Hunter had pulled off a wide dirt road. Parking was always a challenge anyplace but a truck stop, so we stopped in some grass. It was surely illegal but no one seemed to be around. We were in the middle of nowhere, and the thought occurred to me that he could dump my body easily.
But I wasn’t afraid.
He was just too…cheerful, almost. Brimming with anticipation to show me something. Like a kid.
Silly thought.
We hiked along a trail and reached a tall metal marker: Enchanted Falls, 1 mile.
I froze, mouth open. “We’re going to see waterfalls?”
He suddenly seemed bashful. “Figured since we were passing through.”
Squealing, I threw my arms around his neck. He caught me with a small oomph of surprise but after a second, he pulled me to him in a bear hug. It had only been on impulse, but he embraced me as tightly as if he’d been waiting just for this, as if it meant something when it couldn’t.
I backed up, blushing. He cleared his throat and ducked his head, so that despite his foot and a half on me, I was looking at his profile from the top of his head. His hair was curly, I realized in the yellow-bright sun. It was cut short, but light reflected blond strands pulled through the darker brown.
He seemed more human in the light—less sinister. I imagined him in some innocuous setting. We could have met on a trail like this, just two people enjoying the beautiful setting, the smell of pine and gentle sound of water in the distance.
“It’s not too far,” he said gruffly.
We continued along the path. It wasn’t too uneven which was a good thing, considering my shoes were basically ballet flats. I felt the shape of each pebble and twig beneath my feet almost as if I were barefoot, although less sharply. The path turned rockier as we approached, the sound rising to a roar in my ears before it even came into view.
Eager, I quickened my pace. The trail continued at its full width forward, but I heard the waterfall to my right. I began to round a small bend obscured by the trees when Hunter yanked me back.
“Careful,” he warned.
Curious, I cocked my head then turned back to the path. We crept forward together, and I understood his warning. The trail ended on a bluff overlooking the waterfall. We weren’t at the bottom of the waterfall but at the top.
My heart squeezed at the sight. Water streamed down in rushes too fast for the eye to process. Mist rose up like tendrils of steam, the wetness kissing my face as I stood there.
A tall wooden fence, rotting, was all that separated us from a downward hill that met up with the shore far below.
“Can we get to the bottom?”
“Eventually.”
He continued along the main path, and I followed him. We came out upon a wide river—the source of the falls, I realized. Though the water ran swiftly, it was clear and peaceful, nothing like the thunderous violence of the falls.
Looking at the lands untouched by man, I imagined a time when people might have traveled this river without a map. What a shock it must have been to anyone traveling this river without knowing about the falls up ahead.
To my surprise, Hunter took off his shoes and waded into the river.
He turned back, a grin on his face. “Come in.”
“What? No.”
“It’s a little chilly but you’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t do rivers. Or…nature.” That was mostly because I’d never been around rivers…or nature, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. No doubt he’d mock me.
“You don’t do rivers, but you want to see Niagara Falls.”
“I wasn’t planning on swimming in it.”
He made a skeptical sound. “Yeah, because they wouldn’t let you anyway. This is better.”
I shook my head. “Freezing to death. Falling to my death. No, thank you.”
“I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
“Oh good, because I trust you completely.”
At that, he laughed. “Just try it out. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
I scowled. “What are you, a motivational speaker?”
“In another life, yes. Come on. If you don’t like it, you can get back out.”
Oh fine. I toed off my shoes beside his on the dry, sandy bank. The first touch of water sent a shock up my spine, and I gasped. But I forced myself all the way inside, both fearful and excited of the strange feeling of cool water threading between my toes. The current was much stronger than it looked from the surface. It felt like it was pulling me along with it, and I had to fight just to stand still. The rocks beneath my feet were smooth and slippery.
Exhilarated, I stood in the middle of the river and looked around at the trees and fog-frosted mountains. I’d seen all of this before from just ten feet away on the bank, but it was different here. Now I was immersed, experiencing the sights as well as seeing them.
A smile of wonder crept over my face. Hunter grinned back at me, suddenly looking boyish.
“Well?” he asked.
“Not bad.”
“Hah. You love it.”
“Okay, I hate you five percent less.”
He rolled his eyes and turned to walk in the direction of the current. “Come on, let’s go.”
“Wait, where are you going?”
“I thought you wanted to see the waterfall.”
“Uh, yeah. See it. Not fall to my death in it.”
“You’re not going to die.”
“I know, because I’m not going over there.”
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ll meet you back at the truck.”
“No, wait. Okay, I’m coming.”
I followed him through the river, feeling nervous but excited. I was walking through a river in a secluded park toward a waterfall. I was doing this. And I never would have done so without Hunter. I put that thought aside and focused on my steps. I slipped off a particularly rounded rock, and Hunter reached back to steady me.
“You good?” he asked, breathless. His eyes shone with excitement too. I’d never seen him so alive, so intense except when we had sex. In a way these were both carnal things, to roam and to fuck. He was a carnal man, one who found pleasure in doing and living and being. It radiated from him, and I absorbed his enthusiasm by osmosis.
No more attitude, I told myself. Not today. Just enjoy this.
“I’m good,” I said, grinning.
When we reached the edge, I looked down at the rush in awe. I couldn’t see the bottom, just the white, glittery mist a few feet down. But farther along I could see the river continue, calm again. I felt powerful, as if the water running past my shins were channeled through me.
“Crazy,” I said, not taking my eyes off the panoramic view.
“Crazy,” he agreed. “And now we jump.”
My heart sank. “I thought you were joking about that.”
“I never joke about extreme sports,” he said solemnly.
That tugged a smile out of me. I wished he weren’t so endearing when he wasn’t terrorizing me. I looked down at the waterfall again. Not that far. Definitely the kind of thing someone could survive—just not me.
“Evie,” he said in a cajoling tone. “It’s amazing. Trust me.”
“I don’t trust you,” I said automatically, knowing it to be a lie.
“It feels like flying.”
“Not very well, I guess, since you fall.”
“Yeah, but first you soar.”
Just enjoy this. “I can’t swim.”
He was surprised. “Not at all?”
“I have some vague memories of swimming at the Y as a kid. Nothing recent.”
“Well, I’m glad you told me that before I pushed you.”
My eyes widened. “You’re not serious.”
He shrugged. Damn, he had a good poker face. I couldn’t tell if he’d been joking.
“Look,” he said. “You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but it’d be fun. I think you’d like it.”
His strai
ghtforward words cut through the fear that held me back. Yes, it would be fun. Yes, I’d like it. This was exactly the kind of thing I’d wanted to do but never had the means or the courage to actually do. Now, with Hunter, anything was possible.
“Let’s do this,” I said, feeling terrified and wondrous. “Count of three?”
He thought for a second. “Let me go down first. It’ll be easier for me to help you if you need me to if I’m not also under water.”
“Okay. Right.” God, this was crazy. I was crazy.
“Just hold your breath before you go under, and then kick your way to the top. I’ll take it from there.”
I nodded, unable to speak.
He leaned forward, almost there.
“Wait.”
He looked back. “Cold feet?”
“No, just…is this legal?”
He laughed. “Fuck no.”
Then he jumped, sending a shout that echoed through the trees around us. He disappeared into the mist, and then I heard a splash directly beneath us. A few seconds later, his head emerged farther away from the falls, hair darkened by the water and glistening.
“Come on, sunshine.” The words were indistinct, but I could read them on his lips.
Oh shit. No, no, no. What if I died? What if we were caught? Which was a stupid thing to worry about, all things considered, but my good-girl tendencies had been well drilled into me.
But the thing that decided me was that I couldn’t not do it. I couldn’t walk away from this challenge, from this chance to finally live.
To soar.
I jumped.
I understood what he’d meant about flying. It felt like the air caught me and lifted me even as I drew ever closer to the shore. My vision was suffused with white spray, as if I were bursting through a cloud. The water came up impossibly fast and yet slow enough to watch with wonder. I sucked in a breath and plunged under water. For a second, I panicked—can’t breathe, can’t move. But then I righted myself and found my bearings. A few strong kicks carried me to the surface.
Hunter was right there waiting for me. He must have swum closer to me while I’d fallen. He grabbed me to him, laughing.
“You did it, sunshine. I’m so proud of you.”
I wiped the water from my eyes, laughing too. “You didn’t think I would.”
“Nope, not even a little. You proved me wrong, though.”
I looked around, awareness returning to me. “We’re…”
“Underneath the falls,” he confirmed.
I wasn’t sure where exactly I’d fallen—maybe directly in the stream—but he’d drifted us behind the falls. There was a large cavern here between the curtain of water and the rockface that held them up. A steady stream of water pattered on my face, loose spray from the falls.
I became aware of his body, too. The weight of him, the heft as he supported me in the water. The hands that clasped my waist. Neither of us had removed our clothing and though my light sundress was comfortable enough for swimming, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt.
“You’re a little bit crazy, you know that?”
He grinned. “Just a little? I’ll have to work harder.”
His words tumbled into place in my mind, solving a riddle I already understood. He wanted to be this way, crazy and mean and awful. But he wasn’t really. It was a struggle for him as much as I had struggled to be a good little girl in that house. A role we had to fill to keep someone else happy, except what made him think he should be this way? Someone, somewhere had forged Hunter in fire and although it didn’t absolve him of his sins, I was more than ever curious about who.
Droplets hung on his eyelashes, on the coarse, stubble-covered skin of his face.
Just enjoy this.
I leaned forward and kissed him—right on his nose. A little silly maybe, but he didn’t laugh. He looked startled first, then his eyes darkened. He held me still, steadily kicking to keep us afloat. But he made no move to pull away or to initiate another kiss. Just holding steady for my exploration, if I wished to continue, and I did.
His eyelids, his forehead, the rough cheeks and much softer lips. I stayed there, sending small kisses along his mouth, from one corner to the other and then back again. It was a thank you for bringing me here, for convincing me to do this. More than that, the jump had given me permission to do this thing I’d wanted, to kiss a beautiful man who held me. One who seemed to want me but was unable to express it except in the harshest of ways.
“What next?” I whispered, expecting him to do something obscene and maybe painful. For the first time, I thought I’d welcome it. It was crazy, but so was this.
His lips curved knowingly, as if he guessed the direction of my thoughts.
He raised his eyebrow. “Wanna jump again?”
And I did. We jumped five more times until we were both exhausted from the swimming and the climb. Still in our wet clothes, we sprawled out under a tree at the base of the waterfall, letting the steady hum of it lull us into a half-sleep.
“One question,” he murmured. “I see them in your eyes all the time. I’ll answer one question.”
A million sprang to mind. What made you this way? When will you let me go? But one stood out.
“How many others?” I asked.
Beside me, he tensed.
Minutes passed and lengthened. I might have drifted off and then returned.
Finally he said, “You were the first. The only one.”
I sat up. “What about your conviction?”
“You asked me once if I did it. I didn’t.” He shrugged where he lay, eyes on the sky. “Believe me or not. It’s your choice.”
I had no reason to believe him, and we both knew it. A court of law had found him guilty. And I knew how he’d been with me, so it stood to reason he could have done this to another girl—countless girls. Sometimes that bothered me more than what he’d done to me. I really had nowhere better to be. I was already broken in countless ways. And after today? I felt a strange and twisted kind of gratitude for what he’d done. But to imagine another girl made helpless turned my stomach.
And he said it had never happened. I was the first. I was the only.
I believed him.
He laughed, so bitterly that goose bumps raised on my chilled skin. “I told myself I was getting what I’d already paid for. They locked me up for it, so I might as well do the crime, right?”
I was silent.
He spoke in a raw kind of horror, like a man desperate, a man divided. “But the truth was, I just wanted you. I saw you looking at the sunrise, and I wanted to have that. To have you. So I took you. I knew full well how wrong it was, and I did it anyway. And the most fucked up part about it all is that I still don’t regret it. No remorse. Really fucking crazy, right?”
Yeah. It was pretty crazy. And terribly sad. My heart ached for him, for me, for this crazy, messed-up world where we were enemies when we could have been friends.
“Wanna jump again?” I asked softly.
He turned to me, incredulous.
“I think I’ve got the hang of the landing now. We can jump together.”
He answered slowly. “Yeah. I’d like that, sunshine.”
Chapter Ten
‡
Niagara is a Native American word for “Thundering water”.
A woman stood in front of a wide porch. She was obviously pregnant, her belly rounded beneath the loose pink sundress and her hands supporting her back. A young boy rode a tricycle in circles on the gravel driveway. There were no other houses in sight, just a line of trees and then open grassy land.
The peacefulness of the scene took my breath away. It was like a living portrait, something I’d only imagined but never experienced. My heart began to pound as we pulled up close. What did it mean? What would he do?
My mind spun all kinds of horrible scenarios. Robbery and hostage situations. I silently vowed not to let him hurt the woman or her child, though I had no idea how I could accomplish that.
<
br /> She didn’t seem concerned that an eighteen-wheeler was pulling off the road onto the grassy area in front of her fence. Run, I thought. Get yourself and your kid inside and lock the door. But she stood there, shielding her eyes from the sun with her hand. Then she waved. Actually waved her hand in greeting though she still didn’t move from her spot.
Then another idea came to me. Was she possibly…his wife? Or girlfriend? Was that his child? And as messed up as everything had been, it somehow offended me worst of all, the idea that he would bring some random girl home to his family.
Anger bubbled up inside me, warring with the helplessness. “Who are these people?” I asked.
He finished shutting off the engine. “Friends.”
I narrowed my eyes. “That’s not your kid?”
His eyes widened. “I don’t have any kids. I wouldn’t be driving around the country if I had a son waiting somewhere.”
“Oh right, because you’re a pillar of morality.”
The words slipped out with a dry humor before I’d thought them through. He stared at me for a moment, clearly as shocked as I was. My heart beat a worried tattoo. What had I done?
He threw back his head and laughed. “Jesus. You’re a troublemaker, you know that?”
“I’m really not,” I said sadly.
If I had been rebellious, I never would have stayed holed up at home for so long. And I would have fought harder against him all this time. What did it say about me that I hadn’t? Clearly I was too weak to stand up for myself.
Or I secretly thought I deserved it, but that was even more disturbing.
“Come on,” he said. “You’ll like them.”
He opened his door and started to climb down from the cab.
“Wait.”
He turned back.
“You aren’t going to hurt them, are you?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “No. I understand you have no reason to believe me when I say that, but I’d die before I hurt my friends.”
I believed him. The words settled into place inside me like a jigsaw piece. Sometimes it felt like that, like he was a puzzle and I had to search for every piece to put him back together again. He wouldn’t hurt them because they were his friends—I trusted that. What would it take for me to become his friend?
Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire Page 61