Paragon - Chapter 55: Chapter 55

We sat before each other and the molten gold of candlelight for many hours. It could have been days to my senses. Who would know when the world burned back in those summer green eyes. In the smooth curve of her lips when she recounted every detail I asked of her life in London.
What made her excited. Anxious. Fearful. Happy. Curious–yet Quinn had a curiosity for every aspect of life. It's what drew me to her. One of the rare souls that searched your eyes instead of gazing past them. It was a rare thing... To have a natural urge for questioning the world around you when so many simply wandered through it unquestioning.
"What?" She murmured, around a slow sip of red wine.
I didn't flinch.
"I think about how different you are a lot." I stated honestly.
She laughed into the glass and struggled to swallow her sip. I couldn't stop the smile that stole me as she lowered it carefully and avoided spills on my white shirt she wore. I also didn't miss the way she drew her lips together before releasing them and answering.
"I know I'm as weird as they come, detective but couldn't you sugar coat it a little?"
I leant forward on my forearms and took her glass out of her hand slowly before inhaling the vintage in the glass. She watched me intently as I placed my lips where hers had been on the glass and took a light sip. I answered her with a knowing smile.
She raised an eyebrow and turned her gaze out to the ocean below us.
The restaurant was a private affair. Warm and intimate. The cicadas could be heard in symphony around us and the warm air kissed our skin making us the same temperature for once. Vines wrapped carefully around the balcony and rooftop lattice above. Quinn could speak of nothing but the setting until her curiosity to know about me cut in.
"So, this is what it would be like..." She murmured, only loud enough for us.
I stared at the side of her face and her dark hair piled down one side of her shoulder. She didn't need to elaborate for me to know her meaning.
"When time allows it." I answered low.
She met my eyes quickly.
"You mean when Paragon allows it."
"World threatening events don't tend to occur every weekday, Quinn." I sighed, pushing back in my chair and watching the moon light the waves on the horizon.
"I don't suppose you could give me your calendar?" She said dryly.
I bridged my hands and looked over them with a slow head shake, "I could always ignore it and see how long it takes either Paragon or the world to destroy itself."
She grumbled something unintelligible. I arched an eyebrow and tilted my head. Instead of answering me she took a deeper drink of wine and I chuckled.
"I guess it makes everything sweeter. Not knowing how much you get..." She mused.
I turned to the water beyond and stared at the way the silver light drew rippling ribbons in the dark.
"Immortality is the opposite of that. When I was in my first years of it I didn't notice. Then when everyone I knew had died... I started paying attention to just how endless it all seemed." I murmured, caught in the darker waves rather than the lighter ones.
I felt the warmth of her hand find my own. For once we felt so similar in this heat. We could practically be considered a mortal couple for all appearances. Her fingers wove through mine but she didn't fill the silence. She didn't need to. She was that ribbon of silver light cutting through endless waves of darkness–just reminding you that there is more to it all. If only for a moment.
I tore my eyes off the ocean and met hers.
"Is it worth it?" I looked around us, "All the uncertainty of when and where with me?"
She snorted lightly and shook her head.
"Absolutely not. I'm only here for the wine." She smirked darkly.
I rolled my eyes to the moon and found it in me to grin back. She pushed her hand out of mine and took the back of my neck looking at me more intently.
"I'm not sure how many times I will need to convince you, Fletcher. But I'm in this to whatever end. You need to start taking my words a little more seriously. I'm not interested in what the world is offering me outside of you–whether that's on white sand beaches or rainy London." She answered calmly, releasing my neck on the final word and picking her glass back up like nothing had happened.
It stole the air from my lungs regardless. The place her hand had been was electrified. Her intoxicating scent was another distant affair. It paled before those burning eyes that released me.
"You know you could rival an immortal for intensity?" I quipped, calming my cool blood. But my body felt anything but. Her words spoke yet again of one beyond her years. Of a woman that knew what she wanted because she had spent long enough knowing what she didn't want. How did anyone but Quinn Adams make these decisions in such a short life span? Maybe it was the wine...
She scanned the tables behind us in soft conversation and nodded with a faint smile.
"They all really stood no chance."
"Neither do I." This made her eyes flash back to my own and her heart stutter, "–I'm in far too deep now, Adams." I deadpanned.
Her smile was as dangerous as the green-gold in her eyes. And the candles were low.
"I've never had as much fun wineing and dining as I have tonight." She admitted.
I matched her smile and shrugged, "What can I say? I'm an excellent tour guid–"
"You're an excellent everything. That's the problem." She drawled.
"Give me a second chance, please Quinn. I can be the mundane you want me to be." I said with my hand over my heart.
She held up her hand instantly in tune with the dance of our wit.
"It's too late for that, Fletcher. I'm just over you." She said, placing her chin on her hand.
I pinned my arms back on the table and leant forward intently. I let all of the burning desire fill the air around us with a touch of the predator for good measure. The air practically hummed with the power shift. It only made her smirk back.
I closed the gap until only a few candlelit inches remained between my face and hers.
"You sure about that, Lawyer?" I whispered onto her lips.
She swallowed slowly and scanned every detail of the blue and gold in my eyes. It did nothing good for her heart and was making my smile grow by the second. She moved her fingers between us so she could trace my cheekbone. Then she suddenly patted the side of my face in the most platonic gesture Quinn had ever produced and leant back into her chair with her wine glass and my jaw slackened.
"Don't think for a moment it's that easy, immortal." She drawled, sinking the rest of her drink and making me laugh far louder than formality allowed.
* * * * *
I had to give it to her. She was a master in the art of distraction. Then again the wine had a part in the blame giving her unrestricted confidence and indifference to breaking rules.
With one hand on the wheel and another trying in vein to subdue a very appealing mortal we sped back through the streets of the Colombian capital. Her protests made my smirk wider as she pressed her lips to the side of my jaw.
"I promise I don't bite..." She whispered in a low purr.
"But you seem to have no problem–trying to crash this car." I answered evenly, keeping my eyes sharply ahead of us as her lips assaulted my skin.
"You could do this blindfolded." She answered, running her hand up my leg and drawing my instincts out in my more force. I clenched the wheel harder and sighed through my nose.
"That is not the–" My words cut off suddenly.
I smelled the smoke before I saw the blue lights in the sky around the next corner. Quinn felt my body change and pulled back to stare at my face.
"What's wro–shit." She finished her own.
You could see the orange glow of firelight in the night sky now. I pushed the gear up and accelerated through gaps in the road of vehicles going the opposite direction. You could feel the temperature change in the air now. It was big.
Quinn was sat up in her seat now staring at the wall of vehicles and emergency crews blocking the road.
I stared at the multi story hotel with at least three floor being licked up in flames.
"Fletcher–oh my god..." She murmured.
"Stay in the car." I said flatly, opening the door. Her hand was already wrapped around my forearm and her eyes more alert than they had any right to be after the wine.
"You better tell me you're fireproof before you–"
"Quinn, you know I take less risk than those mortals going in." I stated not letting her doubt it for a moment. She didn't need that information now. We burned just as they did... but that was a minor detail.
"Don't be a hero, detective."
"Never." I winked, before pulling out of her grip and shutting the door. The concern on her face hadn't shifted an inch.
But I was long gone. Moving rapidly between the shadows of buildings. Nothing but a blur in the chaos between distant screaming and sirens blaring into the sky. I closed in on the carnage and had to slow my inhuman speed enough to pass.
When I reached the cordon I slipped a hand over an officer and spoke to him in heavily accented Spanish. His eyes went distant as he raised the tape for me and let me slide past the crowd of hysterical onlookers. I became another blur moving out of sight between the emergency working mortals I had become so familiar with in the last decade.
The best part about these situations were that no one looked for a person out here–it was that glowing tower of fire that they sought out someone out of place.
I slipped behind a firetruck and broke the lock on the door to gain access.
I ripped off a fire jacket and helmet. Equipped two oxygen tanks to my back and two masks to my hips. Now none of them would even question my presence. There was too much chaos and not enough time.
I shut the door as more men raced past me and shouted orders in Spanish. I pulled the helmet lower and moved quickly behind them. Then broke off at the last second and leapt through a glass window that would have shredded any mortal. The air was clear but the lights were out. I needed none to guide me.
I rushed away from the shouts of firefighters and searched the main lobby for shining metal doors. Civilians were fleeing in crowds from the stairs and the air was pure noise. I ignored it all.
Through the running bodies choking on smoke I finally saw two sets of shining doors.
I dodged through the crowds, careful not to terrify the mortals more. Then checked the hallway before sinking my hands into the metal and wrenching it open. Despite the screech it mattered little to any of them as the building burned above us.
Move faster immortal.
I stepped into the elevator shaft and wrapped my hands around the steel cable launching myself up into the cavernous darkness. I caught it between throwing myself higher. Counting the scared heartbeats above me and gauging the distance to them. It took me less time than the original lift would have to arrive at the seventh floor.
I gripped the ledge to the entrance doors and pulled myself up with half a thought. When I ripped the metal open a wall of flames hit me back into the hole below.
I snarled and grabbed the cable again before I could fall further. My hands were blackened and my skin was rapidly resealing itself shut from the burns. I could already feel the dark blood on my face.
Then I heard the screaming.
I grit my teeth and climbed the cable before the flaming hallway. I took the last breath I would for hours and threw myself through the flames.