He'll have to break all the rules to keep her, but first she has to break just one and let him in...
It's taken four years, but Anna Fray has finally put the past behind her. Mostly. She fills her days working in a bar and her nights watching bad ro...
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Silence surrounded us as Atticus and I sat alone in the bar. I was cleaning down the stainless-steel counter while he sat across from me, rifling through the small bowl of Skittles. With the chatter of the bar long since faded, all I could hear was the faint buzz of damaged eardrums and the clinking of sugared shells against the hard ceramic sides.
Clink, clink, clink....clink.
With each noise —as sharp as it was delicate— I felt the muscles at the base of my neck tighten, and my teeth itch like I was chewing on felt.
"Can you stop eating for one second?" I snapped. The stress of Mr R and Atticus' reaction to him had built throughout the day. Now my nerves felt as strained as the strings on a guitar: each one taut and ready to snap if Atticus dared to play with me.
He paused for a moment, contemplating my request before throwing another sweet into his mouth. "No"
"Do you even need to eat?"
He thought again, then replied with a smirk, "No."
"Then why do you always seem to be incessantly chewing?" I ground the words through gritted teeth.
"I can't help it," he mumbled, as he picked up another sweet but placed it carefully back in the bowl.
My curiosity got the better of me, so I discarded the wash rag and my irritability with it. "Explain."
He shifted uncomfortably, his hands scratching the back of his head as he formed his answer.
"Right," he started, relaxing to fold his arms on the counter as he leant towards me. A waft of sugar carried on his breath.
"You know we're not human." He watched me carefully as I nodded. "But what you may not know is that this." He indicated the man before me. "Isn't what we actually look like."
I tightened my gaze as he continued.
"When we're brought into this world, we need a vessel to actually be able to do the work we do."
"And by vessel you mean..." I looked over the man in front of me with new eyes. "A body." I blinked at him and slowly stepped away from the counter
Had I really believed someone supernatural could look so normal? Normal in a relative sense. There was nothing truly normal about Atticus, not his thick dark hair, piercing blue eyes, or chiselled physique, but in the grand scheme of things, 'normal' was the best word for it. It's not like he had wings, a tail, or horns buried in his tousled locks.
He hurried to explain. "We're not born the way you are. We're made from energy. When one Watcher ends their energy makes another and we're sent into the world to fulfil our purpose."
"How?"
"Elemental energy transference. You call it lightning." He paused, staring at the top of the bar before he softly spoke. "Sometimes, when a human is struck by lightning, their essence is replaced with ours."
