The Hunters

Part 22

22.

Rowan

     I don’t cry. Ever. Well, at least I didn’t until all of this happened to me. Now it seems that I can’t stop crying. I don’t know what I’m most embarrassed about: the fact that I have reduced myself to tears in front of Tyler... twice! Or the fact that my messed up life has made me a snivelling cry baby who releases the waterworks over absolutely nothing.

     Who am I kidding? Tyler is right (which I am discovering happens a lot), a poster doesn’t change anything. I’m not going home, not for a while. Maybe not ever. Just because my parents are looking doesn’t meant they will find me. It doesn’t mean that Tyler will let them find me. All it amounts to in the long run is more heartache and loss, which are becoming ever growing variables in my life right now.

     I try not to think about that, though of course not thinking about that means I have to think about other stuff. Dangerous stuff. Stuff like Tyler. I know it is wrong and yet I just can’t stop. The feel of his arms around me, comforting and strong. It was the kind of embrace that I wanted to get lost in; get lost and never let go.

     Stop! I order my brain. That train of thought is heading nowhere good, fast. I can’t think of him in that way; not now, not ever. He kidnapped me for gods sake! He took me away from everything I knew and loved and put me into hell. A half- detailed explanation and a few kind words cant redeem that.

     I should hate his guts. I should wretch at the very thought of him touching me. I should definitely not be thinking about him the way I had – and still am. But, as you may have noticed, Should doesn’t really apply to my life. After all, right now I should be at home. I should have gone to prom with my best friend, wearing an overpriced dress that I would never wear again. I should have gone out that day a few months ago and gone home to my parents safe and sound if not bit tired after shopping all day. Should is a word that refers to the norm and I am so far away from the norm I think I break the scale.

     Tyler left a little while ago. He jumped away from me so fast you would have thought he’d just realised he had his arms wrapped around a leper. Well, to him I suppose I amount to the same thing. God, I bet he was repulsed when he realised what he was doing. No wonder he shot out of that door like a starving person in search of food.

     I’m on house arrest. I think of it as quarantine, so that the world doesn’t have to be contaminated by a parasite like me. To be fair though, there are worse places to be imprisoned. My ‘room’ at the Base for example. At least this room holds a little more finesse. It has a certain ambiance that was lacking in that grungy grey pit. My respect for the Hunters may have risen a notch but my opinion of that cell will never change.

     This room is sweet, with it’s cream and peach wallpaper and scalloped embellishment skirting the entire perimeter of the room. The petit living area in the corner comes compete with a plush futon, small oak coffee table with a varnished finish coating the smooth wood and the television sits atop a matching oak cabinet containing crystalline glasses and expensive liquor – which at fifty pounds a bottle, I will not be touching. The immaculate, white tiled en suite stands adjacent to the small kitchenette and the rest of the room is taken up by two king sixed beds.

     Tyler had generously sprung for a twin room with some money that he managed to snag from the safe house, most probably so that he wouldn’t have to share a bed with me but I don’t ponder that thought too long. What with the stab of rejection and my mind veering into forbidden territory, thinking about the rush of sharing a bed with Tyler, I decide it is a better idea to think about other, more trivial things.