Until Dawn

Chapter 6

“I’m tired,” he grunted, turning his head away from her.

Dawn marched over to him and slapped the paper out of his hands. Roman let out a small growl. His eyes were becoming cold like steel but Dawn didn’t care. This was important.

“Listen,” she said, ignoring his glare, “You need to come with me. I’ve found out some information and it has to do with the stone.”

“What about it?” he asked, lowering his voice. Roman looked around the room. His gaze had shifted from angry to suspicious.

“I know it has a curse.”

“Let’s go,” he ground out.

Roman jumped to his feet and roughly grabbed Dawn’s arm. He dragged her across the room until they were by the basement door.

“We’ll talk down here. No one can hear us.”

Dawn twisted Roman’s beard in fingers and pulled down. He let out a yelp of pain but didn’t try to get away.

“Fine but stop grabbing me so roughly. I’m not stupid and can follow direction quite well. Telling me to go into the basement would’ve been much easier.”

“Okay,” he said, wincing once again.

Satisfied with his answer, Dawn let go and walked down the steps. She paused at the bottom as a thought crossed her mind. What if Roman was the one making a deal with Yulena? If no one could hear them in the basement then maybe he was going to try and kill her.

“Don’t be afraid of me,” he said quietly, laying a hand on her lower back. “I would never hurt you.”

“Stop doing that.” Dawn walked away from him and sat on her old stool. The poor thing was probably going to break any day now.

“Doing what?” asked Roman. He looked for a place to sit and decided the safest place was a metal tub. Dawn had no idea what it was used for.

“Getting angry and rough with me one second and then being sweet the next.”

“I wasn’t angry with you. I just didn’t think it was safe to talk upstairs. You never know who could be listening.”

“Whatever, said Dawn, blowing a strand of hair out of her face. “Let’s just focus on why we are down here. I have some questions that I want answered.”

He nodded, folding his arms. “Okay, go ahead.”

“Your people aren’t originally from here?”

“No, but I’m not entirely sure where we’re from,” said Roman, scratching his chin.

“And you settled here because the wolfs bane helps keep those stones hidden?” she asked. Dawn knew this was going to be a question she might not get an answer to.