Human by Hayley Camille Page B

amulet he had given her was sitting on the dresser. Although she didn’t often wear jewellery, she quite liked its unusual shape and colour. Its unassuming nature seemed to want to deflect interest, but somehow it held her eye.
    Something else had held her eye today, she thought begrudgingly. She didn't know what to make of Orrin, which irritated her. Physically, there was no denying it. He was charismatic, sexy, and intelligent. His easy confidence, that mischievous grin, the way his eyes sparkled as they danced across her and something… something behind those eyes. Something that seemed to know her, or see into her somehow. Something that had the potential to break through the wall she had so carefully constructed around herself to preserve, to protect.
    No, absolutely not. Ivy splashed her face with warm water. Orrin was right. He was getting inside her head. Resisting the warm feeling that was creeping through her body, she pushed the thought of him away and changed the scene in her head like a movie. ‘Is she the only chimp here? It's just that I've been looking to extend my own research parameters…’ Orrin's eagerness to use Kyah as a lab rat fell on her again like a dead weight.
    “He's just another guy with an agenda”, she said aloud, aggravation flushing her face as she searched through the bubbles for the soap. “You have your research, you have Kyah, and you have your job. If you want to get anywhere in life you can’t get distracted.” The chastisement sounded like a parent berating a wayward teenager; only in this case, the teenager was willing to listen. Hauling herself out of the bath with renewed singularity of thought, Ivy dressed quickly and worked furiously until the early hours of the morning, when sleep finally took her.

 
     
    Ivy sat up, cursing that once again her mostly sleepless night had ended in horror. Different dreams, different threats but always the same desperation to protect- planning an escape, creating diversions, hiding places, shielding, carrying. All to save herself from losing them over and over again. She could live with death, as long as it was only her own. The dreams had been the same since she was a child. Vivid, extraordinarily real, terrifying.
    The hunter was humanity in all of its shades of grey. The unpredictable shadows where every man hid a secret cache of darkness. Where good intentions could be misguided and evils justified. Or even perhaps, where evil crept from a mind drawn solely to cruelty and control. It was that which Ivy feared most.
    The killer had a single purpose. To hurt these people. To take them from Ivy's life. To leave her empty. Loss.
    The boy with the ashen hair and grey eyes laughed in her mind. Ivy buried her face in her hands and took a deep breath. Jasper. Some nights, the sound of the river rushed through her dreams, dragging her back under to the place she lost him, the deep swirling black. It had been her idea to go swimming that day. The day Ivy lost her childhood sweetheart and the walls began creeping up around her heart. Within a year, her mother had passed away and her father, stricken with grief, had left. More loss.
    The dreams never disappeared when she woke up; they haunted until her mind found a distraction each day. Ivy was used to them now, many years had dulled her waking senses to their potency and she no longer dwelled or cried on them when they woke her at night. Sleep was elusive. Being an insomniac helped for the most part, Ivy didn’t need much sleep to function quite well and a heavy duty work and study schedule benefited from that inconvenience quite nicely. She was only betrayed by somewhat tired eyes and a journal fit for a box-office premiere. Yawning into the mirror and pulling at her tired face, Ivy let a hot shower wash the nightmare away.
    She rummaged through her neglected jewellery box for the only silver chain she had. It was cheap with a faulty clasp so Ivy resolved to get a replacement as soon as she