Mystery Behind Amber Eyes

“Grab my hand!” the man yelled over the cliff. Jane reached out, but only brushed his fingertips.

“I can’t!” she called back to him. She screamed and whimpered as her feet slipped off the rocky ledge, leaving her dangling by her hands.

“Further!” he shouted. She gave a shaky laugh as she stretched out her hand as far as it would go and–

Oops. That’s towards the end of this story. We have to start at the beginning...

*************

A figure moved across the newly fallen snow as a mother hushed her child to sleep. Her singing could be heard outside the open window as she rocked her baby girl to sleep. The infant’s eyes grew heavy as her mother’s voice calmed it.

Movement and the infant was jogged out of its tranquil state as it was placed in the space under the bed. A few swift movements, a muffled scream, and a tearing noise. Then silence.

The infant stared at its reflection in the cold steel. Its wide, scared eyes stared back at itself and the orphan began to cry, not knowing if anyone would hear.

The figure retreated back across the snow, only trailing crimson behind.

That was the beginning of our heroine’s journey...

************

“Mom?” Jane called out as she descended the stairs into the kitchen. It always bothered her that her house was in the same fashion as the ones on TV sitcoms. It always made her expectant of some sort of shenanigans going on in her family life. “Mom, is it okay if I take the car to tae kwon do? Mom?”

Oh that’s right...

Her mother and father were adopting another child that had recently lost its parents. Years ago Jane had discovered that she had been adopted by her parents when she had been a baby. No one knew what had happened to her real parents. Either that or they wouldn’t tell her.

Her parents couldn’t conceive and once they had learned that Jane would be arriving at the orphanage they immediately wanted to see her. They told her that by the way the adoption agency had described her they knew that they would be getting an angel.

She loved her parents more than she could ever imagine. They had given her a home and raised her as their own. Actually she thought of herself as theirs even after she had learned all of this. She didn’t know if her real parents had even wanted her or if they had to give her up. So she never thought about it. Why would she? She was perfectly happy living with her parents. And she was happy that another child would have the opportunity of her parents as theirs.

Jane strolled over to the stainless steel fridge and grabbed the orange juice and a glass from the cabinet next to it. Turning she placed the glass on the counter and filled it with juice, sighing in boredom. She shuffled over to the pantry in her sweat socks that she wore in the house to grab a Kashi Go Lean bar when she stepped on something wet.

“Oh man, Freddie!” She pulled herself up onto the island counter and pulled off her sock, expecting to see a yellow stain made by her beagle, Freddie. Instead, she saw a red stain. Jane quickly looked down at the grey tile floor and saw a puddle of red. Still not sure what it was, she jumped off the counter and grabbed a paper towel.

She inspected the red stuff on the towel after she wiped it up and smelled a slightly metallic scent. Blood. Her head snapped up and she glanced around the kitchen. She didn’t see anyone or thing on the ground. And there seemed to have been a trail, but it smudged out by the time you headed for the back door.

The back door! Jane took a knife from the holder and pressed her back to the wall near the corner you turned down to the back door. She peeked down the hall and saw that a small circle had been cut out of the glass widow that took up half of the door. Her breathing quickened and her throat went dry as she crossed the hallway into the den, still keeping her death grip on the knife.

A phone was in this room. The phone had a big red button that, if pressed, called 9-1-1. Jane kept her back pressed against the wall next to the open doorway and glanced in. There was no one. Slowly, she tiptoed into the room and picked up the phone, pushing the button. Jane rocked back and forth on the balls of her feet as she listened to the ring of the earpiece before,

“9-1-1 emergency operator. What is your emergency?” Jane sighed in relief.

“I think someone broke into my house. I found blood on my kitchen floor and my parents are not home right now. There is a piece of glass cut out of my backdoor. I don’t know what to do.”

“Okay miss, I’m sending some police on the way. What I need you to do is–” The line went dead. Jane began to shake.

“Well, now that the police are on the way I suggest that we get out of here before the killer pops out and gets you,” a voice from the door way stated.

Jane jumped and dropped the receiver, pointing the knife two-handed, towards the source of the voice.

The man in the doorway raised his hands in an effort to show that he was not armed.

“What do you want?” Jane hoped that her voice wouldn’t sound as scared as she was. The man took a step forward and Jane took a step back. He stared at her in curiosity. His amber eyes danced with amusement, but his face didn’t show it. His black hair fell over his face, giving him a more predatory look than he should have if he was supposed to be helping her.

“I just want to get you out of here before the killer gets you. It would be a shame if I had to go back empty handed.” The words seemed to be sincere, but Jane scoffed.

“How do I know you’re not the killer?” Her eyes narrowed accusingly.

“Because–” Another man flung himself at him as he was talking. The amber-eyed man easily plucked the man out of the air and used the momentum to shove him into the hallway wall. The attacker pulled himself out of the wall and lunged at the amber-eyed man again. He simply grabbed the back of the attacker’s shirt and kneed him in the stomach, then he threw him head first into the floor, knocking the attacker unconscious.

“Because,” the amber-eyed man continued, brushing the drywall dust off of his black mid-calf length duster coat, “he was going to attack you while you were on the phone trying to get a dial tone.”

Jane sized up her chances at getting past this man and yelling for help down the street. He looked about 6 foot 7 inches and from what she had seen him display, had the same amount of martial arts that she did. The fact that the coats sleeves were pulled slightly over his lean arms and the dark grey shirt he was in was tight against his stomach muscles meant that he out-weighted by about 150 pounds of muscle.

Her small frame of 5 foot 5 inches and 155 pounds of lean muscle seemed like it would be little problem for the man to overcome. He didn’t seem like he was made of muscle, but it was in the way he held himself and his gait that told Jane she had no chance of running past him to the backdoor.

So she went for the front door, knife still in hand, she pivoted and pushed off to get a good running start. The chairs were no problem to get around and the sofa was easy to jump over. She got a good look a the front door as she leapt over the dog bed in the front hall and touched the knob before a strong pair of arms wrapped around her knees taking the doorknob out of her grasp.

“Shit.” The word escaped her mouth before she could think. Jane flipped over and looked into the eyes of the stranger. She punched him in the face, taking him by surprise and using that advantage she kicked him in the nose. After hearing the sickening crack of his nose breaking and the string of expletives that left his mouth. Jane jumped up and turned the doorknob, running outside and into the arms of another stranger.

She struggled and kicked the man where it hurt. He crouched over and spat up blood as Jane took off full speed down the road, not glancing back. Where could she go?

“Help! Someone! HELP!” Screaming seemed to be the best option right now. A neighbor who was raking the leaves that had recently fallen glanced up.

“Jane! What’s wrong?” Jane skidded to a stop and ran over to her neighbor gasping for breath. It had been a long time that she had to do that much cardio work.

“Men...in my house...tried to grab me...” The neighbor nodded and took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the police just as the man with the broken nose came down the street.

“Crap.” Jane looked up at her neighbor just in time to see a cloth come at her. She ducked his hand and shook herself out of her shock. Was everyone out to get her today?

“Just stop and listen!” the amber-eyed man yelled.

“Screw that!” Jane yelled as she slammed her foot into her neighbor’s knee. He screamed as his leg bent backwards and Jane took off running again.

She heard the amber-eyed man give an exasperated sigh and muttered, “Pain in my ass.”

Jane jumped over a few fences and into the backyards that littered the neighborhood. A few startled looking people looked up at her as she shouted apologies and kept running. She thought of how strange it would seem to those people. A girl with a tank top on in November with one sock and a pair of paint stained sweatpants being chased by a man with a bloody, broken nose dressed in dark colors. She didn’t have time to laugh as she reached the highway that marked the edge of her neighborhood.

She stopped short as a car honked its horn at her and skidded to a stop. Jane put her hands on the car’s hood to steady herself and glanced over her shoulder. The amber-eyed man leapt on top of a car and kept running towards her.

“Damn it all,” Jane muttered. She kept running until she hit the sound barrier that she had forgotten lined the other side of the highway. She quickly glanced at the man before she began to run in the same direction as the traffic, hoping to God she would see a cop somewhere up the road because the way her lungs were burning, told her that she would not be able to keep this speed up. She heard the pounding of the man’s footsteps catching up with hers or was that her heart pounding in her ears.

She didn’t glance back, she didn’t make any sharp turns to throw him off, she was getting tired and that was not a good sign. A hand grabbed the back of her tank top and she began to scream with all her might, trying to fight off this man.

Jane threw out a few punches and kicks. A few landing, a few missing. He was able to grab her arm as a punch landing in his gut.

“We want to protect you,” he stated through clenched teeth.

“You have a funny way of showing it,” Jane retorted as she tried to wrench her arm out of his grip.

“Will you just listen?!” His grip tightened on her arm and she cried out in pain. His face softened for a moment before he loosened his grip. This peaked Jane’s interest. She stopped struggling in her moment of surprise.

“If you let go of me, I promise I won’t run again.” Her words seemed to shock the man, but he let go of her arm and slowly let go of her shirt. He smiled slightly as she stood still, shuffling her feet slightly.

“We were sent to protect you. The man had been killing many people for a long time and we finally figured out his pattern, you were his next victim. But I can say that he was the lucky one here.” He smiled then grimaced in pain as his nose scrunched up the wrong way. Jane stared at him.

“So will you come with us so that we can make sure he doesn’t have any disgruntled partners that would think you took him out and want to get revenge on you?”

“What about my family?”

“There are other people who will inform them when they return home.”

“Why did that man try to chloroform me?” Jane was still a little suspicious about that.

“Oh, him. He’s a newbie and thought that the only way to take anyone to a safer place is to knock them out and drag them there.”

Jane stared at the man again. He had a perfect chance to kill her right now and he wasn’t. She was still a little hesitant, but she really didn’t want to wait around and see if another crazy person tried to kill her.

“So where do I have to go?”

The man half-smiled this time. Jane felt her stomach tighten.

Is this a good idea? She took a step back from the man, his half-smile disappeared.

“I still don’t trust you fully, you know.” He nodded in understanding.

“Yeah, I don’t think I would fully trust a guy who appeared in my house and chased me to the highway,” he joked half-heartedly, “But we need to protect you.”

Jane looked at him warily, “I’ll drive in my own car though.” The half-smile reappeared on the man’s face.

“But I will have to ride with you so that you don’t, you know, drive off at the last second.”

Jane held in the groan that threatened to escape her lips. This day just seemed to get better by the second.