drops spilled over, falling off her chin, lost in the darkness of her scarf as greedily, it dragged the salty liquid in.


A car engine revved somewhere close, followed by the dawdling crackle of the gravel as it pulled away from the hotel and off onto the main road. But another came before the sound of that one left, the gritty rumble over lapping one another as another vehicle pulled in. There was nothing but Ororo and her pained silence until footsteps on the boardwalk disturbed it. Her chair was tucked in such a way that she couldn’t see out of the front window as she was practically underneath it, but she could hear everything; two male voices, exchanging it a meaningless banter, one aged the other gruff. Not naturally gruff, but born of years that had seen much...too much. She could tell just by the few snippets that came through the thin glass. The footfall stopped, that goaded her into concentration; a platitude of thanks was heard and then a heavy knock; a heavy knock on the door of room twenty two.


She stayed where she was, not even making the effort to move. She’d been still for so long she wasn’t sure her legs would carry her. The rhythmic thwacks came again, three uniformed in a row, the doors cheapness telling just from the sound; high and hollow. The knife was laid down on the thin arm of the essentially decorative chair, but still she didn’t move, only stared straight ahead.


“Logan---you there?”


That roused her. She shifted forwards, gripping to the sloped edges of the arms to push herself to its end. She perched tentatively, like she was waiting for the next knock before she would rise completely. But it wasn’t long before it came and along with the swifter, curter knocks the second call from the gruff voice. “Logan?”


She pushed up and off the chair then, getting to the door quickly but still, she hesitated to open when she reached it. A quick swipe at each cheek in identical time made sure that no moisture rested there or stained her skin. As lightly on her feet as she could, she tip-toed right up to its fiery red surface, one hand splayed gently on it whilst the other took hold of the handle. Should she ask first and then open? To hell with it---she twisted the handle and pulled back, but only enough to create a shard of space for her to glimpse through.


The owner of that bass, ravaged voice peered through at her; a man pushing the latter stages of middle age, greying hair, sharp greying bristles in his beard leaving an oddly distinguished look; his weathered eyes kind. “Ororo? I’m guessin’.”


Ororo stared through the gap at him, even more confused than before, her doe-eyes devoid of their softness. “Who are you?” she asked rather too sharply, her mangled accent sounding thick even to her ears. It was like a normal defensive reaction, especially when someone seemed to know who she was when she’d never laid eyes on them before in her life. Of course, it was not helped by the fact that her nerves couldn’t be anymore on edge right now if she tried.


The man gave a somewhat nervous laugh, “Urr I’m Smitt. Smitty?” he tested the water but no, no spark of recognition, she clearly had no idea who he was. “I’m an old friend o’ Logan’s---he came over, last night,” he laughed, again with that uncertain edge to it, “Or should I say this mornin’.” Her face, pretty as it was, never-the-less remained stony to his reception.


He was about to speak again when she cut in before he had chance, “He isn’t here.”


Ever the intuitive man, Smitty could guess exactly where Logan would be. The fool that man could sometimes be, he rued privately. But wilful too, all the reasoning in the world wouldn’t change his path if it was set. “D’you know when he’ll be back?” he tried, seeing if he could broach any ground.


“No---I’m sorry,” she answered more cordially this time, getting a check on herself. “You can wait for him, if you want?”


“Well, thanks,” he smiled politely; a strangers smile. “That’s if I’m not interruptin’ you ‘Ro?”


She couldn’t help but respond kindly to his instant familiarity, using the clipped nickname, “Of course,” she pulled the door right open, “Come in.”


“Thanks.”


Smitty meandered into the room, coming to a stop just at the foot of the double bed as Ororo shut the door, instantly cutting out the draft that was creeping in and then quickly rushed to the bed herself, flattening out the roughly strewn over blanket that had been stripped of its soiled cover.


“Sit.” She held her hand out, offering the bed in lieu of a formal seat.


The older man uttered the platitude again as he took to the offered bed, settling by the bottom, casually slumping his weight forwards as his work-worn and weathered hands clasped loosely between his parted knees. As all people do, his eyes, encased with their crows feet and dull pits swooping below, Smitty idly cast them around the room, Ororo naturally following their progress as a lull in the casual conversation of first time acquaintance passed. Inevitably he came to a stop on the shattered lamp, destitute on the carpet as it was; no attempt made to gather its remnants up. And nor was there now as she simply watched him gazing down at the mess and then trekked back to her dark little corner; sheltered and safe. She didn’t feel the need to explain that or the half hanging curtain that he now inspected curiously.


“So,” Ororo began, half a room away from him, “You are an old friend of Logan’s,” she first reconfirmed his earlier statement to him, before asking, “How long have you known him?”


“Heh! Since he was knee-high to a grass hopper,” he replied fondly, “I Knew his folks way back when, his father and I worked the mines together.”


Odd---Ororo thought. She knew that the notion seemed ridiculous but she’d never thought of Logan as somebody with parents. It was stupid, she realised, but never once had she even pondered about that kind of past for him, never once wondered if he’d grown up with his family or guessed a what they have been like. Lone wolves tend to exude an air of primal force, as if nothing like them had existed before and nothing would since, not precisely. But he wasn’t ‘lone’ anymore...Now that this”Smitty”had thrown her a scrap, unwittingly given her the first piece of the puzzle, she suddenly found herself yearning for more. “You have known him for a long time then?”


“Yeah, ages. Save for these last few years he’s been...away, o’ course,” he shook his head, the fact that he was even here perhaps not as sunken in as he had thought it. “I tell ya, it shocked the hell outta me to find on my doorstep last night. Twelve years is a long time not to hear or see hide nor hair o’ someone.”


Ororo muttered that numeration of time to herself, her fingers brushing at her lips as she mouthed it. Not even his age. She would have laughed had she not felt so grave. The simplest most basic fact about someone”she knew not even his age. Had this other worldly life they’d been leading removed them from reality so much? Months and she was beginning to see, talking to this absolute stranger, how little they had moved on at all...


“Ororo?”


She broke from her glassed box, not being conscious of the fact that she had completely phased out for a moment there.


“Are you alright?” Smitty questioned, subconsciously straightening up a little in his concern.

“Yes, yes,” she assured him with a quick nod of the head, “I was just thinking, that’s all. Trying to work out how long he would have been in the army.” It was an underhand thing to do, she would freely admit, but despite her reservations she felt the need to know more---like a particularly fascinating car-crash can not be ignored, no matter how much one wants to, or know you should avert your gaze...Anything she would hear pass from this man’s lips would not be too bad, she was sure. It was the safer things she wished to find comfort in now.


“Jeeze, now yer askin’!” He puffed his cheeks out as he retreated back in thought, trying to work it out; the kept-in air jetting out long and loud. “You’ll have to forgive me, the mind ain’t quiet what it used ta be.” She smiled, but the gesture didn’t show in her eyes. “He would o’ been eighteen, an’ he joined in the fall, so...” The gruff voice of man whose lungs lived and breathed coal dust turned to an oddly smooth whisper as he articulated his mental calculations, scratching at his chin, “Nineteen...eighty six, I guess. O’ course he worked the mines fer a while, but that life---it was never fer him. ” He sniffed indeterminately, “Wasn’t much o’ a surprise when he announced he was headin’ down t’ Vancouver.”


Fortunately for Ororo, mental arithmetic was one of her strong points where it clearly left Smitty lacking and as soon as he’d unwittingly revealed to her for the first time that Logan had joined up at the age of eighteen, it took her mere seconds to work out how old he was. Thirty six.


At the same time, as another natural moment of silence came to them, Smitty regarded the young woman. First impressions don’t always tell the whole story, he was perfectly aware---maybe she was more reserved than spiky as he had first taken her. And the way she spoke, with an unfamiliar yet gently rolling lilt that he just couldn’t place. He was curious, just as she was, but for him, he was curious as to what kind of woman Logan had fallen for. But first, he had to ask.


“If ya don’t mind me askin’,” He hitched himself forwards slightly, perching even closer to the edge, “where’s that accent from?”


“A little Nairobi, a little Cairo.”


“Just a hint o’ USA,” he ventured with a grin.


Ororo smiled despite not feeling much like doing so, “Yes, I suppose.” She had relaxed somewhat now, Smitty’s comfortable manner having put her at ease.


* * *


Consumed by the obscurity of this familiar place, he waited. The kitchen was as far as Logan had been able to venture. Nothing had been quelled the horror that this place brought to him, nothing had been sated. The house...whispered. He sat on the dirty ground, his back leaning against the sure support of the breakfast island at the rooms centre. His knees hitched up, casually---dejectedly---parted, one arm hung limply over, its look bleak as the outdoors. All around wires hung exposed from the wall where once stood the gas stove, the fridge---the whole room was strangely desolate without all the things that showed human presence. Something scratched about inside the walls to his left, the sound amplified, but it didn’t move him to look its way. For the house continued to whisper...He felt as if he were caught between times, between light and dark, day and night, this world and that. Within the confines of this place that dripped black and blue with bruised remembrance, he waited, but remained uncertain of what he waited for. The great swathes of un-forgiven blackness rested heavy on him; like the weight of lead that still troubled him, compounded on his lungs and strapped him to an artificial doom. A doom of his own making...perhaps not.


Carnivorous shadows set to devouring this former home all around him; quiet taunts reverberating in his skull that steadily pounded with last nights damage. But he was used to that, the pain could be faded to the background, ignored without undue concentration. The ghosts of voices, the echoed sounds of those people long gone---the people who defined a life lived long ago. A life he had long left, like rotting carrion littering this bleak landscape. And all this time, again and again and again, Logan asked himself, berated himself---why come back to this place? There was no easy answer to comfort himself with...simply a compulsion...



This house, this whole place had a smell to it, the scent of a lost chapter was written on every inch of wall, every shred of peeling, dampened wall paper, each half wrenched out fitting. Like the un-concluded theory, this house had soaked in all that was possible for it to take on board, absorbed it in to saturation point. But Logan wished it were that it had taken in nothing and at this moment wanted nothing more than to tear the wreck down to its very foundations. He stood sharply from the ground, standing so quickly he almost over balanced and tumbled forwards. In his head he could see his escape route; through the near-empty living room with its ransacked floorboards and mouse-fodder sofa, stuffing stolen as bedding, to burst through into the clarity and sanity of the outside world. But as he suspected, he found that his feet would not move him that way. He was stuck...lodged in this emotional quagmire.


Finally he willed himself to move, in complete somnambulism, each footstep requiring noting short of complete devotion to the simple action. The frosty crackle under the tread of his boots lessened in its density as he headed away from the cracked tiled surface. Following that path that he had walked nightly for a time, in dreams, nightmares, less frequently as the years had trundled on in a myriad of wilful blood-letting, having given him an unlikely out for his rage; that consuming monster. And then they had gone, vanquished upon his chance meeting with a petty street thief. Until hours ago, he had not been plagued by the dreams at all, not for months. He had at last found a respite from horror...But now he fund himself, of his own volition, back at their root source...


Through to the hallway he slipped in preternatural silence. The odd scuffle was heard, but it was of no consequence. He encroached, cautiously, on the staircase---all passing by him in slow motion; all save the strike of his heart. Like his adrenaline fuelled, feverous madness that took him with impunity, it pounded like a cheetah breaking loose into impossible speed across the Serengeti plane. But he had no quarry to chase save for those found within...Furrowed hazel eyes traced upwards, lingering every few steps where missing boards on the staircase before him created black-holes, rotted through wit years of damp They looked as if they would cave in on themselves at the slightest pressure. Logan started up its precarious path.


*


It came out from the bedroom wall at a jaunting angle, he didn’t think once about why it was still here after so long, why no-one had taken it down. Still held up by the very same string, almost eaten through it belied its look, containing the strength to stop the heavy gilded frame from falling to the ground. It was the only thing left in that room---Logan approached it slowly, a portentous air pervaded the entire space.


He could smell it. After all this time, that sharp oxidation, metal and salt. The scent was one a man like him had encountered on most days of his life, but this was different. Something that had never left him all these years, months, days, hours...the scent that was specific to her. Something he wished never to be close to again and now that he was here, he realised why... One he’d never experienced before or since, imprinted on his memory for now and forever more. Her...


He stopped; the darker line on the floorboards where the dresser once stood like a natural barrier, un-faded by the strong sunlight that seeped once through the wide expansive windows now only seeping through the gaps in the planks that blocked them; the ghost of its familiar presence still there in his mind, where their clothes had lain, neatly folded, side by side. The impassive layer of dust, like thick grey ash settled after a fire, muffled the picture within its frame, the vivid red of the poppies on the lush green sloping down, barely seen and partly guarded his reflection from the glass; a splinter of muted light falling upon it...He stood stock still and stared, the fragments came to him, the make up of a face forming from the blur that he barely recognised anymore. His eyes held a lifelessness that even he could see, the cold mask of his features. Seething and brutal, his fingers curled into his palm, short badly bitten nails digging into the flesh; the fist snapped out like lightening, the shatter was instantaneous. The splintered shards of glass over the picture fragmented his image into a hundred pieces, all looking back at him over the top of the wedding present...their wedding present....The one he remembered so vividly from his dream. He didn’t move, he simply remained there, staring...


The wet dripped hotly from his split knuckles but he let it run. Drip, drip, drip to the floor... Small sparkles of glass glittered in the scarlet of the gashes as the abrupt rush took its time to die down in his ears; his entire head filled with it, overwrought with it. The roaring adrenaline of a fight, his primal rage reared its ugly head as it had threatened earlier and would not retreat quietly. Heart hammering, he struggled to calm his erratic breathing, barely making growls as each slipped through. There ran a tremor through-out his body; one he came to realise was informed only by his anger; an anger he’d carried with him for more years than he cared to think. A life wasted, nearly consumed by it. His scowl was as black as night. His anger caused by and directed at her...at them...Them. Even now, after everything he couldn’t forgive her. And as for him”HIM”the need to hunt him down remained. But no...what was the point? It would cost him more than he’d lost already. And what he had now, he wasn’t about to jeopardise, for anything. He wouldn’t give either of them the satisfaction. His life had been destroyed once, he wouldn’t let them do it to him again...


* * *


Half-an-hour had come and gone with barely a whisper and the conversation had weaved comfortably between the pair. Smitty’s obvious friendship with Logan had, by now, completely disarmed Ororo’s defensiveness; a trait that had aided her survival for years. But still she was retreated in that dark corner, taking it all in from a distance. Little scraps, small pieces of information he threw to her unknowingly and she caught them, every last one; devoured and deduced from them what she could. Though the talk had mainly centred around the town, and general facts, Ororo found it fascinating, like he was building a picture for her of a person she didn’t at all know. With friends, family---a whole other life that bore no relation to the man she had come to love. This insular loner.


She slipped off her wicker chair as she listened to him talk, her eyes never leaving him; the muffled movement of his lips as she settled onto the carpet, her legs beneath her like a child getting comfortable for story time. With the inwardly bending leg of the chair pushed between her shoulder blades, tales regaled her of Smitty’s time with Logan’s father, working the mines...all under complete presumption, of course.



“Yeah John,” he smiled, remembering, “John Howlett was the best damn foreman that mine ever had. Could certainly keep a better check on those lazy bastards than I’ve ever been able to,” he said self deprecatingly, adding, as a mute point, “Excuse my French.”


Ororo waved her hand and laughed it off as she shifted on the ground; a twinge of pain from her foot catching her sharply. Before Smitty got chance to question the stifled wince he saw, she said, “John? So that was his father’s name. You know, he doesn’t really talk much about his family.”



“Really?” Smitty suddenly felt apprehensive, fearing perhaps he’d said too much, though in truth he hadn’t told her anything of great consequence. But he had just assumed...she seemed to react with a disarming familiarity to everything he’d said.


“He’s spoken of them,” Ororo replied quickly; lying to appease him. She felt awful for doing so and for doing this but she couldn’t help herself. “---just a little light on the details, that’s all.”


“Yeah, well,” he balled his fist close to his mouth as he hacked a nasty cough; too many cigars last night. “---S’cuse me---it’s not really surprisin’. It was a damn shame that John died when he did...An’ I never did think much of his step-daddy.” He went quiet then, deciding that it was best to hold his tongue he turned to gaze at the blank sky through the window opposite.


Ororo accepted it, not questioning further, not wanting to push it too far. She moved on the floor, shifting into a kneeling position. The ticking of the clock became suddenly ominous. She shivered a little, the temperature of the room having steadily dropped as the hours had past.


Smitty cleared his throat awkwardly, giving another cough, but much lighter. “Did, urr, did Logan say where he was going?” Anything would do to break the hush that had descended. He hated silence, even if she would only confirm what he already knew...


“That house,” Ororo replied quietly, aware of the goose-pimples that broke out on her skin on speaking of it, “His old house, on the hill.”


Smitty simply nodded for he understood. And in that one gesture Ororo saw that he understood more than she possibly ever would, ever could. That made her feel a certain regret, a regret nestled somewhere deep inside. Everything suddenly seemed to her so...sombre, desolate. Again, she wished to be anywhere but here. She rubbed her arms, hoping to remove the chill that seeped now straight through to the bone; her damp discarded coat and scarf lay in a slovenly lump right next to where she sat. She reached out and fingered the hood slowly, the course weave a curious texture, her brown eyes gazing at it as if it had become unquestionably interesting within the last few moments.


Perhaps she knew.... “You know, he was talkin’ about you last night.” He was glad to see that brought a shade of a smile to her face. She was pretty when she smiled; Logan had discovered himself a real find. He only hoped he could hold onto her for she’d obviously done him wonders already. Just the way he seemed to change, that subtle shift, when he spoke of her. Maybe he’d finally found the contentment he’d craved for so long... “He seems real...smitten,” he grinned at the dark flush in her cheeks; a dusky rose. “I’m sure he won’t mind me sayin’ that.”


Ororo brushed her cheek, as if to rid the ruddy blush, “At times,” she hitched a shoulder, “I wouldn’t know,” she practically muttered, wishing she’d said nothing even as the words formed.


Smitty moved, as if suddenly uncomfortable, perhaps feeling he’d spoken out of turn, but having passed through that point enough to bid him to continue; one of those odd times, where a stranger seems familiar through association. An association he felt surrogate to. “Look, tell me if I’m over steppin’ the mark here,” he pre-empted, holding a hand out, “I don’t pretend ta know what’s goin’ on between you two, or why he’s brought ya up here, but all I know is that Logan doesn’t love in half measures, he’s,” he shook his head as if stuck for words, “he’s...the real deal---he’s a good man.”


It felt peculiar for somebody else to be telling her this, something that had been set into herself for so long or else in her heart of hearts, she would not have seen this through. But it offered a certain comfort to hear this from someone who knew him, really knew him; a bizarre comfort, but a comfort none-the-less. She knew...she knew he loved her but sometimes, love just wasn’t enough...In that way, it offered scant consolation. She simply needed to speak, needed to voice...something...”It’s...it is just so difficult sometimes, I don’t know what to do...”


Smitty felt distinctly awkward, a general reaction, one that he overcame quickly enough. “I admire the fact that you’ve come back here with him, most---.”


“Why?” she asked sharply; not in peevishness more haste.


He paused for a moment, his countenance slightly sheepish, “Well, it---it takes a certain kind of person to come back here with him, to...”


“To what?” she whispered; try as she might, the glisten in her eyes was still there.


“After Fox, and everything that happened, I can only say I was surprised that he’d ever wanna set foot in Alberta ever again.”


Fox? Ororo’s mind reeled, she shifted awkwardly on the ground, inadvertently huffing a breath, “Who is Fox?”


“Silver?...you mean, he never told you about Silver?” Smitty wished a great crevice would open up and swallow him whole, nothing would have been finer at this point.


“No,” she fairly quivered, “He has never said anything about somebody called ‘Silver’,” she took on what could only be described as a fretful look, “Or Fox.”


Smitty stood up, running his hand distractedly under his nose, “I should go really---I’ve gotta get down to the mine---.”


“Who is she?” Ororo asked gravely, her dark eyes almost black as she fixed him intensely, “Please...just tell me.” He may have been crossing the boundaries but she had to know. Forsake friendships, he had said too much.


“I’m sorry Ororo,” he said then muttered something in what appeared to be self-chastisement under his breath, “It really isn’t for me ta say anythin’---I just thought you would have known.”


“Well I didn’t,” she said numbly, her eyes far off before switching back to the man in front of her, the man she barely knew but was now waiting on to tell her something that could change everything. “...please. I know you are Logan’s friend, but---if there is something I should know...tell me.” She didn’t plead; there was too much nobility in the face of her for that. No, moreover she was earnest in her request to him, of him. An earnest sensibility that he recognised well, and found instantly, he could not refuse to satisfy.


Never-the-less he headed for the door, appearing to make his exit, but soon stopped close to it. “Silver---,” he looked piqued, as if struck by an attack of conscience, whilst recognising that telling her was right too, “I’m sure he would have told you soon---Silver is Logan’s wife.”


The fast strike of a rocklike fist square into Ororo’s chest. It knocked the breath from her lungs, fairly induced her to retch. She only had strength enough left to utter one inquiry. “Is...?”


Smitty looked grave, his brow contorting, peevish, and said only one word in reply, in correction. “Was.”


* * *


Hours later....


He eyed the sludgy footprints that stopped just before the red veneer of room twenty-two. There were two sets, melting in the dirt stained transient snow; the large imprints of ridge-soled boots. He stood on the boardwalk for a moment and wondered. Out of cautious habit he looked both ways before entering the room; the dull yellow lights set underneath the small log-structured awning highlighting the quiet desolate nature of the evening. There didn’t seem to be anyone in any of the other rooms at either side of them, or in the rest of the motel for that matter. Only the distant sound of false crowd laughter from the television in the reception across the courtyard indicated any other presence. Not even the light in their room was on. Slowly, with reluctance, he entered...


*


She sat on the stripped bed. Her coat was balled and nestled at her feet that were tucked close to her, like a dutiful pet. She had put it on and taken it off so many times in the hours since Smitty had left she simply became comforted that it was near, at hand. Should she leave or shouldn’t she?...


Logan swallowed down hard on seeing her, but somehow remained impassive, as detached as usual. There was a left over sent of stale smoke in the air, but he couldn’t place it. It seemed a little too strong to be the remnants of is own cigar this morning. He let the distraction pass as he edged towards the bed, stopping at its foot, hands in his pockets. Even in the near total dark, the red rims about her eyes where evident; accentuated by the mild puffiness that beset them, she was practically illuminated by the brightness of her hair that almost gave off its own incandescence. But it wasn’t this that caused a pang, a rare feeling of what he could only describe to himself as fear. It was the utter vacuousness of her face”an expressionless visage of the woman he loved.


What he did not realise, as they silently regarded each other from across the bare expanse of the bed, unflinching in their hard eye contact, was that she thought the same of him.


-TBC-


R’s always appreciated”spur me on with the last couple of chapters :),.....so close ;), M’iko, xx





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