Pacifier

🥀Sam🌙

She was dirty, animalistic crouching in the hedgerow starting back at me with yellowy cat eyes. I could see her shivering, the rain water on her collar bones shimmering under what little light could reach her.

She held my gaze, twitching with a subtle fear - i wondered whether she knew how well she was hiding it - but I could see through her charade.

I could see the fear in her, it curdled around her pupils, a nauseous shade which sparked and flecked through her irises, which trembled like a stain on her lower lip. Her fingertips in the dirt she was covered in little scratches, her hair was a mess, little twigs caught in it. It was knotted and windswept and it fell across her face like the mane of a stubborn lioncub.

Her chest rose and fell like a turbulent tide. I could see her thoughts working in her mind.

She wasn't going to do as I said.
She was going to run again.

"El..." i started, reaching out to her with a twist of guilt in my gut because I didn't want to hurt her but she was giving me no choice.

Van had said I had to do everything I could to keep her with me... To keep her safe from them, the Reids. He knew how I usually went about my work and he'd said nothing about being gentle with Della.
He'd said I had to do anything I could.
Anything at all.

If that meant hurting her to stop her from escaping then so be it.

Still I didn't want to.

But she didn't give me the chance and when she shot away I knew exactly what she would do, exactly where she would go. Over the wall, into next doors driveway. She'd dive under their car and, if I let her, she'd stay there till morning, shivering and scared, slowly coming to the realisation that she had nowhere to go.

I could leave her there for the rest of the night, return to her as the sun was rising and she would drag herself from the gravel and the dirt and she would walk, quietly, subdued beside me. I wouldn't have to lay a finger on her. I wouldn't have to knock her out or drag her down the road. I wouldn't have to risk hurting her at all, then maybe once I got her home she would realise who's side I was really on. Maybe she would settle down.

Well I was right about some things but wrong about one.

When she split and scrambled she kicked dirt into my face and stunned me. Left me stumbling backwards onto the pavement with soil in my eyes and on my tongue.

"Fuck sake," i spat trying to clear the damp dirt off my face. Trying to rub it from my eyes as I stood. Paced for a moment and then did as she wasn't expecting me to.

I caught sight of her pale fingertips and her dirty hair as I ran past the car, but it was her eyes which would haunt me for the rest of the night.

The way they'd burnt stubborn and fierce despite the fear which was crippling her. She was convinced that I wanted her dead and yet she could sit there, caught in her hiding place, starring down death with the ragged breaths of a stubborn lioness. She knew she couldn't fight me, she knew she couldn't win. She knew her situation was hopeless and still she refused to give into me.

I hadn't seen that nihilistic determination in anyone for a long time, but I recognised its glow in her.

I didnt really want to leave her, knowing that in the morning it would be gone. Like a candle burnt out by the long night.

When I found her in the morning she would be the shadow of the girl she'd been when she had pulled a knife on me in her Grandmas kitchen. She'd be the shadow of the girl whos burning glower had bitten at me. Forced me to second guess myself.