The girl needs to be taken alive. Simon can be dragged back either way.
Chapter VII
Twilight under Treetops
The sunlight turns a strained orange color, almost looking burned, as it reaches through the tree branches down onto the ground all around me.
When I started this day, I surely didn’t think it’d end up with my butt in the dirt, watching my shirtless protector sweat as he sharpens the points of branches into spears with his fingernails. Heck, when I woke this morning, I had no idea I’d ever see him again, much less learn his name, have him save my life a second time, and lastly whisk me away into the middle of the woods.
Thus far, my twentieth year is either the most bizarre I’ve ever known, or it has become so dull that I’ve lost my mind and decided to live in a fantasy world. Scary to think I’m only two days into it. As I watch him with all of his attention on tearing into the branches to make sharp points, as little notice of me as a caterpillar climbing up a nearby tree trunk, I know this is no delusional fantasy of mine. I’d have him focused on me. Sad that this is the only proof that I haven’t gone insane: the boy ignores me.
Somewhere along the high-velocity, hour-long drive out here, he grew silent. Brushing off my questions with one-word answers or none at all. Every time his eyes began to look warm again, he’d shake it off, resurrecting his cold and focused facade.
It’s like he’s the jaded twin brother of the man I met last night. He seems so far from the guy who jumped from a rooftop to save me from three beasts. He doesn’t even resemble the boy who convinced me to leave my half-full mocha latte sitting on a table to run away with him.
All of those things vex me to my core, but the one that stings the most is he seems to have nothing left of the smooth Casanova who danced with me, made my body glisten from his heat, and kissed me with more passion than I’ve ever felt.
The few glimmers of his past self that have broken his stone persona have come when I’ve called him by his name. In those moments, the effect was only fleeting, but they were the highlights of our hours in the woods.
Can’t understand how he’s grown so cold. All of a sudden I’m repulsive to him—he becomes annoyed every time I make him acknowledge me.
Was he just drunk last night, and the infatuation’s worn off? Am I ugly to his sober eyes?
He moved too well to be that drunk. Threw stools across the dance floor and exactly onto the thugs’ backs that he was aiming for way up on the stage.
Am I such an odd girl that I was just a different flavor for him to taste? A freak to try out?
The last glow of the twilight begins to give way to the blanketing night.
I can’t take it anymore.
“Why are you ignoring me?”
Doesn’t look away from the point he is sharpening.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Still no response.
Shaking, “If you won’t talk to me about what the hell is going on, I swear I’ll walk out of these woods and leave you here to be nasty and mean all by yourself,” deep breath, “I swear it, Simon.”
Without budging his head or slowing the stroke of his nails into the branch, he says, “If you have any desire to live, I can’t leave your side.”
His voice sounds so flat—drained of emotion.
“Doesn’t sound like you’d care anyway.”
“Doesn’t matter if I care. It’s a fact. You leave—you die.”
Sniffling becomes involuntary, “Well, what if you’re killing me now?”
“I haven’t done anything to you.”
“You haven’t?”
“Don’t be dramatic. Haven’t laid a hand on you.”
“Yes, you did. Your hands were on me last night, and they protected me today.”
“Never laid a hand on you in anger. Never hurt you.”
Silence except for the faint drone of grasshoppers and my sniffling.
Giving up on getting through to him, letting my heart tear itself freely, I whisper to myself, “Yes, you did hurt me.”
He still carves. Shutting me out.
A whimper squeals out from me, pushing past the lips I try to hold tightly together.
The whittling stops. He turns and looks at me.
“How?” he asks.
“What?”
“How did I hurt you?”
Stunned, I say nothing. How could he have possibly heard me? It was barely a whisper, and he sits far away from me. Finally, I say, “You got my hopes up. Made me think you liked me—only to crush me now.”
He sighs, “I never promised you anything. Has it occurred to you that I might have nothing good to offer? That everything inside me is bad for you?”
“Isn’t it up to me what’s good for me?”
“You have no idea what’s good for you. Can’t be twenty years old yet, and you think you know what’s good for you,” he snickers—a cruel, forced chuckle with no joy in his voice.
“You promised me even though the world tries to pull us apart they won’t win.”
Looking away from me and toward the jagged spikes he’s piled up at his feet, “You shouldn’t believe everything a guy tells you in a bar.”
The exhaustion, the emotional strain, and the fear have taken their toll on me, but it’s the hurt that obliterates. Tears fall. All strength is gone.
His face is stone. Beautiful and cold. Can’t tell if his eyes are welling up like my own—tears blur my vision.
Magnificent.
Handsome.
Monster.
The saddest sound to touch my worn ears still eats at my soul two hours after it’s been silenced. I’ve heard junkies beg for a hit, promising disgusting favors, having sold all their dignity for that temporary rush. I’ve heard young widows wail at the loss of their husbands in war. I’ve even heard my own wretched cries when Eleni was taken from me.
None of them tore at me so violently as hearing her cry herself to sleep. Hunted. Endangered. Betrayed.
Maybe her cries hurt me most because I caused them. All the others were the result of tragedy. Cruel fate. Her cries were given birth by my harsh words. Her pain is my spawn. Inflicted upon her against her will.
Her sweet voice asking what she had done—assuming she had failed me in some way. It echoes in my head. Cutting deeper every time it repeats.
Her sad, green eyes on fire beneath her silky brown hair, melting from my words. Breaks my heart to think some of her sweetness may have been burned away forever. Hopefully, all of this will save what’s left of her. Even if it kills all that’s still tender in me.
She still sleeps.
Her slumber has grown deep, blanketed in the heavy peace of the moonlight filtering through the night air.
The same moonlight offers a dim illumination of her body. Staring at her closely for so long, the light seems to
