Horns and Halos, page 15
“You weren’t hiding it very well.”
“I thought that I was,” I muttered. “When did you suspect that I had a pact with a devil?”
“The day you fell in the river. You were in the center of the stream one minute and on the bank the next. I suspected then that you had ... something keeping you safe.”
“I don’t understand. Aren’t you mad at me? Aren’t you scared of me?”
“I think I’d be more scared of you if you hadn’t made a deal with one, Sia. You did what you needed to—what we all have needed to do—in order to survive in this twisted world that we live in. Why on Earth would I be mad at you for that?”
“Because you have no idea what kind of deal I’ve made or whether or not you’re even safe around me.”
He stared at me, but his eyes looked past everything that rested on the outside. “Tell me a place that I was safe at since you met me.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. In our world ... was anywhere safe? Sighing, I hugged myself a little harder and shook my head. I didn’t know what else to say, so I chose silence.
“I won’t ask you about your deal, okay?”
I blinked, looking at him as I asked, “You won’t?”
He shook his head and went back to the pot and used the edge of his shirt to grab the hot spoon out of it. “Nah. Just promise me you won’t ditch me or feed me to it, okay?”
Slowly, I forced a smile and nodded. “Right, it’s a deal,” I said, but even I could tell that it lacked conviction.
After we ate, Elijah remembered that he never got water last night from the river because he had been attacked. We didn’t want to be caught out in the desert without something to drink, so he ran off to fill up our canteens by himself even though I offered to help. When he was a good distance away, I stopped breaking down camp and scanned the area. My eyes searched for those detestable white robes.
“Come out!” I yelled angrily.
There was a loud sigh, like someone being woken from their nap in the most disturbing of ways. It came from the trees where, once again, the devil was lounging in their branches, escaping the rays of the sun.
“There’s no need to shout,” Draki informed.
I felt rage bubble inside me. “You knew! You knew he would find out!”
“Of course, I knew. I’m not stupid.”
“Why? Why did you make things harder for me?” I whined with pepper gracing my tone.
He rose from his slouch, jumped down from the tree, and was on me in a flash. Things like him shouldn’t be able to move that fast. I wasn’t ready. His fingers wrapped around my throat like a fiery rope, and he pulled me dangerously close. “Because I like watching you suffer, Sia,” he snarled in my face. The smell of swirling spice and smoke tinged my nostrils. I felt some of my courage drain from me for a second before I regained my composure.
“What did you think your stunt would do? Turn him away from me? Make him run away before I woke up?”
“Would you miss him?” he asked with a mocking pout.
“You’d miss him more than I would,” I growled, my voice dropping in pitch.
He scoffed and let go of my neck. “I think you have it twisted, my dear. I wasn’t trying to turn him away at all.”
I laughed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Oh really? Then what were you trying to do?”
“Try?” The grin on his face stole every bit of my arrogance. “I executed my plan perfectly. I just wanted him to bond with you. Now you two have a secret together. Now you have another thing drawing you closer to one another.” He chuckled softly. “Oh, the webs we weave.” Each word was uttered slowly and then—in a plume of red smoke—he vanished, leaving only his scornful laughter behind. “Ahahahaha!”
I was left alone with my thoughts, and I hated every single one of them.
Our camp was broken down and packed up before Elijah came back from the river. By the time he had returned, I had even doused the flames in heaps of rocky sand and with the remaining soup from the pot. It sucked wasting all of it, but we couldn’t take it with us.
We loaded up and headed out. I wasn’t sure where the next village was, but if we followed the mountains that hugged the river, we were bound to run into another one sooner or later.
After several hours of walking, we paused for a water break. Our bags were dropped into the dirt, and we stretched our backs with groans as we rubbed our sore spots. We had a little cornbread while we spoke about our options. All the while, my eyes scanned the base of the mountains.
I exhaled forcefully and wiped the sweat that had collected on my brow, although it was a useless act. “Nothing looks good around here that I can see.” I could hear the disappointment in my own voice.
Elijah shook his head after scoping out the terrain without any luck. “We can’t hit the jackpot every time. Looks like we are going to be sleeping with no shelter tonight.”
He was right. I didn’t like it. I didn’t have to worry much because I had Draki, but the devil had made it abundantly clear that he wasn’t going to go out of his way to keep Elijah safe. Not unless I ... Instantly, I shook the potential thought out of my head. It wasn’t an option. I refused to let it be one.
“Vulnerable under the stars,” I said softly.
Looking over to me, he gave a faint smile, saying, “It would almost sound perfect if I didn’t know that we were closer to death doing so rather than the romantic evening one would think.”
I scoffed and held a hand over my heart, like every pump of the muscle was causing me pain. “There isn’t anything romantic about it,” I grumbled, picking back up my bags.
He followed suit saying, “Could be.” He smirked with a wink as he passed me by.
Why did I like that?
We trudged on a little further and stopped when our bodies couldn’t keep going. The bags were heavy and our backs and arms were aching too much to press on. The sun wasn’t helping as the heat bore down on us, making the straps slip and callus our hands or rub our shoulders raw even with the clothing covering us. Plus, last night’s escapades did us no favors in the energy department today. We were suffering quite a bit from it.
“I’ll get the firewood,” Elijah proclaimed.
“Okay. I’ll get the camp ready, then.”
We separated to handle our respective jobs.
Chapter 14:
Lose to Me
Returning a few hours later, Elijah and I sat down around the pile of sticks as I tried to light the fire. He blew on the flames while I broke a few twigs. The sunset was beautiful. It was a display of yellows and pinks that painted the sky in a brilliant masterpiece of warm-tinted hues. We watched in silence as the colors faded into deeper shades while the sun slipped from our sight.
“Do you think we’ll be attacked again tonight?” Elijah asked.
Shrugging my shoulders, I replied honestly with, “I’m not sure. Nothing is for certain when we’re beyond the safety of the villages.”
“Nothing is safe in a village either,” he muttered, leaning back onto the rocks.
“My village was.”
He cut me a look. “If that were true, you wouldn’t have been exiled and forced to make a deal with a devil.”
“I wasn’t exiled,” I muttered pitifully.
“Sacrificed, then,” he harshly corrected.
He had a point. I sighed, drew my legs up to my chest, and lay my head on my knees. “Yeah. I was. I suppose you’re right.” I just didn’t want to believe that what I had called home for so long was lumped in with every other danger of our world. I could feel him watching me as I stared at the fire, but we didn’t say anything to each other.
After a moment of silence, he asked, “What was your village like?”
“Hmmm?”
“You saw my village. What was yours like? I’m curious.”
“Oh.” I looked back to the fire and thought about how to describe it. I remembered the front gates. I pushed past the memory of them closing with me standing on the outside of them. I shut my eyes and leaned back on the rocks, listening to them shift under the weight of my body as I mentally walked the streets of the place I had grown up in. I drew in a long, shaky breath and released it slowly as I tried to calm my emotions.
“We weren’t in a situation like you were. Our sacrifices were silent and buried under the illusion of a normal life.” Opening my eyes, I scanned the brilliant splay of stars that twinkled overhead. “We all helped each other and would hold elaborate feasts at the turn of every season.” I smiled, remembering the way we would pass down all the different dishes while talking and laughing and sharing things we had done that day. It was a bittersweet rush of memories, and I let a few tears slide down my cheek before I wiped them away with a short sniff.
“That’s not at all what I would expect from a village with a devil pact,” Elijah said in amazement.
I laughed. “Well, I mean ... we lie to everyone, saying that one lucky person is chosen to leave the village and join another, but there aren’t any travelers that come to get you. It’s a lie. You are tossed out and left to die. Never able to return.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“Do you get to say goodbye?”
There was a pause as I realized that he didn’t get to say goodbye to his parents. I was lucky. Just looking at how his life had been, I felt horrible for having a good life up until a week ago. Everything I had been through after that pushed me to make a deal with a devil and lie at every turn. Honestly, I felt like he had a lot more to be sour about in comparison to me. My hardships were nothing to scoff at ... but I had been lucky despite all of my pain. It made me realize how cold I must have come across to him as. I didn’t need to be that guarded, did I?
I nodded as I said, “Yeah. I got to say goodbye.” It was whispered sweetly, and I even had a smile to match it.
“That’s good.” He sat up and tossed a piece of wood on the fire.
I sat up too. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “At least I fulfilled their dying wish. I’m free.”
Watching him, I felt the question gnaw at me. “What are you going to do?”
“Hmmm?”
I rocked back and forth holding my knees. “Ya know. Now that you’re not bound by your village’s devil. What do you plan to do?”
He shook his head. “I honestly haven’t really stopped to think about it in depth.”
“You haven’t?”
“Nah. Being chased down after your parents sacrificed themselves for your freedom, being attacked by a soldier, and worrying about if I’m going to die out here has sort of shoved all those thoughts away.”
I understood that. “Yeah. It can put future planning on hold.”
“Oh, yeah,” he said with a chuckle.
I laughed along with him.
He must have sensed it before me because he suddenly dove across the little space between us and put a hand over my mouth. I went wide-eyed with surprise as rocks dug painfully into my back. I looked at him with anger lapping at my irises, but that emotion quickly faded when the dread seeped in.
“Feel nothing,” Elijah whispered in my ear, his body pressed against my own in a way that made my mind and heart race.
Easy for him to say.
I tried to look to the stars overhead, but when I did, Elijah was in my view and looking at me in stunned silence. Slowly, I felt his fingers slide away from my mouth, and I heard him dig his free hand into the rocks beside us. My heartbeat was quickly rising as I inspected his face, and my gaze rested on his lips. I knew how they tasted. I knew what it felt like to roll around holding onto that muscular body. I knew, and it scared the hell out of me because I wanted it and avoided it at every turn. Now I was face-to-face with it, and there wasn’t an escape. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t run. I could only focus on the slow rise and fall of our chests as we started to synchronize our breathing. Neither one of us could pull away. It was like we were stuck in a trance, and we didn’t try to break free of it.
His face started to dip down, and I didn’t try to stop it. I simply closed my eyes and let it happen. I just wanted to feel it one more time. But then, I heard a sound. It was the howl of a grunt somewhere far-off in the night. The demon’s cry broke the spell I was under. My eyes shot open, and I whispered, “Don’t.”
Elijah already looked like he was struggling with himself. He swallowed hard and nodded. “Yeah, not the best time,” he whispered back.
“I-is it gone? The leech?”
He looked over his shoulder, and there was a pause as he scanned the area. A sigh of relief followed soon after, and he groaned as he got up saying, “Yeah. Seems like it.” Holding his hand out to me he asked, “I didn’t hurt you did I?”
“No,” I said, taking his hand. I should have just let him kiss me, I thought. “Are you okay?”
He looked himself over. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
I pointed to our bags. “We should eat,” I said softly.
“Yeah,” he agreed.
I started to walk away and mocked myself while making faces at my dumb decisions. A hand on my wrist spun me around, and I slammed into Elijah’s chest. My confusion was stamped out when I looked up and his mouth crashed into mine. I thought about pushing him away. I thought about slapping him. I thought a lot of things, but they all burned away in the passion that consumed us. My hands instantly started to fly over his body, and I gripped his neck and tugged lightly at his hair. He growled against my mouth, and my stomach flipped. We pulled away to gain a breath before we were at it again, and I took a few too many steps back. My mind and body were wrestling with themselves. Our kiss was broken as I stumbled. His hands on me stopped me from falling too far back, but I gave a small yelp as my ankle turned in an uncomfortable way.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Elijah asked breathily.
Panting, I waited a moment before I nodded. “Yeah, I’m just a little tired. We walked a lot today, and I’m pretty hungry.”
“Let’s get you fed,” he said with a smile.
I didn’t expect him to change emotions so quickly. He wasn’t pressuring me for more affection. I wasn’t expecting him to be so happy with our passion coming to a screeching halt. I wasn’t expecting him to look at me the way that he did. As he walked by me, he kissed my forehead, and I closed my eyes. It felt like everything that I wanted in a sweet press of lips onto the top of my head. It felt like comfort and security and kindness and warmth. When he was a few steps away, I shivered and held myself.
Boy, I was in trouble.
As we ate, we talked about fond memories. Things to chase away the negative emotions that might call to a leech and other creatures that would ensure we wouldn’t make it through the night. Though, the truth was I would be fine. Elijah was the one that was more at risk than I.
We laughed at a recent story told, and Elijah tossed more wood on the fire. I sighed, content, and asked, “What are your plans?”
He sighed and hummed to himself. “Ah, yes. The question that I can’t really escape from.”
“Nope, sorry.”
He chuckled again. “Where are you going?” As he asked me, his eyes locked with mine, and they stole my breath from my lungs. I opened my mouth to lie, but my body wouldn’t let me.
“I’m still heading for Saint Augustine,” I admitted.
Pointing a stick at me, he said, “I’m going to follow you wherever you go.”
I didn’t expect it. I thought he was going to say that he was going to follow me to the faith city, but not wherever I went. Hearing it made my heartbeat stumble, and I couldn’t come up with a proper response.
“Why?” I breathed the question as if I could escape the truth a little while longer.
He smiled and said, “Because I like you, Sia. I think that much is obvious.”
Thankfully, it was night and my flustered expression was hidden by the shadowed depths of the twilight hours. Trying to hide the smile, I turned away, rolled my lower lip in between my lips, and bit down. This man was going to undo every wall that I had built to protect everyone around me. Regaining my composure, I pulled my braids around one shoulder and looked at him. “What if—”
“We’ll deal with problems as they come, Sia. Let’s not make issues or dream up negative things that might never happen.”
“O-okay.”
As I said it, Draki showed up behind Elijah. In a panic, I stood straight up. Wondering what was wrong, he picked up a stick like a weapon and spun around, ready for anything. But when the young man turned, even though he was face-to-face with Draki, he didn’t seem to see him. The devil’s face peered around Elijah.
“Have I mentioned that he’s got beautiful eyes?”
I mouthed, Shut up. Go away! while waving him off toward the endless desert.
Elijah turned around, and I put both hands over my heart.
“Did you see something?” he whispered.
I shook my head. “It must have been the shadows.”
He tapped the stick on his shoulder and shook his head. “Should we go to sleep?”
Draki was nodding his head behind Elijah, and I bent my brow in annoyance.
“Did I say something wrong?” Elijah asked.
“Huh? No. I ... I was just wondering, do you like spicy food?”
“Do I? I love spicy food.”
Not expecting the answer, I lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. My mom and sister weren’t too fond of it and so we never really made it often.”
“I have some recipes that my mom, dad, and meemaw taught me. I’d love to cook them for you.”
His smile illuminated the night. “I’d love to eat them.”
Draki gave me a look that said he wasn’t happy with being ignored. I shot him a quick smile and pressed on with my conversation. “You’ll have to make the cornbread, though. I’m not that great at baking.”
Elijah laughed. “That’s a deal.”
I opened my mouth just as Draki said, “I grow tired of these games.” And he waved a hand beside Elijah’s head. “Sleep,” he growled.
Without warning, Elijah closed his eyes and fell down onto the rocky earth below with a thud! I covered my mouth to quiet my scream as I watched how hard he hit the ground. Angrily, I shot a dagger-filled glare at Draki and stormed around the fire yelling, “What in the hell did you do that for?”
