"You will never change, will you?"
Sitting on a ledge, far above busy streets, Michael, with his piercing blue eyes, threw his gaze at Katie, who stood indirectly behind him leaning against the door to the roof. They were on the Chambray building, which stood arrogantly in the center of the city.
"Ah...! a rhetorical question." He shot gruffly back at her. His larynx long ago damaged from a noose that had not succeeded in choking the life from him. "I thought when we covered logic and practical thinking in your studies you would give those up."
Michael said as he turned his eyes back to the night horizon.
Her eyes smiled but her lips stayed in place.
"It was with practicality in mind that I said it. I was letting you know I was here, and, trying to find out how you are, in one statement." She said whimsically.
"Liar." His intense eyes trapped her once more. "A person who used logic would take into account the person they are approaching."
He studied her face.
"You, Katrina, knowing me the way you do, would then deduce, that I had heard you approaching, and known you were here."
Katie couldn't stop her cheeks from flushing red.
"And how I feel is irrelevant."He concluded.
He turned completely to face her.
"So the real question that needs to be answered is…. Why you are here."
He narrowed his eyes till they were just slits. He thought he already knew the answer but hoped he was wrong.
Katie started to fidget with her fingernails, which she suddenly took a great interest in studying.
In one smooth swift motion Michael moved to stand directly in front of her. Folding his arms in a false attempt at disinterest.
"Why are you here?" He repeated softly, his face just above her head.
Kate, who was not fooled, stood her ground, tilting her head uncomfortable back so she could look him in the eye.
"You should know by now that it's pointless trying to intimidate me."
Kate brushed by him to take the seat he had vacated but faced him instead of the street.
"You can't fool me. I have seen beyond your pretense. Don't try to blindfold me."
Michael shook his head, huffing as he went to stand next to Katie and sent her a customized scowl.
"No, not to blind, just a little fog to deflect you." Anything to keep her safe. Even if it meant misleading her.
It was inconceivable to him that he could face down a cold blooded killer without flinching but just the thought of this girl getting hurt... It struck a fear in him that pierced him to his very heart. It could also send him into a blind rage, which was never good.
"You didn't answer me."
The smoke of a thousand chimneys came up to meet his nostrils. A wisp of cloud floated across the moon. The light from that moon splashed on Kate's auburn hair.
Absently Michael noticed how her hair appeared almost silver in the moonlight. Why was she silent?
"What are you hiding from me Kate?"
She was such an unpredictable creature; one of God's more humorous creations. Michael didn't understand humor, he had so little experience with it.
Taking a few protective steps away from Michael, Kate decided to just get it out.
"I'm coming with you of course."
Michael stormed her before she could even complete her sentence and took ahold of her.
"No.... no."
He had a hard time catching his breath.
"I have done everything to shield you from him. I've not even allowed my thoughts to be unguarded around him. He knows nothing about you, and it's going to stay that way"
His fingers dug in too tightly. Kate flinched. Michael eased his hold but didn't let go.
"He is absolutely amoral. He does what ever enters his mind. Most of the time it is not premeditated, but it is always, always brutal."
Michael looked at the bruises he had inflicted, hiding the regret he felt. She needed to be afraid.
"It's delicious to him." He lowered his voice to a whisper, but still, it cut through her.
Michael knew Craven a little too well, Katie thought. They had been raised in the same hole. The same black nightmare.
When the opportunity came for escape, they had worked together. It had formed a bond that neither of them were capable of breaking, it seemed, regardless of the two separate paths they had chosen.
When Craven needed him, Michael came. When Michael needed Craven, he was there; instinctively. More like brothers who were complete opposites, but still loved each other.
Despite that, Michael would never let anyone hurt Katie. Not anyone.
"Very well." She said lifting his hands off from her.
Her hands were so small in comparison to his.
"But if you are not back here by midnight..."
Michael knew even though she wouldn't be able to find, let alone stop, Craven, she would do everything in her power to try.
And she would most likely get herself killed.
"I'll be here." He promised, letting his hands slide from hers gently, almost like a caress, but it being Michael, it wasn't.
Then… he was gone. Gone as if he had never been there, warm and alive, just a half second ago.
Kate rubbed the marks he had left, remembering his anger.
She wished he would see her as she was. A capable young woman, not as the child he had rescued. He had made her much stronger then that frightened little girl.
They were tethered, she and Michael. An incredibly deep and strong connection between them she couldn't even begin to understand let alone define.
But Michael closed a part of himself off. That part of him that he felt she was too young to handle. Just a young child he, for some mysterious reason, felt responsible for.
'Was that truly how he was always going to see her?' She despaired to herself.
At least she was safely where she was supposed to be, right?.
Tucked on the south side of the park, far away from all the scary dangerous places Michael forbade her from ever going near.
Katie sighed and made her way down the stairs to the basement where she and Michael bunked out. Michael was very rarely there. It was a place where they could store their 'things' for a lack of a better word. She had a cot on one side of the room and another cot, as far from it as it could possibly be, was where Michael slept; when he slept at all.
Katie knew it was pointless trying to ask him if she could find a more permanent place. A place she could actually turn into a haven, a home.
No, it was, backrooms, storage rooms, boiler rooms, garages, they even stayed in an old school once. There had been a strike on.
But the places were always temporary.
So she was to wait for him here. Sit and wait.
'Yea right!, not likely.' She thought as a smirk came over her face