by Andrew (Hades)

The man jumped into the small open window and landed on the floor, rolling to cushion his fall. Audrey was startled to see the strange man bust through the blinds and onto the floor behind her, but she recovered from the shock quickly. She ran to him, barking and licking him excitedly. Some guard dog.
Jami turned in a hurry, startled by the loud sound behind her. The grey swivel chair she was seated in shrieked in protest at the suddenness of her movement. Her eyes immediately locked on the man.
"You!?!" she exclaimed, genuinely shocked.
It was that outlaw, that "Gambit."
" 'ello, chere." He said around his charming smile.
"What?" She asked, confusion ruling her mind.
"We got bid'ness, chere."
"What kind of business?" she asked, frightened. Yet she couldn't help but think how overwhelmingly sexy his accent was. Nearly intoxicating.
"I'll 'splain later. Now, you're comin' wit' me." He said, and grabbed hold of her.
"Hey," she yelled, standing to defend herself. Audrey jumped toward the two and then all three disappeared.
Her mother crashed into her bedroom, throwing the door wide. The broken blinds hung crooked and bent, a large hole in the middle where the plastic slats had fallen out. That's where gambit came in. She saw the busted blinds and ran to the window.
"Jami?" She yelled out of it.
She looked at the remaining edges of the carefully cut screen. She saw the hole in the glass of the slid-back window. She saw the shards of the busted glass from the light glimmering dimly in the moonlight.
"Jami?" she tried again, and frowned as the realization set in. Her daughter was gone.
Meanwhile, half a world away...

The man had arrived with his hostages in a shack in a bayou in Louisiana. Audrey immediately began to sniff around her new environment, investigating everything she could. Jami looked around, surprised that her bedroom was no longer around her.
"Look like we made it, petite." He said, using his pet name for those younger than himself.
"Made it where?" the confused young woman asked.
"Here, o' course." He said, waving his hands to indicate the cabin around them.
"Ok, we're 'here' " she said with sarcasm, mimicking his gesture, "but where exactly is 'here?' "
"In de bayou." He muttered in his thick accent.
"Oh," she said, feeling as if he had just revealed the most obvious "secret" in the world.
The cabin was incredibly bare. The only furniture was a medium-sized wooden table. Offhand, Jami could not think of a single reason as to why they would be here. She didn't know how they got here or why he would want her. Her mind ran through a hundred different questions, but she kept coming back to one thing. She thought the Cajun was really cute.
"God, what am I thinking?" she thought, "I am who-knows-where for wh- knows-what and all I can think of is sneaking a kiss?"
"How'd we get here?" she asked aloud.
"We were 'ported." The thief-turned-kidnapper explained, as if she should know.
"I didn't know you could teleport." Jami responded, knowing about teleportation from her studies of the superhuman and paranormal.
"I can't." he answered, " 'sides, there's lots you don' know 'bout me."
"You could tell me."
"We are'n here to make friends, petite."
"You got a girlfriend?" she asked, before she could stop herself.
Her face immediately blossomed into a red rose of embarrassment. Even if she did want to kiss him, she had no intention of asking him to do it, did she?
He looked her in the eyes. He was drawn to them. They were beautiful. They were shades of grey, light and dark all at once. There was also a hint of green in them, the same striking green as her blouse.
In the same way, she was also drawn to his. The 'whites' were black, and his pupils were a luminescent scarlet. She was transfixed by them. They were like a fire in the night, breathtakingly beautiful, but disastrously dangerous.
They embraced, still staring at one another's eyes. Each drew a deep breath at the touch of the other. They exhaled as their heads moved ever closer to each other. Their lips parted slightly, and they inhaled again.

To Be Continued....