<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">Burning Bear baby, heart like the town, smoldering coals damp after rain, reignited by a single touch- poor neglected girl, breath quickening and pupils dilating at a hot breath on her neck and fingertips fluttering across her hair. It had grown long, all the better for hands to get tied up in. <br/>
<br/>
The momentary closeness was menial and brief but it was intimate to Reno. She tensed, pulse in her ribs audible and voice caught like a bad taste in her throat. Baby bird ached for heat against her frostbitten skin, not out of lust but out of loneliness, out of withdrawal from tender interaction. Distance was something she was forced to adapt to after Volk left- before, she had thrived on physicality, on the reassurance of a warm body near her. Deadbeat -just dead, now- dad had kept a barrier between them, and though Reno was tethered to him she could never get closer than her rope allowed. Her rope was snapped, now, and Reno was free-floating.<br/>
<br/>
Volk's fingertips were an abrupt anchor. This felt different than the hug at the edge of father's grave- less obligatory- less of an attempt to subdue her shivers, her fit. Vulture Volk, attracted by shine, by pretty things; fascinated for just a second, combing through the glimmers in each strand, much longer and more unkempt than they had been in kid pigtails. When his arm pulled away, Reno was left both relieved and wanting more. Had he lingered for any longer, she would've leaned it. She would've slipped, regressed into the Reno that believed in fairytales and fate, true love and wishing on stars. She had to be careful now not to show traces of immaturity, of sheepishness; she envied the way Volk had hardened, protected by a steel shell, his vulnerabilities and stupidity once so obvious now packed away. Delicately and with no mistakes. If Reno were better at being serrated and sharpening her tongue perhaps this conversation may have been over. Perhaps she would have her keys and be standing calmly, fighting the shakes that plagued her. <br/>
<br/>
But while Volk was addicted to cigarettes and destruction, Reno was addicted to attention and touch. She was addicted to things that had already happened and would never happen again. She was addicted to memories. She was dissociative, rooted by ideas and not reality. She existed in shades of dreams, gray tones, fog filling the void between her ears. The fervor -the thunder- in Volk had woken her up- stirred her from the froth between being and not being-</span><br/><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">...but the flame of his fingers against her shoulder, her hair, her cheeks- it was pulling her back down. <br/>
<br/>
Volk had a way of manipulating her, he knew it before and he knew it now. As much as she wanted to fight it, his touch had an effect on her that was almost sorcery. She melted so easily, as if she had not been handled in years- and in truth she hadn't. She couldn't recall the last physical gesture she had given or endured that wasn't scornful and self-inflicted or a foolish try at meeting some other stormy boy's expectations.<br/>
<br/>
She wanted to fight it, it was her weakness, it was what yanked her back into the fever dream that obscured her view of the here and now. His grip on her arm, pulling her up after a fall, his palm on her head, tussling her hair, his exhale on her collarbone when he went to kiss her goodnight- all innocent and silly and so terribly small but <i>intoxicating. </i>She could drown in it as her father drowned in liquor. There was no cherry vodka sweeter than attention. She could give in, now, and it wouldn't be hard. But she couldn't- not now- not with him-<br/>
<br/>
Reno shook his hand from her cheek where the eyeliner smudged in watercolors across her skin. There was no hiding from this, from him- even if she chose not to look at him he would feel the heat radiate from her in simultaneous agitation and reluctant ardor. Her teeth found her lip again, it was another habit she'd be better off ditching.</span><br/><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">"The other boys like it. It makes me prettier." Ironic, with it in streams down her face. <br/>
<br/>
As the threat of crying reappeared in her chest she turned, slowly and anxiously, to face him. She couldn't recall the last time they had been this close, eyes locked and breaths caught up together in a discordant myriad, his impossibly calm and hers painfully arrhythmic. Every time she had experienced such nearness with him before she had lost her mind as it reached for possibilities that would never occur. But she knew better now. Nothing would happen, good nor bad, as much as he intimidated her. </span><br/><br/><span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'">He was scarier up close. The years had worn on him. Evidence of burnout appeared beneath his eyes, orbs like squalls, marbled with impurities. His jaw was fixated shut, he was grinding his teeth, emotion coursed through him perhaps just as feverishly as it did her. However they were much, much different emotions. <br/>
<br/>
She wondered what she looked like under a microscope. Smothered in cheap makeup, mouth glossed with blood, an abyss circling in her too-cold irises. His hand on her flesh had convinced a deep red into her cheeks. Porcelain figurine turned blushing babydoll. It infuriated her that she could not as easily tuck away her feelings. She wore them on her skin, in her trembling words, in her troubled breaths, in her heartbeat that wouldn't <i>shut the fuck up</i>. <br/>
<br/>
There wasn't an ounce of apology in his glare. It was almost disdainful- or perhaps laced with humor- as if he found her pitiful warbles and pathetic inability to stand up for herself funny. He looked down at her, not just because she was short enough to be his shadow but also because he had this <i>dominance </i>over her. He always had. <br/>
<br/>
He had her keys, he had her heartstrings, and now he had her gaze. He was here, alright. For better or for worse he was here, her wolf, completely in power- though she would continue to do her best to disprove it.<br/>
<br/>
With a quick tense of her shoulder she evaded Volk's grasp, she had to, if she let him touch her it would be over. The power gap would widen and she would fall head first into it.<br/>
<br/>
She sat as close against the window as she could. No more middle seat endeavors, craning neck to watch the way he fiddled with the gears, or to get a glimpse of him in the rearview mirror. She didn't want to look at him. The way he could shrink her with a single glance terrified her. <br/>
<br/>
It was telling, somehow, the way he assumed the steering wheel. With such a small action he was showing her that any authority she thought she had was null.<br/>
<br/>
Volk was in control, now. She gagged on the thought.<br/>
<br/>
"You've changed, too." She murmured, swallowing down the blood and the thoughts and the illness. "You look meaner than you did in my dreams."</span>