Chapter 45 Weird feelings

Chapter 45 Weird feelings


ATLAS' POV

Lily laughed harder.

I stayed right where I was, crouched there in the dirt, watching her because I didn't know what else to do. It was like something had cracked open inside her and this was just what came pouring out.

Boar and Raven had stopped walking up ahead. Even Anya, who was still unconscious and draped over Raven's shoulder, seemed heavier all of a sudden in the quiet.

"Is she okay?" Boar whispered, but he whispered it loud enough for everyone in the whole woods to hear.

"I don't know," Raven whispered back, also loud.

I ignored them and just kept watching Lily.

She wiped her face with her sleeve and took this shaky breath and let out one last laugh that turned into a hiccup.

"You," she said, and she was pointing at me with a finger that was trembling. "You're....." Another hiccup. "You poked me right in the forehead. And then you asked if I needed a hug."

Okay now she is acting insane.

"It was a genuine question," I said.

She lost it again. She laughed so hard she bent over and clutched her stomach, and I saw Raven press his lips together like he was trying not to laugh too. Boar wasn't even trying to hide his grin, the idiot.

I didn't get it. I didn't understand what was so funny. But something in my chest felt different all of a sudden. Less tight, you know? Like there was a knot in there that I didn't even know existed, and it had loosened up a little bit.

Lily finally sat up straight. Her face was a complete mess, like tears and dirt and a little bit of blood from that cut on her forehead, and there were leaves stuck in her hair. She looked terrible, honestly. But she also looked, for the first time since we found her in that room, like she was actually here. Like she was present and not somewhere else in her head.

"Thank you," she said, and her voice was soft and real.

I didn't know what I had done to deserve thanks. I just poked her and asked a dumb question. But I nodded anyway because that seemed like the right thing to do.

"We should keep moving," Raven said, and his voice wasn't mean or anything, though I could sense a bit of amusement in it.

I stood up and held out my hand to Lily. She took it and I pulled her to her feet.

The sun was fully up now and the light was coming through the trees all pale and kind of pretty. Lily stayed close to me again but it felt different this time. Before it was like she was scared and clinging on. Now it felt more like a choice. She kept glancing at me, these quick little looks, and then she'd look away.

I pretended not to notice.

Boar was still slapping at himself and muttering. "I can still feel them, I swear. The bugs. They're in my clothes, man. They're probably laying eggs in my—"

" Jesus Boar. Not this again!" Raven snapped. If Anya wasn't in his arms, he would have raised his hands in the air to show how frustrated he was.

"What?"

"Shut up."

"You shut up. You try falling in a ditch full of—"

"You've mentioned the ditch like twenty times now. We all know about the ditch. We're all very sorry about the ditch." He sarcastically replied.

"I hope you drown in a ditch and no one to save your ass." Boar grumbled under his breath but Raven ignored his remark.

We walked for a while longer and then we came to this small clearing with a stream running through it. The water was clear and shallow filled with small bright stone and that was where Raven stopped

"We need to rest for a bit," he said. "I need to put her down. I'm hardly feeling my shoulder." He nodded at Anya over his shoulder.

He was right. We had been walking for hours and hours and my ankle was screaming at me. Boar's mood was getting worse and worse. And Lily looked like she hadn't slept in days, which she probably hadn't.

"Fine," I said. "One hour. Then we move again." I noticed Boar's mouth open to probably sass out Raven and start a new argument. "Keep shut Boar."

Like the big baby he was, he turned away from me, kicking stones into the stream.

Raven laid Anya down on this patch of soft grass near the stream. Her face was still pale and there was a dark bruise on her cheek, but her breathing was steady and that was something. Lily went to her right away, kneeling down, and started brushing hair away from Anya's face.

"Anya," she whispered. "Can you hear me at all?"

No response. Anya just lay there with her eyes closed. But her chest was rising and falling.

Boar collapsed against a tree and finally stopped slapping at himself. He closed his eyes and within like a minute he was snoring loudly.

Raven glared at him in annoyance before finding a safe zone away from Boar, and sat on a rock near the water. He pulled out a small cloth and started cleaning his knife. He's always cleaning something, and says it helps with his thoughts.

I stood apart from all of them, watching the tree line like I always do. It was an old habit. Dangers are always lurking around especially when you don't expect it.

Lily stayed with Anya for a long time. She just sat there holding her hand and saying things too quiet for me to hear. After a while she stood up and walked toward me.

I didn't turn around. I let her come to me.

"Can we talk?" she asked.

I looked at her. "About what?"

She wrapped her arms around herself again, that same gesture from before. Like she was trying to hold herself together.

"About what happened back there. In the manor."

I waited for her to talk.

"They didn't..." She trailed off and looked at the ground. "Kathy's men. They kept me locked up but they didn't touch me. Not like that. They just left me there in that room. I don't know why."

I thought about it. The guards, the numbers, the way they were watching that house like they were expecting something important to happen.

"Because they weren't supposed to hurt you," I said. "Not yet anyway."

She looked up at me. "What do you mean by that?"

"Kathy doesn't want you dead. She wants you gone. There's a difference." I kept my eyes on the trees while I talked. "If you got hurt, that would be a crime. Something to investigate. People would ask questions. But if you just disappear? That's different. That's a mystery. By the time anyone finds you, if they even find you at all, it's too late. Your reputation is already ruined. Your marriage is over. Elliott moves on to someone else."

She was quiet for a really long time after I said that.

"You think about this a lot," she finally said. "How people think and how they plan things out."

"It's not thinking. It's knowing. I've been on the other side of it enough times."

She moved closer to me and stood right beside me, looking out at the same trees I was watching.

"Thank you," she said again. "For coming to get me. You didn't have to do that."

"No," I agreed. "I didn't."

She let out this small tired laugh. "You're not very good at accepting thanks, are you?"

"No."

"Okay." She leaned her head against my shoulder for just a second. It was light, like she was testing to see if I would push her away.

When I didn't move she stayed there a moment longer and then she straightened up. "I should go check on Anya again."

She walked back to the stream and I watched her go.