Fugitive Fascination

Chapter Four

"Stop that."

Shifting her gaze from the rear-view mirror, Cierra glared at Hunter in the driver's seat, who had already stopped the car. She was twisted around completely, her arm resting on the wheel and her hand on the stick. Her gaze unsettled Cierra; before they had left the hotel, Hunter had popped in a pair of aquamarine contacts.

They didn't look bad, Cierra felt that it would be hard for anything to look bad on her if not impossible, but she already missed the smokey green color that she had been hypnotized by. Anything else was simply unacceptable.

"What?"

"Looking for the cops. It's making me anxious." Hunter's tone was clipped and very obviously irritated; she hadn't spoken to Cierra throughout the entire nearly three hour car ride, a feat that made Cierra uncomfortable. Spending too much time with Reece had trained her to expect to be pestered during any length of time longer than five minutes.

Everytime she managed to pull her eyes away from the rear-view mirror they gravitated to the other woman's severe, thoughtful expression.

"Well, sor-ry," She snapped back, drawing the word out. "Sorry if I'm worried that the damned FBI is on our tail and I want to watch out for them. This feels unnatural, I was a law enforcer myself for Christ's sake."

Hunter released a grunt. "Must you always have an attitude with me? You make it so hard to not twist your head off sometimes." Slamming the door of the car, she made her way quickly up the gravel driveway of the house that they had pulled up to.

No, it wasn't a house - more of a mansion. It was even grander than Hunter's old home, screaming money with it's obnoxiously modern design. Cierra realized that they'd even had to pass through a large black gate to get in, and she had completely missed it in her paranoia of a SWAT car following them.

Still, what was up with Hunter? It couldn't have been that distracting.

Getting out of the car, she followed closely behind Hunter as she knocked hard on the thick wood front door. Her back was stiff, her shoulders taunt. Hesitating, Cierra swallowed her reluctance before reaching out to take Hunter's hand, stepping up beside her.

Thankfully, she didn't pull away; instead out of the corner of her eye, she saw the tension melt a little, and Hunter's hand closed around hers just as the door swung open.

"Hunter, sweetheart. I was expecting you back a few hours ago."

In the doorway stood a woman that easily gave Aphrodite a run for her money. Her silky dark brown skin somehow had a pale undertone to it, her thick dark hair falling in wavy curls past her shoulders. Her eyes caused Cierra's ego to take a hit automatically - a dark brownish gold exploded forth from the pupils, fading into a brownish green color that resembled summer before falling off into a thin black ring around the edges of iris, all framed by a thick fringe of eyelashes. Her face had a significant amount of makeup on it, done without a flaw.

"Sweetheart?" Cierra heard herself snap, and Hunter's stifled chuckle.

"It's not like that, Cierra."

The woman looked down her long nose at Cierra disdainfully. "I see you brought a snack. I would caution you to remind it that it is nothing more than that though, it seems to have an attitude problem."

At the words, Cierra was able to put a finger on the difference between Hunter and the woman. Although both beautiful, Hunter drew people in; this woman had a predatory, dangerous aura that made Cierra automatically recoil. Her straight, white teeth suddenly drew Cierra's attention.

"She's not a snack and you are not to touch her," Hunter stated firmly. "She'll be staying with me."

Her scrutinizing eyes moved from Hunter then to her, zeroing in on their hands. Her nose crinkled disdainfully, and she placed her hands on her hips.

"Really? A human? Hunter I caution you against this - you'll break her like a cheap wooden stick on your best day."

Cierra bristled. "And just who, or rather what are you? The Queen of bitches?"

The woman didn't respond, simply clicked her tongue before receding into the house without another word.

Hunter's hand grasped hers tighter, and Cierra looked up to see her smiling humorously, but her eyebrows were furrowed in thought.

"Although I enjoy the personal hold you seem to have acquired over me, I would encourage you to try to escape Noelle's bad side; although she can be unsavory at times, she is at the end of the day physically stronger than me. I can keep you safe as a result of mental games with her at which I excel but that doesn't mean she can't get you while I'm not with you."

Stronger than Hunter? That was hard to imagine. What did that mean Noelle was, then?

Consumed in her own thoughts, Cierra was barely aware as Hunter dragged her into the confines of the mansion, keeping her close as they moved throughout the winding halls. A small part of her brain made a mental map of each turn they took, but she didn't know how useful it would be when it came time to use it.

She only came out of her thoughts when she noticed the frustration in Hunter's voice as she glared at a bored Noelle, her eyes narrowed.

"If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it my way. You're not going to force me to be one of these sell out artists."

Tilting her head, Noelle pointed a perfectly manicured finger at Hunter. "You have to try out all of your options," She insisted. "I don't know your full potential; we obviously don't need auto tune, but I don't want you exclusively acoustic. You could sound amazing with music produced by our audio engineers. We have a song track for you and everything in the studio; all you have to do is put your own spin on it."

"No," Stubbornly, she made a face. "Modern music is terrible. Let me play my own or not at all." As she did so, she strolled over to a very expensive looking guitar leaned up against the wall.

It was a customized acoustic guitar, intricate designs scratched into the deeply tanned wooden surface. The gold strings glistened in the light, and although that was probably more due to the kind of strings they were rather than appearance, it still gave Hunter a rather cherubic glow that Cierra wasn't used to as she plopped into a nearby rolling chair, the guitar nestled in her lap.

Her fingers brushed across the strings lightly at first, experimentally. She did it a few more times until she seemed satisfied by the sound, then began to pluck a simple melody.

It was unfamiliar and sweet, the sounds low and warm. Of course she could play instruments too. Despite the fact that she had heard Hunter hum before, it couldn't have prepared her for her actual singing.

"Are you my kind, your sweet soul the blame for

Your damned mind.

Every touch, every kiss, I'm so unwilling to dismiss this."

As if something has possessed her, each and every part of Cierra's thought process became occupied with Hunter. Her voice was that of an Angel's; she had a pleasantly rich, medium tone that fluctuated perfectly with the changing chords of the guitar.

Her mind barely registered the words, just the way that her lips looked as they formed the syllables, the way her heart seemed to dip and soar along with the melody.

Too soon, it was over.

The trance was broken by the sound of a phone clattering to the floor; both Hunter and Cierra looked quizzically at Noelle, who ignored the both of them as she stooped over, dusting the smart phone off before sliding it into the pocket of her expensive blazer.

"Good. Now all I need is for you to do that on stage with a few hundred people in the stands and we'll be set."

Rolling her eyes so hard Cierra thought they might get stuck, she got up and replaced the guitar. As she felt her take her hand, guiding her from the cushioned couch on which she sat, she couldn't help but wonder why Hunter was so against what Noelle was offering.

She had the talent, so why not? Cierra wasn't immune to the glamour that fame offered, and as a child she'd been caught many times recording herself with the hopes that someone would recognize her singing talent, although she now knew it was nonexistent. It was a phase that any normal child went through, and although Hunter wasn't normal in any sense of the word, it didn't make any sense.

Hearing a door close behind her, Cierra snapped out of her thoughts for the second time that night. She blinked as the lights suddenly flickered on, Hunter already in the center of the room.

She removed her jacket and tossed it on the bed, stretching her arms behind her. Releasing a sigh, she fell back onto the bed, then laid there, still.

"Tell me about supernatural stuff," Cierra demanded suddenly, moving across the room to take a seat next to Hunter. "I want to know these things, especially if I'm going to be staying with you for awhile. Start with Noelle. What's her deal?"

Where was her future without Hunter in it anyway?

Rolling her head, Hunter gazed up at her with wary eyes. "Noelle is an pureblood royal vampire." She said it nonchalantly, not offering up any other explanation until Cierra punched her in the stomach, which she didn't even flinch at.

"Vampire? Like the ones that burn up in the sun, or?"

Hunter shrugged. "Although I enjoyed the attempted humanistic portrayal-" Cierra scoffed, "not one is particularly accurate over another. I can't go into specifics with you because quite honestly the vampire Clans are secretive with their species information, but I do know that the burning in the sun isn't a thing. The way that they are affected by the sun is more similar to the way that a human is affected when they eat something unsavory; bodily sickness until they dispel it.”

"They do drink blood, and Noelle isn't an exception. Impressive physical strength and mental capacity, sense of smell and sight, plus I believe the purebloods have special abilities unique to the bloodline that they are born in. Before you ask, I do not know Noelle’s. There’s never been a reason for her to show me, and thus I’ve never asked." She rolled onto her side, facing away from Cierra. "This would take hours to go into depth with you. There's so much to teach you if you actually want to know, but right now, I'd prefer you sleep. We've been on the road for hours, and we'll be leaving again tomorrow."

Cierra's eyebrows furrowed. "What? But it sounds like she's more than insistent of you staying, Hunter. And what about you being a you know, fugitive? I'm pretty sure the FBI still has an eye out for you."

She ignored Hunter's previous statement to prevent her own head from spinning at all of the information she was missing. Did this mean werewolves existed? Shape shifters and the like?

She snorted. "I have no intention of being a public puppet for Noelle. That little show was just something to make her think I actually gave her proposal some thought. Anyway, don't worry your pretty little head about that whole I-broke-out-of-prison thing. As long as we're careful, we'll be just fine. They'll stop looking eventually once they realize I can fade into anyone I want. But in the meantime,"

She sat up, looking at Cierra for the first time.

"We're going to need to do something about your appearance. They will probably have someone looking after you, after all."

"We've lost contact with our tail, sir." These were the words that had caused the Director of External Affairs to grip his cup of black coffee so hard it spilled onto his hand. Although he could barely feel it through the thick calloused skin on his palms, a curse slipped past his lips as the dark liquid spread out over the papers on his desk.

"You what?" He demanded, earning a flinch from the newer agent in front of his desk. "How? Just... how? I assigned you one job, rookie; watch the Drakes house, don't get caught and don't lose her. Explain."

A headache ground away at his nerves already as he stared up at the clean shaven face of this twenty-something disappointment; what had possessed him to entrust someone so fresh with such an important job?

Clasping his hands behind his back, he stared at the space between the Director's eyes, unwilling to meet the nearly flat black irises. He forced himself to keep his composure, otherwise he would be eaten alive.

"Well, about 48 hours ago-"

"48 hours?" He exploded. "Why has it taken so long for this to get back to me?"

The rookie paused, irked, then continued. "Well tailed her to the city with Reece Drakes, where we lost them. They seemed to be in a rush. We combed the city for hours, but eventually settled on going back to the original house and Reece's; he was neither here nor there, but he returned this morning empty handed. We have reason to believe Hunter may have gotten to her somehow."

Unimpressed, McKee set in on dabbing away as much coffee from his desk as he could. "And what brought you to that conclusion?"

"A couple of weeks back we attached a tracker in a sweater that she seemed keen on wearing when one of ours 'accidentally' ran into her in the grocery store; every time she left the house, she was in it. We've tracked her to Texas, although we clearly won't have much time as its a disposable piece of clothing-"

Setting down the tissue, he eyed the rookie with a smirk. "Better pack your bags then, you're driving to Texas tonight."