.Chapter 3.
.savior.

He rushed instantly to my side as I swayed precariously on my feet. I would not faint, I would not faint, I would not faint… but the ground looked so comfortable and my feet ached and I suddenly decided that I had a headache and I better lie down and suddenly the ground was really close and I felt quite sleepy, after all…

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My eyelids abruptly fluttered open to find him staring down at me, a look of puzzlement cast over his pale features, but apparently even a girl blacking out was not enough to wipe that annoying ever-present hint of amusement off of his face. I turned over to escape his piercing eyes and expected to feel the hard ground resisting the contour of my body, but instead I realized I was on the safe island of my fluffy bed.

“Are you all right?” I heard his voice ask me, that irritating edge still audibly mocking me.

Defiantly, I sat up and faced him. At least my sudden movement took him by surprise. “Why do you seem to care so much about the condition of my health?”

He laughed. I could hardly believe my ears. He was laughing at me. There was no rhyme or reason behind it, at least that I was able to discern.

“Normal people have enough common sense to realize that it might not be in their best interest to subject themselves to haunted boardwalks in the dead of night. Now, are you going to faint again? I would like to have some advanced warning.”

Every word that left his mouth sounded smooth and perfectly articulate, even though the scathing comments were aimed at me. I was utterly speechless at the anomaly standing across the room from me.

He simply continued to lean against the wall, studying my reaction. He dominated the room, with his tall stature and aura of sophistication. His skin look remarkably pale, although the moonlight pouring through the fluttering curtains was partially responsible for the eerie glow. His hair was midnight black, and his dark eyes were sweeping over me, presumably calculating my attributes and trying to sum me up in one word.

The unsettling stillness continued, drawing on for an unnaturally long period of time. As he watched me, his silent thoughts aggravating me to no end, questions were itching at the back of my mind.

“Why…” I tentatively began, and his eyes darted up to meet mine. With a gulp, trying to swallow all of my anxiety away, I continued, “Why did you save me?”

I could tell that his first reaction was to laugh, but seeing how it disconcerted me so, he decided to resist the urge. Instead, he smiled and replied, in a voice dripping with sugar, “My dear girl, why ever would I want to see you crushed by a tree? Especially by such an ugly one?”

Unable to comprehend why I was not pleased by his answer, he shrugged and looked away from my glare.

“You could have been killed.”

This caused him to frown and reply, “No one else is going to die inside this park.”

“What if I wanted to die?”

My question caused him to promptly shut his mouth. His dark eyes narrowed, analyzing my features, searching for any hint of truth or weakness in resolve.

After an agonizingly long moment, he remarked, “Suicidal thoughts will pass, my dear, just like the storm.”

His comment struck too close to home and I felt a wave of dizzying sickness rising up inside of me. I could isolate the flying tree, the splintering bark, the shove, the fall, the heavy pressure, the dark puddles, all of it swirling around me. But the rest of that night, outside of that one solitary scrap of memory, was painfully off limits. I was content not to cross the yellow caution tape, a bright reminder of exactly where that monsoon had originated.

“Please… do not faint again.” he pleaded quietly, half of a smile still hanging onto his face. “All you need to do is keep yourself out of trouble, and stop wandering into Broken Shell at night, for both of our sakes.”

“Who are you?” I blurted out, causing him to smile a bit mysteriously.

“Apolonio.” he announced with a sweeping bow, “Groundskeeper of Sand Dollar Park.”

I rolled my eyes, unimpressed by his flourish. I had learned the hard way that it was necessary to look past the surface and find the valuable substance beneath, so naturally I ignored it and skeptically asked, “Gotta last name?”

“Not for your ears.”

“Care to clarify?”

But he only continued to smile flawlessly back at me.

“When is it my turn to ask the questions?” he pointedly asked, his smile curling farther, a challenge.

With a sigh of exasperation, and a glance at the hour of the night, I artlessly said, “Shoot.”

“Who are you?”

The implications of the question I had asked him only a moment ago suddenly baffled me. A thousand different answers swarmed, flying blindly across my consciousness, battling for supremacy, choking out my automatic response. I’m Aureliana Bouleverse. What more was I than this name?

It spilled out before I could filter through the uncensored emotions. “I’m Aureliana Bouleverse. Most people call me Aurelie. I like Aurelie. Never call me Ari.”

“That is a bit to remember,” he noted, his head slightly tilting as he tapped it lightly, indicating his memory. The effect was more like he was puzzling over some strange behavior he observed in his laboratory specimen.

Out of the blue, he announced, “Well, I must be off.” With that, he crossed the room fluidly and bowed once again, carefully taking my hand in his. His skin was as cold as ice, but impressively soft. Fancying himself a true gentleman, he lowered his lips and kissed my hand lightly and briefly.

“If you like Aurelie, Aurelie you shall be called.”

A quick dash through the swaying curtains and a jump over the balcony and he was gone. Without thinking I found myself running after him, pressing myself against the metal rail of the balcony and straining to catch one last glimpse of him. With his dark cloak, he probably had melted right into the darkness, but it was the idea that captivated me. The mystery.

Oh no, I was not going there. If sarcasm is a disease, romanticism is an epidemic. I was not about to turn into one of those swooning idiots from a Spanish soap opera, doomed to roam in a land of daytime television. I had to get a grip on myself. Mystery means bad boys on motorcycles and cryptic children from cults. Mystery is a cute device used to spice up boring heroine’s lives, with one rule always standing true.

Mystery brings trouble.

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A/N – This chapter ended up being shorter than I intended. Hopefully short and sweet…I’ll cross my fingers that it turned out okay.