“No,” she whispered darkly, her blue eyes staring intensely into his.  “Don’t you realize?  You are my fantasy.  When I read books, when I read about love, I think of you and me.  Edward is you—Mr. Darcy is you.  My own characters are you.  No matter how hard I try not to let it happen, you become my fantasy.”

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A tantalizing fragrance teased her senses, then suddenly consumed them.  The smell of sweet things baking and of savory things cooking filled her being, and she turned her head toward the kitchen as if she did not have any control over her muscles.  Everything felt like it was being scripted, and she had to obey.  She kept walking, but her mouth began to water.  “Not suppertime yet,” she thought to herself as it seemed she regained her control.  She could swear that something had been manipulating her moves, though, as if she was a character in a novel.  She pondered that thought—that would be interesting.  She walked up the stairs.  Even her thoughts appeared in her mind as words and sentences and occasionally pictures.

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For a moment, the entire world stopped.  She was in the middle of taking a breath, sweat flying off her forehead as her body twisted with the impact of his foot in her stomach.  She saw the calm look on his face, the intense look in his chocolate eyes.  His polo was tucked into his slightly worn jeans, and a holster containing the cold steel of a gun hung from his belt.  How had it come to this?  Had she really been investigating something that dangerous that they sent someone for her? Everything seemed surreal—was she really being hit that hard in the stomach right now?  Her breath exploded out of her as the world started turning again.  But it was turning slowly, and it was beginning to fade.  She sunk to the ground as the pain shot through her body.  She had no control over herself anymore, and it looked like she was looking through a tunnel that was slowly closing.  Her hearing disappeared, too, as if cotton balls were being stuffed in her ears until she couldn’t hear anymore.  The eyes of the agent, clouded and controlled, were the last thing she saw before consciousness left her entirely.

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She stood still, savoring the thrill of anticipation that ran through her body.   Then she looked up towards the evening sky of twilight blue and early stars, bent her knees, and shot straight up off the ground.  She willed herself higher, and she never came down from her jump.  Instead, she kept going up.  Adrenaline raced through her veins, and she took her eyes off the sky to watch the receding land.  She was flying!  The horizon was lined with gold, pink, and orange, and the higher she got the more color she could see from the sunset.  “So this is what Superman feels like,” she mused.  She put out both arms in front of her and, using swimming-like strokes, guided her path through the sky.  She flew over the wilderness below and enjoyed the mountainous scenery.  Then she stroked downwards, and gravity helped her speed increase as she plummeted toward the earth.  At the last moment, she swung horizontal and upwards in a graceful arc, and the wind sung in her ears and played in her hair.  She dodged the few clouds that were hovering in the evening sky, and her heart sang within her.  “Lord, how amazing this is!  Thank you so much!” she exclaimed out loud.  Freedom coursed through her, and she reveled in it.