Like Magic - Prologue
Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction; all familiar characters/fictional settings are not mine.
She was eating her lunch when she noticed that she was being watched. Between indelicate bites of watercress and chicken salad, Katniss Everdeen spied a fleeting glimpse of brightest blue. She narrowed her eyes at the young man who had suddenly hidden his face behind a magazine – and wait, did the picture on the front cover just move? But no, that was impossible.
Irritated, she dispatched her sandwich quickly and paid her bill before hurrying out of the café.
She made it back to work at the Abernathy's Sporting Goods Shop and was busy restocking a table of novelty, colored golf balls when she felt a pair of eyes on her again. That familiar feeling of irritation and uneasiness returned and she whirled around to see … nothing. A father and his teenaged son were discussing football cleat options by the shoe counter. A kindly looking, older gentleman was checking out fishing tackle at the register.
But the front door slammed closed and she saw the back of a blonde head rushing into the street in haste.
She grit her teeth and set the rest of the merchandise out with a little more force than perhaps she meant to.
The young man didn't return for the rest of the day and she forgot about him when she was closing up shop that night. She waved goodbye to Clove, the girl who worked the registers that day, and was left alone to cut the lights and lock up.
She was pulling the key out of the door when she heard a noise behind her, followed by a brief flash of light, and her defenses immediately reared up. She fumbled in her purse for her defense spray and squared her feet, ready to run.
"Come out!" she yelled into the dark, pointedly deserted alley and in the back of her mind, she was vaguely proud that her voice only shook a little. "I heard you, I know you're there!"
And sure enough, a figure hesitantly emerged from the shadows. She was not surprised to see it was the towheaded fellow from earlier and she cursed herself for letting her guard down and not minding the possibility of his reappearance.
"You," she said, sizing him up. He was sturdily built and very obviously could overpower her, but she was quick on her feet and could probably outrun him. "You're the creep from earlier – don't come any closer!" She pointed the spray squarely at him.
"H-hang on," he said, putting his hands up in a display of submission. "I don't mean you any harm."
She was surprised at how oddly pleasing his voice sounded to her and this only raised her hackles further. Still, something stopped her from unleashing the entire contents of the defense spray can into his face and fleeing outright.
Something wasn't exactly quite right about his appearance; he was dressed bizarrely, wearing a lumpy looking green jumper over a luridly yellow and red striped shirt. And he could very well be wearing bowling shoes on his feet. ("Is he an escaped mental patient?" she thought wildly.) But despite the strange way he dressed and the overall strangeness of their meeting, cornering her in a dark alley like this, he seemed rather harmless – and Katniss generally had a pretty good instinct about when her life was being threatened, having been born with an abnormally good sense of self-preservation. She forced herself to slow her breathing and calm her rapidly beating heart, but kept the can at the ready at the end of her outstretched arm.
"I'm sorry to alarm you like this," the man continued slowly, "but I think I just saved your life."