with Coach." He smiled, indicating that he was probably joking. "He and I had a man-to-man, nothing big. Nothing you'd understand. Besides, I've got you now... " He looked at me in the oddest way just then, but it was brief and before I knew it he had moved on. And you look more beautiful than anything or anyone I have ever seen."

I blushed and looked away, but he reached up and gently turned my face toward his. Al I could think of was that my parents were probably watching and it was al I could do to keep from dying over it. "I mean it! Stunning, hot, Audrey Hepburn, however you want to describe it. You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

Audrey Hepburn?! I was going to die a happy girl. I had spent many an hour with Kim watching her in Roman Holiday and Sabrina, fantasizing about being the chauffeur's daughter or the princess. I had memorized those movies, awestruck at how Audrey carried herself and how beautiful she was. If only we could live our lives in black and white. It was poetic, in a way. But for him to compare me to Audrey, favorably, out of nowhere-it just sent me right over the moon.

I could tel that he was dead serious about it. He looked like he was about to cry. The moment shocked me to the core. As long as I live, I wil never forget that look on his face.

Michael stood staring into me, drinking me in. I imagined that if I had never said anything he would have stood there al night looking at me in a way that's only al owed in fairytales. This had to be a dream. Michael was not just handsome, he was kind. He had a way of making me feel like the only girl in the world and he was here, looking at me like this. I felt his hand as it held mine, and his pulse as his heart beat in harmony with mine. It was as if we were made for each other.

"Wel then, mister. Are we going or not?" Michael grinned and shut the door reluctantly, and as he walked to the other side, I had about two seconds to compose myself.

He was winning my heart, and no matter how I tried I couldn't help myself. He was so wonderful. I was afraid that something terrible was going to happen to mess it al up.

Chapter III.

The Cheesecake Factory was one of my favorite places to eat. It stood connected to the side of Boise Towne Square Mal and was right next to Borders Books and Music-my fave. I found myself in Borders every chance I got.

I always had to buy a book, even if I wasn't done with the one I was currently reading. I loved to read. I felt like the turn of each page echoed inside the world between the covers-and each book had its own rules. There, within the mystique of that connection, was something special, and it was addictive.

Michael found us a parking spot, actual y four of them, about fifty miles from the doors. I wil never understand how guys are about their machines. One minute they're burning rubber and playing in the mud, and the next they're crying because some heartless soccer mom dinged their door. And they think we have issues. So he was going to make me walk fifty miles for dinner. I real y didn't mind too much. It meant I got to hold his hand that much longer.

That's exactly what we did-we held hands from the pa.s.senger door of his truck to the front door of the restaurant. I felt the deliciousness of his warm-almost-hot skin and fluttered inside. His fingers gently gripped my own, making me feel like gla.s.s. I liked it. I felt that there was no safer place for me to be, especial y in that moment.

"How'd you know I like the Cheesecake Factory?" I wondered if Kim had ratted on me. It was no fun if he didn't have to at least try.

"I have my ways! I figured that we could go hang out at Borders afterward if you want." Oh yeah, Kim was the big fat rat.

Michael fol owed me inside. As he did, his hand brushed the smal of my back, sending a shiver up my spine. Come on, get hold of yourself. He's just a guy! The shiver ran its course, ending up somewhere in the back of my head, where that new flutter was. She loomed in the back of my mind, watching the whole thing with silent curiosity. I had a feeling that She disapproved somehow. Inside the Cheesecake Factory were enormous domed ceilings with paintings of angels on them held up by huge columns. Colored gla.s.s and plastered wal s accented the interior, giving it a decently convincing European feel. It may not have been real, but I didn't care tonight-I liked everything about the ambience.

"Table for two?" The hostess smiled at us, showing us to a booth near the back. The place was packedHow Michael got a table with al the people waiting in the lobby was beyond me. I didn't ask, though. I felt like a princess and my prince had connections.

We sat down. I left my menu where it was. I always got the orange chicken, at least the three o so times I had been there before. I loved it, so why change now?

"You already know what you're getting?" Michael asked as he looked at the menu.

"Yup. Orange chicken's my favorite and I just can't ever seem to get past it." I smiled and avoided his eyes, knowing I might blush. "I've heard that everything here is good, though."

He studied the menu, his eyebrows lowered in thought, and I took the chance to look again at his face. He had such a smooth complexion, not a single blemish in sight. My dad used to talk about "gunslinger's eyes," the kind of eyes you'd expect to find glinting at you from underneath a black Stetson, along with a single-action .45 revolver. Dad was a bit of a gun nut and some of that rubbed off on me, but I thought about the eyes. That was the important part. As I looked at those eyes, I knew: they were gunslinger's eyes.

"I think I'l get the steak. It sounds good and I'm hungry. I need more protein anyway. Al that running for footbal gives me a kil er appet.i.te." He leaned his forearms, which were impressive, on the table and looked at me. There was a question sparkling in his cold blue eyes. I knew what he wanted to know.

"Later," I said. "I promise, but not here. I have to show you...not tel you." He gave me a doubtful look. Then he sat back and folded his arms across his chest.

"Okay, but I'm holding you to it. You look good. I mean, your forehead looks perfect. I mean, it looks fine. No welt, not even a bruise or anything." In spite of his awkwardness, he was cute. He leaned forward again and I felt my skin heat up.

"Stop staring at me like that. I'm not some experiment. I'm a human being with feelings." It came out of me a little too forceful y and I wondered where this sudden aggression came from. After al , this was Michael Alexander I was talking to here.

Wings fluttered and She calmed me down, but I stil gave him "the look." It was what my dad said I needed to work on, that ultra serious "I-ain't-takin'- none-o'-this" look. Dad had told me that I needed practice before it would strike fear in the heart of a man. I secretly hoped it wasn't too effective.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to stare at you." He sighed. "I just can't help it when you're around me. Here. How about we try this," and he closed his eyes, looking down. When he opened them, he looked directly at me, and now instead of the gunslinger, there was something that made me want to give myself to him, forever. Deeper stil , savage wonder was there, as if he saw something to be feared when he looked at me.

My eyes must have widened. "Okay, stop, just-if you don't stop it I'm going to cry." I was so getting in over my head. "You can only use that on special occasions." My heart was racing, and I was starting to feel like I needed some fresh air.

"But isn't this a special occasion?" He looked at me with calm curiosity.

"Wel yeah. Yes, it is. I mean, it's our first date and I have to say, so far you're picking up some points: perfect restaurant, and you look good." I raised my gla.s.s of ice water to him, and like a perfect gentleman, he clinked his against it.

"Thanks, Airel. I try. There oughta be a law against how you look, though, real y. You might cause an accident just by walking down the sidewalk." I laughed and blushed. At the same time, he thundered with a deep low laugh that was absolutely wonderful.

I was trying to savor everything. This, I thought, was a moment that I would be able to look back on and remember, maybe even tel stories about. Not that I was making long range plans or anything, but a girl can dream. Even if it's a little wild. But even though I was literal y having the time of my life, something was nagging at me, pul ing me from-or in-a direction that was uncomfortable. My stomach was a little unsettled, which worried me, but it went beyond that. Something wasn't right. I didn't know what it was, or even if I was sure about it, but I wasn't about to let it ruin my evening.

Chapter IV.

A sleek black GMC Yukon sat under a scrubby pine tree in the mal parking lot. The man inside liked everything to be just-so. With blackout tint on the windows, oversized rims, and forgettable license plates, the SUV looked like something someone in the Mob would drive.

The back seats had been removed. Instal ed in their place were two reclining bucket seats made of hard plastic and equipped with locking five-point harnesses. There were straps on the armrests and footrests. It was like a paddy wagon designed for the criminal y insane. The extra dark tinting and soundproofing ensured that even if the victim screamed after the doors were shut, not a sound would penetrate to the outside.

The man at the wheel took a drag from a hand-rol ed cigarette. His window was cracked, and a thin curl of smoke made its way out into the goldening sunlight, then fel downward onto the lines of the pavement. He looked up and down the parking lot with sharp eyes hidden behind dark sungla.s.ses.

He took another drag and thought about what he was going to do, what he had to do, and wondered if the boy was going to be any trouble. He didn't want to take him, but it seemed he must. It would slow things considerably. He figured the lad would put up a fight, but he had no fear of being overpowered. He wanted the girl, and if that meant taking her beau as wel , so be it. But the boy had a part to play in this-truth be told-and he was curious to see how it would end.

He studied the smoke from his cigarette, watching it wind around his hand. He real y enjoyed smoking. He couldn't understand why so many people these days were scared of their own shadows. It was too bad, he decided, and flicked the cigarette out onto the pavement.

He ran a hand through his hair. It had to be now. After al , he wasn't the only one pursuing the girl, and he had done so much to get to this point by himself. Nowadays they cal ed it "situational ethics," but in days gone by, it was understood that kil ing a man wasn't always a sin. He checked the revolver on the seat beside him. It had two rounds-at this he smiled, because it was poetic. Symmetrical. Two would be enough. If it wasn't, he didn't deserve her.

Chapter V.

I sat back in my chair and watched Michael eat the last of his steak, studying his face. I hoped he would understand whatever was going on with me, with my sudden sickness and freakish healing ability. They were the only words I could think of-ability, power. I tried not to think about it too much, because it was making me insane. I just wanted some answers and for some reason, out of al the people I knew, he was the one I trusted the most.

Maybe it was just that I wanted to trust him with it. I laughed out loud, thinking how absurd the word "absurd" sounded in my head. He looked at me quizzical y. "Something funny?"

"Oh no," I laughed. "I was just thinking. Sometimes my thoughts are just funny to me." I twisted a strand of my hair and he watched my fingers as if it was the most interesting thing he had ever seen.

"You are just gorgeous." He smiled with the corner of his mouth and I couldn't help but laugh.

"Shut up, Romeo." I kicked him lightly under the table and then looked around, signaling my desire to get going. I wanted to sit here forever but the time did not al ow us to dil ydal y around. If we wanted to do anything more than eat, we had to get moving or my dad would have the police out after us.

He flagged the waitress and she told us that she'd bring the check. Michael looked at me. "Do you like surprises? I have one in mind but you'l have to be open to the extraordinary and the extreme." Michael pushed his plate toward the center of the table.

"I'm al about the extreme-where were you wanting to go, Borders?" I thought he was going to spit his water al over me, I made him laugh so unexpectedly. "Anyway, you want extreme? Just look at these babies." I flexed my arm for him, tapping my bicep like a weight-room thug, making a grimace. If there's anything I could do, it was sel the joke in a way that always got a laugh.

"Du-hude! Nice guns, Airel." He was stil slightly wheezing with laughter. "I guess you know how to handle yourself."

"You have no idea." He real y didn't. He just sat and smiled at me. "Wel , Michael?" His name was delicious on my lips. "How about that surprise?" He slid some cash in with the check and took one last swig of water. I stood up and he took my arm as our waitress thanked us. We left the restaurant like a fairy tale pair, nothing but blue skies from now on . I hummed a tune from another old favorite of mine, White Christmas. I loved those old movies.

The sky was now dark, but the air was warm and hinted of sage and juniper. Floating from al the surrounding restaurants was the scent of garlic and b.u.t.ter.

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I told you." He grinned and leaned over and whispered in my ear. "I think you are going to love it though." His breath in my ear gave me gooseb.u.mps.

I was hyper-aware of Michael's arm on mine. I was in heaven being next to him. I just wanted to stay like this forever. He towered over me, and next to him I felt safe and smal too, but not in a bad way. It was the kind of protection that al owed me to be free, to be whoever I real y was. The real Airel.

The parking lot was ful now. Cars had been parked al the way out nearly to where Michael had obsessively taken up four s.p.a.ces with his truck near the end of the row. As we walked toward it, I heard the fluttering of wings in the back of my mind. She moved. Something about it made me stop. It was different this time-a warning. Something wasn't right, and my mind instantly raced back to earlier in the evening when I had felt only a fraction of alarm compared to now.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I just have a weird feeling, like we're being watched or something."

He looked around. "I wouldn't doubt it. You look amazing. Anyone within a mile of that dress would definitely be watching." He smiled and I smiled weakly back, but stil something inside made me uneasy. Was there a c.h.i.n.k in the armor of my hero? No, that's not it. His compliment was cliche, but he meant it, and what's more I wanted it, so it was okay.

I looked up and down the parking lot and noticed that no one was in our row. People mil ed about going into the mal , coming out with their shopping, but our row was like a no-fly zone or something-devoid of any life at al .

I kept looking around as we began walking again. A creeping fear moved from my heels to my back and over my head like a hood. As I began to wear it, everything in me wanted to bolt like a deer in the woods.

Then I heard She say something I wil never forget, "Do not be afraid." I was scared, frightened, concerned. But not nearly enough. It's almost as if I heard destiny cal ing, giving everything a kind of symmetry.

The next thing I remember Michael fel like a corpse, hitting the pavement so hard I heard his head crack against the hard blacktop. As I turned toward him, I saw a man standing next to a black Yukon with a gun in his hand, aimed at me.

I could not see his face in the dark. A light pop sound came from his gun and I felt a sharp pain in my neck. I reached for it and felt a tiny dart sticking out of my neck. I yanked it free and, crazy with rage, I rushed him.

He met me expertly as I pa.s.sed between the Yukon and the blue truck next to it. He had me by the shoulders and twisted me around as if I was a rag dol , easily getting me into a headlock. My purse and cel phone went flying and the sound of it hitting the pavement stuck in my memory.

I began to realize that I was acting rather foolishly, charging a man with a gun. He was obviously not worried about being seen, and not worried about 98 pounds of me, kickboxing lessons and al , taking him down.

His arm was like iron around my neck. I took hold of it and dead-weighted, throwing him off balance for a split second. I pul ed his arm forward as hard as I could. I didn't think it would work, but shockingly, he flew over my shoulder and slammed into the blue truck, upside-down, with a dul crumpling sound.

I stood there like an idiot. He was instantly on his feet and back at me. He charged me, shoving me against the Yukon with so much force that it knocked the wind out of me. He spun me, getting behind me again, and took me down, his knee in my back and his arm around my neck. The noose was tightening, my windpipe was cut off, and blood rushed to my head. He had me in the very sleeper hold that my dad had tried to teach me a few years back. If done correctly, I would be unconscious in less than four seconds.

Chapter VI.

I know what you are. The words reverberated through unconscious randomness inside of me. I had heard stories of comatose people having dreams, sometimes hearing what their loved ones were saying, but being unable to respond. That, to me, was hel , a.s.suredly: to be trapped and screaming, "Hey!

I'm alive, don't give up on me!"

"I know what you are," came the words again, voiced vaguely, the tone probably resembling my dad, but mixed with every memory I ever had and somehow, not Dad at al . Was someone speaking them? And if so, who?

There was a fight, a gun. But those things were wrapped in cotton, insulated against the touch of my awareness, and shifty. Every time I tried to come to rest on something concrete, it would vanish in smoke. Everything I had known to be real was a distant abstract world, and I was not a part of it anymore. I feared at any moment I would wake up, caged again in the dark, in a broken world, kept by my demonic jailor-and that was a nightmare I did not want to be having, not again. Certainly not for real.

My dreams turned hazy and soft. Michael was sitting in his truck and I was sliding close to him, looking out over the city lights from Table Rock, high up in the foothil s, where other young lovers were parked in darkened cars. We sat in silence because there was nothing to say. The city lights twinkled below, becoming his beautiful blue eyes into which I poured myself like water. If perfection could be defined, this was it.

"I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE, AIREL."

I gasped in shock. I was instantly aware of cold metal straps around my wrists. The voice boomed off the empty canyon wal s of my mind one last time, dissipating into nothingness. I realized that my eyes were open, trying to focus, to register what they beheld.

I knew that the metal straps were real; I felt them against the skin of my wrists, cold and harsh. I was seated in a reclined position, strapped down to a hard chair, and when I tried to move my feet, I realized they were bound.

I started to panic; I was defenseless. My eyes were swimming and reaching for the wal . I wanted desperately to know where I was, but knew I would regret knowing.

Inches from my face, I felt something warm, something that tasted sweet. I turned toward it, begging my eyes to focus. Slowly taking shape in front of me in the dark were the important details. A car. I was inside a car. I could see the shape of the open door to my right and the yel ow light of a streetlamp filtering in. I heard breathing to my left and knew it was Michael. It just sounded like him, like the way he spoke, the tone of his voice.

My eyes went wide, fil ed with the horror of blankness, and grasped for sight desperately. I knew I was in the black Yukon, strapped to some chair for crazies that kept them from hurting themselves. That left one possibility. The man with the gun was standing over me, probably gloating over his fresh catch. But that wasn't even half of it.

My eyes began to focus on two dark orbs set into the shape of a face. They were almost black, the surrounding skin fair, pale, stony. Crowning his head, I saw blond hair and heard him whisper to me, "I know what you are, Airel." I gasped deeply and jaggedly, like my first time through a haunted house when I was 8-completely terrified.

The kil er. The theater. The stalker. The note in the mailbox. My weird dreams. I struggled frantical y against the restraints, my breath ragged, throat dry, pul ing myself away from him as much as I could, completely crazed.

"If you keep quiet I wil not gag you. It's your decision." His voice was firm, and could have commanded tens of thousands. Impossibly, it calmed me, if only a little bit. "If you insist on defying me, I wil gag you as wel as drug you. Do you understand?" In his voice was thick and pliable kindness that did not make any sense to me.

My response to his commanding voice surprised me. "I'l be quiet, but if you touch me I will kil you-do you understand that?" I couldn't believe my own words as they came from my lips. He didn't look shocked or even amused at my threat. In fact he looked like he believed me, even though it was preposterous.

"Trust me." He said it simply, and within his words was the implicit understanding that he was as good as his word. Even more than that, I understood that he thought he had a reason for doing what he was doing and that he real y did believe I would try to kil him.

He turned and closed the door with a final thump. He climbed into the driver's seat and started the engine, which was unbelievably quiet.

I looked at the blacked-out windows, seeing only my reflection. I turned to look out the front window, but the kil er pressed a switch and a part.i.tion slid upward, separating us from him. I was surrounded with darkness and the soft sounds Michael made as he dreamed. I suppose it was then that I resigned myself to the obvious: I had to go along for the ride. The safety I felt before vanished like a vapor in a high wind. I wondered why I had awakened so fast when Michael was obviously out cold. I must have pul ed the dart out pretty quickly.

We drove for a long time, a few hours, which gave me plenty of time to worry about my parents, my best friend Kim, my life, my dreams, prom, homecoming, my trusty little Civic, the paper that was due next week. Most of it was becoming completely worthless except my family and Kim. I alternated between tears of desperation and unbridled anger as my host, my stalker, drove tirelessly on.