Grey II - Ghosts

Chapter 15 - Abby

I'm gonna keep my sheep suit on until I'm sure that you've been shown that I can be trusted, walking with you alone.

Amanda Seyfried - Little Red Riding Hood

It was a sickening feeling, sitting in the bar I had seen just months earlier with my makeshift family. Sometimes it seemed like a fantasy, like they had never existed, like my life had never changed from its dreary, monotonous march into something wild and worthy. Nothing but the memories and pain remained now. It seemed like I was back to the start, alone and dissatisfied with anger always burning just below my surface, threatening to boil over if I didn't keep it under control. But everything was different now, I knew that much. I knew what was out there now, I just had no way in, no way to be a part of what the world held for people like me.

People like me.

The thought was ridiculous and sad at the same time. There was no one like me out there, no one like me who wasn't something to fear, to hate, the thing of nightmares. I was sure I would be one day too, but I would fight it until then. It just made me even angrier to know I was still an outcast, still alone, even in this new world I had found, to know there was no place for me, still.

I rubbed my hands along the polished table, letting my nails glide over the dark wood as I stared into the drink before me. It didn't taste right. Everything was sour now, and it was that much worse because I hadn't chosen it, I hadn't chosen anything. Everything was out of my control. My family was gone, abandoned me like trash, my Pair was a fake, my own nature wasn't even mine to control. I was lost, everything was. My worst fears had come true, I had lost control. Sitting there, being so close to a place I only knew because of the Clan, made it all come rushing back, the loss of control, the dismay, the abandonment, the anger, fury. Sitting there in that bar made the same thoughts run through my mind as the first night, a constant mental loop, getting nowhere, but still running, still remembering.

My head snapped up as a man sat down across from me. I was in a small, secluded booth and the bar was far from full, but the man didn't seem to be sitting with me out of necessity. He stared at me blankly and for a moment I thought he must be drunk, though it was early on a weekday for that to be true, even in this back-woods area.

I studied the man in silence as he did the same to me. Even though his eyes were light, I couldn't get a pair of dark ones from my mind. And even though this man's were nothing like the midnight blue that were seared into my brain, the way he was watching me reminded me of how my Pair sometimes had, with something behind his eyes that I couldn't quite grasp. He haunted me every moment, awake or asleep. He was always there in my mind, appearing and disappearing in just as frustrating a fashion as he always had, an arrogant smile pulling at one corner of his lips, an amused look in his dark eyes, like he knew I was still thinking of him, unable to drive him out. I forcibly pushed the memory from my mind, fighting the cringe that often came with thoughts of him and instead focused on the intruder before me.

He was old, not the kind I was used to seeing in the city, but a weathered old, like a farmer. His white hair stood out at gravity-defying angles that left a starburst shadow on the table and made his skin look even tanner, with deep wrinkles separating his face into sections. His eyes were sharp still, the intelligence far from gone, with light blue centers that looked watery, blindness inevitably in his future. He had a skinny frame, but still looked strong, like he knew what hard work was and had never met a load he couldn't shoulder. He had an odd grandfatherly feel to him, if in a slightly eccentric way, wise and bony like an old owl. He reminded me of what I had always imagined a wizard to look like.

The whole time I studied him he just stared, a pleasant yet blank look on his face, it was unnerving. Who stares at strangers, especially when the eye contact was close to bordering two minutes? As a general rule in life I avoided eye contact with strangers. Looking at people invited conversation, and that wasn't a goal of mine. I wasn't looking for friends, or even company, though Syn was my guilty pleasure in some ways. It frustrated me that I couldn't drag my eyes away from the old man. My stubbornness wouldn't allow me to be the first to initiate conversation with the intruder either though.