“Is that it? You think I’ll hate you if I know who you really are?” I replied our faces inches apart.
“You should…”
“I won’t. No matter what you tell me…I won’t.”
His eyes dropped, “You can’t know that.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t know what I’ve done,” he said closing his eyes and taking a deep breath his hand still tight over mine, “I don’t even know why I’ve done the things I’ve done. I’ve done them because I was told to. I could have killed you…”
“But you didn’t Hunter. It shows that you are still a good person. I don’t understand these wars…or what they are about--” I began.
“I wish I could explain to you what they are about, but I can’t because I don’t know. My father and your father shared the same opinion about whatever happened—that forming a tribe, and their own personal armies was the only way to stay safe—to keep what they thought was theirs,” Hunter sighed, “but I never had to go along with it…I should never have gone along with it.”
“You’re a victim of these wars. You did what you had to do. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done Hunter. You are who you are,” I reassured him as my heart raced It felt as though our bodies were magnetically charged, reaching for each other subconsciously.
“Being a victim is only an excuse that we use to justify our own cruel actions. I’m a beast, Kate. Everyone sees it but you,” his eyes searched mine for a realization that would never come.
“Hunter, you’re not a beast, and I will never be able to see you that way no matter what you tell me,” I clarified, my breath catching in my throat and the words coming out breathless.
“Why?”
I bit my lip and looked away, “You’ll never understand what you saved me from.”
“I could Kate, if you would only let me in,” he pushed, and our eyes met again as his other hand went to my face. I jumped away before the heat of his palm could set in, as I heard the basement door open.
“Did I interrupt something?” Collin asked, his glasses rising as he looked between Hunter and I.
“Err…no, not at all,” Hunter answered, his voice deepening.
“Right, well Kate here is some spare clothes for you. It’s nothing special, my wife is a graphic tee and jeans only type of gal,” he explained, handing me the stack of clothes.
“As long as it’s clean I really don’t care,” I responded with a smile, but my heart still seemed to be in my throat.
“Collin, you forgot the under garments I have for her,” Victoria announced, coming down the stairs, “No doubt you did it on purpose because you’re afraid to touch them even though you have no problem taking them off me.”
“Well, this just went from embarrassing to mortifying,” Collin commented, his arms crossed in discomfort.
“What do you mean?” she questioned before seeing how close Hunter and I still were, “Oh, well, we, we’re going to make some dinner and be back down in a little bit. Feel free to clean those clothes you have from the trip Hunter. You know where the spare clothes we have for you are. We don’t usually have women come so that’s why I had to get you some of my clothes Kate. Good thing we’re the same size,” she said, and Collin nudged her, “Right—yes, dinner. I bet you’re starving. I’ll get on that. Help me Collin?”
He nodded his head and followed her up the stairs. Hunter was already lifting a floor board and taking out boxers and a pair of clean jeans. He looked up at me as if our conversation had never happened, and it felt as though my heart was a baseball he had just slammed a home run with straight out of my chest.
“There’s a shower in there. Do you want to go first or should I?” he asked.
“You’re half undressed anyways, so you can go first,” I snapped, walking over to the bed and laying on it. I was angry that he would act as if nothing had just happened.
“Kate,” Hunter said as he opened the door to the bathroom. I looked over my shoulder, “Why won’t you talk about yourself?”
“There’s nothing much to say.”
His lips pursed in a solid line, “There was nothing much for me to say, and I still said it because I knew you wanted to hear it.”
“You haven’t asked any questions that I haven’t answered.”
“If you say so,” he replied, turning into the bathroom and shutting the door.
Chapter 10
I was beginning to understand how Sara had felt when I gave her the silent treatment on the days that we were each other’s only companions. I was irritated, but I knew I had pressed too many buttons in one conversation. He was right, he was telling me everything he knew, exposing himself, when I wasn’t doing the same. The truth was as simple as I had said it was. There wasn’t much to say. I had thought my family was normal, that despite my disagreements with my father about world history and science and just about everything else, that he was just protecting us. I had thought my family loved me. I had thought a lot of things that I was starting to see weren’t true. I didn’t want to talk about it. Hunter already knew the things that weren’t true, so why did he want me to reiterate it to him? To tell him how betrayed I felt when I knew it was written all over my face when he asked me about them.
“So how long will we stay here?” I finally asked, looking at Hunter sitting on the other side of the couch as far away from me as possible.
“Another day at the most,” he answered, still staring into the fire place.
“So why did you pack everything already?” I observed, looking at the backpacks, one beaten up, and one new.
“Just in case,” a squealing buzzer filled the room cutting him off, “Shit.”
“Can’t everyone in the county hear that?” I shouted as Hunter lunged across the room and grabbed the bags.
“Sound proof walls,” he answered, slipping his bag over his shoulders and grabbing my hand.
“What’s going on?”
“Just in case just happened. We need to leave now—hunters are here,” he pulled at something in the floor that I couldn’t see. The opened floor had revealed a dark tunnel, and he pulled me into it with him. I struggled to stay upright as I ran behind him with all my senses prickling in the dark. We sprinted for what seemed like at least a mile before Hunter stopped and pushed at the ceiling above us. The setting sun streamed in through the opening and he dropped my hand before somehow managing to jump up out of the hole. His hand grabbed me and pulled me up before I could comprehend what was going on.
“Someone found us?” I mumbled, finding my voice as I watched him rushing to cover the hatch we had escaped from.
“Yes, now don’t act so naive. Let’s go,” he ordered, grabbing my hand again and dragging me behind him. He stopped and looked over his shoulder after only a minute, “Shit, we need to hide.”
“Up in a tree again?” I suggested as I strained to hear something that he could, but I couldn’t.
“Fine,” he snapped, beginning to scale the one in front of us. I followed suit and we sat huddled in the crook of a tree waiting for our hunters to pass.
“What the hell,” Hunter muttered in a voice I almost didn’t hear, but the shock it held was scary to me. When my head turned to look at the three people standing in the clearing the fear that filled me was strange. The three people standing there were all people I knew.
“Look up in the trees,” Trevor commanded the group.
My own family was hunting me down. I had suddenly become their prey. My whole body went numb with the thought. I knew it was true because Trevor didn’t look like he was trying to save anyone. He looked like he was on a witch hunt.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Hunter observed, and his voice level and clear again, “I thought you said they wouldn’t come after you?”
“I didn’t think they would.”
“I’m starting to think I know your family better than you do,” Hunter commented, and all I could do was shake my head in disbelief, “New plan, I drop down an
d surprise them and you run as far away as you can that way,” He pointed in the opposite direction, “ Now go—I’ll find you.”
“Promise?”
He smiled and dropped down on Paul’s head. The commotion that ensued was loud enough that I was able to get down and run without being seen. I kept running in the direction that Hunter pointed as my ears strained against the sounds of my own feet. It wasn’t long before I could hear someone sprinting behind me and when I glanced over my shoulder my eyes met Trevor’s. The look in his dull brown eyes was not one of finding the person he loved alive. The look disoriented me enough that I was sent tumbling to the ground.
“That was easier than I thought it would be,” Trevor remarked, coming to stand above me with a gun pointed at my head.
“What are you doing?” I questioned, trying to catch my breath with the gun between my eyes.
“Finding you, of course.”
“You found me now why do you have a gun pointed at my head?” I insisted, balling my fists up to punch him. I knew the answer.
He cocked his head, and a cruel smile came over his face, “You didn’t know I was a hunter? You act so innocent, but we know you’re not Kate. So what did you tell the general about us? Mhmm?” he demanded, and when I didn’t respond he turned the gun and slammed my head with the butt, “Tell me, damn it.”
“Nothing, I told him nothing because I know nothing.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t know what your dad was doing?” he leaned down to my level, “He’s the one that sent us after you because he knows you know. How could you not? The way you acted made it obvious that you didn’t believe the stories,” he said, grinding the cool metal of the guns tip into my temple.
“I don’t understand,” I hyperventilated as blood began to run down my forehead, “my dad sent you?”
“To see if you were still alive.”
“And?”
“To kill you if you were,” Trevor’s voice was cold.
“My father?” I repeated, the tears of realization brimming at my eyes, “How could he order his own daughter to be killed?”
“You’re useless to us alive and useless to us dead, but at least when you’re dead you can’t talk,” Trevor explained, his finger moving on the trigger.
His words had immobilized me. I couldn’t fight him if I tried. I closed my eyes only hoping Hunter would be in Heaven with me and if not that I’d go to Hell with him. He had been my only ally, my only source of the truth. A shot echoed through the air, and I heard the thump of a body hitting the ground, but it wasn’t mine. When I opened my eyes Hunter was pulling me into his arms, and Trevor was lying with his eyes open and unseeing.
Neither of us said anything as Hunter ran into the darkening forest and silent tears streamed down my face onto his chest. When he stopped he let my feet down gently onto the ground, and I stood staring at my feet.
“Kate?”
“My father…my own father,” I shook my head as the tears thickened in the silence of the night.
Hunter wrapped his arms around me and smoothed my hair, “You really didn’t know what they were doing, did you?”
“Nothing, I saw nothing. I understood nothing,” I choked.
“They thought you knew though?” he asked into my hair.
“I guess so,” I said, pulling away and looking up into his face, “I knew there was something strange going on. I knew the stories weren’t true. I knew my father wasn’t an honest man, but…”
“He could have been lying Kate. I’m sure your father didn’t order you to be killed,” he tried to comfort me, his forehead furrowed with lines of worry and stress.
“He did. I know he did. Trevor would never have done that without orders,” I replied, swallowing back tears.
“He was a hunter—they have minds of their own.”
“You saw him, he was weak. Do you really think he wanted to find you?” I shook my head, “He knew he was going to die either way. I could see it in his eyes. He just needed to kill me first.”
Hunter looked at me unable to answer because he knew I was right.
Chapter 11
We were huddled in a cave as the rain came pelting down around us, and I felt emptier than I had ever thought was possible. Hunter had remained silent while he found us shelter, created a fire, and handed me a pop tart to eat. He didn’t feel like hunting, and I didn’t feel like eating, so the silence was filled with chewing and then the chattering of my teeth.
“You’re cold again?” Hunter asked, “Or is it something else?”
“Does it matter either way?” I replied.
He looked through the fire before reaching into his bag and pulling out a blanket. He didn’t say anything as he pulled me into him and wrapped the blanket around us.
“We thought we were from two different worlds,” he commented, his voice soft.
“But we lived in the same one. Which is crueler—knowing the world you live in is going to destroy you, or not knowing anything is going on?”
“I don’t know,” he replied, and we were both silent before he spoke again, “You’re a lot like me and yet so different.”
“That’s probably why you keep saving me,” I added, leaning my head back into his hard chest. He laughed lightly, and I couldn’t help but smile. The moment didn’t last. His body became tense, and I thought he might leap up and run away. I turned and looked at him, “What’s wrong?”
“I want to ask you something, but I know it’s a question I wouldn’t answer myself,” he answered, his eyes taking in my face.
“I might answer, you never know,” I said, turning back into his arm and placing my head on his chest again.
“What were you thinking when Trevor had that gun to your head?”
“That I was going to die,” I replied, sounding too sarcastic to actually cover up that I was thinking something much different.
“Well, I know that…but when you heard him start to pull the trigger your face changed. I watched it as I pulled the trigger on him,” he said, his body still tense against mine.
“I was thinking why the hell you hadn’t saved me yet.”
“Sure you were. That’s not what I saw in your face,” he noted as his body relaxed.
I turned to look at him again and our faces were barely an inch apart, “Then you know what I was thinking, so why are you asking?”
His Adam’s apple rose and fell before he answered, “Because I want to hear you say it.”
My heart was racing more than it had been when Trevor’s gun had been digging into my temple, “You already know,” I replied, my voice barely audible over the pounding rain. I could feel his breath on my skin, warm and sweet.
Lightning streaked across the sky and cracked making me jump and slam my head into the top of the cave.
“Wow,” Hunter stifled a laugh.
“This day sucks,” I complained, closing my eyes and grabbing my head with my hand.
“It really doesn’t suck all that much,” Hunter replied, pulling me back to lie in his arms. He kissed my head where the welt was beginning to form, “I’ll hold you tighter next time the lightning strikes that way you don’t jump out of your skin. You’re not scared of a gun pointed to your skull, but you have a heart attack because of a crack of lightning.”
“Shush,” I chastised, feeling how fast his heart was beating against my cheek. I could only wonder if he was scared of the lightning, or if he was feeling the same way I was. I wasn’t brave enough to test the theory and lean up and kiss him, but God I wanted to.
Chapter 12
The running that we were now constantly doing seemed a relevant juxtaposition to my whole life. With each step away from my past I realized that I had always been running from the truth. I hadn't asked the right questions, sure like Sara had said, I had argued, but about pointless things. Now as I flashed back over the past sixteen years of my life I tried to think of some sort of gap, something that would show what I had been missing. Somehow I couldn'
t find it. I did think that something had to have gone wrong more than they had led on for us to need to be protected, but this? The world was now run like the Wild West, guerilla warfare was the enforcement, and there was no safe place. It was obvious from the way Hunter fought that everyone needed to be skilled in fighting to survive—especially the men. The society was obviously patriarchal, so maybe that was why I had seen nothing. I wasn't meant to. I was supposed to do as I always had—read, study when my dad chose it to be the school year, do chores and look pretty. I wasn't really supposed to use my brain. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut. That was how I had made myself a target to them. I had wanted to use my brain. I had not wanted to be talked at—I had wanted to understand, and when my family has grown tired of my questions I had grown cold. I had grown silent until the rare occasion where I couldn’t hold back my thoughts anymore. I glanced over at Hunter and realized, although he had been molded far harsher than I had, he had become cold in the same fashion. My family had essentially given up on me, and I supposed that was because I was a girl, but Hunter had been broken and reshaped. I knew because he hadn't killed me that they hadn't truly tamed him. Inside Hunter was still who he had always been, and just like me, he had modified his exterior to be what they had wanted. Cold, unquestioning and subservient. In that instant anger began to rush over me at the thought. We were headed right towards those people. I would have to meet them and be what they wanted me to be—the same thing my family had wanted me to be. Sixteen years, and I knew I still hadn't learned, but then I hadn't realized it would get me killed. Now I knew that everything I said and did would be held against me. The worst thing was that we had to do what we hated the most to survive—lie. Drown in the lies. Breathe them like air. I took a deep breath and looked over at Hunter’s chiseled figure and haunting eyes. We had one thing that we hadn't had before—each other. At least we had that truth.
In Between Seasons (The Fall) Page 4