I didn’t expect to hear these words come out of his mouth, but at the same time, I had wished for someone in the same situation I am in.
“What do you mean? Why shouldn’tyoube here?” I ask, whispering in a lost voice.
My heartbeats start to accelerate. The heat of his whisper is fighting a fierce battle with the suspense of his words.
“I don’t think we can talk here,” he says, quickly looking around with a serious expression on his face, then bringing his gaze to the map in my hands. “Let’s go to the park, and I will explain everything.”
“What’s your name? It’s the least you can tell me if you want me to follow you. I don’t know what kind of perv you are or if what you’re telling me is true.”
“Lucas,” he softly laughs. “I cannot promise I’m not a perv, but I have other things on my mind besides that,” he says, studying me from head to toe with a smile and a raised eyebrow.
I haven’t heard what he said after that. The smile on my lips is diminishing while the wheels of my brain keep spinning like crazy, putting the details that didn’t seem to have caught my attention until then head-to-head.
Lucas… I’m sure I saw that name before somewhere. I take a glance at my bag and open the notepad to its first page.
Shit, I am right, but my brain was too rotten to register all that was written there. Lucas Stewart is marked with a red line and two exclamation marks at the bottom of the page. I read all the names on this page, I know that for sure, but I think I was too caught up in all those circles around Blake’s name to be able to remember the rest of them.
He looks at me curiously while peeking at my notebook. I put it back in the bag, and I follow his actions. He takes a similar notepad out of the back pocket of his jeans and shows me his first page in my calligraphy. It is the same name circled, but my name is the one underlined in red.
He puts the notebook back pretty fast after I caught sight of what I had to see.
“You’re Anmara, right?”
I remain motionless, only being able to nod.
“Then you really need to come with me,” he says on a darker note.
I couldn’t talk this time either, being too panicked from what I just found out, so I chose to look at the map and go to the park, with Lucas following me from behind.
?
We sit on a bench in the park close to a waterfall. We’ve sunken deep inside it, far from the buildings of the city and all of its people. It is quiet and nice, but my state isn’t getting better at all. I am more stressed and confused than when I woke up on the train.
“Show me the last page,” I tell him, while getting my notebook out and on its first page.
“This is your writing,” I say at the same time he claims it’s his own writing.
We then look really confused into each other’s eyes.
I see a detail in his notebook that makes me stare again at the whole page. There are the same words, but with a small but significant difference, in a more tidy calligraphy:Trust them.
What do you mean bythem?
I look once again at the last page of my notebook and see that it doesn’t spellhim, butthemin a dizzy writing. As dizzy as I was when looking over all the letters or the names.
Great job, Anmara.
Oh, thank you so much, dear.
“How long have you been here? I woke up yesterday, jerked off the train with a backpack and suitcase thrown next to me. Oh, and I only have two more nights to figure out what the hellI'm doing in this fucking place," he says while looking at the waterfall, frustrated, with his hands in his jeans’ pockets.
“Two days ago, and what do you mean byonlytwo more nights?”
“I asked around for a hotel, and they told me that Tamwine Ville was the only one around. Surprise: I already had a room in my name and just three nights booked. A staff member told me that I’d be moved to another room after those nights if I’d like. I only have to trust the hotel to find a solution,” he snorts, rolling his eyes.
“And I, who own an apartment in the hotel,” I speak without thinking, and instantly regret it when I see his frowning expression.
“Who the fuck are you?”
