FicWad

She ran her fingers down the strings of her guitar. She was just making sure it was in tune. When she was sure her fingers jumped to the positions she knew so well, playing out the song she loved to play.

"Hey there, Delilah, what's it like in New York City?"

She was sitting on a street corner, bathed in the orange glow of the street lights. This was her pass-time. Trying to see who all would stop to listen. It was like she was waiting for the right person, or people, to come up to her every night.

"I'm a thousand miles away but, girl, tonight you look so pretty, yes you do."

She was a very pretty girl herself. Her eyes were the lightest blue imaginable. They almost seemed to lack color, and only the grayish lines seemed to define the iris from the vitreous humor in her eyes. Her dark hair was naturally brown, but she had added a tint of violet to it, which under the street light burned bold. Her skin was naturally tan, though she hadn't been in the sun prolonged at all this summed and her skin had yet to reach it's deep glow. She wore a simple black and white stripped tank top and long black skirt together, no shoes but a pair of knee high soft black boots lay thrown to the side. Instead she wore a silver chain around her left ankle. Around her neck she wore another silver chain with a pendant, bat wings with a black heart inside, the outline of a skull inside the heart. She was never to leave her house without it.

"Times Square can't shine as bright as you. I swear it's true."

She knew that she was being watched, from above and below. Her brother, her overprotective brother and his two best friends, were always there. It wasn't safe in Chicago for an 18-year-old girl to be out at night, alone. Her necklace, and it's meaning, saved her from most, but the truly dangerous ones out there, they marked it as a target.

"Hey there, Delilah, don't you worry about the distance. I'm right there if you get lonely, give this song another listen."

She lifted her head from the guitar strings to gaze out into the street. It was so quiet out there. Too quiet for her, really. She knew it wouldn't be long now, and that always saddened her. She never did get the chance to play as much as she wanted. She was always interrupted.

"Close your eyes. Listen to my voice, that's my disguise. I'm by your side."

She knew she heard the footsteps coming closer. It sounded like only one person, which was odd enough as it was. But the fact that they were so boldly coming at her, alone, with who she was. Either it was an idiot or it was an outsider. Inside, she hoped for the latter.

"Hey there, Delilah, I know times are getting hard."

As the footsteps came ever closer, she lifted her gaze skyward, looking up to see the shadows dance at the top of the building she sat with her back against. There was no time, really, before things would begin to move. She always had to be on her toes.

"Just believe me, girl, some day I'll pay the bills with this guitar. We'll have it good. We'll have the life we knew we would."

She thought back to when she first was taught this song, by the actual boy who wrote it. Tom and her had been so close. She knew it was because they were close that he was gone now. She hadn't told him anything about danger, just about hope. He told her he wrote the song for her, but she never believed him. Now that he was gone she did.

"My word is good."

The steps were coming to her. Drawn, most likely, by the sound of her voice and her guitar, she knew things would only go one of two ways tonight. That's all they ever went. Times were harder now than ever, and really her release was playing and singing. She could do both well, exceptionally well, and loved both. They were her disguise.

"Hey there, Delilah, I've got so much left to say."

She looked up as a person rounded the corner. He had his head bowed, his face hidden in the shadow caused by the black hat he wore. Helooked to be nothing more than casually dress for going out. She didn't buy it, tensing up slightly as she continued to play.

"If every simple song I wrote to you would take your breath away, I'd write it all."

He paused in front of her, listening to her voice and watching her play. Not in a creepy way, just in a way that showed he was enjoying what he heard. She smiled to him, the back of her mind racing as she wondered who this stranger was. She sat on the same street every night, watching the people who came up and down it. Hardly ever she such a new face. Sometimes there were the boys and girls who didn't look at her, and thus she didn't know them. But besides them, the same people roamed her street.

"Even more in love with me you'd fall. We'd have it all."

The girl eyed this boy openly. She was bold about everything, letting who she was and what that meant protect her from the world that had turned against her and the people she knew as 'her kind', her few friends and her brother, the only family she had. When she saw him she felt something new. Everything about him seemed familiar. The startling blue eyes. His milky complexion. His round, baby face. The blonde hair that peaked out from under the black hat he was sporting. He wore a red shirt with a black coat, it appeared to be made of faux leather, open over it and black tight, girl cut pants.

"A thousand miles seems pretty far, but they've got planes and trains and cars. I'd walk to you if I had no other way."

He watched her too, impressed with the way her voice seemed to hang heavy in the air, to linger after she said each word as to push their way into the brain. He liked that. She knew it. She wondered what exactly he was thinking as he watched her perform. She was getting close to the end of her song, and she thought that maybe, just maybe, tonight she might get to finish it.

"Our friends would all make fun of us, but we'll just laugh along because we know that none of them have felt this way."

He leaned against the lamp post, crossing his arms as he didn't leave. No one had ever stayed for an entire song before. The most she had ever gotten was someone politely standing still for a second or two before walking on. There was only one question floating through her mind at the time, and that was the simple, one worded one 'why?'

"Delilah I can promise you that by the time that we get through the world will never ever be the same. And you're to blame."

Her eyes wondered quickly from his face to look down the road, each way. She didn't see anyone, but that didn't mean someone wasn't hiding. There were people out there that hated her for who she was, for who her friends were, and for who her brother was. In all honesty it was not her fault at all who her brother was, it was just in the cards that they would come out related, and the other two had to do all with her brother, so why they came after HER every night was something she never got. She wrote it off to sexism.

"Hey there, Delilah, you be good and don't you miss me. Two more years and you'll be done with school and I'll be makin' history like I do."

She knew she was safe. They wouldn't come out after her with a stranger around. The ones who feared and hated her brother loved their secrecy too much to try that. And any thought that she had that he was one of them, this boy who watched her, were gone now, too. She knew they would never take this long to attack her. They were never the subtle types.

"You'll know it's all because of you. We can do what ever we want to do. Hey there, Delilah, here's to you. This one's for you."

The end of her song was so close she could taste it. She was expecting something, anything, to jump out of the wood work. To scream and to surprise her and make her send another guitar to its death. She just knew someone was going to ruin this.

"Oh, it's what you do to me. Oh, it's what you do to me. Oh Oh, oh oh."

As she hit the last chord and heard it fly into the night, she could only think 'I finally did it.' She felt so accomplished. Even more so when the boy started clapping at her. She blushed as she caught his gaze once more, sitting her guitar off to the side to stand up.

"Thank you for listening." She said softly, her voice much more shy speaking than it was singing. He nodded and shrugged like it was no big deal.

"You are amazing." He paused, smiling as he kept staring into her eyes. He loved their lack of color that just seemed to scream 'we are blue.' "I'm Patrick by the way."

"I'm Delilah." She said with a smile, offering her hand out to him for him to shake. His eyebrows knitted together as he smirked, shaking her hand.

"Are you kidding me?" He asked with a laugh. She took her hand away from Patrick's and nodded, laughing along with him.

"Yea, actually, I am. My name is Claire, not Delilah." She continued to laugh until she heard footsteps coming down the road again. Loud, deliberate foot steps of one person. She stopped laughing immediately and turned to face the shadowed figure that was coming. But as he passed below a street light she relaxed. The black hair, bangs hanging into his face. The tan skin that matched her own. The dark brown eyes, currently dripping with anger. It was her brother coming to fetch her.

"We are leaving now." Her brother growled as he bent, his red scarf drooping to brush the ground as he bent to pick up her guitar and forgotten boots. Claire rolled her eyes, nodding to him before turning back to Patrick.

"Brothers. It was nice to meet you, Patrick. Hopefully we'll meet again." She smiled at him again before turning to follow her brother into shadows.

"Goodbye... Claire."