2.3

"Was it fun to lie to me?" Noah's voice made my weary eyes fight to open. I was pressed into the bed by his heavy, surprisingly muscular frame. The only light in the room was the faint glow of moonlight creeping through the open window.

"Lie?" I gulped, my hands wanting to instinctively reach for my dagger, but it was not there. Wrong life. I miss my blades.

Seeing his pitch-black eyes searching mine for answers I felt my mind wander back to that night.

Noah had caught Hannah drinking in a guest room, similar to this one. Hannah had snuck a few bottles of wine, put on her headphones, and tried to escape to oblivion alone in her room. Only it wasn't her room.

Noah had snatched the headphones off her ears, causing her to splash the almost empty red wine all over his chest before dropping the bottle onto the now stained cream carpet.

"I think you're in the wrong room love," Noah smirked, trying to hold back a laugh. Though he looked sober, he was definitely heavily intoxicated. She should be scared of him like she was of most men, but he gave off a comforting presence that allowed her mind to wander to other fears.

My mind hurt when she blocked out the thoughts she was worried about as I helplessly watched the scene unfold.

"A-am I?" She scanned the floor quickly for her shoes and the other two bottles of wine she had stolen. All she thought about was she was certain this was the room her brother had pointed out to her.

"Are you a friend of the Clark's?" he asked, stripping his suit jacket off, tossing it to a chair, before unbuttoning his shirt, not caring that Hannah's eyes still remained on him.

There was an intense fear at the thought of her father knowing she'd been drinking again. Even worse was that this was counted as a public event, with a lot of important figures attending. This was Ivy's parent's party, Will had argued to let her go. She would let him down again. Let everybody down. What would her power-hungry father do if he found out?

"Ivy," the lie slipped out easily as she slipped on her flats and picked up the wine bottles as casually as possible, though her head was spinning so fast. She comforted herself with the thought that technically she was a friend of Ivy's.

Noah tossed the shirt to join the jacket on the chair and walked to some drawers, pulling out a plain grey t-shirt to put on. Turns out this really was his room. Maybe hers had been the next one along.

"Sorry, I'll just go now," she clumsily stumbled towards the door as he returned to the room.

"Wait," Noah stepped forward, reaching out to steady her, "what's your name?"

Hannah panicked, had he recognised her? "Hayley," she blurted the first female name she could come up with then internally cursed at how similar it was to her own name.

"I'm Noah," he smiled, then his eyes drifted to the bottle in each hand, "planning to drink those alone?"

Biting her lip, reluctant to answer, she opened her eyes wide as if she'd been caught by the teacher for skipping class again. Unable to speak, she simply nodded her head, which made him chuckle.

"Want company?"

Without thinking straight she simply nodded again.

He took both bottles from her hands and walked out to the balcony. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Hannah followed the attractive, handsome man to the balcony, feeling the fresh cold air hit her face slightly sobering her up. This was a mistake.

The longer she remained in his presence the more chances he had of realising she was lying. After Christmas, she couldn't afford another fuck up with her father. She had only six more months to last. Just six months until she could get away.

"Are you local to California?" he asked, opening a bottle and passing it over.

"Yes," she replied quickly before taking a large drink, craving the return of the warm fuzzy feeling to fill the cold hole she felt inside.

"You one of Ivy's college friends then?" He continued to ask questions as if this were some form of an interview. Would he have done this with any girl he found in his room?

She nodded, Ivy studied journalism locally.

"Ah, so have you've ended up being a member of the press also?" He smiled condescendingly before also taking a large drink of his wine, looking like he had a bone to pick with journalists. However, Hannah liked Ivy and journalists, debating going down that road herself, just in a college far, far away.

"Have you got something against the freedom of information?"

They continued to banter with each other until the moon hung high and both bottles were empty. The atmosphere had turned very flirty as they moved indoors to the warmth. There he had taken Hannah's first kiss, pressing her up against the wall.

He asked if she was a virgin afterward, to which she shook her head thinking no twenty-five-year-old would be, and that was the age she was pretending to be. Thankfully she had been dressed to the nines by Ivy and had a body looking much older than it was, making it easier to pretend to be so. Not to mention Ivy had spent her entire youth on the back of a horse and was sure she'd broken her hymen riding at fourteen.

Unfortunately, after one thing led to another and they ended up naked and tangled in the sheets Hannah found out she hadn't broken it. Meaning it hurt a lot since Noah was convinced she was only just a little inexperienced. Still, she had to maintain the lie, pretending she was fine. When he collapsed drunkenly asleep later Hannah noticed the blood on the sheets and gathered her belongings to leave quickly, still drunk herself.

It was early in the morning when she made her way out of the hotel, heading straight for a clinic her classmates had mentioned for the morning-after pill and STI checks, making an attempt to be a responsible girl for a change.

Fuck. Thank you so much for being oh-so responsible…

"Oh, those lies," I gulped, seeing light flash behind his eyes as he studied my reaction.

His face looked torn up, more in pain than angry. Something felt off.

"System try and scan him please."

I needed to pacify him. Fear swallowed me whole at the memories of the last time I'd felt this vulnerable pressed under a man.

"I cannot find any anomalies, though he does seem to have mutated, the virus is very strong in his bloodstream."

I blinked, taking in a deep breath, I was mutating just like he had, surely he could see the signs. Couldn't he have picked a better fucking time to interrogate me?

"Why did you leave?" he eventually asked as his face softened.

I racked my brain, trying to figure out how best to describe Hannah's thinking, "I needed to get the morning-after pill. Plus I didn't want you finding out who I was and telling my father."

Noah scoffed, pushing up slightly to create distance between us, "and tell him what? That I fucked his barely legal daughter, taking her virginity whilst I was at it?"

Yeah, Hannah was dumb.

"I-I'm sorry, besides, it's the apocalypse now, he's dead."

Hannah had even put the kitchen knife through his skull, quite gleefully, herself.

Noah finally rolled off me, laying on his back beside me, looking perfectly comfortable for someone invading my space.

"So… Can we just forget it ever happened?" It wasn't even me, to begin with.

He scoffed again, pushing himself swiftly to his feet before leaving the room without so much as a glance at me.