My screams were muffled by the hand over my mouth. I jerked and twisted, trying to break away. How did it come to this?

 There were two people on me. One was covering my mouth and the other was helping them pull me to the van and looking around to make sure there were no witnesses. That’s all I could gather though. Their nondescript black clothes told me nothing else. They could be members of a famous boy band or an invader from another planet for all I knew. Even my surrounding made no sense to me. Everything was a shattered, blurred, disoriented mess around me. Logic said that I was by the arcade, by people. But fear and the shadows told me in a louder voice that it was only the three of us in the world. That there was no help coming and that I was my only salvation.

 I remember wishing around that time that if their was a single angel in the universe, that they would come and rescue me.

 “Oi, you might want to let her go.” The people who held me froze and turned to the voice.

 It was Kris. His eyes were no longer cold. They were like molten lava, practically dripping with fury. He walked toward them with confidence in each step. The people who held me pulled knifes out of their pockets to threaten him, but he just smiled.

“I’m over here.” He stopped three yards away and opened up his arms, taunting them with a clear shot. “Those are useless.”

One of the people threw their knife at him but he dodged it easily. The other one was smarter, unfortunately. They put their knife to my throat.

A bit of Kris’s cockyness left him. He watched them sharply and stilled. The metal against my throat was cold in sharp contrast to my warm skin. Adrenalin pumped through me and I darted my eyes around, looking for something, anything that could help me.

My eyes kept landing on Kris.

“Now that you understand where we’re coming from,” The person holding the knife to my throat spoke. It was a woman. Her voice was tough with and sweet undertone that made me feel sick. “I want to listen to me very carefully. Keep backing away from us, go round that corner, and leave. Don’t tell anyone about this and you might your girlfriend back in one piece. If you go to the police, well,” Her voice began to sound sickeningly amused. “I’ve always wanted to cut hair. I never was very good at it though. I always miss the hair.” The flat of the blade was pressed against my neck and a terrified moan leaked out of me.

Kris looked me in the eye. If he was trying to tell me something, I couldn’t understand him. He kept backing away from us, eyes never once leaving my own, and turned around the corner.

He left me.

My tears were falling quickly, steadily like a rainstorm. My knees quaked beneath me. I tried to scream but it came out as a pathetic sob.

All of a sudden, my captors lurched forward. Something had hit them from behind. I crained my neck to see what had happened.

It was Kris. He had ripped away one of my assaulters and they began to fight. I saw Kris throw a punch at them only to get kicked in the shin. The other swore and began to shove me into the van, blocking most of my view with their body. With only one person on me, there was no one to cover my mouth.

“Kris!” With a final blow to the assaulter's head, effectively knocking him out, he turned to my voice.

But he was too late. The back door to the van was slammed shut.

“Quick! Drive!” The car suddenly lunged forward and I fell to the floor. The rough carpet rubbed harshly against my cheek.

“Holy . What was with that guy? I’ve never seen anything like that.” The driver said.

“He must be like Boss.” the woman turned to me. “How’d a pretty thing like you hook up with alien?”

What? Alien? Was that some kind of slang?

I was about to deny that we were together, but a loud thump startled us all. We looked at the ceiling and found four deep imprints in it. All of a sudden, the windows shattered, showing me in glass. Something grabbed me and pulled me through the window. I was held to someone’s chest as they jumped off the roof of the car and into the street. I screwed my eyes tight, not wanting to see what kind of new horrors had gotten ahold of me. There was a crunching of gravel underneath shoes as the person carrying me walked toward something. A few seconds later, they laid me gently across something. Stealing some courage, I opened one eye a crack.

“Did they do anything to you?” Familiar black eyes gazed at my face intently.

“Kris,” I was overcome with relief and all the tension in my body melted away. He hadn’t abandoned me. “You came back!”

“Idiot. I couldn’t just leave you with them.” He brushed shards of glass off my clothes and hair. “Now, will you let me take you home?”

“Mmm...” I mumbled. Now that I was safe in Kris’s arm, the adrenaline left me and I felt exhausted.

He sighed, realizing that I wouldn’t be moving for a while. “I’ll carry you this once. Get on my back.”

Kris crouched down to the ground and I summoned all of my energy to roll onto his back. I wrapped my arms around his chest  and buried my face in his hair. He smelt faintly like Earth Cafe (a testament to how often he goes there), chocolate, and a metallic tang that I can only describe as “star dust”. The hair that tickled my forehead was as soft as a cloud.

“Thanks...” I mumbled into his shoulder. If he hadn’t been there, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to me.

“When I offer to walk you home, accept it from now on so stuff like this doesn’t happen again.” Kris scolded me.

“‘Kay.” I mumbled sleepily. The rest of the way to my house was silent except for when I told him where to go. It went by much too fast. When we got to my apartment, he let me down and we awkwardly stood in front of the door, saying nothing. I don’t think either of us wanted him to go.

“Be sure to lock the doors behind you.” Kris eventually said and turned to leave. “Later.”

On instinct, without thinking, I grabbed the corner of his sleeve. Going inside alone scared me. Thoughts of what had happened flashed around my head and I couldn’t hold back a tremble of fear. “Please stay.” I kept my eyes glued to the ground.

I couldn’t see his face, but he paused at my words and seemed to consider. Then he took my hand and lead me into my apartment. He walked around every room for me, looking anywhere someone could hide. When he found no one, he took me back to my room and had me get in bed.

I sat down on my bed and only then did he let go of my hand.

“Where are your pajamas?” Kris glanced around the room like they would appear at the mention of them.

“In the top drawer of my dresser.” I nodded to where it sat in the corner of the room. “They have stars on them.”

He took them out of the drawer and handed them to me. “Go ahead and change. I’ll be in the kitchen; call me when you’re done.” I nodded and left the room, taking care to close the door behind him.

I took off my dirty clothes and threw them in the hamper. Putting on my pajamas made me feel a little better. They were soft and the familiar smell of my detergent calmed me a bit.

“Hey, Kris.” I called. “I’m done changing.” I pulled out my hair brush from my nightstand and started slowly untangling it’s knots.

“I’ll be there in a second.”

“‘Kay!”

You know, having Kris in the apartment this late made me feel like we lived together. I hadn’t realized how lonely I was until now. Normally I blasted music to fill the silence but I didn’t feel like I needed to with him here. I could hear his light foot steps in the kitchen and the clanking of dishes as he moved around.  Having him here gave me a sense of peace I hadn’t had in many years.

By the time I had gotten the last tangle out of my hair, Kris had come back.

“My hands are full, can you open the door for me?”

“Coming!” I threw my brush down on my bed and let him in.

In one hand, he carried a mug of hot chocolate and in the other was a plate of chocolate chip cookies. “Here.” He handed me the mug. “I thought a warm drink might calm you down.”

“Thanks, Kris. That sounds really nice, actually.” I carefully took the mug from him and sat down on my bed. I patted next to me while I took a sip of hot chocolate and he joined me.

I watched him as I took a bite of a cookie. My gaze didn’t seem to bother him though. In fact, he met it and watched me carefully. His eyes darted around my face, searching for something. My heart skipped a beat and my face felt warm. Why did his eyes have to be so pretty?

After a moment, he broke our eye contact and stole a cookie from me. “You seem a lot calmer.”

“I’m not calm. It’s more like… Numb. I feel numb. And slightly wrong.” I frowned and drank more hot chocolate. “Sorry, that’s the best way I can think to decide it.”

“Don’t be.” Kris took a bite from his cookie. “What happened probably hasn’t registered yet.”

I let out a low hum and polished off the last of my drink. “That’s probably it.”

 I put the empty plate and mug on my nightstand and got under my covers.

 “I’ll stay with you until you fall asleep.” Kris ruffled my hair affectionately and I couldn’t help but smile. Just as he had earlier, he was looking after me. He was treating me kindly and was doing his best to help me. I think anyone who was good friends with him was lucky. If he was this caring to a person he barely knew, imagine how he was with the people dearest to him.

“‘Kay...” I pulled my blanket’s up to chin and curled on my side. He leaned against the wall by my window, watching over me and making me feel safe. My eyes slowly closed and I drifted off to sleep.