Worlds Between Us

Chapter 26.

My things were in there. The things he must have stolen from my camp after he left me for dead. How many others have there been? How many more trinkets and mementoes does he have hidden away in those chests, so close to where he sleeps.

How does he ever live with himself looking at this and knowing what he has inside?

How can he be so evil and how could I have never seen the truth before this moment?

I've kissed him, trusted him, let him touch me, those hands that stole and stole and stole. Those hands that may just be the hands that tried to steal my very life from my body.

It's. Too. Much.

This can't be happening.

It's the only thought I'm able to conjure and hold onto. It's the only thing that makes any sense to me in this state.

My brain powers down and I go into survival mode. I can't be here. I can't be waiting for Demetri in his hut, smiling and happy to pick up back where we left off before.

Fight or flight has kicked in and I know which is winning out.

I've got to escape.

I snatch the photo out of the little tin box, tucking it into the back pocket of my jeans, then quickly replace the box in the chest and toss the quilt back over the top, hiding his secrets once again.

I've never moved faster than I do right now, bursting free from the hut and out into the night air.
It's muggy and wet and as the rain falls, pelting my face I let it mingle with my tears until I no longer can tell where one starts and the others end.

I've been so naïve.

I want to scream but I can't.

All I can do, the only thing there is to do, is go back to Liza. She'll know what to do. She'll know. She has to.

"Holy shit, what happened to you?" She jumps out of her seat, startled, as I push through the flaps of her families much smaller and less full of evil hut.

I run to her.

She catches me in her arms, not recoiling from the fact that I'm soaking wet and now so is she and I'm crying so much my breathing is coming in sharp choking spurts that sounds more like drowning than breathing at all.

"He...he...Demetri-." I try but I can't.

"What?" Rodrick bounds over from off of his cot in the corner. "What did he do? Did you tell him? Tell me you didn't fucking ruin this all-."

"No." I wail and Liza squeezes me around my waist a little tighter. It's suffocating but good at the same time. I feel like she's grounding me, keeping me from just floating away.

"What happened, Kel?" She's brushes her hand over my hair. "What did he do?"

"He kissed me." I spit out with disgust. I want to scrub my body in every place that he's touched, I want to rid myself of any traces of his kindness because they don't matter, the scars do. His callousness is forever engraved into my flesh.

"I'm confused." Liza admits, attempting to pull back but I won't let her. "How is this not a good thing? Our whole plan is working, you're getting under his skin."

I flinch at her use of those words.

Under his skin.

He's the one who has been under my skin. Ripped through it like I was nothing and then hours ago holds me like I'm everything. I've got whiplash from it all.