A/N

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Disclaimer: If I owned HON, there would be no need for a disclaimer. As you can see, there is a disclaimer, so I don't own HON.

~Smiley

Chapter 10

"You haven't heard the last of me, Rephaim."

His words, even though he was gone (for how long now? Five minutes? Ten?), echoed around the room. No, not the room. They echoed around inside her head, the only and one place she could never really escape. Her mind was on repeat, like some sort of broken record, and she didn't know how to fix it.

Dallas was gone now, but she was hiding in the kitchen. She didn't want to deal with any curious customers, even if they were people she'd known since she was born and seen every single day of her life.

"You haven't heard the last of me, Rephaim."

The words hadn't even been directed at her, but she couldn't help but feel completely and utterly terrified by them. Yes, she wanted to cry, but she had done far too much of that lately. So instead, she felt more like screaming.

"Stevie Rae? Are you alright in there?" Rephaim asked from the other side of the kitchen door. His voice made her want to slap herself upside the head. He had just fought off a horrible ex-boyfriend for her, but she hadn't thanked him yet!

Stevie Rae hurried to the doors of the kitchen, pulling it wide open. Rephaim stood on the other side of the doorway, looking like the dark angel she had described him as the night before. He was wearing a black t-shirt, his black leather jacket, dark-washed jeans, and black Timber hiking boots. His long black hair with strange feathers braided into its length hung around his face. He hadn't bothered to tie it up this morning, but even if he had, it probably would have gotten loose after the fight that had just went down.

Dallas had left for hardly a second when Stevie Rae had bolted into the kitchen, the double-doors swinging back and forth the only evidence that she hadn't simply disappeared into thin air. Rephaim had thought she looked extremely pale—perhaps even a little green—when she had run in there, and when she didn't reappear after a while, he decided it would be best to check on her.

Now, the two stood on opposite sides of the kitchen doorway. Rephaim thought she still looked pale, but it could just be the light. Stevie Rae still held the door open for him, and motioned with her other hand for him to come inside the kitchen.

"How are you feeling?" Rephaim asked once he was inside and Stevie Rae had closed the door.

She took a deep breath. "Better than I thought I would be."

Rephaim nodded as if he understood. They were silent for a moment, and, as he had never been much of a people person, Rephaim's gaze dropped to the floor. Perhaps that was why he didn't see it coming.

Stevie Rae took a deep breath. She admitted silently that he looked kind of cute standing there, looking a little awkward and out of place but still obviously worried about her. Gathering her scattered remnants of courage, she went up on her tippy toes and placed a short, sweet kiss on his cheek, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. Still hugging him, she whispered, "Thank you, for doin' that. I really 'preciate it."

After Rephaim recovered from the shock, he allowed himself to return the embrace. "You're welcome," he whispered back.

Then, like both of them realized they shouldn't really be doing what they were doing at the exact same moment, they stepped apart, but, unable to meet each other's gaze, they decided to pretend to be quite interested in the floor.

Stevie Rae, trying desperately to gather, once again, the courage she had so recently gained, lost, gained, and lost again, started to bring her gaze back up to his face. However, as she slowly brought her gaze up his body, she noticed a blur of red across his right hand.

"Rephaim, is that blood?" Stevie Rae asked, shattering that moment of awkward silence. "Ohmygoodness, you're bleeding! The bottle—he hit you—ohmygoodness!" Instead of running around in circles like a headless chicken like her words and tone suggested she might, she grabbed his hand and dragged him over to the sink. Well, one of them. One sink was for washing hands, and the other was for washing food. She had brought him the hand-washing sink.

"Really, Stevie Rae, I'm fine. It's just a little cut, that's all," Rephaim assured her, but she wouldn't let go of his hand as she checked it for bits of broken glass.

"Yeah, right. A little cut doesn't spread across your whole palm or have sharp objects in it," Stevie Rae said, releasing his injured hand. "Now you wash your hands. I know there's a first-aid kit 'round here somewhere."

Rephaim sighed but did as he was told. He heard Stevie Rae give a quiet triumphant shout, and he figured she'd found the first-aid kit. She didn't exactly skip back over to him, but she did have a bounce back in her step, which made Rephaim smile.

"What are ya smilin' 'bout?" Stevie Rae asked, setting the open kit on the counter and washed her own hands.

Rephaim just shook his head and chuckled. "Okay, lemme see your hand," Stevie Rae said, holding out her own. Without too much hesitation, he moved his hand so it was resting in her palm. Bringing it up so it was at her eye-level, she examined the wound, moving it so the bits of glass caught the light, making them easier to identify.

"Hmmmmm…" Still holding up his hand to the light, she started rummaging through the first-aid kit for something. "I'm pretty sure there's one of these in there…"

"What?" Rephaim asked, slightly curious about what she planned on doing to his hand.

"A-ha!"

"What are you doing?" he asked as she triumphantly pulled something out of the white box.

"Tweezers," she said as if it were obvious. When he continued to look at her blankly, she explained, "To get the glass out."

"Oh...hey! Ow!" Rephaim exclaimed, automatically jerking his hand away.

"Sorry! Oh, gosh, sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you!" Stevie Rae said automatically.

"It-it's fine," he told her, but was thinking, By all the gods, Rephaim, you're getting to be too soft.

Stevie Rae sighed. "I still have to get the glass out."

Rephaim grunted in agreement and held out his injured hand. He could tell she was moving slower, obviously trying to be much gentler.

"You know, one time my brother stepped on some glass, but my parents weren't home so the twins had to try and get it out of his foot. They took turns holdin' him down and pickin' the glass out."

Rephaim nodded so she knew he'd heard her, and he didn't so much as allow himself to wince as she freed the first piece of glass.

"Of course, I wasn't much help at all. I started cryin' hysterically when I saw all the blood, so my brothers sent me to my room. I was only six at the time. I wanted Mama and Daddy to come home, but they wouldn't lemme call them 'cause they were afraid of gettin' in trouble. Tommy and Timmy had accidently broken one of the good glasses, and Chris had stepped on it. Naturally, our parents found out anyway, and they only got in trouble 'cause they hadn't told them in the first place."

Rephaim grunted in acknowledgement as she continued to babble about the most random of things. Rephaim focused on what she was saying instead of what she was doing, so he didn't even notice as she pulled the last piece of glass out.

"There," she said, rinsing off the tweezers with rubbing alcohol and returning them to the container. Rephaim started to pull his hand away, thinking she was finished, but her words said otherwise. "Not so fast. Still gotta disinfect it."

"Oh," Rephaim mumbled, halting his hands retreat. Stevie Rae grabbed the disinfecting spray out of the kit, and Rephaim, yet again, held back a wince and made his hand stay where it was even though the stuff stung.

"Okay, now I just gotta bandage it, and then it'll be done," she said, trading the spray for a roll of bandages.

Rephaim nodded.

"So, um," Stevie Rae started as she started to wrap the bandages around his hand, "where did you learn to fight like that?"

"Fight like what?" Rephaim asked.

"Like, oh, you know, that. You just fought Dallas, and I'm wonderin' where you learned to fight."

"Oh, uh…would you believe nowhere?" Rephaim asked.

"Nope," Stevie Rae said, finishing with his hand. "So are ya goin' to tell me?"

"You know, now would probably be a good time for me to check your head," Rephaim said, trying to change to subject.

"Fine," Stevie Rae replied as Rephaim started to unravel the bandages around her head. "So I take it ya aren't gonna tell me?"

Rephaim sighed. "It's complicated."

Stevie Rae smiled up at him. "That's alright. You don't hafta tell me if ya don't wanna. I-I was, uh, just wonderin'…"

"What?" Rephaim prompted when her voice trailed off.

"No. It's stupid. Forget I said anything," she said, looking down at the ground.

"You can tell me, Stevie Rae." Rephaim took off the last of the bandages, but before he did anything else, he cupped her face in his hands, forcing her to meet his gaze.

"I was wonderin' if, ya know, maybe you could…teachmetofightlikethatalittl etoo." She said the last part so fast that he had to take a moment to process what she'd said.

"You want me to teach you to fight?" Rephaim asked for clarification. He released her face, searching for some cream in the first-aid kit.

Stevie Rae nodded, blushing. Rephaim found what he was looking for, and he spread a little on his finger before smearing it over her cut, which wasn't looking as bad as he had originally thought it was. Now, it could be covered with only one little Band-Aid.

"Why do you want to learn to fight?" Rephaim asked as he searched for a Band-Aid that didn't have Dora or something else on it.

"I don't know. Just in case I run into him, I guess. I mean, ya can't be around all the time, right?"

Rephaim nodded in understanding. He finally found a plain Band-Aid, but he didn't say anything as he peeled the paper off.

"Well?" Stevie Rae asked as he went to put it on her head.

"I need to get home," he said, covering her cut. He turned and went to leave the kitchen. He didn't necessarily want to teach her to fight, but he could see why she felt like she needed to learn.

"Wait! Is that a yes or a no?" Stevie Rae asked. She had kind of been expecting him to just say no, but she hadn't expected him to completely dodge the question.

"Yes."

"Wait, really?" Stevie Rae asked. Rephaim could hear the excitement in her voice. "Ohmygoodness, thank you, Reph—"

Rephaim held up a hand to cut her off. "Don't thank me yet. Your lessons will start tomorrow," he stated. "Meet me by the willow I almost crashed into before sunrise." With that, he left the kitchen, the doors swinging back and forth.

Stevie Rae stood there for a minute, inwardly screaming with excitement, but then she realized that she just had to do one thing.

Rephaim was taking down the roof to his car when she caught up with him. His back was to her, so he never saw it coming.

She ran up and hugged him hard from behind. "Thanks, Rephaim. For everything."

Rephaim didn't have time to blink nor return the embrace before she had let go of him and run back inside.

Rephaim smiled as he finished with the roof and hopped into the driver's side. It wasn't until he was sitting with his hands on the wheel that the full force of what he had just done hit him.

Because he was alone, he allowed himself to say it aloud. "What have you gotten yourself into, Rephaim?"

A/N

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~Smiley