Stranger Danger

It was a while before Bill came out balancing two trays of food. Struggling to set them down in front of her he settled for awkwardly sliding them across the countertop. She could see the wave of relief wash over him as he took a step back to calm down. "Still not got the hang of waitressing huh?" she teased, clearly enjoying the mans frustration.

"It would be a lot easier if both my waitresses didn't quit on me"

Filling her mouth to the brim she spate out "Can you blame them? They had to work eight hours a day for terrible pay and a boss that overworked them"

In mock disbelief he took an overexaggerted gasp "Well I happen to think I'm an amazing boss" he had to pause to admire the girl sat in front of him. "I don't get how such a small person can eat such large quantities of food, where the hell does it all go?"

"What can I say, I'm blessed"

"That you are" he said twirling her sketchbook around to face him, "and look at this! You seriously don't want to take art up professionally?"

She struggled to talk through a mouthful of pancake, "Really? I could do that?"

"Yeah! With this level of talent I'm pretty sure any business will take you on, you could get paid serious money for just drawing a logo"

"You're kidding right? I might have to look into that"

"Do it, you could even be the next Picasso!" he joked.

She giggled, "now that's a little extreme don't you think"

"I wouldn't know, best I can draw is a stickman" he shrugged closing the book and turning it back round to her. "But you have a talent Willow, don't waste it", he said walking towards a customer.

After scoffing down the whole meal within minutes Willow paid the bill and headed out towards the forest.

Stepping outside she was immediately soothed, something about smelling the fresh forest air, hearing the leaves crunch under her feet and birds chirp in the distance, feeling the wind gently brush across her exposed skin. She let her body go into autopilot, shutting off her mind and letting her legs take charge.

At some point she had decided to climb to the top of a giant pine tree, because when she came back to her senses she was over looking the whole forest. All around her she could see trees and blue sky. In the distance she could make out the top of her secluded house. Barely.

It was weird. Even consciously knowing she was up this high her body refused to except it. The beautiful view distracted her from thinking about her crushing fear of heights.

She reached round into her bag and carefully pulled out her sketchbook. Sitting perched she sat there quietly singing to herself drawing a landscape of the scenery around her.

After she finished she decided to stay, watching the sun set. Just long enough to see the first star appear. Jumping down from each branch was easy, she felt like a gymnast.. or possibly a monkey. 'Probably both'. It hadn't even occured to her that her hands were shaking viciously from fear.

**

When she reached home it was pitch black out and her legs ached like hell. 'Damn Willow, you really went and wasted your seventeenth birthday like that'.

Locking up the house she made a B line for the kitchen, "how did I go for so long without feeding you?" she said rubbing her stomach, talking to it as if it were a baby, "what should we eat.. hmm".

After scavenging through all the cupboards a trillion times, she decided on pepperoni pizza. While it was cooking in the oven she ran upstairs to take a well deserved shower.

**

The shower knob screached as she turned it on. Ice cold water greeted her hand, sending shock waves through her entire body. It'd take a while before it heated up so she turned to her phone flicking through her spotify playlist, music began to echo off the bathrooms tiles. A couple minutes later she stripped and entered the shower, the hot water greated her skin washing away the soreness in her aching muscles.

She sang passionately, dancing along to the music. A performance she'd deamed oscar worthy, all thoughts of washing were out the window. It was only when a loud thud from her bedroom followed by a deep male voice that tore her away from her music. "oh- for fucks sake!" the voice cursed repeatedly.

Alert. Fear filled her body as she stood frozen under the heat of the shower. Adrenalin started rapidly pumping through her veins as she began to panick. 'What do I do? What do I do!?'.

She reached for her phone, switching it on a battery alert popped up '15% that's okay, just call 999 tell them your address and the situation. That's all I need to do. Easy. We got this, just last 3 more minut-' all of a sudden the screen went black. "shit!" she whispered, "bloody stupid iphone battery life"

Assessing her options she turned the shower off as discreetly as possible and pulled a towel over her dripping body. Tip toeing towards the bathroom door she grabbed the closest thing in reach and opened the door. Continuing on towards her bedroom.

*The house fell deafeningly silent, the only noise coming from her own heavy breathing. 'I'm so going to die, I'm so going to die*' she kept chanting to herself. 'Calm down Willow and think, what would they do if this was a crime drama?'

Slowly she entered her room, her hand blindly reached out for the light switch. Flicking it on she scanned the space around.

*Nothing. The only thing misplaced was a pile of her books toppled over next to the window. Walking over to take a closer look she stopped to inspect the windowsill, no signs of a break in. Nothing out of the ordinary.. 'maybe I was just hearing things*? Oh please tell me I was just hearing things'.

Just as she was about to turn around and head back to the shower, she felt a warm breathe tickle the right side of her neck, its hair immediately stood on end. Squealing. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and twisted herself around so she was face to face with the intruder, without a second thought she started kicking and punching in that general direction.

It felt like punching solid bags of flour, she continued to attack with her eyes glued closed. Almost sounding bored he put a stop to the pathetic attacks "Alright. That's enough of that tiny, you're gonna hurt yourself" suddenly she felt her whole body being lifted up and thrown down on somethings soft '.. my bed?'

She opened her eyes to see the intruder. To her surprise it was a guy.. he looked the same age as her, if not older. He wore baggy black jeans and a simple black shirt which stretched over his muscles, the whole outfit complimenting his strikingly dark features: jet black hair which fell messily over his forehead, dark red eyes.. no now they were a deep brown and pale olive skin sprinkled with freckles. His right arm was covered in a sleeve of tattoos which went right from his knuckles to his jawline.

He towered over her, intimidating her with his height. Suddenly a series of questions flew through her mind 'Shit shit shit shit shit How did he get inside the house?? how was be able to throw me on the bed without touching me? am i imagining things??' He smirked at the distressed girl, almost like he could hear her thoughts. She tried to calm herself down to the point she could think logically about what to do, he started moving towards her, a cold hard look in his eyes.

Urgently trying to remember the fighting techniques she'd learned from youtube over the past couple of years, she did the first thing which came to mind. With one swift and a powerful hit she successfully kneed the intruder in between his legs. As he fell to the floor trying to catch his breathe, she took the opportunity to run like hell. "******* hell. H-hey come ba-back here" he said between rugged, painful breathes.

Ignoring him, she blindly grabbed a few random clothes and darted down the stairs through the house past the kitchen. Stopping herself mid run 'the pizza!', she quickly opened the oven and juggled the hot pizza in her hands sprinting out the door into the woods.

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