[center][u]West Heights Apartments, Kenan.[/u][/center]

After the initial shock Zi groaned. Applying some pressure on Emmet’s chest to try and push him away half-heartedly. She felt annoyed and embarrassed at her carelessness and still couldn't help be flatteted and glad at the young man's closeness. It only annoyed her further and made her push him a bit harder. She couldn't meet his eyes or she didn't know what would happen.

"Why do you let him handle it, I could have! Why do you want to be dependent on him so badly?" She asked, irritation clear in her voice. The words All you need is me formed at the tip of her tongue but she bit them off before they escaped her lips. That was taking it too far. Surely it was the remains of Hazumi’s old feelings in her soul that sprouted such nonsense. She had no reason to feel such a bond to Emmet. If so, then what else in her soul didn't belong to her? Her desire to jump off he roof and pull the sniper's arms off? Her hatred for Juan? Was her affection to Emmet even real? 

Her body stilled and her attempts.to push him away even further ceased. Fear reached for her throat and gripped it tight. Suddenly she felt lost, suffocated in a body that didn't belong to her, stuck with fragments of a soul that weren't hers, unsure of who she even was. In an attempt to steady herself she looked up to Emmet’s eyes, looking for answers. 

As he opened his mouth to speak she got scared he would say something wrong... so she pulled him close and buried her face in his chest, using the sound of his heartbeat to lead her to calmness.

"I'm sorry. Some thing's wrong with me today. Thank you."

Was she hit? 

It was a thought he couldn’t help but think. Like a serpent withering within his head, it sank its fangs deep into his heart and coiled it into a tight squeeze. He felt it constrict and become heavy as his eyes snapped downward. Zi was still pressed against his body despite her attempts to push him away, unwilling to remove himself until he knew enough time had passed for the sniper to be long gone. Or dead. Either way didn’t matter much to him because his shoulder felt like hell had sting him, the pain once dulled was inflamed slightly by Zi’s resistance. 

He was relieved at seeing her alright. At least until she snapped at him with high frustration in her voice, mentioning Juan and his dependence on the demon. It caught him off guard for a moment as Emmet’s expression melted from panic to confusion. Where the hell did this come from?

He blinked at her words, partly trying to absorb her meaning and understand her sour mood. He could almost taste her frustration, having been there before, while she took her sour mood out on him. His Terra Skin spell was already fading away while his lips pursed in a frown, letting her wrath continue. Slowly, bit by bit, her pushes had stopped and her body calmed yet he was still irked at being blamed for protecting her. Emmet wouldn’t admit her words caused a pain he couldn’t explain. It was if she cut him with an invisible blade and though she couldn’t see the blood, it still bled out and made his body feel like lead. Mostly it was the irritation at being unable to defend himself that angered him the worse. He didn’t give a rat’s ass if Juan was shot. Not like her. A brief flicker of unease erupted, its origins rather sudden and a mystery, when the possibility of Zi being shot came around. It wasn’t something he enjoyed thinking about, let alone could live with. Somehow he had a feeling she wouldn’t accept that for an explanation. nor would it temper her anger very much. 

When she finally looked up and into his eyes, Emmet’s mouth began to form the words. Too bad he never got the chance to get them out. Not that they mattered much when he felt her arms reach out and pull him close, the personal space suddenly gone. Emmet’s eyes widened in surprise but he didn’t jerk away though his common sense should’ve known better. Instead, he found himself joining her with his own arms, equally held closely by him and a willing prisoner against her changing whims. It wasn’t hard to see how her body fit to his own so damn perfectly. Every place where they touched made his skin twitch and blood hotter than before, his heart threatened to roar into higher gear without permission. In miraculous effort, his heart had kept a slow and steady pace within his chest instead of the marathon it wanted so badly. 

He inwardly sighed, wondering why women were so complicated. One moment she was irritated with him and now she was apologetic over a few harsh words, thanking him for saving her. For a second he thought himself mad for enjoying this. 

Emmet’s eyes darted to the floor where he noticed the bullet, the end now flattened, had fallen near his bare foot. Thankfully he was saved from enduring another hole today. Being a saint was something he really hated, followed in a close second by farther bed rest. No point in finishing his earlier thoughts, Emmet just rested his chin upon Zi’s head, his nose inhaled her scent deeply. Emmet lingered a bit longer before he spoke, softly. 

“Personally, I think it’s about time someone got a piece of his ass for a change. I don’t give a rat’s ass if he’s shot or hurt. You on the other hand…” Matter more. Emmet’s mind finished the sentence’s words that vanished in his trail off.

Inwardly he was slightly worried she would pull away if he said them out loud. Unlike some of the women he had been with in the past, Emmet couldn’t read Zi as easily and that fact alone both scared and excited him. Personally, he knew he had the better deal to just stand here with her than chasing some bastard on a roof. In the back of his mind, Emmet knew he shouldn’t let this happen. If Darius discovered he cared about Zi then she would just become another tool to tighten the leash about his neck and the fox would make her suffer for it. After all, unlike his sister, he knew Zi wasn’t exactly fragile. It was a trait he partly wished she didn’t have if just to make Darius think twice about hurting her.

The thought turned his stomach while his throat was made of nothing but solid muscle, thick and sealed tightly until he couldn’t breathe right. Emmet’s body stiffened involuntarily to fight off his fear as he squeezed Zi closer to anchor himself to the present. Not the possible future.

Silently Zi bit her lip and nodded. Feeling guilty and unsure of what to say she just held Emmet and let him hold her in turn. It seemed like to her the assault didn't matter, like all that mattered was his steady heartbeat...