People always underestimated the impact of a simple touch. To someone who had gone for so long without human contact, a touch could be as beneficial as a soothing salve for a bad burn or as jarring as a mac truck ramming into you at eighty miles per hour. Whether it was the former or the latter was entirely dependent on the state of mind of the person being touched, and right now, Pike was definitely feeling the latter.
His heart nearly stopped and his entire face twisted in shock and terror when she touched him. He wanted to yank away from the physical contact, wanted to brush past her and bolt out the door before she could stop him. She couldn't, really. With his demonic strength, she couldn't hold him if he really chose to escape. He'd be out that door and long gone and she wouldn't be able to do a thing about it.
What was worse was that flight wasn't the only thing he wanted to do. The part of him that was a demon, the part that was and always would be the Hellhound of Compton, flared up in his eyes. They didn't flood with color or anything so melodramatic, but suddenly there were mirrors slamming down over his usually expressive orbs. She'd already been scaring him, and the touch came as far too much of a surprise, along with its own healthy dose of fear. It would be so easy for him to reach out, grasp her head, and twist it around in a full three sixty. The worst part was, part of him, the dark part of his mind that was his demonic nature and the Hellhound, wanted to do it.
He tore violently away from the touch and stepped back, pressing himself right up against the wall. His posture shifted back into that angry, defiant one, but this time there was nothing temporary or false about it. "Don't touch me again," he warned her, his voice coming out several degrees below glacial. "It would be a mistake."
The fact that he hadn't just killed her and been done with it meant that there was still some hope, but the touch had been a misstep that would take a little work to recover from. The fact that he looked a great deal like a cornered animal probably said a few things about what was going through his head right now.