Huntsman by Cambria Hebert
10
Virginia
“Why didyou say that if you weren’t going to actually do it?” I grumbled, tightening the arms I had crossed over my chest, so tight they pinched and tugged on my braids, but I wasn’t about to move.
“I said I would take you anywhere you wanted to go. I did not say I would answer nosy questions.” He spoke mildly, not even looking at me.
Fine, he was driving. And I knew all too well what happened if a driver took his eyes off the road for just a split second, but he needed to see how mad I was!
“If I could kick you, I would,” I muttered, staring out the passenger window at the city.
He laughed. Threw his head back and laughed.
“Are you laughing at me?” I demanded.
His chuckle still rumbled through the car, creating goose bumps on the back of my neck and irritation everywhere else.
“You are aware there are many ways to cause damage without using your legs, aren’t you?”
My arms dropped into my lap. Why did that sound so menacing? And exciting.
“I do think it’s cute you’re sitting over there pouting.”
“I’m not pouting!”
“Pouting,” he reiterated.
“No one tells me anything,” I said in a most definitely non-pouting way, rotating away from him. It was irritating and honestly a bit of a letdown that everyone treated me like I was so fragile all the time.
I wasn’t. My legs didn’t work, but the rest of me did. My heart and mind were just as strong as everyone else’s. No! Stronger. Stronger because of what I’d lost.
The sudden, ear-piercing screech of thick rubber against the pavement accompanied by the way the car lurched as Earth laid on the brake practically caused a panic attack.
Even though the seat belt locked tight across my chest, it was almost like an afterthought because Earth’s arm locked in front of my body, a steel, unbending rod bracketing me between it and the seat, creating a shield that maybe shouldn’t have been so imposing… but, oh, was it.
Chest rising and falling with surprise, I glanced down at the tense, locked muscles keeping me in place.
“What are you doing?” I exclaimed, but it came out more as a breathless squeak.
The car was at a standstill in the middle of the street, and the smell of burnt rubber made my nose wrinkle.
From behind, car horns blared. My neck craned to glance out the back window, but a hand grasped my chin, keeping me from looking.
“I do not think you’re weak.”
I felt my eyes flare as they jumped to his ridiculously dark, unflinching gaze. “What?” I whispered, a little lost.
His fingers tightened a bit, biting into my jaw, but not enough to cause pain. Giving me a little shake, he made an irritated noise. “That’s not why I won’t answer.”
My lips parted. Realization caused heat to burst in my cheeks. “Did I say all that out loud?”
No way. I couldn’t have. I wouldn’t have! I’d never say that for anyone to hear!
The honking grew more impatient and frantic, and behind us, someone started to yell. Reaching up, I patted insistently on his wrist. “Earth! You’re holding up traffic. People are getting upset!”
His fingers remained on my skin, his impenetrable gaze not even flickering with a hint of worry. “Let them.”
Hooonk! Hooonk! Yell!
“I don’t like it,” I confessed, hands bunching in my dress.
Dropping my chin, he moved the car forward again, turning at the corner and parking at the curb.
An angry driver whizzed by, waving his arm out the window as he sped on.
“He just gave you the finger,” I informed Earth.
“How ever will I sleep tonight?” he asked, knowing he would sleep just fine.
I pressed my lips together to hold in my giggle.
“Look at me.” His voice was quiet and unheated, yet it commanded me.
Breath stalled in my lungs. The giggle I’d been suppressing vanished as if it hadn’t been there at all. Swallowing thickly, I focused on Earth, the tug he created making it easy to do.
“Things with me and Neo are… complicated. Telling you something he clearly didn’t want you to know would just make things worse.”
“And that’s why you won’t tell me. Because of my brother.” I searched his eyes, asking for the truth and finding nothing but.
Out of nowhere, hurt pierced me, pricking my heart like the sharpest of daggers. All day, he’d been reminding me that everything he did was because of Neo.
Not because of me.
Was I even living my own life, or was I just an extension of his?
A tidal wave of emotion rose within me, threatening to pull me under like the rip currents I read about in the sea. I pulled away from the truth in his eyes, trying also to pull away from how badly it hurt.
It surprised me how much I wanted to be seen as more than Neo’s sister in those obscure eyes. I ached because I would never be.
Confined to a wheelchair. Locked in a tower. Thought of only as a sister and never as a woman. Seemed this small taste of freedom I’d had today only served to remind me of how much of a prisoner I truly was.
“I want to go home now,” I said, not allowing an ounce of the weariness I felt to shine through my request. “Please.”
“No.”
My back straightened, shoulders going tense. One of the flowers in my braid fell into my lap with the force in which my head whipped around. “What?”
“I said no.”
“Listen here,” I intoned, jabbing a finger in his direction. The tears I’d been pushing away now glimmered with anger. “I might put up with my brother’s overbearing and bossy ways, but I will not put up with it from you too. I asked to go home, and I even said please. And you have the nerve to say no.”
“I thought you wanted crickets,” he said, the hint of amusement pulsing around him.
Following his finger, I glanced up the block to the pet store Ethan had told him about. When I said nothing, he palmed the keys still hanging from the ignition. “Did you change your mind?”
“No!” I quickly said, stopping him from turning on the car. “I promised Zilla.”
Yanking the keys from the ignition, he tucked them in his pocket.
“Can I come in too?” I asked, hopeful. The ache in my heart was definitely still there, and sure, this little taste of freedom reminded me a bit too much of how confined I really was… but I wouldn’t let that stop me.
“You’re the one who’s touching those bugs,” he told me, throwing open his car door and going around to begin the process of pulling out my chair, opening it up, and placing it on the curb.
It made me feel a little guilty because it was so much work. It would have been a lot easier and faster if he’d just walked in and gotten some himself. A simple task to most people was a task that took double the time for me, sometimes more.
When he opened the door, I expected some kind of impatience. Perhaps even a little resentment. I definitely did not expect his leather-clad upper half to lower into the doorframe as he crouched down to my level.
Long fingers reached into my lap, plucking up the fallen daisy clip. The white petals seemed so flimsy against his sturdy, calloused hand. He spun it between his fingers, watching the petals flutter lightly, leaning forward, and then reaching up.
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, wanting to look away but absolutely unable to avert my stare. He seemed to concentrate hard, frowning a bit as he clipped the flower back into my hair. The whisper of his fingertips at my cheekbone created a shivering sensation across my skin.
A few beats of silence seemed thunderously loud and could only be drowned out by the sound of his voice. “You’ll think bad of me.” His gruff, almost angry tone registered before the actual words.
“What?”
He kept his face downturned. All I could see was the top of his black head and how his knuckles turned white when they gripped the edge of the passenger seat. “It shouldn’t bother me. But goddamn, it does,” he muttered to himself, the words filled with self-loathing and angst.
I still didn’t understand what he was talking about, but my heart raced as fast as my mind as I tried desperately to figure it out.
“I don’t want to tell you what I did because then you won’t want me around either.”
I sucked in a breath. Was he…? Was he saying that he didn’t want to tell me not because of my brother but because of me?
Because he was afraid I wouldn’t want to see him?
Everything under my ribcage fluttered like a million flower petals being blown around in the summer breeze. It made me jittery and kinda giddy, maybe a little nauseous.
I really like it so much.
“So you did something that made Neo mad, and that’s why you fought? Why you haven’t been around?”
He gave a curt nod.
Without thinking too much, I rested my fingers over his knuckles, which were still white against the edge of the seat. “Is it something you regret?”
Earth’s head lifted then, his bottomless, cool stare swallowing me up. His hand pulled away, leaving the tips of my fingers to tingle. “No.”
My eyebrows lifted with mild surprise. So he did something that made Neo almost kick him out of his life, yet it’s not something he regrets?
“Okay.”
Surprise sparked across his features. “Okay?”
I shrugged one shoulder. “Regret doesn’t change anything. Just makes it harder to accept the present.”
Something shifted behind his eyes, but then he blinked, and whatever it was disappeared.
“Come on.” I patted his arm expectantly. “Let’s get Zilla some crickets.”
We went together down the sidewalk toward the pet shop, him walking alongside my wheelchair.
All the hurt I’d felt just moments before was forgotten.