The Fates (Book I) - 2014 Watty Award Winner!

5.1 - Call It Fate

Her heart rate hammered at a panicked, pounding thud. Was her way of life finally catching up to her tonight? Did this lady run a prostitution ring, or worse yet a trafficking operation? Was some sleazy pimp or slave trader coming to sweep her away and force her into a lifestyle that was dirty and cringe-worthy, even by Atria’s standards…?

“Please calm down, dear. It’s been a long time…” the woman responded, laying a cool palm upon Atria’s arm.

And it was at that touch that all the memories flooded in. She did know her; she did know this virtual stranger, but just barely… only from a fleeting time beginning on the darkest night of her young life, when she’d escaped from foster hell, stumbled across a stranger’s doorstep… carrying a promise, from the one soul she trusted most, that she would be safe there, that she would finally find a home… a promise she’d believed, until the woman had started to speak of something strange, and placed into her hands a pair of scissors.

This same cool palm, upon her arm right now, had placed the scissors in her trembling hands those many years ago. Along with words that Atria had buried deep in her forgotten past, because they couldn’t be believed. They simply couldn’t be believed.

At that age, typically a period of tender and credulous youth, she just might have believed them… save for the fact that she had been forced to grow up far too fast, back in her foster hell. By the age of eight, she had been blessed or cursed with all the realism and reason, all the jaded doubt of someone twice her age, or even more. And so the words had terrified her. So she’d fled.

And so she fled again tonight, with all the haste and desperation of that little girl, before another coo could summon her to stay.

She had to leave. She had to leave. The truth was even worse than what she had feared in her moment of panic. The only thing more frightening to Atria than a future as a trafficked slave, or anything unthinkable like that, was the inescapable prison of her past.

She somehow found her way downstairs and staggered out into the streets, with no idea where she was running, only of what she was running from—and after two steps on the sidewalk, she ran straight into a solid wall of warmth, a hold that kept her safe and sound.

The one soul she trusted. The one man she most and least wanted to see, in this instant. Part of her had hoped never to see him again, after what she’d attempted and how he’d pushed back. Her pride was wounded now, with him, and pride was something she had always needed to survive, the source that underlay so much of her power and strength. Or at least her delusions thereof.

Yet were it not for him, she knew, she would be all alone. Had she ever truly been anything but? Atria asked herself as she wept into his shoulder. She wasn’t sure. It seemed that shadows always had to be alone. But at least she could pretend that Eldor loved her still. He did such a good job putting on that show. She could feel safe, for a second, and try not to care that she didn’t deserve it. She needed that now. Somehow she knew that she needed it. And so she let him guide her home, in silence all the while, save for the few stifled sobs that she tried to pass off as coughs. Atria knew she wasn’t fooling anyone, but she really didn’t like to cry her eyes out in the presence of perfection.

Didn’t he want an explanation, an apology, something, anything? For running out on him like that, only to come sniveling like a sorry shit back into his arms, into his home as if she were invited? She wondered as he led her to a cozy guest bedroom and tucked her safely in. Just like the old days. Back in foster hell, the few nights that she’d been allowed to spend in her own bed, instead of with the scary hand. Just like the old dark days, when this one boy had been her only light. Nothing had changed. So much had changed, but nothing all the same.