She didn’t think his well-being mattered to her only because she might do very badly if he did.
He was a good man.
He’d treated her very well when he could easily have simply used her for his own ends and been cruel and abusive on top of that. There was no one to stop him from doing just as he pleased.
None of those things actually took words to communicate.
In point of fact, actions spoke louder than words, and clearer.
Could they share a joke and laugh together without being able to fully understand each other’s language?
They had. When she’d ruined the dinner she’d been sure was going to be fabulous. He’d teased her.
There was no getting around the fact that their communications were spotty because neither of them knew the other’s language at all well, but she’d had almost as much trouble communicating with her boyfriend, Jared, and they spoke thesamelanguage!
She struggled to shrug it off. Undoubtedly it was something psychological! She’d just convinced herself she was fond because she needed him and that soothed her conscience and also made her feel safer.
Because a bond of affection meant he would try harder to protect her.
It didn’t feel like that to her, but, then again, she was in the moment. When she’d had time to distance herself from him she was sure she would discover that she didn’t really have a bond or feel any empathy or affection for him.
She’d almost managed to convince herself that she couldn’t trust anything she thought she was feeling when she made a discovery that almost literally knocked the breath out of her.
The sun was setting on their second day of travel when she first caught sight of it, the brilliant light dazzling her so that for many moments she had no clue of what she was actually seeing. Slowly, as they drew closer, though, she began to realize that this was no part of the jungle despite the vegetation that was running rampant, trying to take over.
Or at least, it hadn’t been born as one.
Before them lay the remains of what had once been a vast city and, even at a distance, she could make out details that suggested it was no ancient effort at civilization.
There were causeways linking elevated transportation of some sort.
There were high-rises.
“Oh my god,” Annika gasped as it finally sank in that she was looking at a city that had died only recently, a modern city built by an advanced civilization. “This is a disaster!”
