Melody breathed in the crisp dawn air. It was refreshing. Though it was warm during the day, the nighttime mountain breezes had a nip to them that still lingered in the first rays of dawn. A sudden added chill from her returning cold spell made her wrap her arms tightly around herself. She pulled the long sleeves of her light blue shirt down to her palms to cover her hands.   

     She listened to Kai speaking to someone inside the cabin and wondered if he understood her gesture inviting him to sit with her. She knew she needed to say something about what she’d seen. If her attacker was part of this group, she and other women were in a lot more danger. 

     She leaned back and looked around at the thick forest. She began to think on the significance of the symbols across the water. She’d already translated the ones on her body, and one was the symbol on the monolith. 

     She took another deep breath and shook it from her mind. It was important information, and given her studies, she could probably help while they were trapped. Doing so would mean revealing everything to these men and speaking of the turmoil and pain she’d left home to escape. She was there to hide from it all and found herself smack in the middle. She could feel the fear growing, and she needed to relax before it consumed her. 

     She was terribly confused. She was torn between her need to help and her need to forget. 

     She pushed gently against the boards of the deck with her toes to move the swing and shut her eyes to relax. The tension in her neck and shoulders eased at the sound of the slow creaking chains, rustling leaves, and birds on branches and flying across the sky. 

     Just as she was finding peace in the woodland sounds and the breeze blowing gently through her hair, she heard the soft thud of his boots. She sighed. 

     “So, tell me, Sgt. Pierce,” she began without opening her eyes, “are you my body guard now? Because if you are, I give you the day off.”  

     She heard him softly chuckle as he stopped in front of a chair across from the swing. 

     “Well, no, and since I’m not, at least by hire, you can’t give me the day off,” he smiled as he sat down. 

     He wondered if he had misinterpreted the look in her eye. Perhaps she’d wanted to talk but changed her mind. 

     She only shrugged and hugged herself against the cold, which had started to fade the moment she heard him approach. 

     She looked at the two black club cab trucks in which the team had arrived. For a moment, she felt like she was back at the sorority house and they were having a get together with one of the fraternities. She never stayed past the introductions. She had no interest in partying with such men.  

     She shook her head, then, at the memory of everything she had done all her life to play it safe. She didn’t get drunk, didn’t smoke, didn’t do drugs, didn’t hang out with the wrong crowd, didn’t walk down dark alleys, didn’t stay out late at night alone, and even took a self-defense course for women. None of that mattered in the end. She still became a victim.  

     Then, for the hundredth time, she mentally kicked herself for her actions that fateful night. She shut her eyes tightly, thinking she never should have taken that soda. She knew it was suspicious that he insisted on holding it close. He’d been nice since he joined them, and she didn’t want to be rude at his kind gesture. What was she thinking? She was considering the feelings of another, as usual.  

     Her thoughts then drifted to the S.W.A.T. team. The one in front of her, in particular.  

     She had been laying peacefully in a comfortable bed in what she assumed would be a safe place to hide for a while. She felt so safe, she shed her clothes to feel the warm air rather than the sporadic chills. Then this guy had the nerve to stand over her unclothed body and watch her sleep. He even had one of his officers snoop through her things. 

     To make matters worse, their presence ensured she was no longer safe, and she couldn’t even leave. It scared her to imagine that she may have been in danger the whole time and their arrival might have saved her life. 

     Kai leaned back and set the file on the seat beside him. He watched her gaze out over the property, her face steadily contorting with secret thoughts. She was beautiful. Complicated and a whirlwind of emotions, but beautiful. 

     Her hair was still a mess from a fitful sleep, and she kept doing her best to comb through it with her fingers. He looked down to her toes she curled up beneath the hem of her light blue pajama pants covered in black cats. He grinned slightly at them before turning serious again. 

     Melody looked at him in question about the papers, but he didn’t say anything. She watched him closely, trying her best to discern what they were. 

     “Do you want to talk about what happened?” he asked quietly when he saw her staring at her case file. 

     She lifted her head for a better look, and the words on the first sheet immediately caught her eye. It was a printed report from the police station back home. She looked farther down and saw her name.

     She looked away from him. She didn’t want to talk about it again. 

     “If the man who did this to you is connected to that cult, a lot more innocent people, including women like you, are in danger,” he reasoned. “Maybe even your friends back home.”  

     He watched her look down at her toes pressing against the ground, contemplating what he had said, and hoped she would talk. 

     He doubted she’d talked to her mother much about it or the friends who had been there. If she had someone with whom she could speak, she wouldn’t have wanted to leave. She went to the mountains to cope and found him … or rather, he found her. 

     It had to mean something. He never believed in coincidence. With the way his heart had begun to race in her presence, he wondered if the reasons were for his case or something more personal. 

     “It’s not all there?” she finally asked in a quiet voice. 

     He shook his head a bit and answered, “Not your feelings or thoughts.” 

     “I’ve already seen a counselor,” she replied guardedly. 

     “Well, that’s good,” he said. “That’s a good place to start, but I’m not a counselor nor am I trying to be one.”

     She looked at him intently at his meaning. “Right. I almost forgot you were a cop.” 

     She gave a small huff and looked away with a disappointed sneer. “My statement is there. It’s enough for your case for now. I didn’t come here to be interrogated.” 

     It hurt. She could try to force her need for someone down, but she couldn’t deny the pain in being reminded she was nothing more than a useful witness. She chewed on her tongue as she looked away so she wouldn’t cry. 

     Kai watched her for a moment and saw her try to brush away a tear without being noticed. 

     “That’s not all I am,” he said softly. “I can be whatever you need. I want to be someone you can talk to.” 

     She continued looking away as she thought of his words. 

     “You want to be my friend?” she asked, still not looking at him. 

     She knew if she did, she would start crying. It’s what she needed, but she would have to trust him enough to let go. 

     “If you let me,” he answered with hope. 

     “I have friends with whom I grew up, went to school, even joined a sorority,” she replied. “I couldn’t even talk to them. What makes you think I can talk to you? That I would want to talk to you?” 

     She wasn’t hostile in her reply as the words would suggest. Her tone was more of pleading, as if she truly wanted an answer, something to convince her it was okay to let go. 

     “Look, I’m not trying to get close to you for nefarious reasons,” he assured her. “I don’t take advantage of vulnerable people, no matter the relationship I’m after. 

     I don’t have a pen and a note pad. I’m not being paid to analyze you. I don’t have my own issues with what happened to you like your friends do. My mind is clear, my heart isn’t heavy with the burden of a dying loved one, and my shoulder is big and clean. This is a new shirt.” 

     She turned to watch him as he spoke and saw the kind smile he wore for her. He was genuinely trying to help.  

     He was right about everything. She couldn’t talk to Bridgette or Amy because they blamed themselves. She couldn’t talk to Lauren because she would only judge her, although she never meant to. She couldn’t talk to her father because he was quite possibly on his death bed. She couldn’t speak to her mother because of all their family had been through already.   

     And she was so sick of that counselor. As well-intentioned and as well-educated as the woman was, she was too damned understanding. Melody concluded that they didn’t teach rape counselors not to say, “I understand,” and “Just stay strong,” five hundred times a session.  

     She glanced down and saw a printout of the photos. She had never looked at them. She’d be able to see it for herself for weeks, maybe months or years to come. 

     “For the first month, I didn’t face the mirror until I was fully clothed,” she said softly and looked away. 

     Finally! he thought to himself in relief. Progress. 

     “Doctors can take care of that,” he told her to relieve her anguish. 

     “The detectives said I have to wait until the trial in case…in case the D.A. needs more evidence,” she replied. “He wants to use whatever sympathy he can garner from the jury and judge when it comes to sentencing. No one knows how long that will take. They have to find him first, and they’re no closer now than they were the night it happened, as if my survival benefited no one.”  

     She shut her eyes tightly against the burning behind them. 

     Kai felt such pity for her. He slowly stood and walked toward the swing. 

     “May I?” 

     She looked up at him and wished she wasn’t filled with so many conflicting emotions. She wanted him beside her, and the joy she felt at the thought of him wanting to be there frightened her. She swallowed it down as she nodded. 

     “I read through the description you and your friends provided,” he told her as he sat on the other end of the swing. “You’re all pretty good observers. How’s it going with this artist rendering? Any leads on that yet?” 

     She shook her head and replied sadly, “None.” 

     “You mean to tell me that in six months, no one has called to say they know this person?” he asked in disbelief. 

     “There’s a special hotline at the bottom of the fliers and that they flash on the screen when they show a crime segment, but nothing substantial has come in,” she replied. “Just a few nutcases claiming they were aboard the space ship when he was abducted, that they were there when Satan created him, and even a few attention seekers claiming to be him.” 

     “No one who actually knew him?” he asked, finding it impossible to believe there had been no one who could identify him. 

     “No,” she answered, looking at him for his awe. 

     Kai looked at her a moment before looking away in thought. Something was wrong. Now that there was an obvious connection between her attacker and The Society, he felt it safe to speculate The Society was behind the lack of leads. 

     He would have someone investigate the hotline. He strongly believed calls were coming in and being intercepted by the cult members.  

     He looked at her again, wondering what she would say if she knew such frightening information, and noticed her biting her nails, tiny pink polish chippings sticking to her lips as she gnawed it off. He cleared his throat, deciding not to bring more anxiety to her, and moved on.