inside her voluminous sleeves, her grey skirt flaring up around her as she landed lightly on the snow. He fought off the urge to turn away, to make a joke, to run off on some kind of contrived excuse. He swallowed hard, and then took a step toward her, so they were walking slightly closer.
He waited for a moment for some kind of reaction, but Eerie continued to walk on next to him, seemingly lost in the scenery of the snow-covered campus. After a moment, he took another cautious step closer, bringing them almost side by side. He felt his cheeks burning, and found it suddenly a bit hard to breathe, his heart pounding in his chest and ringing in his ears. It was awkward, walking this close, and he started to worry that he would walk into her.
Eerie didn’t move away. Didn’t flinch. Didn’t even look over at him.
Alex took a deep breath, wiped the sweat from his hand against his jeans, and then reached for the strange girl’s hand.
Her hand felt fragile and warm, despite the cold. Their fingers tangled awkwardly for a moment, but then she intertwined them, wrapping his hand around her own, as casually as if she’d been expecting it. Alex realized he was holding his breath, and exhaled in relief.
Alex walked beside Eerie in silence, her hand seemingly the only warm thing in the perfect, frozen world.
–
Anastasia sighed and let the window curtain fall back into place, obscuring the view of the pair walking across the quad, hand in hand, much to Renton’s evident disappointment.
“My, my. That boy is terribly predictable. He c the exact opposite of what I tell him to,” she said tiredly, reaching absently down to scratch underneath the jaw of the fawning Weir nearest to her. “Merry Christmas, Alex. I hope you like my present.”
Renton looked up from the desk where he sat, puzzling over the disassembled parts of a Austrian automatic pistol, his hands spattered with a light coating of gun oil, his face composed in a parody of sincere concern.
“Do you want me to…” he began, wiping his hands clean with a nearby towel.
Anastasia waved him off, yawning.
“No,” she said, standing up and walking towards the door, “let it go for now. Our agreement with her has been satisfied. Everything worked out the way I expected. We have plenty of time, and I’m tired. I’m going to bed, Renton. Good night. And… Merry Christmas.”
Anastasia turned rapidly, and walked out with two wolves trailing behind her. Renton smiled and returned to the broken-down Glock, waiting until he heard the door click closed behind him before he returned to the window.
He looked out at the snow, the tall, awkward boy and the blue-haired girl, walking across the deserted white campus, holding hands. The window reflected his smile back at him, and the smile that he saw was ugly. For a moment, he watched them, and their clumsy, self-conscious progress across the snow. Then he returned to the table, to the machined metal and oil and rags laid out on it.
“Merry Christmas, Ana,” he said softly, sighting down the gun barrel at the fire that roared in the fire place, smiling ghoulishly, “and a merry Christmas to you, too, Alex.”
