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Something that I recognized.
She was in trouble.
Scared.
I’d seen it enough in my life that I could spot it clearly, though the first couple times I’d seen her, it’d wafted around her in silken, disorienting tendrils, this sorrow and tenacity blotting out the part that I’d had trouble putting my finger on.
But I felt it now.
Stark and distinct.
No chance I could sit idle and watch her traipse alone through the night. Not when I could scent her panic in the air.
That warm spice sparking like intoxicating fuel.
A wave of something I shouldn’t feel rose up inside me.
A vat of protectiveness swilling high and completely overpowering.
I gritted my teeth as I pushed through a couple groups of people huddled around, vendors breaking down their canopies and packing their goods, and I hurried through the dirt parking lot that took up that side.
I scanned the area, ensuring there wasn’t anyone creeping in the fringes, making sure no one was fool enough to go after this girl.
They were certain not to like the consequence if they did.
Since Raven had been going on about the new girl living above her shop for the last two months, I knew which way she was going, not that I wouldn’t have been able to track her, anyway.
Strikes of chestnut hair glinted around her as she hurried under the cover of night.
Stars blinked from above, and the ground was bathed in the soft glow of the moon.
I could feel when whatever she was running from turned into me. When awareness shocked through the atmosphere, and her body rocked forward in a bow of confusion when she realized I was following her.
Got the sense she didn’t know whether to slow or run faster.
“Charleigh,” I called. When she only increased her pace, I called her name again. “Hey, Charleigh.”
Ignoring me, she made it to the intersection, and her head swung both ways to make sure it was clear before she darted across the road.
I was near enough that I could hear the soft thwack of her shoes against the concrete echo against the brick buildings that rose up on each side.
My boots thudded above them, and I grew closer and closer with each purposed stride that I took, unable to stop myself from erasing the space between us.
No logic for what spell this woman had me under.
Fascinated.
Enthralled.
Most of all, I couldn’t ignore the compulsion to ensure she was safe.
She hurried past Raven’s shop, and she’d already rounded the building and was halfway up the stairs by the time I turned the corner. She gasped like she didn’t already know I was there, like she was shocked at seeing me at the bottom of the stairs as she threw her attention over her shoulder.
The flecks of cinnamon in her eyes sparked beneath the light, and she kept climbing, though she’d turned to face me, taking the stairs backward as I climbed toward her.
My hand was on the railing, trying to keep myself steady rather than doing something insane like rushing her and dragging her into my arms.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she rasped, words shards. As choppy as her breaths.
