A Girl Named Calamity by Danielle Lori

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

AN ESCAPEE’S DREAMS

The next morning, we were up early and angry. I didn’t know what Weston had to be so angry about, but he was practically unapproachable. And I was a mixture of rage and frustration. Our moods equated harsh looks, sharp words, and a tense air.

It made for a harsh traveling environment . . . but probably a correct kidnapping one.

Throughout the day, I thought I did well with keeping my thoughts contained. But with the tiredness my body began to feel when the sun set, my mind felt it as well, and it was impossible to keep myself from going back to how good it felt . . .

“Think about it one more time, and I swear I will give you something else to focus on, and I assure you, you won’t like it,” Weston said darkly from across the fire.

A frown pulled at my lips, but I couldn’t help but ask, “But what did he do to me? And why?”

“He was a Latent. That’s what they do.”

My brows knitted. “Why?”

His gaze met mine. “Why do you talk nonstop?”

“Because I like to,” I said without hesitation.

“You have your answer.”

“He wasn’t going to kill me? Or sacrifice me or something afterward?”

“Depends.”

My eyes widened. “Depends on what?”

“How much he liked it,” he said flatly.

“Oh.” I let out an exaggerated breath of relief. “Well, I guess I would’ve lived then because he would have loved it.”

“You’re awfully cocky for a virgin, little girl.” His voice was coated with sardonic amusement.

It didn’t disturb me that he knew I was a virgin. But the fact that I wasn’t bothered and was used to him being in my head . . . yea, that kind of disturbed me.

“I’m sure you knew you were going to be a good killer before you actually killed someone . . . some things you just know.” I had no idea what I was talking about. And he probably knew that. But my mouth had a mind of its own around him. “What was wrong with the city? Everyone stared at me the same way.”

“Latent City.”

My mouth fell open. “Why would you take me to a city full of people like that?”

His gaze hardened. “If I remember correctly, I told you to stay in your room. Not run across the city and tempt everyone within the area,” he bit out. “But I should’ve known, you bring trouble wherever you go.”

He had no right to be frustrated with me. And I had every right to hate him. Somehow it was easy to say I hated him, but it was hard to feel, and that confused me. “Then let me go if I’m so much trouble!”

He didn’t respond.

“How did he do what he did?” Magic, I was sure, but I wanted to know more about what had happened to me. Mainly so I could talk about the new experience I had.

“You want to make me angry?” If he hadn’t said it in that calm voice with menace underneath, I probably would have said yes. I hated to admit it, but that voice got under my skin and truly made me itch to put some distance between us.

“I don’t think so . . .”

“Then stop talking.”

It looked like I wouldn’t be getting any information from the assassin, but I needed to know one thing. “Was he really going to kill me afterward?”

“I’m sure you’d eventually die months later after he tied you up in that sexual torture chamber you are fond of thinking of and fed off the energy in your body over and over.”

I gulped. It was safe to say I didn’t need to feel guilty about the Latent’s death. I could get rid of one of the murders on my conscience. I needed all the space I could get because soon it would overflow.

Weston scoffed.

I scowled. “How many times do I have to tell you to stay out of my head?”

“Princesses sure like to give orders, don’t they?” That name he called me had shivers running down my spine. Did he know about the prophecy? Or did he know a lot more about me than he had ever let on?

“Why do you call me that?” I asked. His green eyes met my brown ones in a mesmerizing stare. It was exciting, holding his gaze like I was knocking on death’s door. The adrenaline had my blood warming.

“Because I can see you in a palace ordering everyone around.”

He could put any mask he wanted in place. But for whatever reason, I could always see through it. He was lying, and it made me nervous that he had to lie at all. It felt like this man might know me better than I knew myself, and for some reason didn’t want me to know he did.

I thought it was time to cut ties with the assassin before he knew everything about me and my plan. If he didn’t already know every step I was going to take before I did . . .

* * *

I was dirty and tired as I walked to the city’s bathhouse. The entire day had been an uneventful one, taking me further away from Undaley. My stomach was in a perpetual state of knots as I scrubbed my body with the soap I had bought. It had no smell and neither did I . . . or so I thought. When every crevice of my body was washed, I slipped on some new clothes that didn’t have any of my scent on them.

Weston’s confidence that he could find me anywhere either made him really good, or really stupid. And I was about to find out.

With my old clothes in the bathhouse and the hope that he would assume I was still there, I headed on foot over to the gates of the city. I patted Gallant’s nose before I had gone to the bathhouse and told him goodbye. He understood the fate of Alyria was in my hands and forgave me for leaving him. At least, that’s what I told myself.

I wished I could take him with, but he was probably covered in my scent, and I needed a better disguise.

When I saw a fair-haired man who was alone, loading up a wagon, I knew he was the one. I watched him for a moment while he worked.

When I had the courage, I went over to talk to him. He had a kind smile and dimples. No one with dimples and fair hair could possibly be a bad person. That was my logic, and I was settling with it because I had no other choice but to trust my blurred rationale. The man agreed to give me a ride out of the city. He was heading to Tolerant City, which was a two-day trip, and then I could hopefully afford a cheap horse and head to Undaley.

I was looking over my shoulder the entire time he finished loading up, while itching to leave the city. I was a sitting duck out in the middle of the courtyard. I had my cloak over my hair because I was sure the blond strands were shining in the remaining sun, as though an arrow pointed at my head.

My hands were clammy while I climbed into his wagon. He never asked me why I needed a ride. But I was sure I acted like a frightened wife trying to get away from her husband. He looked at me with some sympathy, and it only made me clench my teeth. It was a good cover, so I didn’t correct him. My genuine story was just too complicated to share.

The cart rumbled down the dirt path and out of the darkening city. I took a deep breath when we got past the gates.

So far so good.

To anyone else, I would look like a woman traveling with her husband, except for the fact that I kept looking behind me every few seconds. As we got further away from the city, the nervous pit in my stomach seemed to grow instead of dissipate. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end, and it suddenly felt like I was prey being hunted.

The man talked about things I could barely hear over the anxiety swirling inside me. When we stopped to set up camp for the night, I was in a state of shock that I had made it so far. A state of shock that lasted only seconds.

As the man talked to me about his ailing grandmother, I couldn’t even stop to think about my healthy one. Because I was being hunted . . . and was backed into a corner.

My captor walked into the camp, his hood darkening his face. The way he walked, the way he held himself, the shape and size of his body—all the alarming details, told me it was Weston.

But I would have known it was him if I were blind because his presence almost snuffed out the fire.

The man sprung to his feet and stared at Weston with unease. He looked back and forth at us and probably noticed how I wasn’t standing and wasn’t alarmed that there was a large man in the camp. Though, he couldn’t see my heartbeat.

When Weston stepped forward, and the fire lit up the angry storm in his eyes, I realized then, the terrible mistake I made of involving someone else. Without another thought, I stood up and grabbed my bag while they both watched me.

“Listen . . . the woman doesn’t want to be with you anymore. Just be a man and let her go.”

I cringed at the man’s words. The tension in the air almost suffocated me while I looked at Weston with pleading eyes. He kept his angry gaze on me, and I was sure it was because if he looked at the man, he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from tearing him apart.

Whatever needs to be done to keep the demons at bay.

There was an evil glint in Weston’s eyes when he held his hand out to me. His body was tense, and I imagined there was a tiger under his skin pacing to get out. Barely contained.

He wasn’t hauling me over his shoulder. He was giving me a choice. I shivered as I read his eyes and saw what he really wanted. He wanted me to defy him. So he could kill the man for taking his prisoner.

His. The word had my blood heating with anger.

“You don’t have to go with him,” the man told me, with some kind of impressive courage behind his boyish appearance.

He was so wrong. I was trapped between two silver cuffs on my wrists and an assassin.

The cuffs were the side of me that everyone wanted, the part the assassin wanted. I had never truly despised them until this moment. They were supposed to protect me, but instead, it felt as though they were shackles I could never remove.

“Sorry for wasting your time. I made a mistake, that’s all,” I blurted while slipping my hand into Weston’s rough one. If I got this man killed, I couldn’t forgive myself. When he shook his head in disgust, I felt disgusted with myself as well. I had to appear as a weak woman who wanted to stay with her abusive husband. I felt pathetic, even if it was a guise.

We held hands on the way out of the camp like a loving couple, when in reality, I wanted to stab him in the heart. When we walked far enough away, I ripped my hand out of his grasp.

“Why don’t you just go ahead and hit me? This disgusting charade might as well be real!” I shouted and shoved him. When he didn’t do anything but look at me, I shoved him again.

I was so angry with myself for feeling what I felt.

So angry that I felt relief when the enemy showed up; relief that I didn’t have to travel this scary world alone.

So angry that I threw my knee up to hit him in the groin, but he blocked it with a knee of his own.

So angry that I punched him in the rock he called a stomach.

So angry that I threw my knee up, just to have it blocked again.

That was when he had enough. He grabbed my wrists with one hand, while his other spanned my throat to tilt my head up to look at him. “I told you I could find you anywhere.”

Emeralds looked back at me. The stones of truth and tranquility.

Those two things hit me with force and I stopped fighting. I was sucked into his green web, which I was sure he often used to trap his victims. I was too tired to care that I was just another fly.

Tranquility was easy; the relaxation of muscles and mind. Truth was harder for me to swallow.

The truth of my life. My mission. And my failure.

All I wanted was to do the right thing. The right thing for Alyria.

“There is no right thing, Calamity.”

“There’s good and bad, Weston. Opening the seal . . . it’s bad,” I breathed.

“No one in Alyria is innocent. And if they are, they won’t always be. They don’t need you to protect them.”

Maybe good was never supposed to win. Maybe humans . . . and non-humans were never meant to exist. Maybe we were only killing Alyria, and it would be better off without all of us.

Maybe opening the seal would do it a favor.

How could this decision have been left to me? I looked away when I felt my tranquil state morphing into something much more hopeless. I was going to be a disappointment to everyone. To my grandmother. To myself. I didn’t know how to get out of this, and I didn’t believe that I even could.

Tears swam in my eyes and one ran down my cheek.

Weston wiped it away with a thumb. “The whole world doesn’t have to be on your shoulders.”

Another side to him I’ve never seen.

“I hate you,” I whispered.

“I know,” he replied before he dragged me through the forest.

Sometimes things aren’t always what they seem.

The spider thought he trapped the fly. Little did he know, you can’t spin a fly with claws in a web.

* * *

Something disgustingly soft had passed between us. It was like the softness of a quilt against your skin before your grandmother ripped it off and told you to go clean the chamber pots.

He made some good points in his creepy frame of mind. But he was wrong.

The fate of Alyria was on my shoulders.

Everyone might not have been innocent, but I thought of that little girl outside Sylvia. She deserved the right to choose.

I never believed that opening the seal was the right thing to do. If it was opened there would only be death and destruction. The magic made human men insane. What Weston was trying to do was selfish. There wasn’t one good reason for opening the seal.

I could only hope Weston would believe my act in the woods. I would take any small wins I could.

Thank Alyria, I didn’t have Elian on my shoulders as well. The thought amused me. At least the whole universe wasn’t in danger of my failure. That would have been too much. Naturally.

What I now found funny was an odd thing. I hoped I didn’t lose myself in the blood, in the lives of others and become tainted like the Red Forest. I knew there were already some things swallowed up in the red.

But I wasn’t so much worried about the red as I was the . . . green.