07
Chloe leaned over the bathroom sink as she dyed dozens of red streaks into her hair. Tori had told her she'd look good with streaks. Standing in her bra, she dared a sneak peek and a grin lit up her face.
"Chloe?" came a muffled voice. Derek.
Seven months had passed since they met and they were growing a strong, sure friendship. He was a really sweet guy, under his rough exterior and biting remarks that tumbled out of his mouth if you pissed him off.
"Coming!" she called back as she dried her hair and threw on her t-shirt, walking down the stairs. When she opened the door, his eyes flew up to her hair. "Do you like it?" she asked shyly, twisting a strand around her finger.
"You look good," he said in a rush of breath and her heart sank.
She knew she looked stupid and he didn't want to be mean to her face. The smile on her face felt stiff, frozen. Coughing, she turned away and tears blurred her vision; she thought she looked nice, looked pretty with her streaks but she probably looked like a damn candy cane.
She mumbled something about grabbing a jacket and closed the door quietly behind him when he stepped in.
"Chloe," he called when she turned away, "I really do think you look great. You just…it took my breath away when I saw you. Red, like red riding hood? What does that make me?" A sharp grin flashed in the mirror.
Paused. And then dropped into a little smirk. His eyes sparkled.
"The big bad wolf?" Chloe felt her little mood lift, relaxing as she saw the truth in his eyes. "You know," She forced herself to sound nonchalant, to not stutter, as she made her way upstairs to grab a sweater, "I always thought that the wolf had a crush on little red."
She heard him choke slightly and laughed as she opened her bedroom door. What she saw made her scream bloody murder as she scrambled back, crying.
Her bedroom was torn up: dresser lying on its side; her underwear was hanging off the ceiling and her bras were plastered to the walls with duct tape. Her bed, which she knew she'd made this morning, lay tipped over, comforter torn up and fluffy stuffing floating around. Her vanity's mirror was shattered and her jewelry was scattered through out the room.
What made her really scream was the fact there were dead animals in her room. Blood hung in the air, soaked into the carpet in a big, red pool. There were two decomposed bats, a dog with a huge hole in its side, a bird with maggots crawling under its skin and a dead squirrel with severe mange.
She heard Derek thunder upstairs, heard him curse. He grabbed her by the armpits and yanked her to her feet; he pressed her face into his chest.
She cried and clung to him.
"Chloe!?"
Aunt Lauren's voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs and her heels clicked on the carpet. "What happened?" she asked in a cold voice.
"She went upstairs to get a sweater and she screamed," Derek rumbled, stroking Chloe's back, "and when I got here, her bedroom was trashed. Some sicko decided to screw with her. Put dead animals in her room."
Chloe buried her face deeper into his chest and inhaled his scent, pine needles and sweat, feeling her heartbeat calm down slowly.
His hand was stroking up and down her back, warm and firm, never faltering.
"I'm going to call the police." Lauren kissed Chloe's head. "Don't leave her, Derek, or I swear to God—" Lauren was saying, a threat underlining her words.
"No need to swear to God, Miss Fellows. I wouldn't leave her even if you told me to," he replied, his fingertips catching the edge of Chloe's shirt where it twisted away from her jeans. Lauren's clicking heels drifted down the steps. "It'll be okay," he told Chloe.
"It was R-R-Rae or Ro-oyce," she said slowly, heart stuttering for a second when he stared down at her and met her eyes.
He wiped away the lingering tears. "I'll kill them," he thundered softly, anger making him tremble viciously. She stroked his back, feeling the muscles there bunch under her hand. The look in his eyes made her want to run away screaming but she saw a glimmer of something behind the inhumane anger: fear.
He was scared? "Derek?" she squeaked out and his arms tightened around her, like hard ropes of muscle; her cheek squished against his chest and she heard his heartbeat: fast and frantic and heavy. She noticed the slight tremble in his hands as he fought to stay calm, his breath puffing against her hair.
"They snuck into your room, Chloe," he whispered, his voice rough and gravelly, "with me right downstairs." His grip was painful and tight but she didn't want him to let her go, didn't want his arms to not drape around her, keeping her close. "They did all that without a sound, a creak. They were like—" He broke off, his jaw ticking as he gazed off into the cul-de-sac through the hallway window.
"Ghosts, Derek. They were like ghosts. Not even you could've sensed them," she said softly, pulling her face away from his chest to stare up into his eyes. His arms remained tight and unlocking around her.
"I should have," he hissed, eyes flashing like shards of green grass, his lip curling. "I should have noticed them, noticed something, anything."
"Derek, are you scared?"
A loud snort.
"I'm serious."
Silence.
A pause. Then, "Yes. I'm afraid of what they're going to do when—" He stopped, his eyes closing. His arms tightened. "—W-When I'm not here to protect you, Chloe. They won't look passed hurting you, in any way they can."
The breath whooshed out of Chloe's lungs as he turned his piercing gaze on her, his forehead touching hers. The wailing of police sirens broke them apart and Chloe darted down the steps, pausing to glance behind her.
Derek stood behind her, clenching and unclenching his hand as he glared at the mess of a room. He stood stock-still, his nostrils flaring as his pulse thumped against his neck, jumping out of his skin. With a sharp shake of his head, he thumped down the steps behind her.
The first thing Chloe heard from her aunt's mouth, as Derek wrapped a large, warm arm around her shoulder, was, "What did you do to your hair?"
