Episode 5: Different As Night And Day

Episode 5
DIFFERENT AS NIGHT AND DAY

Kylie Hawkins’s first instinct was to scream, but the man lying over half her body had knocked the wind out of her. As she gasped for breath, she noticed another sound coming from the shadows. It was a noise on the other side of the walkway. People. Maybe even people from her building.

As the noise came closer and the people came into view, Kylie began to worry even more. Those strangers looked about as nasty as the man who had tackled her.

She was In a quandary. Trust the man who had her pinned to the ground or identify herself to the shady-looking newcomers. She had nearly come to the conclusion to identify herself when a large hand covered her mouth and pulled her underneath the darkest densest bush.

Her heart was pounding but she didn’t know if it was from her immense fear or from the way the man’s body pressed against her own. She mentally chastised herself for letting her body make decisions her mind had already decided about.

The man pressed his lips to her ear nearly making her jump out of her skin. As he whispered, his breath tickled her neck sending a shiver down her spine.

“Those men are here to apprehend your friend, Alex.”

Kylie’s eyes grew wide. What did he know about Alex? She wrenched his hand from her mouth.

“You’re out of your mind.” Her voice was quiet but her intention was evident.

“Am I?” She couldn’t see his eyes, didn’t know if she wanted to, but she could tell by his tone that he was mocking her.

“Alex is a bartender. Those guys look like mafia or something.”

She heard his earthy chuckle and chastised herself again for feeling things she shouldn’t for a man she didn’t know.

“Yet you were willing to turn yourself over to them earlier.”

What did this guy do, she wondered, read minds?

“Oh, gee,” she sad mentally weighing her options. “Let’s see. Stranger who attacks me in the dark or night or mafia looking hitmen on my doorstep. Not much of a difference if you ask me.”

“You’re right about one thing. They are hitmen. And if you don’t give them the information they want, they would kill you so much as look at you.”

Kylie gasped. She had been kidding. “Tell me you’re kidding.” Fear tainted her voice.

“I’m as serious as a heart attack. Would it ease your mind if I told her I was here to help?”

As his hips searched for a more comfortable position, his body pressed harder into hers. And the hell of it was, she was beginning to like it.

“Unless you can tell me what happened to Alex, I’m not interested in anything you have to say. Go find another Betty to bop over the head.”

***

Nick Boyd glanced at Carrie Hawkins considering how to make her talk about what she had witnessed earlier. It was true he didn’t quite believe in her “gift,” but he knew her too well to think she was using it as a ploy for attention.

“Stop looking at me like that,” Carrie whispered.

Nick hadn’t noticed she stopped talking and now was watching him observe her.

“How am I looking at you?” he asked lazily crossing one booted foot over the other and leaning against the wall.

“I know that look. It’s one my brother gets when he wants to take apart some contraption he’s seen just to see exactly what it looks like inside and how it works. Stop trying to get in my head, Nick!”

Nick held his hands up in surrender. “Hey, don’t blame me for being curious. You were the one who quit profiling and dropped off the edge of the earth for three years. When a guy cares about a girl, he just wonders now and again if she’s okay.” His gaze was penetrating and pensive. He’d waited a long while for Carrie to make up her mind about him.

“Are you okay, Carrie? Really okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied. “Perfectly fine.”

“Well then, if you’re so fine, why do you look so haunted? I know coming back to this isn’t what you wanted. So the question is... Why are you really here?”

Carrie’s back stiffened. “It’s none of your business why I’m here.”

Her sharp comeback cut straight to Nick’s heart. There hade been a time when she would have opened up to him, told him anything, but those days were obviously long gone. He wished for them back.

“I’m making it my business. I remember what happened the last time you used your ‘gift.’ It scared the hell out of me.”

“Me too,” Carrie whispered. She didn’t want to remember those days or the evil mind she had accidently slipped into. One that had held her captive for three weeks in a catatonic state.

“Watching you lie on that bed with that glassy-eyed stare --” Nick bit back the remembered fears. “I really thought you were gone that time -- lost to me.

Carrie whispered more to herself than Nick. “I never came fully back.”

***

Angela Seraph could hear faint voices and she wondered if she had somehow passed out again after waking up amidst the terror and tragedy of the train accident. Her head throbbed, but she could still remember the woman she had accidently bumped into the dining car.

They were both shocked to be looking at mirror images of themselves. The woman’s hair was slightly longer than her own, but besides that, the similarities were so shocking. Angela recalled the event in the train station where the man had mistook her for someone else.

When Angela told the woman about the strange meeting, she became agitated and ran off. It was only later Angela realized she was missing her purse. None of that mattered now, though.

Why couldn’t she wake up? She had credit cards to cancel and a bank to call. She had pressing things to do, one of which was to tell her brother the truth about his scheming and hideous wife. Angela couldn’t wait to expose the witch and reveal her true colors. But to do that, she needed to be awake!

***

The air smelled faintly of manure and Alex Maxwell hoped that didn’t mean her toilet had backed up again. She rose with a groan only to have a pair of hands push her back into the pillows.

Her eyes blinked open hoping not to find a naked man she didn’t know lying next to her. Relief flooded her when she spied the man, although a stranger, fully dressed She then quickly looked around the room and her agitation grew.

“Where am I?” she asked, her eyes mirroring the same question.

Before he responded the man came to her bedside and threw his arms around her in a large bear hug. His voice sounded filled with relief.

“I was so worried. Thank God you’re okay.”

Alex pushed the man away from her.

“Answer my question. Where am I? And who the hell are you?”