“I don’t think it’s going to slow down Kate. I’m sorry that I was the catalyst to this,” he replied, his eyes fading and looking through me.
I leaned forward putting my head on his shoulder and reassured him, “You’ve been the catalyst to some of the happiest moments in my life. I’ve never really known who I was—how I fit into life. Now I do.”
“The truths that have hurt you deeply are because of me,” he admitted as he stood.
“The truth is what hurt me—not you. You’re the only person who has never deceived me—that means more than what they were as my blood. Blood means nothing when it’s all betrayal.”
His eyes seemed to come back into focus on me, and he just shook his head. I held my hand out for his and smiled. After a moment the darkness lifted from him and he smiled back.
“So I guess we should try to find some shelter?” I suggested as he took my hand.
He looked around for a moment, “Do you think you could walk a little more? I’m pretty sure we are about a mile out from a safe house.”
“An actual house? I think I could handle a mile for that,” I replied.
He gave me a hand up, but my legs were too shaky for me to stand. It was as if my muscles had frozen the second I had stopped.
“I don’t think your body is giving you a chance,” Hunter observed as I fell against him.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s alright,” he said with a crooked smile coming to his face. He swept me into his arms, and I wrapped my arms around his neck laying my head on his chest.
“This works for me,” I said with a sigh, and I felt truly happy for a moment.
“Of course it does,” he teased, his laugh rumbling against my cheek. It felt as if Hunter had only jogged for a short distance before he stopped, “Wow.”
Hunter put me on the ground, and I turned to face the house. It blended into the forest because part of the forest was inside of it. I could imagine that it had once been an elegant building because it was made of flat pieces of stone molded together by hand. There were no doors or windows, only gaping holes were they used to be. The roof was gone, and the fireplace was only partially intact. Three letters marred the exterior of the mortared stone stained by time. WAR.
“When was the last time you were here?” I asked, running my hands over the smooth gray-green stone.
“About five years,” he replied as he stepped inside the building.
I followed him, “I guess war takes everything back.”
“Sometimes the people who run the safe houses get sick of the gig and abandon the property. That must have been what happened here. It’ll still work as a decent shelter though. I can still use the fireplace,” Hunter commented.
“How will you make the fire?”
Hunter smirked and pulled a backpack off his shoulders that I hadn’t noticed in our effort to escape without observation, “I grabbed it after I saw Mara shoot Sara. As for food, I’ll have to figure something out…most likely bunny.”
“I don’t miss bunny for dinner,” I replied, swallowing in disgust.
When Hunter returned I was standing outside the building with one hand on the words that had plagued my mind my whole life without knowing it. I didn’t know what to feel at that moment, or why I could feel so empty at the thought of the death that I knew would soon ensue.
“What’s wrong?” Hunter asked, waking me from my thoughts.
I looked up at him and shook my head, “They’re going to destroy each other aren’t they?”
Hunter took a deep breath and swallowed, “Yeah, I think they will.”
“Pretty soon there will be nothing left to look back at…No reason to wonder what they’re doing.”
“Nothing left to fear,” Hunter said as my hand dropped, “No more wars. Just you and I.”
Chapter 41
The mood had lightened after the night spent under the stars in the safe house aged from the war. Hunter’s words seemed to have sunken into us both, and the fear had slowly vanished with each step. We paced ourselves as the desperation to escape our pasts dissipated. We knew that the past was already in self-destruction mode.
“I think I’ve gotten good enough to beat you in a race,” I taunted over my shoulder to Hunter as I kept stride with him.
“Oh, really?”
“Yes,” I replied, sprinting ahead of him. I heard his laughter behind me as he rushed to catch me. I dashed in between the trees as the forest sped past me, and I felt as though I was flying. It hit me then that we were finally free, but as soon as the feeling came it left. I found myself stopping suddenly at a wall just before I would have run into it. I pushed off of it and looked up at it scaling to the sky with barbed wire snarling at its top. Walls are bad was my last thought as someone grabbed my arms and yanked them harshly behind my back.
“Kate, Kate!” Hunter screamed from behind me.
I tried to fight against the person who had grabbed me, “Hunter!” I screamed, my voice breaking in fear. I could see Hunter out of the corner of my eye, and he was fighting against two men who had him pinned.
“Let me go!” I was screaming as I pulled toward Hunter. This was the first time I had truly felt fear. It was as if my whole body had been thrown into a fire, and everything, including my emotions, was on fire. The worst part about fear is the absolute loss of control. There is nothing you can do to stop it.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” the man said, and I felt his hand pinch my neck before everything went black.
~~~
I came to and found myself tied to a chair in a dimly lit room just like hundreds of scenes in novels where people were beaten into submission for information they didn’t have. So this was what it was like to truly be kidnapped and held hostage.
“Hello?” I asked in a weak, dry voice.
I heard some movement behind the door and a tall man strode in. If I was being truthful he wasn’t very scary looking. He had a kind smile on that would have disarmed me if I had had some plan to run.
“Sorry about all this, but its protocol when someone is found at the border,” he explained as his arms made a broad sweeping motion.
“I swear I had no clue whose border we were on. We were just looking—”
“Looking for what?” he cut me off as he pulled a chair out of the darkness and spun it around to sit in it. He placed his hands on the back of the chair and rested his chin on his intertwined fingers. He wasn’t scary at all. This was just bizarre.
“Something that I’m guessing doesn’t exist from this,” I replied, wiggling my cramped fingers as the thought sunk in.
“What is it that you were looking for?”
“Freedom,” I clenched my teeth as I waited for a haughty laugh as a response. It never came.
“That must be a novel thought to you and your boyfriend,” he commented, his eyes unsurprised by what I had said.
“Where is he? Is he okay?” I asked, trying to keep the panic from filtering into my voice.
“He’s much in the same state you are, so quite fine I’d say,” he answered with a crooked smile; one that wasn’t cruel or mocking.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Now, let’s get to the nitty gritty. Who are you?” he continued with a shrug.
“Kate Ericson,” I finally replied with a sigh.
“Ericson?”
“Are you going to kill me now?” I asked as I tried to keep my eyes steady on his, as I tried to look fearless when I felt like puking everywhere.
“You’re last name isn’t a reason to kill you. I’m just surprised someone from the Ericson tribe is seeking freedom, and let alone with someone from the Marks tribe,” he explained, and his facial expression seemed to be in conflict.
“Our fathers may be enemies, but that doesn’t mean him and I are. It also doesn’t mean we’re anything like them.”
“Really? Tell me what you think about war.”
“There was never a war for me until now. I never knew that I was
right in the middle of one. Hunter kidnapped me, and in that moment everything changed. My father sent a hunter to kill me, not to save me—to kill me. Someone who said they loved me held a gun to my head with every intent of killing me. Then when that person didn’t succeed my father sent in his best—my sister. To add another twist my father is just a puppet for my psychotic mother. They didn’t succeed, but then I found myself fighting an internal war because I hated them, and I wanted revenge. But Hunter saved me from those feelings just like he saved me from my family. I just want to pretend that I never existed before I met Hunter. The war that our fathers made up in their heads has taken everything away from me. I have no family, and I guess I never did, but what I did have—do have is Hunter. He’s all I have left, he’s all the matters,” I finished, my voice breaking as I said his name.
The man smiled sadly before nodding his head and standing. He took one last look at me before nodding his head towards the darkness behind me. There wasn’t any time for me to scream as a hand reached around my face and covered my face with a sick smelling damp cloth. If I had been able to keep my eyes open for more than ten seconds after the smell overtook me I would have vomited, but now I was wandering in the blackness inside my head. The only thing I could think of was Hunter and the numbness that was pervading my limbs.
Chapter 42
I couldn’t place a time for how long I was in that black pit, but when I came to the insane pounding of the ocean was in my head. The air was sharp against my lungs as I took a deep breath and opened my eyes. The sharpness of the air hit me again, and I realized that the sound that was hammering into my skull was indeed the ocean, and the air was thick with the smell of salt. I slid out of the bed I had been laying in and stretched. Somehow I had changed into a white cotton sundress and smelt of roses. I supposed a normal person would have felt invaded by the discovery, but the thought of Hunter was the only thing I could comprehend.
The wind rushed in through the open French doors, blowing the curtains, so they grazed my skin like the soft touch of finger tips. It drew my attention out the doors to white sand and a shirtless figure sitting just where the waves crested. I wanted to run to him, but the heart in my chest was hammering so hard I thought I might faint. I stepped out into the softness of the sand against my bare feet and let my toes sink in before taking another step. My senses were overwhelmed by the brilliance of the white sand and the moon shimmering off the ocean. I felt my body continue forward, yet I felt I had no control over what I was doing. My heart was guiding me to the figure with one singular hope—that it was Hunter. The wind blew the cotton dress around my legs and let the scent of the figure I was nearing drift over me.
“Hey,” I whispered as Hunter turned and smiled at me. The scars on his bare chest were apparent in the moonlight, and I had to suck in a breath as they reminded me of what had happened.
“That’s picture perfect,” he commented, looking at me as the warm air blew the dress and my hair around my face.
“Where are we?” I asked as I sank down into the sand beside him.
“Freed,” he replied, looking out over the ocean in disbelief at the words.
“I thought they would kill us. I thought they were another tribe,” I explained as I covered my toes with the diamond sand.
“They’re the anti-tribe. It turns out there are only a few of us still determined to be at war with the world. Collin vouched for us; apparently he’s one of them. They run the safe house to make sure the tribes are staying somewhat peaceful. He would have told us about this place, but he wasn’t sure that I was ready or that you were ready having just learned what hell you were living in.”
“Freed,” I repeated as I took a deep breath and let the salt sting my nose.
“Strange, isn’t it?”
“Coming from a world where everyone wants to kill you. Yes, I suppose it is,” I replied, putting my head on my knees. We were silent for a long time as we sat staring out at the ocean.
“This is it,” Hunter finally said as a wave crested and touched the tips of our toes, “Neither of us are prisoners anymore.”
“You know I never was,” I reminded him, sticking my toes into the cool, wet sand.
“You haven’t had much of a choice since I ripped you from your family,” Hunter commented as he looked down at his hands and rubbed a scar in the middle of his palm.
“I always had a choice. I could have screamed. I could have tried to run,” I replied.
“What use would that have been against me?”
“Not much, but I still had a choice,” I reassured him, putting my chin on my shoulder and looking at him.
He was staring at the ocean with his eyes as intense as the first time I had looked into them. For a moment I just watched him and listened to the sound of his breathing against the waves as I waited for him to say what he was thinking. He looked down at his hands again and then at me, “I’m sorry Kate. I’m so sorry for what I did to you—that I ripped you away from your family. I know I ruined what your family was to you.”
“I’ve done the same thing to you now, haven’t I? You can never go back.”
“It’s different—I was a prisoner there. I had to be what they wanted, and with you I’ve only been what I want. You gave me that, and I only wonder how much I’ve hurt you by showing you your family’s true colors,” He explained, his Adam’s apple rising and falling at the words.
“I was a prisoner to their lies and finding them out hurt like hell, but not knowing who they were hurt just as much,” I rushed to explain. I was afraid of where he was going with this sudden realization.
“I’m still sorry Kate. If I could have found you any other way…” his voice drifted off as he clenched his jaw. He stood and continued, “We can go our separate ways now though. You can live whatever way you choose.”
“So this is it,” he gave me a hand to stand, “What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. Collin says they could use my skills as a border guard.”
I wanted him to ask me to go with him where ever he went. I wanted him to tell me he felt the same, “Alright, well…” I began.
“Good luck…”
“You too,” I replied, turning on my heel. My heart pounded less and less with each step I took away from him. I knew him well enough to know that whatever he was feeling he wasn’t telling me all of it, for he never did. I knew what I was feeling though. I turned and sprinted towards his bare back, “Hunter.”
He turned, “Kate,” he sighed as I jumped into his arms, “Thank God.”
I pressed my body as hard against him as I possibly could and kissed him as if he might disappear. His lips met mine with the panic that I had felt from them once before. His hand caressed my face as his other arm wrapped around my back and pulled me tighter to him.
He kissed me once more before pulling away to face me, “I thought you’d come back.”
I dropped from my tippy toes and looked up into his face my heart sinking, “That’s it?”
“You know me better than anyone in the world Kate. Don’t tell me you doubt that I love you? Don’t tell me you didn’t know why I never told you what those kisses meant?” he asked, shaking his head.
“I thought you didn’t want me,” I replied, my forehead wrinkled.
“I was afraid I would never stop… that I would run away with you in my arms in that moment and get us both killed,” Hunter explained as he stroked my face.
“I never wanted you to stop…” my voice drifted off as my hands grasped his strong arms. I tried to concentrate, but my mind was wandering to the heat of his bare chest so close to mine and the thought of his lips.
“Now we don’t have to,” he tilted my chin up, “You know what I promised I would tell you?” his soft lips grazed the line of my jaw as he whispered, “I love you.”
“I’ll always be your prisoner Hunter,” I murmured.
“And I yours.”
About The Author
Cassandra Gio
vanni is an avid writer of young adult novels and can't wait to share her work with you. The genres of her novels include dystopian, paranormal, mystery and romance all aimed at appealing to adults and young adults alike. Her personal goal with her writing is to show the reader the character's stories through their dialogue and actions instead of just telling the reader what is happening. She began writing at a very young age, in fact from the moment she could draw she was telling stories that way. At age seven she won a contest in American Girl Doll to have a chapter she had written published. She stopped writing in high school and started writing again after seeing the movie creation of a book. It inspired her to start writing again and since then its been something she just can't let go.
Can’t Wait For More?
Check out Cassandra’s website for updates on the upcoming companion to In Between Seasons:
Permafrost
Mara & Rob’s story
www.cgiovanniwrites.wordpress.com
In Between Seasons (The Fall) Page 17
