Once Upon A Midnight

by Stephanie Rowe

  She shrugs out of his grasp when she realizes that my eyes are staring daggers at his hand. “I thought we were meeting at the frat house,” spills weakly from her tongue. For the first time since my run, I notice how tired she is.

  I gesture to the surrounding campus. “It’s late, my dear.” I’m careful with my words and even more deliberate about my tone, keeping it gentle and soothing. Her body relaxes as she takes a calculated step away from Spence. He shifts as if to follow, but I cut him off in three quick strides. “You shouldn’t be walking across campus alone.”

  My competitor tries to body check me out of the way, not realizing I’m denser than I appear. “Ah, I wouldn’t have let her go alone,” he’s quick to cover.

  “As I said,” I growl, not sparing him a glance, but Charlotte doesn’t let me finish.

  “Enough,” she pronounces on an agitated sigh. “Thanks, Spence. I’ll see you tomorrow. Let’s go, Henry.”

  She doesn’t wait for either of us to respond, but takes off through the trees. I forgo a formal goodbye and hurry to catch up to her. We say nothing until she tries to leave me in the parking lot of her dorm to go inside.

  “I thought we were going to the beach?” I question as I catch her wrist to stall her.

  “I’m tired, Henry,” floats over her shoulder since she won’t look at me.

  “Hey.” I keep my emotions in check as I move around to face her. Her eyes are glassy and her bottom lip trembles. My arms slide around her, of their own volition, and pull her to my chest. “Oh, Charlotte,” I whisper, the words getting caught in my own throat. Her pain causes me more pain than I’ve ever experienced before. “Please, don’t cry. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have left like I did yesterday.”

  Her body melts into mine and her arms slip around my waist. She shakes with the force of her tears. A lump forms in my throat, along with a chasm in my chest. I repeat her name over and over again, as the fingers of my right hand comb through her hair in a soothing manner. Time passes without measure as she cries in my arms, not that I give a shit. I did this to her. I hurt her. Out of everything I’ve ever done–every lie, every manipulation, every life I’ve ended–I know this one transgression will haunt me above all others. Who am I?

  When the last tear has been shed, I fold her hand into mine and lead her around the dorm to a copse of trees in the back. Night has taken hold of the world and laid an even bigger stake in the shadows along the man-made pond behind the building. We sit along the water’s edge with her curled into my side, listening to the crickets and frogs play nature’s song.

  “I’m sorry, Henry,” her ragged whisper comes out of nowhere.

  I shift and look down at her, kissing the top of her head before lifting her chin with a finger. “Sorry for what?”

  “I’m stressed and confused and tired.”

  “And, you have every right to be every one of those things, Charlotte. I’m just as unskilled at this as you are, my dear. Just as scared. I wasn’t sure how to talk to you.”

  She relaxes into me, snuggling closer, and holding me tighter. “None of that excuses my breakdown back th–”

  I cut her off with a kiss. She sighs into it, succumbing to my pleading tongue when it grazes her lips. We kiss under a blanket of darkness, insecurity feeding our passion. I don’t need to look into her eyes to know she thought that the physical and emotional distance I placed between us yesterday spelled the end. She pushes our kiss past the innocent and youthful experimentation of the last few weeks. There’s aggression and possession in the swipes of her tongue and the grip of her fingers, which pull at my hair and dig into my back and shoulders. After today’s events, I was worried as well, and my movements are just as frenzied.

  I shift her into a laying position and align my body over her. The feel of my desire pressing into hers undoes us both. She rips her lips free and moans into the night.

  “Charlotte,” I gasp in her ear, my body heating to the point where I’m worried my internal fire will burn us to ash. But, I can’t stop, not even to remove our clothes.

  Her body rocks a counter rhythm against mine. Unintelligible mutterings, seasoned with my name, spill from her swollen lips. Our limbs cling to the other, as if we both know we are teetering on the edge of something life altering. We continue this way, too impatient to remove the thin barriers between us. I crush her body with my own, my desires to possess her becoming clear. Her nails dig into my scalp as I swallow her desperate moans.

  “I want you, Charlotte,” I gasp between kisses. “Scratch that, I need you.”

  She nods in understanding and drops her hands to the bottom edge of my shirt. I groan at the feel of her hands dragging my shirt up my back.

  “Char–lo–lotte,” stumbles from my lips before, “I love you,” rushes past my teeth. “You are my everything, and I ran yesterday because I can’t believe I found you and wasn’t ready to handle giving you the keys to my heart. I want to finish this life with you, my dear.”

  She freezes, eyes wide and clear of her earlier passion. “You what?” she squeaks, her hands now on my shoulders and pushing my weight back so she can scramble out from under me. “Are–Are–Are you–proposing?”

  Shit, I guess I did. I sit back on my haunches and run a hand through my hair. She’s shaking again, but not crying, as she stands above me. The shadows of night hide her facial expression from me. Is this what girls do?

  “Are you saying yes?” I ask, the unsure question echoing through the empty night.

  “How did we get here so fast?” she questions herself under her breath before saying aloud, “I can’t do this right now.” She takes a step back, then another. Before I process what’s happening, she’s turned and is halfway to the back doors of her dormitory. “I’ll call you later, Henry.”

  Chapter 21

  Your choice made no sense…

  That was the last private moment I shared with her while wearing this particular face. I’ve seen her in class, Shakespeare and now Honors, but I wear another man’s face in Honors and she avoids me in Shakespeare. She darts in just before the professor begins his lecture, sits in the back by the door, and then darts out before he finishes. I’ve tried catching her, but using my inhuman speed in public is a no-go. The few times I call her name, she just ignores me and scurries off even faster.

  It’s almost as if she senses I’m Jaime too. I don’t know what her relationship with him was like, but as the weeks pass, she becomes more distant with this persona. I sit, silently fuming, day after day, watching her get further and further away from me as Spence draws her closer and closer to him. I just don’t understand any of it. It’s as though someone turned a switch, casting me in the dark, and she has no idea that I’m missing from her life.

  Alyssa is relatively quiet during these weeks as well. I expect her to be all over me for whatever it was I did to lose Charlotte’s trust and affection, but I hear nothing from her. Granted, she’s busy whispering in the ear of the depressed Wesley, guiding him on his path to world manipulation.

  The semester ends. The school closes for the Christmas holiday. Days turn into weeks, which turn into months. It is now late February, just after the spring pledge auction at the frat house, where the woman of my dreams was suspiciously absent.

  I keep watch over Charlotte as Jaime, the persona of Henry slowing melting to the background of my college existence, mirroring my Honors schedule and major to hers. We are in the library, studying together as a group and getting a head start on the end of semester research paper. The grating sound of my grinding teeth drowns out the chatter of my classmates as I watch Spence paw all over her. They are “officially” dating now, though I can tell she isn’t happy.

  “Come on, babe,” he slurs in her ear while he tries to shove a hand between her legs. My stomach clenches at her discomfort and embarrassment.

  “Stop, Spence,” she hisses and pulls away, her shoulder rising to meet her ear. “There are people around.”

  The arm he has
around her waist crushes her to his side. “Babe, we talked about this,” the hint of a threat floats amongst his words.

  She and I tense in unison, her because she’s uncomfortable and nervous, me because I want to fry him where he sits.

  She surrenders to his public pawing and the rest of the table averts their eyes, except me. He holds my gaze while he palms her breast. Her face grows crimson; it’s clear that she is not enjoying the way he abuses her delicate curves.

  “I believe the lady said stop,” flies from my tongue in a low growl.

  Charlotte pales, and the eyes of our study group partners make their way slowly back to our threesome. “Jaime,” she whispers, “it’s fine.”

  A sinister smile contorts Spence’s lips. “Lady?” he quips at a volume that bounces through the library. “Trust me, man, when her clothes are off, she’s the furthest thing from a lady!”

  His barb has the desired effect, on me, at least. The wind rushes from my lungs as my gut cramps as if struck. She’s fucked him! The realization bounces around my brain. And, I don’t have to see his view of the sex scene playing behind his eyes to know that is all it is, fucking. He doesn’t love her. He loves the idea of owning and controlling her, of manipulating her away from “Henry.” I just don’t understand why she, my ethereal innocent filled with grace, poise, and beauty, would let him.

  I leap to my feet, sending my chair crashing into the bookcase behind me, and grab him by the collar of his shirt. “You are nothing more than a punk kid,” I snarl. “She deserves better than you,” I coat the words with persuasion, diving deep into his mind to plant the seeds that will end this farce of a relationship. For some damn reason, she had the strength to walk away from me, a man who is desperately in love with her and treated her like the lady she is, to be with this prick. Why?

  My answer lights in his eyes, shocking me. Their muted conversation plays in my ears as if I have headphones on.

  “Why not, Charlotte?” his smooth voice pleads as his hand catches her elbow.

  “I’m not looking for a relationship, Spence,” she answers, her voice shaking with an emotion I don’t recognize right off. “I… I’m… It’s too soon.”

  “Look babe, he whispers in her ear, his heart pounding in his chest. He wants her so damn bad. “Who said anything about a relationship? How about some good ole’ college fun?”

  She sighs. “Fun?” she says before mumbling, “Do I even know what that is anymore?”

  His hand drops to cup her rear, giving it a hard squeeze. “Let me show you, Charlotte,” he begs. “Let me help you find a release for all that you have built up inside. No strings, just sex.”

  “No strings, just sex?” she repeats. He nods against curve of her neck, lips kissing her sensitive hollow. “Alright, Spence, where should we go?”

  “Your relationship is over,” I order before freeing myself from his gaze, unable to watch their first sexual encounter, though my own imagination runs rabid with conjecture. My eyes then land on Charlotte.

  The whole exercise took less than a second to transpire, and the supernatural commands were pitched at a volume only he could hear. “I’m walking you home,” I insist before snatching up our books in one hand and grabbing hers with the other.

  We don’t speak while I drag her through the quad in my wake, not caring when I bump and jostle the people around us. It isn’t until I hear her sniffle at my back while we wait to cross the street that I turn to face her. No tears have crested the lids of her eyes, but they will soon.

  I can’t help myself and fold her against my chest. “Oh, Charlotte, what are you doing with an asshole like that?”

  The tears fall as her answer comes through muffled sobs. “I don’t know, Jaime. I don’t even really know what I’m doing anymore. I feel lost, as if I’m floating through life, letting it happen to me. What is wrong with me?”

  The feel of her palms moving along my stomach, around my sides, and across my back makes me shiver. The desire to kiss her and tell her the truth is strong, but I fight it. It’ll just scare her off now, and she’s already frightened enough. If she couldn’t handle the confession of my love, which is the only explanation I can come up with for our ending, there is no way she will be able to handle the truth of what I am.

  “Shhhh,” I offer as my fingers comb through her hair. It feels so good to have her back in my arms, even if she doesn’t know it’s me. “There is nothing wrong with you. You just keep picking the wrong type of guy.” Including myself.

  Chapter 22

  Finding a way out became a top priority…

  Charlotte quit “seeing” Spence, but she didn’t seek out Henry. Instead, the boy, Wesley, took back his place as the main, male fixture of her life. Days passed as I waited for Alyssa to summon me or seek me out. That day of reckoning finally arrives, as a voice coated in acid speaks up from behind me, Alyssa just isn’t the bearer.

  “Henry,” he says, though I’m wearing Jaime’s skin.

  My already dark mood becomes pitch with his appearance in my life. I know why he is here. I shoot a death glare over my shoulder, a spark of my internal fire lighting within. “Get away from me, Reaper,” I snarl, drawing eyes from some nearby students. Whatever they see makes them scurry away like roaches when you turn the lights on.

  “I’m surprised,” this shadow of a man speaks in a voice twisted by his lack of humanity. A voice that cuts to the very soul of a person, feasting on the fear it creates. He towers above me, long and lank and dangerous. There is no description to do him justice, as most never see him. Even now, my eyes struggle to remain locked on the shadowed void before me. The compulsion to avoid his fiery, green eyes is that strong and my mind erases his image just as quickly as it commits it. It is a power reserved only for the dealers of death for the head of the sect I now regret giving my soul to. “Not many can face the bringer of death.”

  For once, my fear emboldens me, not that I ever considered myself a sniveling coward. My skin tingles as it stretches to accommodate the form I’m most comfortable in. I grow at least eight inches, which puts me eye level with him. I also age about eighteen years, adding more authority to my appearance. Jaime’s sandy-blond hair darkens to my preferred brown, a few shades lighter than the love that I somehow lost, and my build firms. This all takes place in the darkened corner of the school’s library, where I had retreated to drown in my misery.

  “Do your worst!” Spit flies from my lips with the ferocity I put on the words. I’m tired of feeling so… human.

  The openings, that I guess are his eyes, sweep over me in an appraising manner. “It will be a shame to lose you, Henry,” his oppressive voice acknowledges, “but I have my orders.”

  I’m sure they included a limitation on witnesses, but what he says next freezes me to the depths of my soul.

  “I’m supposed to bring the both of you in, to control the situation.”

  “Both!” I squeak like an idiot, the fear of the identity of the other person breaking the weak hold I had on courage. These last few days have made me realize that nothing I’ve ever done would be considered brave. I lied to myself about my mission setting the stage for our superior race to rule was some twisted form of justice, that we would just preside as fair rule. Lies! All of it! We wouldn’t rule. We would enslave, possess, and own, if we won.

  “You don’t need to bring us in to get control of the situation,” is my substandard alternative. I just can’t think clearly in order to formulate a counter plan. My fear that another exile is going to be put in charge of controlling Charlotte leaves me mentally paralyzed.

  Those empty orbs of death sweep over me again. “You are fond of the muse,” he correctly concludes. “Interesting fact that somehow got left out.”

  I swallow hard. I don’t want him to find either one of us any more interesting than he already does. “I can get back control.”

  “Can you?” The doubt rings clear.

  “I c–ca–can,” stumbles from my tongue. I clear
my throat. “I can,” comes out stronger this time. “I have a plan.” Shit! I don’t have a plan!

  His eyes do another search of my soul. “You don’t,” he astutely argues, “but you will. You have twenty-four hours to get this whole mess back on course, or you’ll both be dead before you even know I’m there. I don’t believe that losing such valuable tools aids in our future domination.”

  He takes two steps back into the shadow cast by a bookcase over in the corner. I move to follow him only to find he’s vanished, swallowed whole by darkness. A light fixture flickers above from the ceiling, bathing me in a light that manages to singe my skin and burn my eyes.

  I sink to the floor and fall back against the shelving unit. I have no idea how long I sit there, wallowing over my impending demise and agonizing over Charlotte’s. I am no hero.

  “Everything alright, professor?” the youthful voice of a man fills my ears as a hand clasps my shoulder and gives me a shake. “Do you need me to have someone call 911?”

  “What?” I ask as I come out of my depressing daze. “Are you talking to me?”

  The young man flashes me a smile, but concern fills his eyes. “Well, sir, you’re the only professor on the ground clutching his chest, so yes, I’m talking to you. Are you having a heart attack?”

  Seconds go by as his words sink into my consciousness. I look down to find that my hand is indeed sprawled over my heart. “No,” I answer with a small shake of my head, “I’m not having a heart attack.” Although, that would be preferable to the deadly fate in my future.

  His brow narrows in confusion and he offers me a hand up, quizzical eyes meeting mine once I’m on my feet. “Well, what was on your mind, prof?”

  “What makes you think I’m a professor?” I can’t help but ask. Even with the constant references to what he thinks is my position, I can tell he is a student, maybe only a year ahead of Jaime.