The slam of the fist against the door had Eureka jolting in her spot. She wasn’t afraid – not of Aaron. Not really. She wasn’t afraid of any violence that he might threaten; she wasn’t afraid of the anger in his voice. She was no stranger to anger directed her way. The gleam of otherworldly violence had often danced in the eyes of her oppressors. One either grew up to be meek and mild, to suffer the onslaught of low self-esteem and constant fear, or one grew up to be strong and rebellious, to fight violence with violence. To snap, and break, and to become a murderous, animalistic *****.
It wasn’t the anger that Eureka was afraid of. Not that she would admit that she was afraid at all. In fact, she didn’t even know what she was feeling, except that she knew she didn’t want to be there anymore. Looking around, she saw the bed, the clothes, the closet; the relative cleanliness of a house, a home. It was a cleanliness that she had disrupted, but it didn’t matter if clothes were strewn across a floor, or even if pillows were torn to shreds. It didn’t matter if dead feathers floated through the air, or if glass smashed. In the end, this was still a box. A box built from bricks and mortar. A box that, to Eureka, felt like a cage.
In the muffled silence of the room following Aaron’s vehement shouts, Eureka took stock. The way that he had looked at her, the way that he had spoken to her. The things that he had offered, the things that he had suggested – it implied he thought she needed his help. To Eureka, he was another Chad. He was another Niklaus. He was someone who would seek to tame her. To make her live in a box. To become domesticated, against her will. Freedom was finally something that Eureka had attained, and boxes no longer appealed to her. That cookie cutter life just was not for her.
There was nothing to be afraid of, she told herself. Even as she backed away from the door, even as her freckled fingers clutched at the window frame to push and yank until the fresh city air hit her face. With his preternatural hearing, Aaron no doubt heard Eureka’s escape. He would know his own apartment better than anyone else; he would know its sounds. He would have opened this window on many occasions himself, no doubt. It was a window she was now climbing through; it didn’t matter how far up she was. Jumping was not a problem. She knew she could land with all the grace of a cat, no matter how far up she was – though she hadn’t been foolish enough to test it from a height that might kill her.
No – Eureka didn’t run because she feared Aaron would be able to tame her on his own. If she thought that was his intention, she’d have opened that door and screamed in his face. Without knowing what coiled in her chest, in her gut, Eureka ran. Her bare feet hit the grit of the path below; with a grunt and puff of air, she pushed off, took off at a sprint. She left Aaron behind in his apartment with his locked door and the dead body of his neighbour. She didn’t run from him. She ran from herself.