The Huntress Book 1 Memories (9 page)

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.

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?”