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Post by Asmodeus on Apr 23, 2009 23:32:56 GMT -5
Sawley tucked his phone into his pocket and stretched out on the ground again, loving the feel of the cool grass under his head. The open night and the music floating in the air and the nice happy stuff swirling in his veins were dragging him into a peaceful easy feeling. He had to hope he didn't fall asleep.
But he had plenty of reason not to. Maddie was way too cute to miss a second of.
"You want a smoke?" he asked her, tugging his pack from his pocket and twirling a single stick in his fingers. To be honest, it was the least insistent of his habits, but that didn't mean it wasn't fun to indulge from time to time.
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Post by Sky Verati on Apr 25, 2009 19:22:56 GMT -5
Madeline knew those habits were bad. She knew the part of town they were in wasn't the best. It didn't mean she couldn't find the good parts--people having a good time, the music pounding a rhythm into her chest as well as in her ears, the fact that she had escaped that stuffy garden party.
Madeline smiled at Sawley and shook her head. "Nah, that's okay." It stung her eyes and sucked the oxygen out of the air around him. "I'll pass." She leaned back on her hands while her feet stuck out in front of her. Her dress would get grass-stained, but she didn't care. She reached up and pulled her hair from the bun her sister had insisted on. All that long, pale-blonde hair cascaded down her back, long enough to brush the grass if she'd been sitting up straight, definitely a hazard now if someone decided to step on it. Oh, well. She hated keeping it restrained; she liked her hair free and flowing, framing her face or blowing back like a flag in the wind. She could hide behind it or flip it behind her shoulders, calling attention to it. She didn't try to be vain, but this was one thing that she really loved about her appearance. Now that her father and sister weren't there to tell her what to do with it, she could have it down all she wanted.
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Post by Asmodeus on Apr 25, 2009 20:04:24 GMT -5
Sawley shrugged and lit the cigarette, sticking it in his mouth as he put the rest of the pack away. "If you change your mind, let me know."
Goodness, all that hair was so pretty. And there was so much of it. He'd never seen so much in one place. He scooted closer and brushed his fingertips through the very ends trailing on the grass. Then he nuzzled the silky strands with his nose. They were so pretty. He nestled his face in the mound of soft silk and sighed contentedly.
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Post by Sky Verati on Apr 27, 2009 22:41:43 GMT -5
Madeline giggled and looked down at Sawley. "Comfortable?" She asked. She knew not to encourage him to get closer, but she'd been in worse spots before. As long as he didn't try to hurt her, she wasn't worried. He was too high on drugs to be much of a danger physically, and too lackadaisical to seem keen on an issue like that in the first place. Madeline brushed her hair against his face and grinned.
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Abel was guiding me. Every hangout, every place he thought she might be, my little brother was spreading out his search farther and farther from Emerald Heights. He had specific targets; I couldn't figure out the pattern, but he seemed to know it. And he wasn't big on telling me about it.
Stupid family.
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Post by Asmodeus on Apr 28, 2009 13:46:01 GMT -5
Sawley twitched his nose at the tickle and snickered. She was so cute, and it was great to see her actually relax. That stuffy party wasn't the place for her.
And then he got an awesome idea. Looking at all that soft blond hair got him to thinking about his sisters. "Hey!" He sat up so quickly he almost lost his balance at the fuzzy spinning in his head. "Can I braid your hair?"
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Post by Sky Verati on Apr 28, 2009 16:08:34 GMT -5
"Braid my hair?" Madeline echoed, pleasantly surprised. "Uh, sure!"
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Post by Asmodeus on Apr 30, 2009 1:25:01 GMT -5
"Killer awesome." Sawley stuck his cigarette in the corner of his mouth and scooted around to sit indian-style behind Maddie. All that hair was just begging his fingers to run through it. He slowly slid his fingers from her scalp all the way down to the ends of her hair, over and over, ostensibly to clear out any tangles but really because the silky strands were like crack for fingers. Starting at the top of her head, he carefully plaited her hair tight down the sides of her scalp until the two paths met at the nape of her neck, where he joined them into one single thick braid all the way down her back. "Know what would be neat?" he murmured half to himself. "If we had a big ol' spike or somethin' we could braid into the end. That way you could whip your head around and slash everybody all around you, like, snicker-snack." With a little snicker he tucked a short flyaway behind her ear and brushed his nose against its outer shell. "Just don't snicker-snack me, 'kay?"
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Post by Sky Verati on Apr 30, 2009 21:46:23 GMT -5
Madeline had to laugh at that; he was so fun and not a scary guy at all. "I wouldn't." And he was so warm, too. She tilted her head back and smiled at him upside-down. "Thanks for braiding my hair."
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Post by Asmodeus on May 1, 2009 19:18:45 GMT -5
"Can I do it again?" Sawley mirrored her smile and started combing her hair back into free-flowing goodness with his fingertips. It wasn't just about seeing the end result, after all; it was about getting to play with that awesome softness for as long as he could. And it helped that it kept him so close to her. Slowly he moved his hand to cradle her jaw and brushed his lips against hers.
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Post by Sky Verati on May 4, 2009 15:35:06 GMT -5
Madeline sensed it coming and didn't resist. He felt so warm and so soft. She touched his cheek and leaned in to it, drew it out, and when she broke it her mouth twitched up in a guilty smirk.
"Sure."
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Post by Asmodeus on May 4, 2009 16:01:07 GMT -5
Okay, it was official: Maddie was the best girl ever. Fun and funny and absolutely unafraid. Sawley had to touch his lips to hers just once more before he started plaiting her hair again, working it into one French braid all the way down the center of her scalp. When he reached the nape of her neck he just had to steal a tiny kiss underneath her ear. She smelled like everything happy in the world.
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Post by Sky Verati on May 4, 2009 22:23:59 GMT -5
"Where to now, Sherlock?" I asked Abel. He was twitchy, which meant that his last phone call had produced results. "Did you find 'em?"
He nodded. "She's with Sawley Russert at an outdoor concert. A friend of mine is there and saw them come in." There was something in his tone I couldn't place. I got the feeling he either didn't want to be going there or didn't want me going there, and I wasn't about to ask which one. He'd been sort of strange for months now.
"So she's safe?"
"Yeah." Abel smiled at me. That was a good sign.
The neighborhoods got shabbier as we got closer to our destination. We saw it in the broken streetlights and graffiti on the corner stores and civic clubs. Also, the closer you got to the Bowery in any direction, the more cracked and potholed the roads were.
The place itself wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but you could hear the music way before you got out of the car. Abel and I slammed our doors and walked up; it was pumping with life and stank of alcohol, of pot, of other vices, but it was possible to dismiss it in light of the things going down onstage. Some of the crowd screamed and cheered while others laid back on the grass. When I looked around, Abel was hanging back with a guy I didn't recognize. It was probably the rat. I went on without him.
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Madeline brushed her fingers through the grass behind her until she found his knee. "You should come to my dad's parties more often," she said, eyes flicking back at him. "Or just come by." Her smirk faded instantly at the sight of her aunt entering the little field, looking around as if in search of them.
"Uh-oh."
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Post by Asmodeus on May 5, 2009 14:33:56 GMT -5
"Uh-oh?" Sawley asked and followed her gaze. "Oh. Not uh-oh. Signal. Time for a change of venue." So Darmstadt had decided not to monopolize Sky's time for the rest of the night. If he was taking it slow, he either had something big and intricate in mind, or he was nervous about whether or not it would work.
And Darmstadt was never nervous. So everything was dandy.
Sawley took Maddie's hand and rose to his feet, slinking toward the edge of the crowd on silent feet. "C'mon, let's blow this joint. I wasn't really listening anyway." He snuck another kiss and headed for the gate. "You're much more interesting than third-rate garage bands."
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Post by Sky Verati on May 5, 2009 17:15:45 GMT -5
Madeline tightened her hand around his as she eagerly followed him away. Aunt Sky meant that people had noticed her disappearance, which also meant a lot of trouble for her when she got home. Her dad wouldn't be pleased. She might as well make her incoming punishment worth it.
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It was the vivid floral cocktail dress I noticed before I even recognized the rest of her. Only Madeline would be wearing something so innocently pretty as that to a place like this.
I immediately took after them, but it was hard going and Sawley seemed to know the place better than I did; they got through the crowd quicker and vanished from my view.
I returned to Abel and grabbed his shoulder. "Parking lot," I said, and kept going. My intention was to intercept them there.
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Post by Asmodeus on May 11, 2009 18:01:05 GMT -5
Chances were, if they were trying to catch Maddie and take her home, they would wait in the parking lot. Just as well: all the more adventure to be had trekking on foot.
"C'mon, I know where we can go," Sawley told Maddie over his shoulder, still holding on to her hand as he crawled under a gap in the chain-link fence surrounding the field. He turned around and pulled up the fence as far as he could to give her room to crawl out. "It's a bit of a walk, but totally worth it. And that way they can't give us a car chase. As fun as that might be."
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