Even Alice Had Enough Sense to Wear Flats

hahaha what a stupid chapter title i know...although i might leave it. Hallie goes to NY and wanders around central park looking for xtian.

Even Alice Had Enough Sense to Wear Flats


���������And which hotel will I be driving you to Ms. Harris?� asked a limousine driver as Hallie stepped off the plane.

�No hotel, take me to Central Park please.�

�But it�s past midnight, it�s not safe for you to be wandering there alone,� the driver advised.

�I know that, but I have to go there.�

�Alright,� the driver shrugged happy that he didn�t have to load the usual five suitcases of Hallie�s belongings into the trunk.

Although Hallie had been to New York several times, she really had no clue how to get around, besides from watching too many episodes of Sex And The City and the Broadway musical Rent. Leave it up to a California airhead to go to New York and save someone�s life.

The only place she knew where to find drug dealers was in Central Park, and maybe Christian would be around there, she had to start somewhere.

As they drove over gleaming Manhattan Bridge, it finally set in how wildly desperate it was for her to be running around New York at night, by herself, looking for the person she told to leave her alone. She couldn�t believe what a sudden change of heart she had the second she heard he was missing, but even through her denial it was simple. She loved him, she always loved Christian wholeheartedly, and maybe Derek was dead, but she wasn�t about to let Christian die too.

�Can you please go any faster?� Hallie asked the driver.

The driver obediently sped up as New York�s city lights blurred by.. She�d forgotten how beautiful New York was in the winter time, and about how insanely romantic Rockefeller Center was with its luminous golden statue standing out from the pure white ice skating rink.
It was impossible not to fall in love in New York. People had to keep each other warm in such a cold city. Even though panic was surging through Hallie�s mind, she couldn�t help but wonder if Christian found a new love interest in his month long stay in New York. It wouldn�t be any surprise if he did. Girls that saw a guy that gorgeous wouldn�t allow him to stay single for long. They would change their entire lifestyles to be with him, for example running away from their families or flying to New York on a whim?

Okay so for someone so popular and beautiful in one of California�s wealthiest cities, she�d be considered pretty pathetic, but her reputation and her life back home was the last thing on her worried mind. Plus she wasn�t just like any other girl that only saw his looks. She knew him, inside and out, and she wouldn�t have flown all the way to New York if she didn�t think she�d be able to find him. That is as long as she didn�t get sold into slavery, raped, or killed in the process of looking for him.

Once the driver began approaching the East side of the park, Hallie had him pull over to East 74th Street towards the completely frozen over Conservatory Water. In fact the whole park seemed frozen, covered in pure white snow, it resembled something out of The Lion The Witch and Wardrobe, almost like it had been untouched by humans, because no one dared go out in that cold of weather at one in the morning. At least no one sane.

Hallie stepped out of the car knowing she looked like a walking target for being mugged in her designer attire, so she took the wallet out of her Fendi bag and stuffed it into her stiletto suede Miu Miu boots. Yeah like that would help.

Once the driver was gone, Hallie continued north getting deeper and deeper into empty Central Park, hoping just to find something. Christian sleeping on a park bench, the loud roar of a motorcycle, someone dealing drugs, just anything having to do with him. Anything to know that he was alive.

�This was so stupid,� she thought to herself shivering from the malicious cold. Even though she had the warm coat, her bare hands were becoming numb and her hair felt so stiff that she thought she would start forming icicles around her head.

She came upon the Alice In Wonderland statue, an attraction she always heard about, but never took the time to look at. This wasn�t a time for sight seeing, but as she walked past it she coincidentally felt just like Alice, wandering innocently about, prey to the strange creatures of Central Park. She quickened her pace suddenly feeling nervous, and also frustrated at having to walk aimlessly around in very non-walking boots, while Christian probably wasn�t even there. Hallie took several deep breaths hoping that if she walked faster she�d warm up a little bit.

After wandering around for what seemed like miles, she approached the stairs to Bethesda Terrace, and plopped down in front of the frozen fountain containing the gorgeous but ice-covered Angel of Waters sculpture. It chilled her to the bone sitting next to the icy fountain as a breeze relentlessly floated through the park, but she needed to rest her feet, and promised herself she�d never wear stiletto boots again. Well at least not to go searching for Christian all over snowy Central Park. Hopefully when she found him, something like this would never happen again. That is if she found him.

She suddenly heard a loud clanging from the top of the stairs, as if someone hit the metal on the stair railing. She looked up towards the noise like an attentive but very frightened cat, but saw nothing.

The clank of the metal sounded off again, louder this time, and Hallie soon heard boisterous talking.

�You fucked up b***h,� a high-pitch creepy sounding voice echoed down to the fountain.

At first Hallie thought they were talking to her, but when she looked up two big men walked by not noticing her, well almost. She was pretty hard to miss.

The smaller of the two took a few steps back and stared down at her with a sinister look of excitement.

�Look down there,� he wobbly grabbed on to the other massive guy and pointed down to Hallie. He stood at the top of the staircase, his shadow completely covering the fountain. Even from below Hallie could see that all his teeth rotted out of his head from whatever drugs he did, and she could smell both their foul stenches from where she sat.

The other one was fatter, wearing a loose beanie over his head and from his mountain man appearance he looked like he never discovered a razor in his life. Yuck. He had mismatching shoes, and looked equally disgusting and scary as the other guy.

Feeling cornered, Hallie didn�t think twice and scurried as fast as she could up the other side of the stairs. She kept running not looking back to see if they were behind her, then like she feared, the huskier one came out from the bushes tackling her, pinning her up against the wall and held a knife to her throat.

�Oh she�s a pretty one,� he breathed into her face causing her to gag from the sardine-like smell.

�She doesn�t like you, she likes me though right girly?� the scrawny one inched his holed up gloves up her neck. He had an immensely large nose and hollowed cheeks, with dark greasy curls almost as long as Hallie�s hair.

Her first instinct was to bite him, but she didn�t know what kind of weird diseases he had. She tried to turn her face away but that only caused him clutch onto to her throat even tighter.

Scared out of her mind Hallie drew a blank. She promised herself if anything like this ever happened she wouldn�t be a victim, but fear overcame her and she was unable to react.

�What you got in here?� he said letting go of her face and snatching her purse while the big guy held her against the wall. She struggled and struggled, not caring if they took her f*****g purse, she just wanted to get the hell away from them.

�Take whatever you want! Please just let me go!� she shrieked as loud as possible, hoping to God that someone would hear her.

�Where�s your wallet at?� he snarled throwing the purse down on the ground not knowing that it was worth two grand. �It�s probably on her, look for it!�

The menacing bear like man gladly felt through each of her jean pockets while Hallie screamed bloody murder at the forceful grips of her various body parts.

�Did you find it yet?� the shorter one demanded impatiently. He then searched through her coat, tearing it off her and throwing it to the ground in frustration. The heavier guy tore her shirt open, ripping the buttons out all at once. He certainly didn�t seem intent on finding a wallet.

Hallie kicked her stiletto boots wildly, managing to hit the more perverted creep in the shins.

�Ow!� he wailed. �She f*****g kicked me man!�

�Where is you�re god damn wallet!� the smaller one screeched punching her hard across the face.

Hallie toppled to the ground half leaning on the wall half fallen into the snow, and tried thrashing her arms about to strike one of them, but with no luck. The hit knocked her senseless, and unable to defend herself, but she could still feel one of the thugs big hands pressing down on her waist, not giving her any chance in hell to get away. Just as she thought she was about to be raped, killed, or both, something, or someone, pulled both men back with great force, causing them to fall flat on their backs like turtles stuck upside-down on their shells. All Hallie could see was a black figure with a three hole ski mask. Great this one would probably try and rob her too. Frightened from having half of her clothes ripped off, she crouched into a ball hiding her head between her knees.

The thug stood up and slashed a knife at the shadowy figures chest, causing him to wince with pain. With that Hallie quickly looked up, and the dark figure pulled out a gun, placing it to the thugs head, causing him to quickly drop his knife.

�I�ll f*****g blow your brains out, and your friend too. Get the f**k out of here!� a deep voice bellowed out of the ski mask.

The thugs quickly tore off with fear more from the threatening voice than the gun. The dark hero, at least a hero for now, sank down in the middle of the walk way obviously injured.

Hallie�s hair was strewn about, covering her face. She tried to catch her breath, and gather her belongings, but she was frozen in place, so scared to even move.

�Are you alright?� whoever it was panted behind the ski mask, inching over to where she was.

�I�.think,� Hallie shivered, attempting to wrap her ripped up shirt around herself. �Wh- what about you? Did he stab you?�

�Just slashed me,� the guy quickly jumped to a standing position as if nothing happened.

Hallie shrank away as he stood several feet above, her shaky breath escaping visibly in the cold.

�Don�t worry, I�m not going to hurt you I promise,� he soothed as he knelt down in front of her.

�Just go away! I thank you but please, just leave me alone,� Hallie cried shielding her face.

�I think your hurt,� he said picking up her purse and shredded coat off the ground. �No offense but you were kind of asking for it being out here alone.�

�I�m just trying to find someone. Please go! Take whatever you want!� Hallie begged croakily.

�Thanks but women�s purses really aren�t my thing,� he said tossing the sparkly bag at her feet. �Look, I don�t know much, but you should probably get yourself to a hospital, or at least report what happened.�

All that came out of Hallie�s mouth were animal-like whimpers.

�Yeah this mask isn�t exactly appealing is it? If I take it off, will you promise not to tell anyone what I look like?�

�Fine, yeah,� Hallie agreed sensing his stubbornness. It was funny how he wanted her to go to a hospital when he was the one who was probably really injured. Why did he even care what happened to her?

When he slid off his ski mask, out of the corner of her eye Hallie could see messy strands of dark gold locks fall over his face. Tucking her sweat-soaked hair behind her ear, Hallie gazed up, and after getting a good look at him, her crystal blue eyes became wide with shock. When the man saw who it was he nearly dropped the gun he was holding, and gulped loudly in awe.

�Christian!�

�Hallie?�

Hallie quickly stood herself up and came closer to see if it was really him. She just noticed she was crying, and figured she probably was during the attack, but now it was emotions of happiness, relief, and sheer admiration that he was the one who saved her life.

�I-�can�t believe this,� Christian said shaking his head overwhelmed. �What the hell are you doing here in New York?�

�Remember I said I was looking for someone? It was you. I heard you were missing, I had to come find you.�

�You flew all the way out here to look for me?� Christian exclaimed as if she had to have been lying.

�Yes,� Hallie admitted.

�Why?�

�You know why. Because I love you Christian.�

He knew it. He knew deep down that Hallie loved him all along, and was just making the decision to stay with David to please her parents, although the last thing he expected was for her to come looking for him. He wanted to forget about all the times she said those words before without really meaning them.

He wrapped her safely in his arms, shielding her from the cold, or anything else daring to harm her. Still surprised, he took a step back to hold her face in his hands, just to make sure this was real, then saw the black and blue mark beginning to swell up on her cheek.

�I ought to go back and f*****g kill them!�

�No, I�m alright now, thanks to you. What are you doing carrying a gun around?� Hallie asked grabbing onto his wrist to calm his anger.

His eyes darted to the gun in his hand. He put it back into his pocket and looked down at the ground.

�Well I assume you heard about Derek,� he murmured, his voice trembling.

�Yes, and I�m so sorry.�

�Not as sorry as the f****r who killed him will be!� he roared reaching to pull the gun back out.

�So that is what you are planning to do? Just kill whoever did it? How are you going to find them if the cops can�t even do it?� Hallie pointed out, swiping his hand back into hers.

�I found you didn�t I?� he smirked.

She smiled a shaky, shivering smile in response. He was really alive, and here he was saving her life when she was the one trying to save his.

With the combination of nearly getting killed and seeing Christian, her head began wildly spinning and she held onto him tightly nearly tipping over. She wished the thugs took her stupid a*s boots. Besides being adorable they were completely useless for running away, let alone walking.

�It�s okay, I got you,� Christian said easily lifting her up, and cradling her tight against his body. Balancing her with one hand he reached up with the other to push away the hair that had become matted to her forehead. Hallie felt her body becoming more limp with each second he carried her, as if she was a wilting flower on the verge of floating away. It wasn�t exactly normal to feel so light and serene after an assault, but when an angel comes out of the night to save a girls life, feeling eternally safe was to be expected.

Author's Note

The last line BUGS me so much... i can't think of the last sentence that sounds right. Tell if you like it, or if you have any suggestions please. :)

Reviews

[Mysteral - Night Prowle..]

A very gripping chapter. Holds the attention through to the end. Descriptions and dialogue with the thugs is excellent.

I agree about the last sentence though. To be honest, I think it should be deleted, have Hallie faint from the cold without any of the pink and fluffy bits. It would also save me from having to point out the missing apostrophe... lol

[MorganLyn]

I like the whole thing!!
You are an amazing writer and if you ever get this stuff published for real I want a copy! lol

very compelling chapter

[Wolfwind Words]

Oh hell ya! Now, that's the image and vibe I like to see in Christian!
I agree that the last line is kinda awkward...How about...." She didn't think it exactly normal to feel so light and serene after an assault. Yet, when an angel comes out of the night to save a girls life, it does tend to alter (the senses.) or (the sense of reality.)

I didn't expect her to run into Christian so soon in New york... But your the creator!

A wonderful chapter!
Aaron

[thecoolone52]

i love the chapter name...... and the funny thing is with his character he would be chilling in central park...... so i think you hit it on the head with this one........ anyway nice write i enjoyed it

[Tuff Stuff]

A very good chapter.
I liked this one a lot.
Keep writing. ;)

T.S.

[ShadowWolf]

Another great chapter! The ending is good. The only suggestion might be that she just faints. No thoughts, not comments?

[NightDream]

Your right about the last line but its not the whole line just the to be expected part. I think because after such an experience its the last thing to be expected. I love the title and even might keep it in my hip pocket as a quote.
Your story is really progressing well.