"I can't. I was brought up in Croyden."
She has to get out of here.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
She turns to go. She has to go.
Step.
Step.
Stop.
There's a pressure on her wrist. A small hand, two delicate fingers placed over her pulse.
She stares at it. Then up. Up the slender arm, the smooth neck, the blonde hair… the blue eyes. Blue eyes focused, unblinking.
Unnerving.
She feels their gaze under her skin, in her veins, in her every breath, down into the pit of her stomach.
Her knees weaken. Her resolve weakens.
She is weak.
The fingers on her pulse know. The blue eyes know. They crinkle in the hint of a smile. The corner of the pink lips twitch.
She is slain. She has fallen prey to the steely predator before her. The cat has trapped the mouse, and they both know it.
The elevator opens. The fingers on her wrist press her gently towards it, and… she follows.
The fight is gone from her. There is nothing but the eyes, the fingers, the hair, this feeling of ice in her lungs and fire in her blood.
The elevator doors close. The air inside is still. She swallows thickly.
The eyes have drifted upward, away from her, but the fingers do not move from her wrist. Good. Without them she would certainly cease to exist. Dissolve into only her base atoms. Be everywhere at once and nowhere at all.
She draws a shaky breath, draws herself up straighter, and draws her gaze away from the woman in whose gravity she is caught; the dazzling, untouchable sun around which the entirety of Belfast seems to be orbiting.
The elevator door opens again, and she's guided by the touch that seems to burn her wrist more with every passing second. She imagines two fingerprints seared into the delicate skin.
Down the hall. Stop. A key is gracefully produced, and he door opens with a soft click.
The fear floods back into her without warning, and she is paralyzed. Agonized. Torn apart.
Stella…
Her hand is pulled gently towards the threshold, but she can't move. The blue eyes slide to meet hers. The blonde head turns. The whole body turns, and they are squared off, each on their side of the door.
Stillness.
Silence.
Silence so absolute she can hear the rush of blood thundering through her head.
The touch is suddenly gone from her wrist, and she feels a flood of panic at the sensation of being left floating, untethered.
But the hand moves, not away from her, but up to her elbow, and then one single, gentle, maddening finger is slowly, mesmerizingly, tracing a whisper of a touch down the soft underside of her left arm, across the center of her palm, ending at her fingertips, where it pauses.
Her skin erupts in goosebumps, the hair stands up all over her body, and she is returned immediately under the spell of the enchantress in front of her.
She takes one shaky step forward. Then another.
Step.
Step.
Stop.
She is through the door, her coat is being removed from her nervous, vice-like grasp, and the click of the door brings everything momentarily to a tense, heavy, seemingly endless standstill.
She wants.
Fuck.
She wants.
She lets go.
Her hands find blonde hair, her lips meet soft pink ones quirked in a half-smile of triumph, and she leaves all thought of Croyden far, far behind.