<span style="font-family: 'Arial'"><span class="fixed-color" style="color:#ff9999">The bitter irony is she had wanted to be found. And that the circumstances of Rory’s disappearance wasn’t entirely by her own choice. It was that knowledge that was ripping into her now, despite her attempt earlier about remaining calm earlier. Facing him, confronting him, like this brought it all back up to the surface when she thought she had moved on as well. She was still struggling to contain the anxiety that clawed at her throat when his words lunged at her again. Her gritted teeth didn’t quite hide the sob, nor did her held breath stop the flow of tears that she struggled to blink away before she was forced to turn with his hand planted firmly against her chest. She stumbled backwards until her shoulder blades hit the wall. The flow of tears only increased when his words didn’t stop, until she was forced to lift a trembling hand and swipe them away just so that she could meet the intensity of his stare.<br/>
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“I left you a note and a voicemail. I had to visit her. Granna. You were out of town.” And then she hadn’t come back. It was only supposed to be a few days, after all -- not a few years. That her grandmother - Rory’s last living relative - had passed away after she had left this house those three years ago was directly tied into what happened next. The accent that she hid so well stammered out, the brogue thick on her tongue as she slammed him with her words behind the racking sobs. “So it looks like you dodged a bullet with the next wave of trouble I got into, Dante, because this time it was a doozy. I cleaned it up all by myself, this time, without you or anyone to help me except for this last part -- and did’nae need you for this part either if you had’na sold it. But I need that. It’s a key stone. And no for me either. I have a daughter. So she can stay say from all that. <br/>
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She bit out the last part through the white hot sear of anger and grief. Her face was flushed and ruddy red, her eyes bleary with the tears that still spider webbed through her lashes and made the intense golden green of her eyes brighter as they blinked up at him. “So maybe you are’na the only one who has changed, Dante, though maybe one of us changed for the better. Do not come barking at me like you know everything already when you do’na. Because you are wrong -- fairy tales do exist, they just do’na bring happy endings. They bring other things instead. And those things are’na good, puppy.”<br/>
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She had to calm herself though. She sucked in a few mouthfuls of air and squeezed her eyes shut so that the only sound that she could hear was her own thundering pulse in her ears. She should have been more careful coming back here. She didn’t like the look in his eyes when he looked at her now, as if she had lost her love for him and abandoned him right when their lives were getting entangled like they were. And what did she have to show for herself? She had been a thief; she still was a thief. Her breathing had steadied to the point that she could breathe again when he backed away from her and she had let out her stream of broken consciousness. <br/>
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Shaking her head and aware that she was wearing nothing but his shirt still, as well as shocked at herself for her sudden outburst, her eyes flared cat like and golden for an instant before she shrunk down, changing back into the creature that she had used to find her way back into his home to begin with. The rustic fur of the house cat that stepped out of his shirt that now puddled on the floor darted past his feet to head to head toward where she already knew his garage was. If she did not have to speak to him after that, she would be happy. Taking on this form would also allow her to be less conspicuous.</span></span>