by W. A. R.
She gulped and looked away from both Miles and the notebook, her fingers twitching nervously along the notebook pages. “Yes…I’ll listen.” She promised meekly. She felt his eyes dig into her then, as if he were waiting for her to bolt but she wasn’t going anywhere. She understood that while she didn’t want to discuss these things, they did in fact need to be brought out instead of harbored. “You just never have been one to talk.” She teased him then and he smiled at her in return.
“I blame you for that.”
Amber’s eyes widened. “How so?”
“You’ve left me breathless since I met you…it’s hard to talk when you can’t breathe.” He told her, his eyes dancing with amusement. He stared at her for a long moment as if deciding something. A second later he opened his mouth to speak. “You know… I never left you.” He told her forcefully, quickly. Her eyes jerked to his and she was held hostage across the length of the table. She was taken aback at the intensity of his words. She lifted a challenging brow at him and he spread his palms. “Alright…technically, I did…but I was coming back. I left for Brian. He’s my brother too and I wasn’t going to let him go alone.” He grimaced and his own personal turmoil was written across his features. He sighed and lowered his head. “I was taken…but I still came back.” He told her and she swallowed. He wasn’t bitter, not at all…merely clarifying her statement.
“I know this.” She admitted then, and he stared at her, curiosity in the depths of his eyes. “I’m sorry I have been so distant…We’ve both just had a lot on our minds.”
He shrugged and offered her a smile. “Everyone has.” He shifted a little, never taking his eyes from her. “Your mom isn’t doing too well. I’m worried about her.” He admitted to her. She winced and turned her focus to the floor by her feet.
“I’m worried about her too…but I don’t know how to ease her pain when…” she hesitated for a moment before continuing, the pain wrenching her heart, tearing it. “…when it is taking everything I have to deal with my own.” She glanced at him. “I have been keeping an eye on her since everything started…making sure she ate, drank…Elliot keeps her going, really. I think…I think if she knew the details of everything it would only make matters worse for her. I worry about that…or about how she will handle things when I…I mean, we, leave.” Her confession was well thought out and admittedly hard to argue with. Miles stared at her in understanding.
“She doesn’t know about…” he trailed off when she shook her head in answer.
“No one but you, Buddy, and Lacy, aside from Michael and the brothers, know about the bite…this curse.” She spat out bitterly, the word tasting awful as it fell from her lips.
“You mean the miracle. I think she would accept it just fine…” he began but he stopped himself, not believing his own words.
Amber chuckled a little sadly. “Miles, she’s my mother. She is going to see it as a great big target on my back for a reward from Adrian…which is exactly what it is. It’s a certification for death by torture.” She paused. “You know as well as I do that it would destroy her.” Miles didn’t argue. He would be lying if he said that those exact thoughts hadn’t crossed his own mind earlier whenever he found out. Still, he had known that he was going to have to let it go. When it came to important matters, she always won and letting go and accepting the subject had been important to her.
She sighed, toying with the edges of the notebook. She suddenly looked so…sad. She shifted her feet and slowly, she stood, her hands clutching the notebook as she rounded the table. She pulled out the chair that rested at an angle from him, the closest chair, and sat, crossing her legs beneath her and placing the notebook on the table. She shifted so she faced him directly and then she smiled sadly at him. His eyes remained focused on her and she leaned her chin against the palm of her hand, her elbow on the table. “Are you scared? Of going?” She asked him easily and it was his turn to shift, his chair scraping against the floor. He rested his elbows against his knees as he leaned forward, hands brought to his chin and clenched together. It was nice, this quiet with him, this casual easiness. He grinned at her. It was an opening and Amber knew that for just that moment, for a while until she eased into their comfortable premise of one another, he would let the discussion of her ‘curse’ go.
“Yes…” he paused and inhaled sharply. “I am terrified.” He turned his eyes to her and she looked at him, trapped under his knowing and gentle stare.
“Me too.” She replied and then she shifted on her seat. “I’m scared of what is going to happen in there, of what we will have to do in order to maintain our identities….”
“I know…” he stated her and she looked at him sadly.
“We may have to hurt or kill innocent people. We may have to turn our backs on things we normally wouldn’t…at least until we begin making progress. I think that is one of the things that scare me the most: having the blood of innocent people on my hands; people we are there trying to save.”
“I see…” he stated evenly, looking at her through hooded eyes. “I think I am more frightened of what would happen if he found out you are who you really are.”
She smiled a little sadly. “Oh yes…that is the next big fear for me as well…though I am more concerned with what he would do with you all if he knew who I was. To my understanding, his temper is a force of evil.”
Miles sighed and looked at her. “He’s going to look for your body, you know.”
Amber nodded gravely. “I know.” She gulped before looking up at him. “That was why I never wanted you, any of you to go. The man is obsessed and if he doesn’t find what he is looking for, it will get really ugly. I understood what dangers I was getting myself into…I should have told you all the ugly details sooner so you would know what to expect. I guess I just hoped that you would all somehow miraculously stay behind.”
Miles smiled warmly at her and moved, sliding his chair closer to her. His knees brushed against hers. “I’m not going to let you face these demons alone. So go ahead and get that thought out of your mind. We found our way back to each other through all of this mess and I will not let you go in there without me.” He told her and she knew that he was thinking of everything that had pulled them apart; he was considering the bridge and how he had been taken from her. Her heart weighed heavily in her chest and she wasn’t sure how to ease the pain of it.
She looked at him sadly behind a thin sheen of tears. “Miles…I know you were upset about what happened on the bridge…”
“I was destroyed.” Miles corrected her quickly. She looked down at her lap, her fingers twisting together fitfully. Oh damn, they had opened old wounds. She never intended for that to happen.
“Miles…you weren’t…” she tried to speak but Miles quickly stopped her.
“I was and don’t you dare contradict that. You don’t get to tell me how to feel about you or what happened to you.” He told her hotly. Her eyes jerked to him and a flush crawled up her neck. She suddenly felt a mixture of both flattery and surprise. Still, she realized, just as she had before, how very intense and frightening he had become. No, he wasn’t the shy timid man anymore. He was strong and protective, resilient. Miles lowered his head and sighed. “I’m sorry. But, watching my son kill the very reason for my existence destroyed me, ruined me, whether you believe it or not.” She was beginning to. “I lost everything I ever knew to be worthwhile in that moment. I was willing, wanting, to kill anyone and everyone. I didn’t care. I hurt George, I acted out…And then…finding Michael, finding you…” he paused and Amber felt her heart constrict because she had felt the same sweet relief at seeing him. “I can’t even begin to describe the relief I felt. I had my son back…I had you back… and I swore I wasn’t going to let either of you go again. And I won’t. You aren’t going alone. I wouldn’t allow it…I still won’t allow it.” He looked at her attentively, leaving no room for argument. “You will never be alone.”
Amber shifted once again, trying to meld into the c
hair. “This conversation has become a little one sided. Maybe we should…”
But he cut her off, his eyes betraying his determination and excitement. “Then let’s fix that. What happened back at the house, Amber?” Miles asked quickly. She shuddered, the vivid images coming back to her, the feeling of heart-wrenching horror and pain. She hissed inwardly, grimaced, her top lip pulling up in a disgusted sneer. This was going to be difficult. He reached a hand toward her, then stopped and thought better of it before returning it to his chin. “I need you to talk to me…” he told her, closing his eyes. She turned her saddened eyes up to him.
“Miles…”
“I’m trying to be patient, but watching you hurt because you hold it in…it’s damn near driving me crazy.” Amber twisted her fingers in her lap and sighed. Miles looked up at her with pleading eyes and reached tentatively forward, removing one hand from the other where they twisted together. She tensed for a moment and he stopped, awaiting her permission and Amber saw the regret at having acted too quickly.
“Miles, I’m handling things fine without weighing anyone else down.” She told him firmly, attempting to remove her hand from his grasp, but he held tight to it, refusing to let her go, to let whatever walls he had knocked down be built back up.
“I know that. I know that you are handling it, but you’re scared and you are hurting still from what happened with Kyle.” She winced at the name. “Just humor me. Please.” And Amber knew, she knew that he was lying about her handling it because the truth was that she wasn’t handling it at all. But then, despite all of this, she felt herself relax and her once bunched shoulders eased down, sagging with liberation, as if the weight she carried was easing from her shoulders. Miles wondered what she was thinking because he had seen it, the edge of crazy in her eyes. He had seen it when Buddy had pulled her off of Lacy, and again when she had walked away from them after hearing they were joining her. He had seen it when she had fought those men earlier in the day, when she had bared her mark for them all to see. She was close to losing it…could she not admit it? Yes, she reasoned…she could. She could feel it scratching right under the skin but she was unsure of how to release the monster within.
It was an edge, a cliff that she would at one point fall off of, losing control and losing herself in the process. Would it be permanent whenever it happened? She wasn’t sure. Either way it went, she knew that in the best way possible it needed to be prevented. She was critical to all of this, and not because of what she was, but because of who she was. She was a natural born leader, whether she believed it or not. People flocked to her, and she changed people by only the simplest of gestures. She had done it to Miles and she was going to do it to many more people in order to save the innocent, to save her brother. Amber hoped that Brian’s capture was enough to tether her to reality. She worried about how she would react to Adrian, hoping that her control would not slip then. She would certainly die, as would the others.
Still…letting go hurt. “I can’t talk about this…”
“Please.” He said softly, yet with resolve, before pulling her hand towards him as he shifted to the edge of his seat, leaning forward slightly. He placed her hand on his chest and she inhaled sharply. He covered her hand with both of his own. “I am alive and I am right here.” He said by way of one last attempt of reaching her through her avoidant stare. His heartbeat set a steady rhythm beneath her fingertips. Finally, finally, she sighed and her fingers curled into his shirt a little. It felt so good.
“I have been trying to come to terms with the fact that you are really here.” She told him softly, sadly. She felt as if her heart were ripping open along the line of a wicked scar. “A lot has happened and I’m not sure how to handle it.”
Miles sighed with relief, squeezing her hand a little tighter. “I know…” she flinched and he furrowed his brow at her in curiosity, confusion. “Are you scared of me?” And surprisingly, this question got an immediate response.
She jerked her eyes to meet his, his heavy chocolate eyes golden with flecks were captivating. She couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculousness of that question. “Of course not. I’m scared of myself and…” she stopped then, her laughter immediately stopping. Clamping her mouth shut, she swallowed, feeling the heat run up her face. Things were silent for a long moment before she spoke again. “Why would you think that I am afraid of you?”
He stared at her sadly, his thumb skating along the back of her hand. “I know I have become more…” he paused, looking for an appropriate word.
“Intense?’ she offered on a grin and he returned her soft smile.
“Yes…for lack of a better word. After all, aside from earlier today…this is the first time since we’ve come here you’ve let me touch you so intimately.” He told her and she frowned. She wasn’t sure what to say, or how to express what she was feeling and so, she decided to offer up the honesty he had given to her.
“I’ve been…distant. We aren’t the same people we were before this all started.” She spoke the words easily, her voice soft, matter-of-fact though she knew she was offering them up as an excuse…somewhat. It was a combination of that, those feelings of change but also the uncertainty of how to get back to where they were before after everything. The pain between them was like an uncrossable chasm.
“And yet, I’m still here.” He told her. “You seem to be on the same page with everyone as you were before this happened. So now it’s my turn.” She looked at him sadly. He was right; completely right. But…he was the one that knew her better than anyone else, even better than Cassie; and so she knew that with those two people this immunity, this change in her from her previous actions, was going to impact them the most.
She sat, the warm of his fingers against her skin flowing through her, and she thought hard, choosing her words wisely before speaking. “I’m not sure if all of my fears and the decisions I’ve made, the things I’ve dealt with, will change what you think or how you feel. I’m not entirely sure how you feel anymore.” She winced, feeling her heat twist painfully with the impact that her next words had on her. “Maybe, after all this time, it’s time for you to let me go.” And time for me to let you go, she thought with remorse.
There was no mistaking the heat and challenge that flared in the depths of his brown eyes. His hand tightened its hold on hers even as she tried to pull away. “Why don’t you let me decide that?”
“Miles…” she spoke pleadingly, turning and closing her eyes.
“Tell me what changed you.” He begged, no, demanded of her. He seemed so desperate for an answer and she was desperate to not give him one. Of course, her heart wouldn’t let her win...it couldn’t handle seeing him in torment…especially if she could ease it.
She sighed, but still opened her mouth to speak. “I beat him; Damien. I broke what I could damn near it without killing him. I wanted him to suffer…and he did.” She paused and leveled her eyes at Miles, who still held tight to her hands. Miles never flinched; instead, he scooted closer, his knees brushing hers as her feet steadied on the floor. Her fingers curled into his shirt more. “We had a plan…and it worked. George threw us…” Yes, he had thrown them off the porch, hitting Amber, leaving them to the wolves because it was what had to be done. “I taunted Lance…made him angry…” Yes, she had done that. And now, as she told Miles how George led the others to kill those people, she remembered how angry, how determined she had been of pushing the man. “I made him go search for Damien while the others while the others killed everyone else. There had been so much blood.” She lowered her head slightly, her determination fading. “In the end…well, you heard what I did to Lance…what I did to Damien afterwards.”
Miles stared at her hard for a long moment. “You know what I am going to ask next.” He said so lowly that she almost didn’t hear him. Amber was tempted to bring a hand to her chest. It held a dull ache resonating within and the pinch behind her nose grew more severe. Amber forced herself to remain impassive, barely showing any rea
ction aside from trying to remove her hand from Miles’s chest. He shook his head at her, eyes never leaving her stern face and he pressed her hand harder against his chest, forcing her to feel his heartbeat. “I’m still right here. I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to let you pretend I’m gone.” And she looked at him as if torn before her façade came back, the tell-tale edges of denial hitting her eyes.
“It hurt.” The words were bitter.
“I know it did.” He told her gently. “I understand.” Miles had believed he had lost Michael, believed he had lost his own son and now he had him back…only…Amber could never get Kyle back. Still, she nodded.
“We were standing and talking about Brittany…we had just found her and there was a gunshot. Everyone froze except for Buddy. He was the first to move, running to Damien and taking the gun from him. I looked at Kyle, saw the blood begin to pool from his chest, and caught him before he fell.” She said, and though there were tears in her eyes she tried to bid them back, her voice trembling only she slightest. “And I held him. I held him until he took his last breath. And then…I made Lance place both of them in the truck. That’s it.” She said, trying to drop the subject. Miles wasn’t going to allow that however.
“Amber…”
“He took away my baby. Lance was in charge…he took away my family…dad, Kyle…you, Shelly, Brian…”
“Damien…”
“I know Damien was the one that killed dad and Kyle. I know this. But Lance let it happen. He gave the orders to have you three taken away. Innocent people have died, people have been hurt, I have been cursed, and I let it all happen.” She snapped, tears snaking down her face. The pain was unbelievably raw, and she was unable to mask it. Her heart was bleeding, crying, and she couldn’t stop it.
Miles licked his lips before sighing. “Amber…you aren’t superwoman.” He paused, shifting his hold on her hand, lacing his fingers through the open spaces between hers.
“I know. But it isn’t your burden to bear. It’s mine.”
