v.
"I'm gonna be fine, really.
I can make it out of here…"
There were plenty of people who
seemed concerned about the small girl's ability to handle herself, especially
since Brianna had been drinking in the corner all night, martini after
martini…
The saddest girl ever to hold a martini…
It was a line from a movie she'd
seen, Vanilla Sky maybe? It seemed to be the perfect phrase to describe
her, and as she stumbled over the floor, a cloud of dusky midnight depression
hanging over her.
She'd never fit in here. She
wasn't…
Good enough.
"Fine…I'll…I'm fine."
More people watching her, staring
at her, making blood rush to her cheeks; tears prickled in her eyes, and
she lowered her head a little more, wanting to make a mad dash for the
door, for her apartment…
For her fuzzy cotton sheets and
stuffed animals.
Her drawings of the Arizona desert
skyline.
For a warmth she'd been missing for a while.
Of course, she really hadn't been
watching where she was going, and before she even realized it, arms had
snatched her up as she'd stumbled, and…
"Oh gods, I'm sorry…"
Chocolate eyes glanced up, and…darkness.
Sunglasses.
"Had a little too much there, Miss? You seem to need some help…"
-*-
She was more delicate than he thought
she would be, fragile in his arms. It was amusing, because while
she was in front of the mirror, he knew she tried to be a badass, a prom
queen…
Everything she wasn't.
Everything the world tried to be,
but…she didn't have to.
She'll never know.
"I'm fine." As small as she
was, the girl still seemed to be as feisty as she let on, and she only
let him hold her up after her knees buckled from under her the third time.
There's something to be said about
the sexiness of determination, even if he thought she was a little on the
ditzy side.
"You got a name, pretty?"
His voice wasn't threatening or sleazy, but there lacked the interest most
people would have. You don't really care what your prey's named,
as long as it knows what's going to happen.
And she didn't know. Yet.
"Brianna…" She looked up at him, tiny fingers brushing at the sunglasses, a perplexed look on her face. "What about you, Mr. Incognito?"
Oh, yeah. Normal people don't wear sunglasses at night.
"I'll tell you when we get out of
here, how's that? A girl in your condition shouldn't be alone – too
many bad people in this world…"
Himself included at times.
She'll never know.