Doubtful. “I knew it had a part to play in being with you when she looked at me that night.”
“Maybe you’re reading into it.”
I shake my head. “I’m not.”
“She would have mentioned it to me…”
“Then maybe you got played too.”
He chuckles. “That would mean I had any feelings invested in her at all. I did not.”
“Look.” I exhale sharply, wanting to talk about anything else right now. “You don’t want to be around me. I don’t want to be around you. But we’re family. Our parents would want us to look out for each other right now.”
“We are not family, Sapphire.” His expression is carved from stone.
“I’m inclined to agree. Your parents are my family. Either way, my point remains.”
A windless cold glides between us, prickling the hairs on my arms. I hold my hands to the fire, wishing I was with Krimson tonight, sitting on the couch, reading new books he picked up for us.
“Do you remember that night when we were playing in the woods as kids? Krimson was home sick, and I tagged along with your friends? You told everyone the night dawpers were emerging from hibernation?”
“No.”
“You do.” My voice cracks. I refuse to look at him. “You convinced the other kids to run home, screaming for their lives. But I knew I wasn’t as fast because you were all boys. So I…I climbed a tree and waited there all night. It was freezing, and I couldn’t stop shaking because every twig snapping in that dark forest made me think the night dawpers had found me.”
“What is your point?”
“You could have come back.” The little girl in me is speaking now. “You could have helped me down from the tree and told me it was all a joke. But you just left me there.”
He’s staring at me now. “I did.”
The admission stings.
“I was eight fucking years old.”
“Yeah. And it worked.”
“Huh?”
“You stopped trusting me.”
“And that’s what you wanted?”
“It is.” No malice there. No satisfaction. Just a flat truth.
“Why?”
“Think about it,” he says evenly.
The fire pops sharply between us.
“No answers are coming to mind,” I say.
He draws in an inpatient breath. “I’ve had very upsetting thoughts about you since I was taken as a kid. Violent ones.” There’s a breath of silence that stretches unbearably long. “Toward you. You shouldn’t have been allowed to simply wander the woods at night with me. I wasn’t right in the head.”
The sound of rapid breathing that doesn’t belong to either of us, snags our attention. Our heads snap in the same direct straight ahead. We make eye contact briefly, then lower our food to the ground. The sound turns into something dragging across gravel and dirt, scratchy and quiet.
Niklaus grabs his sword slowly, communicating some silent message of attack with his eyes on me. With a shaky hand, I find my sickle, latching onto its handle as my heart drums against my breastbone. I don’t know if I have it in me for another fight.
