“Or what? You’ll leave me right here on this hill while you run off to where? Your home is on a different Earth, and you have the world’s most powerful army after you.”
“Okay, yes,” I said. “That’s true, but a lot of people want me dead in this place and I am—“
“Scared I’m one,” he said staring down at the green valley.
“Well, yes, I am. Wouldn’t you be? I was just attacked by the Galvantry in Boston a few days ago.”
Greer shook his head. “That man wasn’t Galvantry.”
“But Rudolf said—”
Greer was still looking off into the distant hills, studying them. “You shouldn’t believe anything the Merrics told you. They never tell the truth.”
“So, who should I trust?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
This wasn’t the answer I was looking for.
“Can I trust you?”
He turned. His eyes had golden flecks near the irises; the outer edges were a faint green line. “I know you want me to tell you everything will be all right and that you’ll be fine. You want me to say I’m a friend and that you won’t get hurt. I can’t make you those kinds of promises.” And again, out of nowhere, I was feeling better, less stressed.
I wanted to shake that feeling away. Now was a perfectly reasonable time to feel stressed. This wasn’t right, and I remembered Claudette in the restaurant. This guy made me at ease and safe. This guy could be part of my family, and this could be some twisted game orchestrated by Claudette. “We aren’t related, are we?”
“No,” Greer uttered, his voice filled with disgust.
“Okay. Good. And you’re sure I’ve never seen you before?” From my angle above Greer, he looked oddly familiar. “You’ve never been to the opera before, have you? Like a few weeks ago?”
“Opera? Like I’d have time to go to the opera.” The notion appalled Greer. “Since the day you arrived in this world, I’ve been busy figuring out a way to rescue you. I was making plans while you were at the opera.”
He was lying about the opera. I remembered his head too well, but I let that one go. “So you’ve been planning on saving me for weeks? Why? Who told you about me?” He didn’t reply. Finally, I said, “I don’t even know you. You’ve got to give me something or—”
“You’ll head out into the hills.”
I nodded.
“Or at least you would try.” He picked up a piece of clover.
“Unless I’m your prisoner, and in that case, I’d like to know that too.” He slowly rolled the three-leaf clover between his fingers as I stared at him. “So is that a yes? Because I have the right to know that.”
He tossed the clover off to the side. “You’re not a prisoner.”
“Then what am I?”
“As far as I can tell, you are someone in desperate need of help.”
“Fine, yes, I am, but what do you want from me? Because people don’t risk so much to help someone they don’t know. You want something. What? Is it because of what I am? You said you know. I don’t even know so if you want that thing the Merrics do, then forget about it. I’d rather be dead.”
He smiled for the briefest of moments when I mentioned death. My stomach fell. "Do you want me dead?
He paused for a second before answering. “You wouldn’t be alive if I did.”
I didn’t like that pause. People shouldn’t pause when you ask them if they want you dead. My anxiety returned and then some.
“Well, can you at least tell me whether I am safe?”
Greer shook his head. “I don’t think you will ever be safe, but you are safer now than you were. I won’t hurt you, and I won’t take you to people who will hurt you.”
Safer than I was.
“Sit down, Waverly, rest. We still have a long walk today.” Greer took out his cubox and swiped through 3-D images. My face popped right out of the cubox. It was from the night of the opera when they dressed me to the nines. It’d be nice to go back to that night and not know anything about my family or this world. I could just sit in amazement at how the birds were trained to sing.
His cubox flashed bright neon letters: “Seven Million Dollar Reward for Lost Merric Princess.”
“Seven million dollars for me. Are they crazy?!”
“It will be more by tonight, but that’s not the most important part. The person who turns you in will be set for life as will their children. They’ll have the best technology, doctors, education. They’re offering a chance at society. People will be out looking for us all over the country. Worse yet, they named you as the long-lost Merric princess. The arrogance—they added people who have longed for the opportunity to kill anything related to the Merrics to the list of dangers in the woods.” Greer shrugged his shoulders. “You’ve got more enemies than I can count.”
Enemies everywhere, and those enemies had access to the cubox. Everyone would know how much money I was worth but not only that, they would know I was missing, that I was out there somewhere, unprotected. My world and everything I ever thought to be true was crashing down around me.
My eyes filled with tears, and I angrily wiped them away. Greer noticed. “Look, there’s no point dwelling on it. What’s done is done.”
I glared at him. “What do you suggest I do? I’ve got the entire world out there trying to find me and I’m here with you and I don’t know you and… God, why did my family trust Bollard?”
“Again, what’s done is done. You can replay your past mistakes all day and you still won’t get anywhere. Focus on something else.”
“Like what?”
“We made it out of Boston and it’s a nice day.”
“The hills are beautiful,” I admitted, a little grudgingly.
He nodded. “They are. And it’s good thing you think that because we’re going to be spending a lot of time here.”
“At
