by Celia Crown
She turns her head and half of her body to look at the woman in a tight bun. She has a gray blanket that opens and engulfs Honey in warmth, she smiles brightly in appreciation while the paramedic goes to check her vitals.
A light in her eyes and twenty questions later, she sees a policeman walking up to her with his notepad out.
Honey groans and thinks of all possible escape routes because no doubt, the police is going to ask the same questions and she'll be forced to answer them again in the same details.
He does ask questions of her name, work, and personal information for him to look up and document the incident.
The blonde-haired girl picks up on the relaxed tone of his voice and the apathetic rolling of eyes when he doesn't think she's looking.
She feels appalled, he's a member of law enforcement and they are expected to keep the citizens safe. The least he can do is pretend to be sympathetic to her homelessness.
Honey blinks when he asks another question and she wonders what her thirteen bags of bagels have to do with an accidental fire.
"I don't know." she shrugs, eyes wide with glee, "I like eating them; cream cheese, jelly, and oh, peanut butter."
The police look disgusted, the paramedic gags quietly, and Honey thinks they loss all chances of humanity in her.
"You should try pickled wasabi oranges, it's got this complex flavor."
The man in front of her pales at her description, "I'm sure it does."
He sighs, closing his notepad and clicking the pen close on the black cover. His eyes scan the appearance of her: tangled blonde hair, bright blue eyes, and a blinding smile.
"I can make them for you!"
"Please don't."
She thinks for a bit, "Are you sure? It wouldn't be a problem for me."
It'd be a problem for my intestines, he shivers, "I'm sure."
Then he clears his throat, pocketing the notepad.
"I advise you to stay away from cooking from now on."
He works hard as a police officer; he picks up trash laying on the sidewalk and throw them in the trash, helps old people with groceries, and he apprehend criminals.
He doesn't work hard when his shift ends. Miami is a busy place with plenty of people committing crimes every second, so his days are full of running around.
He doesn't appreciate his break being disrupted by a girl throwing alcohol at open flames, she was asking to be hurt.
"I can't!" she exclaims loudly, pulling attention from people around them.
"I have to make pasta for mom, I'm trying to impress her!"
"Well," he clears his throat, looking to the side. "You better give up on that possibility and make a plan B."
"I don't know what to do." she feels dejected, disappointment running through her body as she tightens the blanket around her.
Now he thinks he's a dick for being mean to the girl.
By the looks of it, she can't be older than eighteen. He remembers her birthday written on his notes and groans, a grown woman of twenty years is making him want to take up the pickled wasabi oranges just to make her stop being gloomy.
"Maybe you can just tell her you love her?" he winces at his pathetic wavering voice.
He fixes his posture and clears his throat, "Sometimes, it's the simplest solution that brings happiness to people."
This girl has him being sentimental, what the hell is this day coming to?
Honey scratches the back of her head, combing through knots in her hair before smoothing down the rough strands that already took shape through the tangles.
"I do that every night, I call mom to tell her about my day."
The policeman shifts his weight side to side, "Nothing beats hearing it in person."
A moment of silence passes, the firefighter comes back to check on her while nodding his greeting to the police officer.
"We couldn't save everything in the house, but we did manage to get this." he hands over the soft materials of her Halloween costume and her identifications.
She gasps in glee, Halloween is the day of jump scares and treats.
Mom will be surprised to see her, and they can share her trick-or-treat candies together.
"The old and wise one, I need a ride to the airport!"
"Get your own ride!" his blue uniform ruffles when he steps back with an astonished expression.
The blanket begins to slide off as the forgotten paramedic and exasperated firefighter stands to the side, "Use the sirens too!"
"No!"
"Speeding down the highway is better!" Honey laughs, body vibrating with excitement.
"Listen to me!"
He sees her eyes light up with hope and he swears under his breath.
Chapter Three
Honey
Welcome to Marion, Nevada sign is dusty, and the sun is close to setting fully on the horizon line when she gets there.
There are people walking on the sidewalks and driving down the streets giving her odd looks because her vampire costume stood out of the norm, even for the night of Halloween.
She brushes it off as people in the town doesn't celebrate the holiday with vigor like her. Honey walks further into the town with her phone's GPS out, it shows that it would take her thirty minutes of walking to get to the bar where mom works.
As she walks away from the downtown area and to residential houses, the houses have some distance between each other.
Honey decides to holster the pumpkin basket in her arms and stroll up to the first house.
Halfway to the airport with a police officer by her side, she asked him to pull over a store and smiles with a hand open for two-dollars because her house burned down with everything inside it.
She came back with a set of plastic fangs, makeup, and a pumpkin basket.
The first door she knocks had lights on it, she comes to face an elderly lady with a hunched back and cane.
Before Honey can even speak, she clicks her tongue and slams the door shut.
That doesn't deter her as she makes her way down the second house. It was a man in flannels and sandals giving her an amused look, he entertains her holiday spirit by throwing a handful of candies in her basket.
She knows now that children do go around ringing doorbells, just not this late at evening.
No one has any decorations out in their lawn, it dims her mood a little because Halloween needs to be spooky for it to be fun to go trick-or-treating.
House three, four, and five didn't answer the door. Six had a scary young boy answering the door, Honey had to stutter out her greeting just before he shoves a candy bar in her basket and hurls the door shut.
It goes on, nothing significant happens until the twenty-eighth house.
She's on her way to the house with her weak attempt to open a hard candy wrapper when she pulls too hard and it goes flying.
Honey watches in absolute horror, time slows dramatically in her eyes as the yellow ball of sugar rolls in midair, her own gasp unrecognizable to her ears as it tumbles and bounces on the surface of a motorcycle.
A crisp clink from the candy falling in a nook, her lips trembles and hands gripping the empty wrapper tightly in physical pain.
She was looking forward to eating that.
Who parks a motorcycle at the exact place to allow her precious sugar ball to be trapped in?
How is she going to get it out?
What if the bike breaks down because of the piece of candy?
Motorcycle bikes are expensive, what if in the middle of routine checkups, they find sugar caramelized on the surface?
So many questions, so little time.
Honey looks around the area; streetlights are on as it illuminates the ghostly empty street, and there are houses occupied by homeowners through the closed curtains with yellow lights coming from them.
She inhales deeply, prepping herself because she is about to disappoint Laura by breaking the law.
She isn't a law major student, and she's more than sure she's going to b
reak some level of the law. Someone's motorcycle, her candy.
Customers are always right philosophy.
Not really the same concept, but it's the principle.
She's in the wrong.
Okay, she's not even making sense anymore, that's how desperate she is to get the candy back.
For the sake of the bike and her own guilty conscience.
The bike is beautiful; sleek black coating, clean and sharp with silver grips, and it comes with a presence of importance and superiority.
Honey shakes her head, now is not the time to admire a bike when she has more pressing matters at hand. Such as, how not to get caught stealing a motorcycle.
Well, it would surely look like she's trying to steal the bike.
She sets the pumpkin basket on the sidewalk and braces one hand on the cool seat to lean over and see which way is easier and less risky. Intricate mechanisms outline the pipe and the body of the structure, she stares in awe.
Hands moving with a mind of their own, tracing the smooth surface with admiration. Miami has motorcycles too, but this bike catches her undivided attention for reasons beyond her comprehension.
A dried leaf scrapes against the surface of the road, shaking her out of her appreciation and extending her hand down towards the pipe. Fingers slipping into the smaller space with difficulty, her nail taps on the piece of candy persistently.
She wishes her nail was a claw from claw machines, so she can just spread, drop, and clamp on the ball. It would be so much easier than her futile attempt to roll enough heat from her finger to melt the sugar coating to get it to stick on the pad of her digit and come out.
"Just a bit more." she folds her body over the seat.
With a finger digging into the side where there is barely space, but it is enough for her to maneuver her finger by squishing it between the candy and metal.
She digs further down, eyebrows knotting in concentration.
"What are you doing."
Authoritative and low, it wasn't a question.
Her heart skips a beat.
Muscles strings tight in preparation for flight.
Fighting isn't her style, talking out of trouble has always been her strong suit.
Blood rushes to her ears, thumping over the sound of his footsteps and any other words he may have spoken. Her hands are starting to clam up with sweat beading her hairline, and she is getting tunnel vision.
She feels a shortness in her breath as an unnerving silence surrounds her. There are no chirps from birds or even a rustle of anything that would suggest life near her.
Honey straightens her back, heart fighting its way out of her ribs and takes an unsteady inhale. Dilated blue eyes darts from one side of the road to another while the humid and musty air causes bumps to flare up her arms.
It could be her breath mingling with the dusty old town.
Be calm, she thinks, it's probably the police.
"Turn around." a demand so impactful that her shoulders jump with the need to turn, but she holds on to her resolve.
His voice sends tingles down her spine, a sensation that has her wetting her panties. It's deep, velvety, and sexy.
She wants to turn around and see if his voice matches his face.
A handsome face for sure, no one can have that kind of voice without adding points to their appeals.
Her nipples tighten in arousal.
She makes up his appearance in her mind; tall, dark, and handsome. Quite fitting with his baritone voice.
The bike could be his, and it adds to the level of sexual prowess to her conjured image.
Leather jackets and tattoos, she bites her lips in lust.
She wants to look, but she can't.
If she learned anything from all the crime tv shows, police always identify themselves or some signature phrases to let people know they are law enforcement agents without transparently saying they are the police.
Next logical thought she has are slasher films.
Her brain skirts to a halt in the realization that there could be a psychotic killer behind her, or even walking up to her now.
Honey still has many things she wants to do, being the main character in a slasher film isn't one of them.
She straightens her back, adrenaline kicking up with fervor.
Better safe than sorry.
She runs.
She hears loud stomps behind her and her adrenaline kicks up a notch to give her a boost as she rounds the corner of an alley.
Honey doesn't want to be a victim in slasher movies, and yet she takes the scariest route.
A dark alley with no lights.
She moans with dread.
Survival of the fittest will wipe her out.
Chapter Four
Honey
She runs and runs.
Buildings and houses blur with the speed, she allows her feet to pound on the pavement without a single glance back. Her blonde hair bounces wildly behind her, cape fluttering and cutting into the wind.
Honey turns around a corner and into another alley.
Her survival is nonexistent now.
One minute ago, she scolded herself for taking an alley as an escape route, and now she traps herself even further into the foreign town.
The blue-eyed girl ducks behind a pitch-black corner, irregular rhythms of her heart shakes with her breath and fingers. Her eyes strain to see what the badly brightened streetlights could show her.
His shadow was large, a chilling sweat rolls down the nape of her neck at the calmness of his steps.
Confident and predatory.
Her nipples are hard and pressing against her bra, even his silhouette is sexy.
Honey is never like this; so attracted to a man without any looks of his face, and his voice sends pleasurable shivers down her spine.
She has enough men around her to know that she was pretty, given their constant invitations to coffee dates, dinners, and no string attached sex. She isn’t interested, they don’t make her feel anything other than remembering how awkward it is to face them at work the next day.
She wants this man to find her, but she doesn’t want to at the same time.
His shadow comes to a stop, just standing there with an ominous presence. He must be thinking, and Honey takes the time to press her back to the brick wall with the rough grains crunching loudly in her ear.
She doesn’t know if he hears it because he stands rigidly like a poll, the definition of his arms is prominent in the black shape.
He looks strong, muscles bulging and a broad chest that tapers narrowly down to his waist.
Then he turns back suddenly.
Honey blinks in confusion with her breath catching in her throat, she stays silent the whole time when his silhouette gets further away until the brick wall corner swallows his head.
She weighs her options; she can wait in the same spot with a kink in her legs from crouching or take the chance of running to find a house with lights.
Staying means there’s no rescue and can only wait for her doom at the sensual hands of the stranger. However, leaving means there’s a chance to outrun him and an even higher chance of encountering him.
Or call mom, her helpful mind supplies.
Honey is smart; the youngest neurosurgeon in history and one of the most sought-after people in the world.
That intelligence only works when she’s in the medical mood, but most of the times she has trouble understanding other things.
Things like the broccoli function on her microwave, or what the permanent cycle press on her washing machine means.
It took her two days to work out the fax machine, and frankly, who uses a fax machine anymore?
Technology is blooming like the cherry blossom trees in Japan during April.
Oh yes, the ancient chairman of her hospital.
In a setting full of advanced technology and machines, he adamantly refuses to use a computer. He claims it makes people lazy and information can be stolen easily whi
le he can lock all the valuable information in a safe.
He acts like nobody can steal the safe.
He loves to write everything down, it helps him remember and the work is rewarding.
Honey swear the man enjoys doing paperwork.
She blinks out of her thoughts and deems that the man is gone because she didn’t take anything, and he could be tired from chasing her under the notion that she isn’t worth the chase.
The blonde-haired girl sighs, slowing her thrumming heart by rubbing soothing circles above it.
Her shoulders drop as she steps out into the light, her blue eyes sweep the empty road. The desolate town becomes more eerily quiet as she stands there, she tightens the cloak around her body to preserve warmth when she doesn’t see the stranger.
A rush of disappointment fills her as she walks down the road but suddenly remembers that before she got distracted by her thoughts of the anal-retentive hospital chairman, she’s supposed to call mom.
She can’t though, her phone is in the pumpkin basket when she decided to get the yellow piece of candy that started this whole mess.
Maybe if she traces back her steps, she can get to the motorcycle, and with pure luck, he isn’t there yet. If he is, then she can explain that she wasn’t trying to steal his motorcycle or anything on it, she just wants to prevent motor damage by melted sugar.
She nods self-assuredly to herself and squares her shoulders, marching forward quickly to the side the stranger retreated on.
As much as she tries to recreate all the broken pieces of information her unhelpful mind supplies, it’s impossible to know where the motorcycle is when she doesn’t even know where she is.
She didn’t notice some of the street lights flicker before it turns dull and off completely. The streets are empty and uncannily creepy, especially the opening that leads to the darken alleyway just several feet away.
The blonde-haired woman debates whether to square up her shoulders and run pass the alley with the enormous risk of the stranger hearing her or move across the street where it’s not as scary as the side she is on.
Just as she turns toward the opposite street, footsteps crunching in cement pebbles coming from behind her as the hairs on her arms rises. Her heart jumps to her throat as it closes for the anticipation of whatever her imagination had coped up.
