He pulls me to a nearby tree. “Sit,” he orders, pointing to the ground like there is any way I misinterpret what he means.
I do as he says, my eyes burning and my body rebelling against his commandment. It has been commanded by others for far too long.
“Do I need to tie you to this tree, or can I trust that you now realize staying put is your best option?”
I bare my teeth at him, but I don’t move.
Shivers slither up my spine remembering the stench of that beast’s dripping maw. It’s an image I’m not likely to forget any time soon. Covinus only knows what other creatures have bred and twisted within the Darkness. Aside from the one grinning back at me, of course. I am becoming all too familiar with his breed of beast.
The Dark Worlder smiles arrogantly at my silent compliance. “Good. You seem pretty smart. For a Lemming.”
I withhold my biting response, preferring instead to appear unaffected, but the man doesn’t appear to need one as he saunters away.
Max and Calloway have already built a fire, the latter throwing root vegetables into a large pot that hangs above it. The trio spoke little to each other during the day’s journey, but their relationship appears to be beyond words. I watched closely as they communicated with minute ticks of their head and squints of their eyes, but unfortunately, couldn’t decipher what any of it meant.
The firelight flickers, casting shadows that dance across the rock wall like eerie waves of night. The three of them sit around it, speaking in hushed tones and filling their bellies with hot stew. The delicious scent wafts over and despite my stubborn will to hate everything about them, my stomach growls loudly, betraying me.
I put hunger from my mind, shifting my body on the hard ground. My arms are sore from the position of the ropes and my injured wrist sends jarring pain shooting up my arm with each movement. My skin, rubbed raw to the point of bleeding as I tried to free myself from the bonds, stings with an unrelenting ferocity and has become almost unbearable in combination with the frozen ache of my extremities.
It was stupid to run out of Similis without an extra layer of clothes, but I hadn’t considered how cold the elements would feel when exposed to them for more than a few minutes time. There are no furnaces here, pumping hot air whenever one wills it.
I hadn’t considered much beyond Easton’s dying. Now, miles away from the Boundary, with hunger gnawing at my belly and cold biting at my skin, I have plenty of time to ruminate over all the aspects of this terrible plan I didn’t consider. It’s a merciless game I’ve been playing all day, one in which there is no winning, because the past isn’t malleable. My decisions are set in stone. There is only living with them.
I eye the Dark Worlder, my salvation. My damnation. He doesn’t engage in the playful banter of the other two, but instead, stares idly at the fire. Though he is cast in shadows, I can still clearly see the planes of his face, cut sharply, like pieces of the rock cliff behind him. And indeed, if I’m ever to move forward, I need to find a way over the mountain he presents—rough, sharp, and utterly unyielding.
As if my thoughts have cast into the air, he suddenly turns his pale eyes on me. I meet them with as much hatred as I can muster and he gives me something equally heated back, until I’m finally forced to look away. I’m not accustomed to such raw forms of emotion, hateful or otherwise, and it brings an unwelcome heat to my skin.
“Are you hungry?” his voice is gruff. I jump, gazing up at him in alarm. He’s somehow moved from the fire and stands in front of me, staring down with a face of stone. It’s unnerving--how he moves with such unearthly quiet.
“No.” He can’t kidnap me and then do something humane, like try to feed me.
He cocks his head, something like a smile playing at the corner of his lips. The only sign he gives he’s even heard me. “Are you cold?”
Desperately so. But I would rather eat nails than admit it to him. I grind my teeth. “No.”
At this, he really does smirk and I want to lunge at him, to scrape that smile off his self-satisfied face.
“Are your wrists sore?” he presses.
“What do you care?”
He shrugs, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “I don’t, really. But it’s a bad plan.”
“What’sa bad plan?” I growl, infuriated I have to ask what he’s talking about. That I am always a step behind when it comes to him.
“Starving yourself. Freezing to death. If you’re planning on killing yourself to teach me some sort of moral lesson, I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. I’ve got no morals.”
“I’ve noticed,” I snap, wondering how he has managed to replace fear with pure irritation in a matter of seconds. It has to be some sort of talent.
The smile still plays at his lips, lips I’m enraged to notice, are full and well-shaped. At least Eulogius and Murph reflected the darkness inside of them. This man is pure evil wrapped in a deceivingly beautiful package. It makes him all the more dangerous.
He shrugs again. “Suit yourself,” he says, making to turn back toward the fire.
“Fine,” I say to his back. It’s easier to admit this small defeat when I don’t have to see his smug face.
He turns, looking at me inquiringly. “Fine?”
I nod, a quick and rough gesture, but one that can’t be mistaken. Though I’m ruefully irritated at admitting weakness, an unfailing sense of relief floods through me that the ache in my stomach is about to be sated. I’ve never been hungry before and never wish to be again.
