Page 60 of These Immortal Truths
His admittance means more than he could possibly understand. It means that every injury she’s suffered, every hurt he’s run to her for, he has done knowing that it would be temporary. A blip of a moment, gone before he could even blink into her life. Yet he came anyway, each and every time she had need of him, just to save her from more.
“Thank you,” she says, a whisper in the dark meant only for him. She hopes he can hear the sincerity of it, can feel how grateful she truly is. Not just for his rescue, but for his friendship. For caringenough to not want her to hurt, even when the pain is gone within a moment. “For always coming when I need you.”
He pulls away, a furrow in his brow and a scoff on his lips. “Of course I came. You were scared.” He shakes his head. “You haven’t been scared in a long, long time.”
Anna doesn’t deny it. She’s given up on lying to him centuries ago. Around the same time she gave up learning the secret to how he always knows where and when to find her. “Fear is for mortals,” she says, an echo of his words.
Once they would have left a bitter aftertaste on her tongue; sounded condescending to her ears. Now, they only ring with truth.
He doesn’t smile, not the way she expected him to, but something in him softens. The tension melting from his expression like wax off a wick. “Yes,” he murmurs, finally turning to her. “For mortals. Not for us.”
The way he says it—the way helooksat her—makes the words sound more like a reminder. A mantra. Something to tell themselves when it proves to be untrue.
She takes his hand, fingers folding around his and taking comfort in the way he squeezes back. Together, they listen to the hoots and chirps of the bayou and look out over the water.
Khiran’s thumb traces over her knuckles, his voice breaking the peace. “It’ll happen again, you know. Perhaps not him, but he won’t be the only one to figure it out. It may be best for you to pack things up.”
Anna shakes her head, wincing. “They’d never make it to the next stop without this one.”
They already have to battle the swamp just to get to her door. She doesn’t want to think about how many more lives would be lost if they didn’t have a place to rest before continuing the journey. Hates to think of how many would befound.
His hand tightens on hers, a grudging acceptance tightening the line of his jaw. “How long will you stay?”
She looks back at the cabin, thinks of all the people who have found refuge within its walls. It’s an easy question to answer. “As long as I can.”
Khiran’s sigh is soft. Pained. Anna suspects that he probably knew her answer before he even voiced the question. “Very well.” His eyes trace her face, a hint of a smile touching his lips and pride lighting his eyes. “Let us help them on their way.”
For the next seven years, once a week Anna wakes to find a supply of food on her porch, in the same spot where they spoke of fear and watched the fireflies dance into the night. She never has to make a run into town for food again, never has to put herself or the safe house at risk. She helps as many as she can find a place to rest before Silas leads them to their next stop towards freedom.
In town, a rumor is spreading.
Stories from spooked slave catchers spill over booze, their eyes haunted and their tongues loose. They tell of a young black woman, standing in the middle of the trail leading to the eastern swamplands with mist tangled at her ankles and moonlight reflecting in her dark eyes.
Watching. Waiting.
They say, when they come within a few feet of her, she disappears. The only trace, the only proof, that she was ever there at all is a pair of footprints in the mud where she stood. No tracks in. No tracks out.
Some claim she’s a ghost; the spirit of a girl hellbent of vengeance. Others claim she’s a demon—that the road she haunts must be a road straight into Hell. No matter what they believe, the result is the same. The rumor spreads, and when the hounds happen to lead down that trail, the catchers turn tail more than they continue on.
Then, the Civil War starts, and the number of people seeking shelter slowly wanes. Waiting to see if freedom will come to them in a Union uniform and a flag of Stars and Stripes.
On April 29th, 1862, New Orleans is captured by the North. That evening, Anna steps out onto her front porch and finds Khiran waiting for her—hand out and palm open in invitation.
Anna takes it.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
If he dares to be honest with himself, there is nowhere he’d rather be than at her side. It’s a dangerous game he’s playing—one Eira would certainly scold him for playing. That doesn’t stop him. He’s not sure there is a force on this earth that could.
LONDON, ENGLAND
1888
The city is coiled tight, a spring ready to snap. The papers are having a field day, reporters buzzing around Whitechapel streets like flies.
Fear is a funny thing.
There’s nothing new about murders in Whitechapel. Nothing new about a sex worker dying before her time. The upper class and the press had never cared to know their names or the details of their deaths. The police had never done more than the bareminimum.
