Disclaimer: Anything not belonging to The Covenant is mine, although SkyyRyder's fic "The Life Ruiner" was kinda the inspiration for it.
Her body shook, her eyes wide and unfocused, terror reflecting in the huge hazel orbs.
"So bright! So bright." She muttered into her quaking hands, holding them in front of her face and staring at them, awe filled voice clashing with the absolute terror on her face. "It hurts. Hurts him, hurts him..."
"C'mon, Reid. She's on somethin'. Leave her alone." Pogue commented, moving back into the bar to look for Nicky to take care of the mystery girl.
"He's back. Coming for you. Wants Power. Red and black, red and black. Last son of Putnam has come back." She muttered to herself, rocking back and forth against the dirty wall of the bar, sinking down into a crouch and wrapping her arms around her tiny, breakable body. Reid watched her in complete shock, mouth agape. Here he'd bought the girl a drink, tried to get her to dance with him. She'd turned him down flat, but accepted the drink. Her refusal had only fueled his desire for her.
She was exquisite, with silky dyed black hair, chopped in chunks at her shoulders, tiny little things that made her look almost anorexic and too breakable for her own good. She wore all black, a sequined tank top clinging tightly to her slight curves a longish black mini over a pair of old, reddish Converse. Her makeup was heavier than he preferred; the eyeliner almost completely obscured the fire in her hazel eyes. Not Reid's usual type. He usually went for the Pam Anderson look alikes; blonde, busty, and dumb. But something had drawn him to this girl with her quips as she turned him down and slightly amused smile at his corny pickup lines. So he'd been shocked and concerned when, in the middle of asking if it hurt when she fell from heaven, she bolted outside without a word.
"Putnam, Putnam, not his face. Put them, put them in their place..." She trailed off, her gaze clouded and unfocused, her pupils dilated so that no color showed, making her look wild.
"What?" Reid managed to get out, getting over his shock.
"Garwin, you always choose the freaky chicks." Aaron called from the other end of the alley, moving toward the couple, Kira firmly attached to his neck and his gang following loyally, looking for trouble.
"Shit." Reid muttered to himself. Where was Pogue with Nicky?
Just then, the girl locked eyes with him, gripping his forearm with surprising force, her nails biting into his flesh through his thick hoodie.
"The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout... down came the rain and washed the spider out." She pled with her eyes, begging him to understand her riddles. "Save me." Her words sounded like a death rattle, and a drop of blood trailed down her chin from her gasping mouth. He watched as blood vessels in her eyes popped, filling them with blood, a grisly contrast to her black pupils. "Save me, Reid."
Screw Pogue and Nicky. Without asking her permission, not that he expected her to be able to actually answer, anyway, he scooped her up, cradling her to his chest, ignoring the blood that smeared from her face onto his clothes, and lifted her up, heading deeper into the alley and away from Aaron. If that moron heard anything... Assuming the girl lived long enough to keep gasping things at him, which, considering her current state, wasn't looking good.
Reid swore under his breath as they made it out the other end of the alley, directly next to Tyler's Hummer. To which Reid didn't have the keys.
"Garwin! Wait up, man! We just want to meet your new friend." Aaron called mockingly as he stepped out of the shadows. Too late to Use – Aaron would see, and then it would all be over.
"She doesn't wanna meet an asshole like you, so stay the hell away from her." Reid shot back, trying to think of contingency plans. It was proving surprisingly hard, considering every possible way he could come up with to get out of this situation included Using. A lot.
Fortunately, he was saved by Tyler, who ducked out of the bar at that moment, looking for and spotting Reid's head and parts of his shoulders around the Hummer, noting that his best friend looked uncharacteristically worried and desperate. Reid saw his friend and started around the other side of the car, putting it between Aaron and the girl, giving Tyler a view of the body in his arms.
Eyes wide, Tyler sprang into action, clicking his keychain and unlocking the hulking beast of a vehicle before jogging to the driver's side, ignoring Aaron's comments about a three-way with a freaky chick. Without a word, Reid pulled the back door open and gently laid the girl across the leather seats before hopping in beside her, slamming the door closed behind him as Tyler peeled out, panic fueled by Reid's desperate behavior.
"Hospital. Now." Reid commanded lowly, not taking his eyes from the deathly still girl, whose eyes were closed, tears of blood drying on her face. Her mouth trembled, and a delicate sheen of sweat was gathering all over her body. He rubbed the tears away with his thumb, not caring that the blood absorbed into his fingerless gloves, and pressed his cool hand to her forehead, feeling her fever.
When Tyler glanced back at him, the older boy's face was unreadable.
"You got a name?"
"No." She glared at him, daring him to ask again. For being so tiny, she was a spitfire, with unusual spunk. Reid found himself aroused rather than offended, which of course meant that his blood was flowing somewhere other than his brain.
After ten minutes in the hospital, doctors desperately trying to bring down her fever and find out what was wrong with her, she had sat up, told the doctors to get her some Advil, and had refused to let them touch her, acting as if her almost dying was a daily occurrence. They had insisted on checking her vitals, and after some argument she had let them, leaving it to them to discover for themselves that she was fine. Now she was sitting in the ER with the blonde guy who'd been trying to pick her up all night, her doctors conferring outside, befuddled by her recovery.
"Good. Not important anyway." He said cockily, watching his words sink in and practically feeling the waves of anger rolling off her.
"Get out of my way." She commanded in a dangerous, low voice. That got his attention. She was pissed. But it was just so hot. And, truth be told, he was relieved to have her being pissed at him and awake rather than unconscious and dying all over him.
"Not really gonna happen. Not my style." He whispered conspiratorially, crossing his arms across his chest, resting his half-gloved hands on his considerable biceps with a lazy smirk on his mouth.
"Get the hell out of my way. I don't care what your style is. I don't care what your name is. Let me go." She threatened, glowering up at him.
"Ya know, I would, but you see, it's kind of up to the hospital to decide when minors leave, who they leave with. That sort of thing." He explained, not moving from his position between the hospital bed and the door. The girl glared at him, furious but unable to refute his logic.
"I'm gettin' outta here, whether you help me or not." She promised, crossing her arms defiantly. With her bloody eyes and dark clothes, she looked like a dark goddess, beautiful and terrifying.
"They don't know what's wrong with you yet." Reid let slip.
"Well I do. So problem solved." She snapped, taking a few steps forward, gauging his reaction, the imperceptible shift in his stance to accommodate her change in position. "Lemme go."
"Gimme a name." He bargained. Her eyes narrowed. "And a phone number." The dark-rimmed eyes widened incredulously.
"You're seriously asking for my number? You're unbelievable!"
"We think you may be in danger. Know a guy named Chase?" He asked, casual but unusually serious. Some of her anger left her, and she slumped a bit.
"No. Why." She asked, watching him carefully. Would he see through the lie? She'd gotten enough of a read on him that last time they'd talked to realize this was way out of character, and, by association, something important. What did he have to do with the Chase from her visions?
"We think he's hurting you. Or using you. To get to me." He admitted casually, only his cerulean eyes betraying the seriousness of the situation.
"Why? I don't even know you." Her walls were coming back up with false-skepticism. Truthfully, she was dying for an answer. Why her? Why him? "And how would he be using me?"
"As a kind of medium. We're still working out the details." He relaxed his stance slightly, trying to put her at ease.
"We?" She asked, her body responding to his efforts before she consciously realized it.
"My brothers." He answered shortly.
She sank down to sit on the edge of the bed. That vision had taken a lot out of her. She must look like a wreck. That bothered her more than it should. She shouldn't care at all what this cocky, annoying-as-hell, wanna-be swim suit model thought of her.
He cautiously sank down into the worn-out blue chair next to the door, ready to leap up and stop her if she made a break for freedom.
"So, you got a name?" He asked again after a short silence.
"Yeah. Do you?" She shot back, fighting the urge to lay all the way down and just sleep, sleep until she felt well again. Truth be told, she was feeling more than a little ill.
"Reid Garwin." He pronounced it like it meant something, and to him, it probably did. She couldn't help the eye roll. "What?" he asked, semi-confused, but still with that infuriating self-assurance.
"You just say that like it should explain something." She shrugged, showing her indifference. "Just sounded conceited 'sall." A knowing smirk slipped onto his face. She had no idea who he was.
"Your turn." When she blinked at him, not understanding, he prompted. "Your name."
"Indy." She said shortly, suddenly interested in her sneakers.
"Like, as in Indiana Jones? Temple of Doom?" He asked, squinting, trying to figure out if she was messing with him. To his surprise, a light blush stole across her face. She didn't seem the embarrassable type.
"Indiana Goodwin." She admitted, playing with the pale blue blanket on the bed to avoid his gaze.
Both of the jumped abruptly when a harassed-looking middle aged woman burst into the room, looking tired, disheveled, and completely panicked.
"Indy? Baby, are you okay?" She asked, flying straight to her daughter, pulling down her eye lids to check her eyes. She completely missed Reid, focused on her only child. "The hospital called me, and I got here as soon as I could. Looks like this was a bad one-"
"Mom. Meet Reid. He kind of, uh, helped me out when I had an, um, attack." She pulled away gently, gesturing toward where the boy had been sitting, only to see the vacant chair, no sign of the blue-eyed blonde who had been semi-interrogating her and hitting on her all night.
"Oh, honey. Was it an awful one?" Her mother asked, concerned. She thought Indy had made him up, or had seen him in a vision. Indy swallowed, nodding. She would explain everything to her mother later, when she wasn't surrounded by that antiseptic-y, sick hospital smell that had plagued her childhood and teen years, before she learned to control her premonitions.
Her mother gathered her into a hug before standing and pulling out the usual insurance papers, and they made their way out to the front desk to check Indy out, neither noticing a pair of blue eyes watching over them.
R&R
Please help me choose a better title. I was lacking creative insight.
