The Huntress Book 1 Memories

by Mihaela Gheorghe

  Without a word, he sits on a frozen stump. Only now I see that I am actually very cold. I hug myself and I wag from one foot to another. The silence that remains, allows me to relax. My thoughts are turning back to my Mom, wondering what I could do to help her out. I'm so steeped in my ideas, so absorbed by the worry that I do not hear him talking to me. I pluck my thoughtful eyes, heading them unhurriedly toward him.

  “What?”

  Dane looked at me. Apparently, he doesn’t even breathe, waiting for an answer that I probably have to return to his question.

  “Sorry! I was deep in thought. I have not heard what you asked me. Would you please repeat the question?”

  However, it was not a question, as he suddenly sharply said:

  “Be my lover!”

  It did not take me more than one jump to get up with dilated eyes. No more than a gesture to grab the cold and wet clothes, and just a few seconds to start running. I ran enough. The air is so frozen that I can barely breathe. It sticks in my nostrils. I instinctively looked over my shoulder to see if he followed me. I sigh, relieved when I see that he didn’t. So I’ll just see my way.

  Even under the threat of the weapon I wouldn't be able to stop my cry. The heavy clothes fall on the ground from my inert hands. Dane was very calm in front of me, a hand of his trapping my arm.

  “How... How did you manage to do that?” I babble.

  His orange, almost red lights in his eyes tell me that he's angry. He tightens his jaws.

  “I want to show you that it's pointless to run away from me.”

  His tone is literally a low growl. I shake my boots.

  “What... What are you?”

  My voice is not louder than a whisper.

  “Does it matter to you that much?”

  His tone has returned to normal now and he's more disappointed.

  “Does it really matter what I am?” He asks me again slowly. “I am something else. I am different. Does it matter what? A moment ago you were afraid of me!” he accuses me, though his voice is loaded with pain.

  “And I won’t deny it, but you have to admit and I had every reason in the world for that.”

  “Perhaps.” he admits quite cumbersome.

  I try to withdraw my arm from his grasp. He's too close. He stares deliberately.

  “You can get rid of me only if you specifically ask me, with your own mouth, to leave you alone and not see me again.” he tells me, stressing each word individually. “Is this what you really want?”

  The lump in my throat doesn't let me talk.

  “Tell me!” he insists. “Is this what you really want?”

  His tone is as if it has honey and poison. As it would suggest itself through the veil of my consciousness, through my brain interface, paralyzing my words. I cannot do anything but looking at him with dilated pupils. However, as he gets closer to me, I react instinctively and retire. In his golden eyes there almost glowing orange dots.

  “Just because I have the power to hurt you does not mean I'm gonna do it.” he tells me. “Just because I have certain desires does not mean that I cannot control them.” he adds mesmerizing. “Therefore, I want you to stop running away from me.”

  Then, of course I say the first thing that crosses my mind.

  “You said that I am the only human on the outside!” I accuse him. “That I am inside colder than winter!”

  “And how I am wrong?” he asks me. “What feelings you can have but of rejection of others around you? I understand to reject those who deny you, but you do that with everybody.”

  Then again, I get my mouth on.

  “You are older than you pretend to be.”

  It is not a question. It is a clear statement. It is a certainty. Dane looked at me concerned, and then he nods. Certainly I would be scared if I hadn't always known that somehow he was more mature than how he looks.

  “Does it matter?”

  “You ask me to do nothing matter.” I try to be sincere with him.

  “That's right.” he admits. “And I know that I ask too much, I'm aware of that. But can’t you just do it? Can’t you just pass over all this?”

  Surprisingly, the response came more quickly than I would have expected.

  “I can.”

  His eyes increase with pleasure, then their light goes out when I add:

  “I can make nothing matters, but I can't listen to you talking about the fact that you want me to be... Your girlfriend...”

  My voice breaks here and there.

  “Then you mean you do not want to see me anymore is that it?”

  “I never said such a thing!” I say quickly. “Of course I want to see you! You and Sky you are my only friends.”

  He moves always suddenly and he turns away from me.

  “I can't.” he says slowly. “I can't be just a friend. I can try, but I also know that I will fail. Because there will be other times, though, when my mouth will take before my thoughts, when my eyes will betray my feelings, and you'll get upset and you will run away from me again and again. And this is something that I don't think I can endure indefinitely. Because there will most certainly be times when I will see you with Sky and I will ask myself if you can devote to him other than to me, if you see other than you see me and I will hate it, because I’ll feel jealous of my brother as I have been every time I saw you two together before. Especially since I know that he cares about you too. I don't want to forbear this, to feel anything like that against my own brother”

  The pain in his voice impresses me.

  “It cannot be everything only the way you want.” he continues. “Things can’t be all-white or black only. Either poor or rich. Either man or beast. Either friend, or nothing.”

  Looking at his back, listening to his voice, I feel a nameless emotion passing through me.

  “But, perhaps, you and I, we are not so different from thinking," he added. “For that I, on the other hand, know that either you are my love, or can't you be anything at all. Because I couldn't bear it. Because if it comes time when you’ll have someone in your life, I don’t know if I can help myself not doing things… horrific, abject, irreparable things, monstrous...”

  His voice is lost in pain again. His grief reaches my heart.

  “Stop!” I cried. “Please, stop it! I don't know what you ask! I don't know what it means what you ask for!”

  “It means to spend your time with me, it means that when I come near to you, you don’t step away, that when I take your hand, you take mine back, not to withdraw it, it means that when I want to kiss you, you do not start yelling at me and argue, but let me do this, moreover, wanting me to do so...”

  “I can't! I cannot!”

  My voice is like a groan. I let my head down and I put my hands on my head. Suddenly, he's next to me, my head resting on his chest.

  “I can't!”

  And his voice is heard near my ear, like calming a child.

  “I know. But at least you try! I won't take liberties with you, I swear it. And I will never use force with you, I swear it too. You just try to care about me, that's all I ask. You just try you care. For I could not survive without it anymore...”

  I never in my life have heard someone telling me he could not survive without me. It is something that touches you, until it reaches the deepest of your depths. Tears began to flow without being able to stop them. A cold finger of his raises my chin and my face toward him. When he looks at me, it seems that he looks inside me.

  “Why tears?” he asks me quietly.

  “Because I cannot be how you want me to be; I can't do what you want me to do, but I can no longer be as I was until this moment.”

  “It means that you are going to try?”

  And hope is alive in his voice, a fact that breaks the last wall of my defense.

  “Yes, it means that I am going to try.”

  I only whispered these words. So slowly that no one would hear them. But I knew quite a lot now to know that he will hear.

&n
bsp; And yet, I didn't know anything. If I knew… If I would have left Sky to speak until the very end, maybe another would have been my fate, my destiny, would have been ours...

  With the same gestures as if quiet a baby, Dane's arms slowly wrapped around me. His embrace is cold. As the snow outside. As blood would not flow through his veins. Although frozen, though I emanate heat. I cannot stop making an odd comparison. He's warmer inside him it than I am in mine.

  “Does that make me your girlfriend?”

  I am joking now, and he seems quite pleased.

  “What really makes you my love, in the first place, is what I feel for you. You are my love, with or without your permission, because with or without it, I feel what I feel. That actually makes my your beloved.”

  He feels me straining myself.

  “I said I would try.” I say.

  “And I didn’t forget.” he says calmly, without letting go of me. “Then let's say… your attempt to have a boyfriend?”

  I laugh. He also laughs. It would be better if he would release me. But I just promised that I will try to be his girlfriend, and that means also to accept his hugs.

  “Should we go back to the river?” he asks.

  I'm thinking with concern about my mother. Then I wonder if Kyrya and Dom could help me in that respect. It's just a vagrant thought, which I so quickly through out of my mind that I forget about almost immediately. Because I have also thought with other occasions to go to them, and I did not.

  “We're going back.” I reply.

  And we returned back to the river. And we sat next to each other. And I had to refrain myself mightily not to withdraw whenever he was too close to me. I flinched a few times under his touches. They have never been rude. And his hand held my hand until, when he finally released it, it was as if I was missing something. As if his hand over mine became an extension of my own. And when he took it back, I didn’t flinch anymore. On the contrary, I was glad that he took it again. So I tightened it with a kind of joy. And yet, he felt any change in my moods. However, he realized, and he was smiling and reassuring, but with a shade of sadness, then he turned away from me, slowly.

  “Dane,” I slowly say. “I would like to tell you something about an incident with Director Watson…”

  I didn’t even know why I was willing to talk to him about that, when I never said anything to anybody. But I somehow felt the need to speak about that moment and I knew he was that right person I could talk to.

  It seemed to me that Dane holds his breath. Or perhaps he just stood motionless, as if not breathing at all. But the fact is that he had turned his head toward me suddenly, while his yellow look pierced me.

  “I know what you’re trying to say to me.”

  What he had just told me leaves me with bated breath. I stared at him, waiting in some explanations. But which do not come.

  "Well?” I say.

  “Well what?”

  “What do you mean, 'well what’? How... How do you know?”

  He is silent and he watches me carefully. I vaguely remember a window break while I was determined to kill the director as soon as I'd recovered from fainting.

  “You... You were the one who broke the window, right?”

  Now he's the one who's surprised.

  “I thought you were already unconscious.” he says softly. “What do you remember, exactly?”

  “Not much. I was half conscious when the window was in pieces, and I failed to see anything, apart from a vague silhouette, like a shadow. Then I woke up by the river.”

  I know I should not ask anything, but I cannot help myself.

  “Were you… Were you the animal that supposedly would have attacked Watson?”

  Dane stiffens next to me.

  “Yes, I was the animal.”

  His voice is as tough as it is broken. I instinctively took his hand.

  “Excuse me, I did not mean it like that, I swear. In fact, I am very grateful for everything you've done.”

  He relaxes slightly, but he still remains rigid. We remain both silent for quite a while.

  “That's it? You don’t ask me anything else?”

  He was the first who broke the silence. I turn my head back towards him, before I respond.

  “I understood you do not like to be asked about these things, all these supernatural abilities that you and your brother have. So if you want to tell me more, fine, if not, then don’t. It’s that simple.”

  “Are you for real?”

  He makes me laugh with his question.

  “Why say that? God forbid. I am quite real.

  “Indeed, but it's hard to believe that you're so... Incredible.”

  “Come on, don't say that! I am being dreadfully dull.”

  He puts a finger on my lips as to stop my words. As though he would put a piece of ice. As a matter of fact, I must admit that I am terribly curious about him and what he is. Because it's very obvious that he has some amazing skills. As in half animal, and half human. Because now I am convinced that sometimes, when he looks at me in a certain way, it I as if he would actually consume me, he would actually delve me. I get a chill. If I was to try to run away from him I would have no chance. So I make my guts again to ask the next question.

  “You wouldn’t hurt me, would you?”

  He scans me with his gaze. It's careful and at the same time saddened. He shook his head.

  “I’ve told you that you have a special ability to read people’s eyes. I'm sorry for every time you've seen it in my eyes. And I'm sorry for every time you will see that in me. For that you will see it. But I swear to you that I am to die first, before do to you in the slightest harm. I swear it!”

  His voice gets passionate accents. It is impossible not to believe him.

  “You do believe me, don’t you?”

  And the humility in his voice almost pains me.

  “Of course I do.”

  Then, we both relaxed, gradually. Then of course my mouth begins to speak for itself.

  “That’s why Sky said that you also know hunger, right?”

  Dane does not pretend he did not know what I mean. He sighs before speaking.

  “Although we hate it, there were still certain instincts which we are not supposed to have and that we are trying to reject. You’re in less danger with Sky. Not that you would be in danger with me.” he hastens to add.

  He entangles himself in his own words. It's for the first time when I see him abashed

  “As a matter of fact, I admit that I can be a danger to you, although this is the last thing that I’d recognize.”

  I am well aware that he was making a special effort to tell me anything of the sort. It was odd, but instead of being frightened, I am rather satisfied with his sincerity. I get closer to him. He is surprised, but pleased.

  “And... Is your whole family the same?”

  He nods again, approvingly. As if he would be ashamed. What makes me think that we might be a little alike. We both know what shame is.

  “I'm sure your family is all wonderful people.”

  And I really mean that, although I can hardly call them people. Supernatural people, perhaps. He tightens his arm on my waist, almost taking my breath away.

  “Wow!” I joke. “That's a grip!”

  I slightly withdraw. He keeps me too close and too tight. He weakens the grip, but he doesn’t release me. My pulse rate is slightly more hectic. I like it and I dislike it both his closeness.

  “Did I scare you?” He asks me.

  “No, not at all.”

  “I see…”

  But I know that he understands, but half. Because his tone is slightly disappointed now. Because what he understood is the fact that I don't like his embraces. And it's true, in an unrealistic way, because at the same time, I do like it.

  It was dark already. The frost from earlier has intensified worse. I shiver.

  “You better take my jacket.” he sighs. “I am sorry that I am not a source of heat.”

 
; “Don't worry.” I smile at him. “What about you? You I won't be cold?”

  This time he laughs.

  “Not at all.”

  However, instead of accepting his coat, I stand.

  “Anyway, I got to go.”

  Dane sighs, but he doesn’t insist for me to stay longer.

  “Do you want me to take you home?” he asked hopefully.

  “No! God forbid such a thing!”

  My too vehemently answer disconcerted him.

  “You don’t have to take me home.” I say a little quieter. “Thanks, but I know my way with my eyes closed.”

  “It's not that you do not know it, just that ... I wanted to stay with you.”

  I look blank at him.

  “Well... Then I guess I'll see tomorrow.” I add a little uneasy.

  Dane is clearing up again. His dimples appear again.

  “Are you sure? Do you promise?”

  “Sure I promise.”

  “Then I'll see tomorrow.”

  “Sure thing.”

  I take my pile of clothes. I try to go away, but he holds my arm. His eyes shine.

  “I just wish you could really understand what you mean to me…” he says slowly and hoarsely. “I really wish you could perceive how you make me feel when you're with me, and how I despair when you're not. Because the shortest time without you, it’s true agony for me.”

  The fire I feel his words scares me a little.

  “Come on, Dane, as I said, we are only kids! Things cannot be that serious!”

  “It is also the reason why I try so hard to leave you free yet.” he says again. “Because I know you're still a child, a child, but who’s not a kid anymore. That's why I can’t tell you more than you already know. And perhaps I'll never tell you. For that I would prefer a thousand times that you look at me just like at a simple comrade, no matter how hard it might be for me, than to see that you could watch with terror, with disgust, with hostility...”

  “That will never happen!” I assure him.