Devil Inside

A Little Bit Too Wet.

To Elsa's surprise, the party wasn't that bad. In fact, if she was honest, she was quite enjoying herself. She had put her foot down as far wearing a dress was concerned and had managed find a sequined halter neck top in Kate's wardrobe which dressed up her torn skinny jeans just enough to be acceptable to Kate with the addition of some strappy black kitten heel sandals. The one-inch heel was about all Elsa could manage, anything higher and she was sure she would have completely lost the ability to walk. As it was she felt comfortable and had managed to limit her make-up to a touch of eyeliner and mascara. Kate had straightened her dark brown hair and all in all she was quite pleased with how she looked.

Kate was the life and soul of the party as usual and was currently enjoying being chatted up by the party's host. Elsa smiled and swapped the foul tasting bottle of blue chemical that Kate had given her to drink for a plastic tumbler of diet coke, before stepping out into the back garden for some fresh air. Jacob's parents were very wealthy and lived in a large house on the outskirts of the town which backed onto thick woodland. There was no back fence to their property, the garden just lead straight into the woods and away from the house it was quiet enough to hear the breeze blowing through the trees. Elsa liked the sound, it reminded her of the sound of waves meeting the shore and she found it calming.

"Elsa!" It was Kate following her on the arm of Jacob, with another boy walking slightly behind them. Elsa groaned inwardly, she could feel a match-making attempt coming on.

"Hi," she said, recognising the other boy as John Edwards, a friend of Jacob's. He was tall and a bit on the skinny side, with very short blonde hair. He had an easy smile and very bright blue eyes, Okay Kate, she thought, he's acceptable, I'll play along for now. Besides, she was determined to find a way to erase images of Sebastian from her mind. Sitting next to him in history all week had been like torture, somehow his mood and social skills seemed to get progressively worse as the week went on yet still she was undeniably drawn to him and she was getting very irritated with herself. Kate had been right about him having a motorbike too and Elsa loved bikes. She'd seen him leave on a Susuki Bandit 1200, her dream bike, something which also told her that despite being in the same year as her, Sebastian was obviously at least one year older. An attractive, sexy, older biker boy with a dark mysterious side - no wonder she was having trouble not thinking about him.

Kate, Jacob and John sat down on the grass next to here and she tried her best to focus on making conversation before Kate came up with an idea.

"Lets go for a walk in the woods!" she said excitedly, "It'll be romantic!"

"Kate, its dark," Elsa hated how sensible she sounded but it was a fair point, plus she was starting to get cold.

"I can get a couple of torches from the house," Jacob offered, immediately taken with the idea of getting Kate alone in the woods. He was back moments later with two torches and handed one to John.

"Come on Elsa, don't be boring," Kate encouraged her, "Grant is coming to pick us up in an hour, we're not going for a midnight trek, just a moonlit stroll."

Elsa stood up reluctantly and smiled nervously as John held out his hand to her, 'Oh what the hell,' she thought, 'I'm not getting any better offers.' she took John's hand which was cold and a little bit clammy and the two couples walked into the woods together. It wasn't long before Kate and Jacob took a different path and their torchlight and giggling disappeared, leaving Elsa alone with John.

"So..." he said.

"So what?" Elsa thought then admonished herself, he was perfectly nice and seemed just as nervous as she was.

"Let's go this way," she said, taking the torch, and they walked a little deeper into the woods. It was a bit eerie, as the trees got thicker there was less light from the moon and the torchlight created strange shadows which seemed to have a life of their own. John walked behind her sightly and suddenly he stopped and she felt a gentle pull on her hand. She stopped and turned around.