When Lights Collide Chapter 3

As Cara sank below the bubbles, she began formulating a plan in her mind.  She counted to 5….

….4 and 5!

She sat up swiftly, ready to give her visitor the third degree for standing in her bathroom and watching her while she was in the tub.  

She turned her head to where he had been standing and opened her mouth ready to share the half-assed speech that she had been preparing in her mind.

But he was gone.

Cara twisted to and fro, manically looking around the bathroom, sloshing water from the tub and onto the cream tiled floor.

She was alone.

Cara sat upright in the tub, her mouth open, still ready to lecture, but there was no one to lecture at…

“What.?”  Cara said to herself, ‘Where’d he go..?”

She went within her mind and asked her Guardians…  “He was here, right, I didn’t imagine him ~ did I”?

Cara concentrated within, and listened for their reply, “He was there Cara, he still is, he needs your help.”

Cara stared at the bathroom door, still shocked that the man who’d been in her bathroom, watching her, was suddenly not there and she wasn't certain what angered her more…

That he was suddenly gone and her mentally prepared speech would be wasted,

Or the fact that he’d been in her bathroom in the first place.

She scrambled out of the tub, grabbed a towel and as she wrapped it around herself, Cara listened to her house…. And heard nothing.

Yet, she could feel that she was not alone.

With her towel now snugly around herself, Cara struggled to get into her housecoat, making a mental note of how much easier it is to put on clothing when your skin is actually dry.

Cara was fully aware that her Guardians needed her to reach the stranger before he left the house.

On a mission now, Cara reached for the door handle, turned the knob and opened the door. 

Cara hurriedly stepped out of the bathroom and into the hall, just as the word “Stop” flashed through her mind.

With no time to respond, Cara ran into what felt like a wall…

Bumping hard enough to actually hear a thud, Cara was winded and thrown back into the bathroom.

But the stranger did not move.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As Daniel exited the bathroom, he stopped and gave his head a shake, trying to make sense of what had just happened,

Even though she had passed on years ago, Daniel still talked to his Grams, and often, but he hadn’t heard her voice speak to him like that since Daniel was a child.

And that Other voice…  Daniel had never known it to be as strong and overbearing as it had been tonight.

He stood, lost in remembrance, as the memories of his childhood danced through his mind, replaying the many ways his Grams had spoken to him in his youth.

Daniel was so surprised and distracted by the goings-on of his mind, he forgot where he was and what he had been doing.

Daniel temporarily forgot that he needed to move, now, to get out of this house before he got caught…

Yet, in this moment, he felt no sense of alarm, no sense of run, just an overwhelming feeling that what happened tonight was important, like something had shifted in his mind…

“Wait,” he said to himself, “Is that even possible?”

Daniel shook his head again and looked up, suddenly reality came crashing in around him.

“Where…?” Daniel now stiffened as his internal alarm bells began going off at the same time light splashed into the hallway and something slammed into his body from behind.

“Dammit!” Daniel silently scolded himself.

And suddenly, everything seemed to awaken at the same time.

Daniel was acutely aware of where he was and what had just happened.

Memory kicked in and his body followed his mind, like some sort of remote control robot.

His sense of fight or flight finally had Daniel turning right, running through the office, two hands on the ledge, ready to propel himself out the window.

When the sound of one word had him frozen on the window ledge.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

As Cara careened backward into the bathroom, she grabbed onto the vanity and managed to redirect her backward momentum to forward motion and was now re-launching herself into the hallway.

The stranger was on the move, running through her small office and headed for an open window.  Cara was almost within arms reach when, again, the word ‘Stop’ flashed through her mind.

This time, Cara stopped, and listened, she realized that her Guardians were trying to connect with her.

“It's Danny,” she heard as a whisper in her mind.

Cara, still surprised from the current state of events of the evening, tried to calm herself and listen within again as she asked “and why do I need to know that?” to her Guardians.

“He needs your help.” came the Angels response.

Cara sighed and rolled her eyes, “Ok, fine.” she replied.

Her focus back on the stranger, who was now making his way out of the window, Cara took a deep breath and said one word that seemed to make time stand still….

“Danny.”

To keep reading, CLICK HERE for chapter 4