Out There

All my life I memorize their faces
Knowing them as they will never know me

Days passed. McGee perched on the rail of the bell tower's balcony, beside a gargoyle, overlooking the bustling streets of Paris. The people below may as well have been ants, but the gargoyle captivated him. She was an exquisite piece: dragon-like and ornate with colored marble veins and gilded rings in her ears and wings.

He placed his hand on her thigh and watched her richly decorated form spring to life before his eyes.

"Hey! Watch those hands, McGee," she said.

"Sorry, Abs," he muttered.

"Looks like they're getting ready for quite a party down there," she said. "The Festival of Fools that Ari was talking about?"

"He thinks the others will be there," McGee said.

"You should go, bring them back here," she said.

"Ari said it wouldn't be safe, and he's right. Look at me, Abby," he said.

"I don't see anything wrong with you," she said. "If I could go down there, nothing Ari said would stop me."

"You're fearless," he said.

"I'm a rock," she said dryly. "The worst they could do is drop me. Seems more dangerous up here than down there, actually…now that I think about it."

"I could move you inside," McGee offered.

"Don't you dare pick me up! Didn't I just say it'd be really bad to be dropped from this high up?" she said.

"I would never drop you, Abby," he told her. "You're the most beautiful thing in this tower, and you make it seem like less of a prison than it really is."

"That's so sweet." Abby's unblinking eyes sparkled in the sunlight. "Now get out of here."

"But Ari said—"

"To hell with Ari. We don't want to be cooped up here forever," she said. "You know what we have to do to get out of here, McGee. So go do it, because I can't."