End Point

Chapter 3

Flashback (Five Years Ago):

Adam watched as the girl he had rescued last night came awake. Her black hair was fanned around her face on the pillow, giving a halo like look to her soft features, but he could tell it was not her original hair color. He could also see her disorientation, and knew the precise moment she saw him, because her body froze in terror. Her large soft brown eyes have her the look of a deer caught in headlights. She scrambled backwards, holding the comforter to her chest like a shield. Her shoulders hunched in defensively.

She was beautiful, even through the wounds, the bruises, and the starvation; she was beautiful. With a wide forehead, patrician nose and high cheekbones. Her chin was small and softened her features so that she could be called cute in the right circumstances. Yet, all of it paled behind the intensity of the personality that he could see blazing in her eyes, and her fierce will to live, to survive no matter what.

Adam held up both his hands in surrender as he watched her.

"Under your pillow is the gun I gave you yesterday." He told her in a gentle voice.

She moved one hand and finally grasped the gun. She pulled it up and her shoulders relaxed marginally.

"Do you know how to check if it's loaded or not?" he asked and she nodded.

"Good. Then check to see if it's loaded." He told her and after some hesitation when she eyed him suspiciously, she checked. It was obvious she had handled weapons before.

"Do you remember yesterday? You escaped, I found you, and brought you to my home." He murmured and she slowly nodded, lowering the gun she had trained on him.

"I give you my word that I will protect you, so try to relax at least a little. All right?" he said soothingly.

The girl nodded again, her pixie like hair bouncing around her face.

"I need to check your wounds." He told her and she flinched.

"I'm sorry but..." Adam stopped as she swayed and nearly collapsed.

He moved forward and caught her before she could topple off the bed. The gun had fallen from her hands, and both her fists gripped his shirt. Very carefully Adam laid her back down on the bed, but she still held his shirt as she stared at him. Her eyes were bright with fever now, and her body burned with it.

"You name?" she whispered.

"Adam." He answered her and she relaxed, her fists loosening as she fell unconscious.

...

Present:

Ellis was not sure what to do about Adam. His presence was bringing back all the memories she had stuffed away, but he was also the person giving her strength to face those memories.

She had agreed to have dinner with him just once, but it was as if that had opened the floodgates. She had never spent so much time with someone, ever, as much as she had spent with him this past week. Maybe that's what it feels like to have a boyfriend, she thought amused, except that he never touched her.