Nathan

After dropping off a disgruntled, and exhausted, Kristy at her apartment, I made my way back to my own. Everyone knew about Kristy Rocker, about her fall from the news media world. Despite the constant discontent between media and the police force, there was an unspoken nervousness behind her discredit. Although the police force wouldn't admit it, the thoughts were all there. There was something, someone, in the city helping others. It wasn't so much the act of a vigilante, because where-as vigilantes would save people, they didn't care for the destruction in their wake or consider the consequences for their actions. But this person, this Guardian, as Kristy called them in her blog, was very careful.  The guardian would help anyone who needed help, save them from a burning building, a mugger, a car accident anything that could potentially harm them. The criminals that were apprehended at the expense of this Guardian, were caught by policemen, who were provided with nothing more than a gentle nudge in the right direction. When vigilantes captured criminals and brought them to the police, there was little in way of the law, to keep them behind bars. But when this guardian helped apprehend someone, they made sure that the person had no chance of getting out of a conviction, as if this person knew the laws inside and out, every loophole.

The part, in Kristy's story, that had caused her discredit, was the part that spoke of the guardian as animals. The people who claimed to be saved by tigers, bears, apes, these were the stories that were too much for the population to believe.

After dropping her off at her apartment and resigning myself to my own private studio, I took the time to pull up her blog, and read her stories, and although I couldn't bring myself to believe the incredulity of many of the stories I also couldn't help the gnawing feeling in my mind. So it was with these stories in my mind that I laid down in bed, shirtless, for it was a warm night, with my gun on my nightstand. It was these stories in my mind that I had fallen asleep to. But sleep didn't last long. If it had been nightmares I would have understood. After serving in the marines for eight years, with three tours under my belt and countless other under the radar missions, I was used to waking up to nightmares.

But it wasn't nightmares that pulled me from my slumber. Instead I woke with a start, not knowing what woke me, until I heard it again. It was so subtle, most people would have missed it, the quietest of shuffling coming from my kitchen. I rose from bed slowly, silently, my military training always ingrained in my mind despite the end of my service. I inched ever so slowly towards my bedroom door then down the hallway. I leaned silently against the wall of the hallway watching the back of the hooded figure slumped over my kitchen table. My laptop was open, the blog blinking vividly in the darkness, papers were strewn across the table, papers that had previously been tucked away. My wallet lay open on the table next to my laptop, the serious face of my military id staring upwards at the ceiling, while my detective badge winked in the moonlight.

"You're a brave one," I whispered, "to break into a detectives room at night." The hooded intruder whirled around with a gasp of air and in doing so knocking the hood away and revealing not a man like I was expecting, but a woman. A woman with raven black hair and the clearest, bluest eyes I had ever seen. Even in the dark those eyes shone brightly. I could see the shock and disbelief on her face as she stared at me as if she couldn't believe that I had come up behind her, but my stealth skills were always above par, not that she knew that.

She stepped backwards into the shadows so that the moonlight from the window was no longer showing on her face, and for some inexplicable reason, I felt disappointed. I should not be attracted to someone intruding on my home, but I grudgingly admitted to myself that I was. I stared where I saw the silhouette of her body.

"You're the one following the reporter," I stated, more than asked, a part of me certain that I was right. But all I got from her was stony silence.

"Hmm," I muttered, "so are you the one threatening her?"

I thought I would be met with silence again, but after a few painstaking minutes,

"I'm not trying to hurt her," came a melodic purr. I frowned.

"So you are threatening her then," I asked, slightly confused. I heard a sigh and her body shifted in the shadows, she was pacing, and the movement of it for some reason brought to mind lions often seen pacing in their enclosures at the zoo.

"No, I am not the one threatening her," she responded slowly, her voice audibly tired.

"But you know who is." I stated again, and her silence confirmed it. I stepped closer and was painfully aware of her step backwards.

"Are you the," before I could finish, before I could even blink, I felt her hot fingers on my mouth, pushing me until my back was pinned against the wall behind me, her face inches from mine, her eyes panicked and pleading. Never had I been caught so unawares by someone I had been watching right in front of me. I hadn't even seen her move, let alone get in front of me. But now that she was in front of me, I could see her clearly, I could see, in those deep blue eyes, more pain, heartbreak, and sadness, than any person should ever have, and I had the inexplicable urge to wrap my arms around her. Again, she was an intruder and I shouldn't be feeling that way. I kept my arms firmly, stubbornly, at my side.

"Don't ask the question you were going to ask, do not say that word." She said in a harsh whisper. Her eyes were so urgently panic-stricken I could do nothing but nod my head. I knew what word she was referring to. Slowly, warily, she removed her fingers from my mouth only to have me feel an electric shock from her touch against my skin, not the type of shock caused by static, but a shock that traveled like a bolt of electricity through my veins and made my insides burn. Had I not seen the infinitesimal twitch in her fingers, I would have thought I was the only one who had felt it. Her eyes met mine and widened slightly before she took two steps back, realizing with what looked like fear, how close we were. I narrowed my eyes at her as she wrapped her arms around herself.

"So you are it, or her? Or whatever you call yourself." I said. I saw the reflection of the moon off her eyes as she gazed at me with what looked like curiosity, she reminded me very much, of a cat. But she said nothing, instead she turned, and fled towards the window which I then realized was open.

"Wait!" I yelled after her but she had already jumped out. I ran for the window and looked out but all I saw was a flutter of white wings of a bird I couldn't name. It flew in front of the window, looking at me while suspended in the air, and I knew the answer to my question. After all, not a creature alive, especially a bird, could have eyes that blue.