She couldn't shake the feeling of being watched. Just couldn't. Since the night of the party, Brianna had felt like every waking moment of hers had been somehow exploited, peered into without her consent…
Most times, she just shrugged it
off.
Tonight, however, she didn't know
if she could.
After being dragged to a string of
parties by Jenn and Elizabeth, a couple of girls she'd met at a recent
audition, Brianna kept watching the corners, the darkest parts of the room,
the places, for some odd reason, that he might show up.
She didn't have any idea why those
were the places she thought of, but…
She watched.
Or at least she'd watched until Jenn
had decided that it was karaoke time, and Brianna needed to get up there
by herself and attract some attention. You're too damn talented
to just wilt away in that corner, she'd said. That was true,
to a point.
She didn't want to wilt away.
She just…didn't want to get up on stage right then.
-*-
Exquisite.
Startlingly…aware, though.
She knew that he'd been there, and slowly, she was starting to become paranoid.
Glancing this way and that as if she'd be able to catch him in the act…
The poor girl's mind was fragile,
and he feared she might be the cause of her own snap.
It wasn't healthy for a girl to
fixate on the fact that she might not be alone; though, maybe, just maybe…she
was hoping.
Yes, hoping for something to happen,
anticipating the next move in this game, the next tangled step in this…
It'd happen soon enough. After he was finished…admiring.
Yes, perhaps he'd decided to come
a bit closer to this flame, this surreal child of magick and beauty –
Such a frail flower, but…he'd break
her yet.
He'd simply…not decided when.
Soon enough.
-*-
He'd followed her and her squealing
friends from one dimly lit bar to the next, perplexed that someone such
as she would even associate with such imbeciles, girls who cared nothing
about nothing more than how much they could get from someone, how quickly
they could burn out one boy and move onto the next…
Her friends…were more savage than
he, it seemed.
But as the kinky-haired blonde (her friend Elizabeth, whom he'd realized was more obnoxious than should be possible) shoved Brianna onto the makeshift stage at this latest club venture, flames leapt in long-dull, long-dead eyes.
She was hesitant about it, he could tell. Fingers toyed in her dark curls, and the amber sunsets of her eyes burned into the floor, whispered protests tossed on her friends supposedly playful ears.
Brianna…was backed into a corner.
And he'd never been more entranced
with her.