by Rachel Jonas
I moved swiftly between silhouetted tree trunks. Branches snapped in half beneath the soles of my shoes. I didn’t bother looking back as tears slipped down my cheeks, listening as they fell and sizzled into the flames now kissing my shoulder.
The thick strap of my tank caught and I shrieked, patting it with my other hand with hopes of extinguishing it. The striped fabric quickly singed and turned black wherever the flames touched. Strands of my hair caught, too, but a thought kept me moving as it ran through my head like a loop repeating on a radio:
‘Keep running!’
I felt myself getting woozy, but tried to push through it, fighting against the idea that this was where I would die. Out here in the woods. A pile of ashes no one would recognize once all was said and done.
A few blazing strands of hair turned into several and I was losing vision, feeling myself slow as the fire ravished me from the inside out. I collapsed beside a tree, weak, but still feeling no pain. Even less than when this all began.
I lie still, helpless, watching my clothes burn away from my body as the fire consumed me freely, completely.
The last traces of consciousness floated in and out of my grasp, scattering like the embers drifting aimlessly through the air—bits and pieces, sparks of light before they inevitably flickered out. It was in one of those sparks, one of those bits and pieces, that I became aware of my, now, naked body being scooped up from the soil. In a brief, fleeting moment as my eyes took in my surroundings one last time, they landed on a vision, one that stayed with me even after my lids finally closed.
Deep, earthy skin. Skin covered in ink. Skin that, as he carried my lifeless body against his chest, wasn’t scorched by my flame.
And then… complete and total darkness.
—
Chapter Twenty-One —
Evie
The scent of cedar overwhelmed me, bringing me out of a thick, foggy sleep. Blurry splotches of color never quite came into focus—various shades of gray, browns, and a brilliant white.
My lids closed again, cutting me off from my surroundings. A wood floor creaked and I felt like I should have been startled, should have panicked because that was a rational reaction, but, instead, I was strangely at ease.
Leaden limbs sank deeper into a soft surface—a mattress, sheets that smelled like pine and sunlight and something else. Something I recognized, but couldn’t pinpoint why I knew it.
This place was quiet, but not empty. While I saw no faces, no figures or outlines resembling a body, I knew I wasn’t alone. This realization didn’t unnerve me because I knew I was here, the destination my compass led me to.
My someplace.
The phrase followed me into sleep, covered me like a heavy downpour until I drowned in it. Falling deep, deep, deeper.
In between bouts of consciousness, it seemed like years passed. Like I’d been away for so long. This time, when my lids fluttered open, the same splotchy images surrounded me, but there was another—a man-sized statue sitting in the corner, facing me, maybe watching me, but I was too out of it to confirm.
The fog overwhelmed me again and I slipped away for a third time.
Cedar and soft sheets and a voice—all three at once called me to the shores of consciousness and I swam closer. I mostly concentrated on the deep baritone crooning words I couldn’t yet understand, but the tone… it was so familiar. I had the sense of there never being a time I didn’t know it. It felt like part of me; like I, myself, had breathed air from the source forming each word, each syllable.
“Evangeline… can you hear me?”
My name touched my ears—soft, smooth like oil dripping from unseen lips onto my skin.
“…Evangeline.”
Warmth touched my cheek and I stirred a little, leaning into a broad palm. The soles of my feet moved across the sheets, drawing my legs toward my torso as I fought to stay awake.
Another gentle touch from a hand and then the sound of my own voice, whispering, “Don’t leave me.”
Silence followed and I was drifting again.
“Just… rest,” he finally said, the one watching me. “I’ll stay with you.”
Once again, I swam toward my dreams with a smile ghosting on my lips, hearing the promise I’d just been given echo inside my thoughts.
He’d stay with me.
*****
My head spun from sitting up so quickly, disoriented when I realized I wasn’t in my own bedroom. It was a bedroom… just not mine.
The gray blanket slipped away from my shoulders with the sudden movement, making me aware of the chill in the air. A paneled wall with a lonely dresser pushed against it was the first image my eyes settled on. Not my yellow-painted walls and hand-drawn artwork. Confused and suddenly afraid, I breathed hard and fast.
A faint memory of fire, running, and being picked up off the ground lingered with me, but none of it fit together. There were just flashes and feelings I couldn’t match. I remembered Nick and dancing. I remembered our talk and… our kiss.
But how had an evening that started that way ended like this? Why did my night feel like a mix of dream and nightmare?
The very next second, my eyes wandered toward the window and my heart sank. Faint, orange light was burning through the slats of wooden blinds. It was morning. Somehow, in the haze, night had gotten away from me.
I was so very confused, but it didn’t take me long to at least make heads or tails of my surroundings. I’d been here before. Well, not in person, but I’d been here in my dreams, had seen these very images through Liam’s eyes.
“How do you feel?”
The question caused my head to abruptly shift right, toward the chair in the corner where hazel eyes watched me. They were so deep and penetrating I could’ve sworn they broke skin. It was strange seeing him face to face—then, now. He was like a dream walking. I intended to keep our paths from ever crossing again after the night I slipped out my window to meet him, but, apparently, fate had other plans.
Fate… I didn’t like using that word. Not when it came to him. Our meeting was something else. Serendipitous, maybe, but not fate.
But what was I doing with him anyway? And why was my memory so hazy?
I shifted in the foreign bed, suddenly aware of the oversized t-shirt covering my body. And then aware of the fact that I had on absolutely nothing underneath.
I grabbed my head when the room did that disorienting, spinny thing again.
“My clothes,” I sighed. “Where are they?”
I heard the chair creak from across the room and, when I opened my eyes again, Liam had leaned forward, elbows on knees, but he didn’t answer. His expressions were always so intense. Even now, it made me want to shy away, find something to look at other than his face.
“Can I please have my clothes?” I repeated, doing my best not to let him see that he affected me. I didn’t know up from down at the moment, but I knew one thing: I needed to get home.
Liam ran a hand down his face, letting it settle on his chin as he continued to watch me. There was a look he wore that I immediately classified as uncertainty. I became positive that’s what the look meant when he spoke the next second.
“So, I know you’re terribly confused right now, but I need you to promise not to freak out,” he breathed, leaning back in his seat again.
I didn’t like the sound of that, nor did I answer right away.
My fingers worked their way through my hair, snagging in tightly wound curls that had tangled into a wild mess. I thought on his request, his appeal for me not to ‘freak out’; however, based on my present circumstances, I believed I earned the right to decline.
“Let’s evaluate this for a moment,” I sighed, speaking with a surprising measure of calmness. “For starters, I’m practically naked. But, as if that’s not bad enough, I also have no idea how I got here, my parents are going to ground me until cars can fly, and I have no memory of the last… however long I’ve been here.” I stared at him, those irises of his
burning holes through me wherever they landed on my body. “And you’re asking me not to freak out?”
His lack of a response frustrated me because I wasn’t getting anywhere. I scooted toward the edge of his bed and thought again about being out all night without so much as a phone call to my parents. The last thing they knew was that I left the house with Nick. I could only imagine what they must have thought when I didn’t come home last night.
“My mom’s gonna kill me.” I was talking to myself, so I was doubly surprised when Liam responded.
“Took care of it,” he said casually, crossing one boot over the other as he locked both arms over his chest.
My eyes flickered toward him, but I said nothing.
“Your phone was going off on the ground beside you when I found you last night, so I shoved it in my pocket.” He spoke about all of this with such nonchalance. Meanwhile, my stomach twisted and turned.
“Please don’t tell me my mom called and you picked up.” Sweat dampened my hairline at the thought of it.
“Give me a little more credit than that; I’m not an idiot.” A faint smile touched Liam’s lips. “I texted her after I got you back here and settled.”
Hearing this didn’t put my nerves at ease. “Texted her and… said what?”
There was still a laidback air to his tone. “I went through your contacts, looked for which girl you talk to the most, and told your mom you were staying with her,” he explained. He had to have been talking about Beth.
“And that went over well?” I asked.
Liam shrugged. “She asked a few follow-up questions, but I managed.”
I closed my eyes, still trying to wrap my mind around everything. But, from the sound of it, assuming he hadn’t left anything out, he may have saved my hide.
I breathed out, resting my forehead in my palm. “I, um… thank you, I guess.”
“No problem,” he sighed. “But… maybe we should get back to this whole ‘missing clothes’ thing.”
My eyes lifted toward him and I waited for his explanation. However, I didn’t expect the one he gave.
“You kind of… burned them.” He spoke very gently, watching for an outburst.
To say I was confused was an understatement. My eyes slammed shut and I gathered the scattered fragments of my night. The ones I could recall, anyway. I did have a strange recollection of fire, but… my clothes? Did I… did I set them on fire? Or did they catch fire somehow and I had to take them off? I honestly couldn’t make sense of it.
Embarrassment set in at the realization that some rendition of the story in my head must have been true, I just hadn’t decided which to believe yet. I couldn’t look at Liam either, knowing that he took care of me, which meant he’d seen me naked and then had to dress me. It was a bit more than I could face at the moment.
“I’m, uh… really sorry about… whatever happened,” I stammered, rubbing my forehead as the words squeezed from my throat. “The only explanation I can come up with is that my fever was worse than I thought and it made me delirious. I can’t remember how I ended up like I did, but I’m sure the actual explanation is far less sensational than the way my mind’s recalling it.” I had to laugh at myself, shaking my head at the craziness. It was more of a laugh to mask everything I was feeling on the inside.
Nothing was funny.
Not at all.
In fact, I was starting to think I was really messed up. And, if I had to guess, Liam probably thought the same.
“You have nothing to apologize for, but… mind telling me why you were out here in the woods so late?” he asked. “It’s not as safe as you might think.”
I was kind of happy he changed the subject.
“End of the world party.”
“Ah, of course. Inspired by the earthquake, no doubt.” He smiled with a ‘kids these days’ look on his face.
“Yeah, and school’s out for the rest of the week, so…”
His eyes lingered on me a moment. “You weren’t hurt at all were you?”
The concern in his expression was too much, considering we’d only met twice now. It wasn’t the general, courtesy-concern society has learned to fake. This, what I saw within him, was real.
I nodded, feeling kind of uncomfortable. “I’m fine.”
Why did he care so much?
I shifted where I sat, his heavy stare still penetrating. There didn’t seem to be a point in sharing the part of the story that involved a building falling around me, or how Nick had shown up to rescue me. All Liam asked was if I was hurt and the answer was no.
“Well, whatever the case, I’m just glad I was the one who found you last night and not someone else.”
When he put it like that, I supposed things could’ve gone worse. But his statement raised another question:
“How did you find me?” It was uncanny that he, of all people, would have been in the right place, at the right time, right when I needed him.
A look settled across Liam’s face and I wasn’t sure how to read it. He took a deep breath and one corner of his mouth tugged up into a smile. “What’d I tell you about asking the hard questions?”
I recalled him issuing a similar warning the last time we talked, the vague answers he gave. Then and now, I believed he kept things from me because he didn’t think I was ready to hear them, but, based on the night I had, I couldn’t imagine anything he said sounding too crazy.
My eyes shifted to the clock on the wall—5:30 a.m. I couldn’t very well waltz back in the front door of my home at this hour, which meant I was stuck here for a while. So, bypassing Liam’s warning, I decided we should use this time to talk, assuming he was in the mood to give answers.
But not here. Not while I sat in his bed, wearing so little. This felt too intimate. Too… close.
“I think we should have a conversation,” I blurted, “but I have a request first.”
Liam had this look in his eyes, one I didn’t miss, one that made a breath hitch in my throat. It made me feel like there wasn’t anything I could ask of him that he’d think was too much. How he could convey so much feeling with one glance, such strong emotion, I couldn’t explain, but I felt it. This, our being connected as strongly as we were, added to the long list of reasons we needed a change of scenery.
A room with no bed and more light.
Quickly.
“Pants,” I breathed. “I need pants.”
The simplicity of my request made him smile. “Pants I can do. Although, I can guarantee they won’t fit.”
And I was sure he was right about that. His impressive frame lifted from the chair he’d been seated in since I awoke. My eyes stayed on him despite my subconscious screaming at me to look away.
Just… look away, Evie.
But I couldn’t, watching as he ambled across the room to the dresser. I stared at his back, the hard lines and smooth crags beneath the material of his shirt. At the nape of his neck, beneath the dark knot of bound hair, another tattoo—Arabic symbols. The sight of them caused an odd sensation to pulse through my fingers, the memory of their tips trailing the slightly raised skin saturated in dark ink, following every curve, every line.
I didn’t remember to breathe until he turned to ask if the gray sweats he held would do.
My eyes grew wide and I pretended not to have gotten lost in what felt like deja vu. “Uhhh… I’ll make it work,” I replied, forcing a smile.
His brow quirked at the strange tone of my voice, but he said nothing, just handed me the pants and then left me to change.
With him gone, I sank into myself, cradling my face as questions overflowed from my psyche, drowning me. And now, there weren’t just questions about last night. There were others.
To start, why did the feeling of knowing him seem to rest just on the edge of my thoughts? As if I was sure, and equally unsure, all at the same time.
This was something he tried to convince me of when we met on Handler Street, but I dismissed him, ignoring that inner tug in his direc
tion nearly every second of every day. It’d been that way since our face-to-face encounter. I did all I could to ignore it, but, being in his space, his home, affected me. The sense of belonging here, wherever he was, was powerful despite my inability to explain it. Powerful enough to make my throat constrict and my chest throb right in the center, kind of like the sensation that hits right before tears fall. But I wouldn’t let them.
Not ever.
Not over a stranger.
While none of this made sense, there was no denying what I felt. The lingering sadness that accompanied the idea of leaving… I didn’t understand it.
But that was wrong.
I didn’t belong here—not in this place, not with him.
This odd attachment had to have something to do with the episode I experienced last night. It left me raw, a bundle of exposed nerve endings I couldn’t control, but I had to.
I stood from Liam’s bed, pulled on the sweats, rolling them several times at the ankle so they wouldn’t drag the ground. Next, I pulled the drawstring tight across my stomach and tied them. I wasn’t fashionable by any means, but at least I was covered.
Before leaving the bedroom to explore, I grabbed my cell from where Liam had placed it on the nightstand. Quickly scrolling through my texts, I found Nick’s name and felt terrible for how I must’ve worried him. I vaguely remembered him calling my name, remembered him searching for me as he combed the woods. The least I could do was let him know I was alive.
The message I typed was short because I felt terribly awkward sending it at all. At some point, I’d have to explain my behavior, explain where I’d been, but I didn’t even know where to begin. I couldn’t just let him worry in the meantime, though.
I hit send after typing out: ‘I’m okay. We’ll talk later’, and then set the phone down before stepping out into the hallway. One loud clank was followed by another and I let the noise lead me to Liam, his kitchen. There, I found him fumbling around in a cabinet, removing pots and pans he then placed on the counter. When he stood upright, our eyes locked and he smiled.
