Black eyes, darker than the night sky, shinier than silk, that's what I see when I can finally pry mine open. My lashes are heavy, they feel pasted shut. The girl's hair brushes my face, tickles my nose. For a moment, that's all I see: her pale, dew-drop-shaped face, dark long hair, and the scarf. Red, red, red, against the snow.

Then it all floods back. Sore knuckles from the punch, the faint echoes in my head of the sirens, and the crushing sensation of the Hellcat's collision. I jerk upward, and I can feel her fingertips through my thin cottony graphic tee. Beneath me, just the icy chill of the snow. I cock my head, snow has already stuck to my hair. "I must be dead," I say, but that can't be it; if you can't bring a guy like me to your parents, then most certainly you can't bring a guy like me to heaven. But I have to ask. "Are you an angel?"

She snorts, the vaguest hint of a smirk tugging on her rosy lips. "So you all are like in the movies aren't you?"

"Huh?"

She shakes her head, that tiny smirk melting into an expression so sweet and soft it hurts more than my aching ribs. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah..." There's a fog in my head when I look at her, and there's a faint smell of mint and chocolate that touches my face when she moves close. And then the real me wakes up, the fog starting to fade. "What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road like that? You could've gotten killed. More importantly, you could've gotten me killed! What's the matter with you?"

She shrinks back on her heels into the ever-thickening blanket of snow. The sun has finally set, leaving the night dark, and a pang strikes my chest. "Hey, I'm sorry, that was a little--"

Impact. Not like last time, not a crushing feeling all over like the world is imploding all around me. More like a sharp, angry, sting, her hand still poised in the air while I clutch my face. That's it. I grit my teeth, about to explode more cuss words than this pretty church girl has ever heard in her life when a big spongey red tongue slaps over my face. I jerk back, eye to eye with a massive beast.

A reindeer.

With silvery little bells hooked around his giant antlers, his steamy breath puffed in my face. A loose red and white ribbon wound around his muzzle, and eyes just as black as the girl's but much beadier. I look at those hooves, those big knobby knees, so close I can picture his giant feet smashing into my chest.

I stagger upward and grab her arm, the arm attached to the hand that just clobbered me only a moment ago. "Get away from it!"

But the thing won't let me be. The girl's eyes are narrowed into pinpricks when she looks at me, maybe some part of her considering to smack me again, when the reindeer's fat tongue comes down again, across my face, into my hair. He's so close I yelp, the big hooves the only thing I can think about as he paws the snow all around me. "Run!"

"Donnor, down!" A soft giggle, and I collapse down into the snow beneath him. The beast is still muzzling me; and that's when my heart starts to slow. Must be from a petting zoo, so the girl must be....a clown? I shake my head. Am I alive, even?

The Hellcat is nowhere in sight. We're in a clearing, the moon high above and pines all around, tall and spiky and black. I can't see the road. I touch my face, look down at my black leather jacket. It's torn, burnt at the sleeves. Something happened. Something happened that I can't fully place.

"Who are you?" I ask.

Her eyes flicker to her feet; she's wearing saddle boots, heavy and worn. Then she looks at the reindeer, who looks back, his gaze almost studious. "Don't look at me like that!" she says.

The reindeer snorts at her. She snorts back at him.

"Answer me," I say, there's a rising panic starting to fill up my chest. Am I dead? There are no sirens, and the Hellcat is no where in sight. "You need to answer me!"

She's still looking at the reindeer. "I shouldn't," she says. "But it's not like I can lie, can I?"

My heart is beating so fast I think it'll break. "Just tell me."

"Well, fine." She sighs. "My name is Sophie."

"Okay." I shrug.

"Sophie Clause."

It's Christmas Eve. So of fucking course. "Like Santa Claus, huh?" I let my lip curl up into a sneer. I don't want to deal with this right now, I want to sit in my apartment, eat my 89 cent ramen cup, and cry about Marion. I want my Hellcat back. I want to pretend tonight never happened. "I don't have time for your reindeer games."

"But I am Sophie Claus," she says, "I am Santa's daughter."