Free Touching Rune by S. E. Smith

me alone! I was happy, damn it!”
    “Who are you talking to?” Sergei asked standing up and setting his glass down on the bar behind him.
    Rune’s eyes filled with tears of frustration. She was making a mess of things. It was all their fault. If they had just left her alone. Why did he have to buy her? Why couldn’t the stupid architect design the garden with her and the playground equipment? She would have been happy in a corner of the garden. She didn’t need much room.
    “Why?” She whispered as silent tears coursed down her cheeks. “Why did you have to buy me? Why couldn’t they have just left me in my garden? Why?”
    Sergei stared in stunned disbelief while Dimitri had a triumphant look in his eyes. Rune collapsed back into the chair and curled up, burying her head in the old coat and cried for the first time in over a century. She felt lost and lonely and terribly, terribly frightened.

Chapter 8
    “Is she asleep?” Sergei asked from where he was sitting.
    He didn’t bother turning around when he heard the door to the bedroom close. He had retreated to the outer sitting room of Dimitri’s bedroom where he could pour himself a stiff drink. His mind swirled with logical explanations that would make sense of the tortured questions the young woman… Rune… had asked of him before collapsing into sobs. She had cried as if her heart was breaking. Each wretched sound shredded a piece of his defenses. She had finally fallen into an exhausted sleep, curled up in a ball on the chair in front of the fire.
    Dimitri had lifted her limp form and carried her to his bed. She hadn’t stirred as he laid her down on the soft covers and covered her. Sergei had watched as long as he could before he returned to the sitting room. Desire burned in his gut along with the confusion.
    “Yes, she exhausted herself,” Dimitri replied as he poured himself another drink. “Tomorrow I want to see the statue again.”
    “You mean today,” Sergei grimaced as he glanced at his phone. “It is already close to four.”
    Dimitri ran his hand through his short brown hair. He sat on the edge of the chair across from Sergei. He stared moodily into the flames. His mind still on the soft womanly figure tucked in his bed. He wanted to join her so badly that he had actually felt sweat form on his forehead as he patted her down for any hidden electronic devices.
    “How is it possible?” Dimitri murmured.
    Sergei gave a short cynical laugh. “You don’t really think she is the woman from the statue? Dimitri, think! That is impossible.”
    Dimitri glanced at Sergei before he sighed and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. He didn’t know what to believe. Logically, it was impossible but… there was something different about Rune. Her questions brushed through his mind.
    “I know in my mind that it is impossible,” Dimitri admitted. “But where could she have come from?”
    “I’ll talk with Micha tomor… today,” Sergei said. “He better have a good explanation as to why he would let a stranger into our home without our permission.”
    “Why would she ask if we needed help?” Dimitri wondered out loud. “She said she had no other clothes, not even shoes. She was dressed in a nightgown that left little to the imagination.”
    “It is obvious that she was sent here!” Sergei reasoned cynically. “There is no way she would have survived five minutes outside dressed the way she was. She is working for someone. Probably to steal the new security program we are working on for the Americans. Micha obviously found her and felt sorry for her. I bet if we had our security team review the tapes or search the premises they would discover her ‘missing’ clothing and how she got inside.”
    “What of her comments about you buying her?” Dimitri asked with a frown.
    Sergei looked at Dimitri in triumph. “That is how she was able to sneak in,” he reasoned. “One of the workers was probably bribed to bring her in the