Page 62 of Apathy
“Skylar!” His voice echoed around us, but I just increased my pace, trying to avoid muddy puddles. “Where the fuck are you going?” He finally caught up with me, taking a hold of my arm and spinning me around.
“Oh, so now you’re ready to talk?” I seethed and pulled my arm from his grip. “I’m going home where I won’t have to deal with you.”
I turned around and managed to take one step, before his arms came around my waist, lifting me up from the ground. I screamed and started thrashing but the idiot wouldn’t budge. He started carrying me back, passing the car and heading into the deep forest.
“Let go of me!” I pinched his arm, earning just a painful grunt, but he didn’t let go. “Ash!”
“No!” he bellowed.
“Excuse me?” Who did he think he was?
“I’m so fucking angry at you. So, so angry, Moonshine.” Oh no, he didn’t.
“Well, the feeling is entirely mutual, buddy, but the difference is that I have a reason to be angry at you, while you abso-fucking-lutely don’t.”
Mr. Broody, as I named him on that first day, just kept walking through the trees, carrying me as if I weighed nothing. My thrashing went unnoticed, so I stopped trying. No matter what I tried, I knew he would be able to catch up with me. Besides, I didn’t want to get lost in these woods. I knew the area down at the riverbank, but this side… This side was completely unfamiliar to me, and seeing the dark skies enveloping Winworth, I was pretty sure we were going to get some rain today.
And trust me, there were worse ways of dying than getting slashed by some deranged maniac.
“Ash,” I tried again after a couple of minutes. “This is getting ridiculous.” Nothing. Not one single word.
He started slowing down, stopping right in front of a large tree stump situated between the tall pine trees casting shadows on the area. The air smelled like rain, both humid and cold, while wind danced across my skin, bringing the scent of pine and mud, intertwining it in what I called the scent of Winworth.
My feet hit the ground when Ash finally let go of me and took a couple of steps away. The adrenaline fueled with the anger I felt earlier started dissipating, leaving behind the sore muscles and disbelief at what I almost did in school. I could’ve harmed her. I could’ve done something I wouldn’t have been able to come back from, and if it wasn’t for Ash, I would’ve. I could feel his eyes on my neck. I could almost feel his hands on my body, and I knew that once with him would never be enough.
Whatever this pull was, I wanted to feel it, to bask and bathe in it, to feel it on my lips, to taste it on my tongue. I wanted to go crazy with him, to scream his name, to cry out, to forget. Just to fucking forget.
“What is this place?” I mumbled as I placed my hand on top of the tree stump, feeling the rough surface beneath my fingers. I traced my finger along one of the circles on the stump, and I felt him standing right behind me. I didn’t hear when he approached, moving like a cat, without a sound, but I felt him.
Just how I felt his hands as they circled around my waist, pulling me up into his chest. My entire body trembled from anticipation, waiting to see his next step. Waiting to see if that night in the tent was only a one-time thing or if he actually felt what I felt—crazy desire, need, molten lava in my veins when he was around.
He was in my bloodstream, in my head, and at that moment, I didn’t care if he was just another distraction or something that was meant to be mine.
He inhaled sharply, burying his nose in the crook of my neck. I should’ve felt scared, unsafe, standing here with a person I met just a few weeks ago, but I didn’t. I felt safe, protected, and no matter how much his body radiated with anger, his eyes betrayed him. His dark, dark eyes, following my every move, reading me like an open book. They told me everything I needed to know.
He wanted this as much as I did.
“What are you doing to me?” he murmured almost painfully, as if speaking those words cost him more than he cared to admit. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”
“Like what?” I asked, afraid my voice was going to sound shaky and weak. And it did. It trembled just like the rest of me, but I couldn’t give a fuck about pretenses right now. I wanted him to see me, the real me.
“All-consuming,” he answered. “Crazy.” He paused and took another inhale. “You make me feel fucking crazy and I don’t know why.”
“Ash—”
“I think about you all the time, Moonshine. You consume my days. You consume my dreams, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to exorcise you from my veins.”
Holy shit.
“It wasn’t supposed to be like this,” he whispered, like he didn’t want me to hear him. “You weren’t supposed to be like this.”
What? “Ash, what are you—”
But I couldn’t finish my question because in the next second, he turned me around, and like a man starved, pressed his lips against mine, inhaling me, savoring me, licking against the seam of my bottom lip, urging me to open up for him.
I opened my eyes, coming face-to-face with the storm brewing in his. I wondered if sailors felt like I did when faced with the storm on the sea. Terrified but calm. Accepting the fate rolled out for them. I knew that he was going to be my ruin. And for better or for worse, I didn’t give a fuck if he destroyed the last sane piece of my mind, as long as he kept all the other monsters at bay.
He calmed the demons in my head. This stranger, this storm threatening to destroy me, and I wanted more, so much more.
