"Hey there," A woman said, sidling up against him, and looking him up and
down.
"Sorry," he said. "I'm taken."
She pouted prettily and said, "By who, surely she wouldn't mind sharing?"
she slid her hand into the inside of his jacket.
He grabbed her hand and let it fall to her side.
"By someone that doesn't even know I exist." He replied under his breath,
walking out of the crash and into the rain.
He stood there for a few minutes, letting the rain run over his upturned
face. Cooling his frustration at being such a coward as to not even
introduce himself to the woman that haunted his dreams.
Then he sighed and walked home, or at least that was where he thought he
was headed, but 15 minutes later he found himself outside the apartment
building of his dream girl's apartment.
He knew exactly where her bedroom window was, he knew it by heart, just
as he knew exactly what bricks jutted out far enough to be handholds for
him to climb up there and enter her room.
He knew because he visited her often.
He started climbing.
He had started dreaming about her that first night Manticore had burnt
down. That's why he had slept with the whore. He had seen her, lying on his
bed, grinning up at him. Laughing at his mucho attempt to impress her, and
then she was kissing him. Just a slight touch of the lips. But it had been
enough to whet his appetite.
Then the dreams had gotten worse, and slowly became more frequent until
two weeks ago when he had seen her leaving her apartment building with Max,
the one that he had been delivering a package to, and his heart had
fluttered in his chest.
He had found out a lot about her. Her name was Jezza. She was a car
thief. She lived in apartment 205 and she was even more gorgeous than in
his dreams and her bedroom window was always left open. She was also an X5,
X5 549 to be exact. She had escaped Manticore only a year before it had
burnt down, and even with the dreams he was pretty sure he had never seen
her before.
Alec slid carefully through her window and walked to the head of the bed,
gazing down at her peaceful face. She was lying on her side, turned toward
him and the window. He could have stayed at the window and still seen her
perfectly but he loved the smell of her skin, a fresh feminine smell with a
subtle hint of lilacs.
He could tell that she was having a bad dream because her nostrils were
slightly flared as they always were during her nightmares. His fingers
tingled to touch her face but he dared not. She was an X5 and she would
come awake instantly to the feel of something alien against her face.
Feeling awkward so close to her he blended into the shadows knowing that
if she woke, it would do little to disguise him but feeling more
comfortable anyhow.
Then, suddenly she started shaking and her eyes flew open. She was going
into a fit and so she didn't notice it when he quickly left her room and
found her kitchen, heating her up a glass of milk. It was time to reveal
himself.
When he entered her room, she was sitting against the head of the bed
with her knees raised. Her seizures were not as bad so she her eyes
immediately flew to his when he came in. After looking at him warily she
took the glass of milk and downed it and the shaking of her body finally
ceased.
That sat in silence for a moment, him looking at his shoes, her at the
door.
Then a while later, he left.
She knew he was there, knew that he would return. That was enough for one
night.
It wasn't much, but at least she knew that he cared for her, and he knew
that she almost trusted him.
