Ch. 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
~Avery:
It was a few hours later when I woke up. I had taken a long, sorrowful, angry shower and fallen asleep in my towel on the bed. It was dark out and I was totally disoriented. The earlier events suddenly came to mind in a jumbled order. Killing wolves, fighting with Drake, making out on the couch then freaking out, the fight at dinner, all of it. I look over at the nightstand and scrunch my face at the time. Almost 4am the next day. I can’t believe I slept this long.
I sat straight up. The bodies out there! I just left them all!
I quickly dressed in an easy pair of loose workout pants and shirt, tying my knotted hair up in a messy low bun, snatched a jacket and opened the bedroom door - and stopped.
Drake was there, asleep at the dining table, covered in even more dirt and blood than when I’d left him in the living room. He snored lightly and I moved quietly, trying not to wake him - I wasn’t ready to deal with what had almost happened.
My whole body sizzled with heat and electricity just at the memory of our kiss - well more like our near-foreplay heavy makeout session. I pushed the memories aside and made my way outside to the cold early morning air.
I stopped in my tracks at the sight of it all. It was all clean. I walked along with a flashlight from the front door, and moved more closely to where the messes and bodies had been, but they were gone! I ran briskly over to the dock and searched but didn’t find anything there either. What the hll? I stopped in my tracks. Drake. Had he really cleaned all this up? And if so, what had he done with all of it?
All of it? I mean, there was so much…
I rushed up through the trees back to where I knew I had left my last bodies, but other than disturbed brush, there was nothing here. Either he had gotten rid of everything, or it had all somehow disappeared? How did that make any sense?
I wrung my wrists lost in thought on the way back to the cabin. The chill in the early morning had me involuntarily shiver. Or was it in response to the missing bodies? Or the memory of what we had done - what I had done - out here the day before?
I slowly opened the door to find Drake exactly where I had left him. His head had moved slightly, his hand now supporting his left cheek instead of his right. I watched him for a few moments, letting everything spin around in my head.
Would I ask him about the bodies when he woke up? Then what? A flash of our time on the couch last night came to mind making me wince. How was I planning to deal with that? Would I tell him to leave it? What was I going to do?
I made my way to the bedroom as I made up my mind. I couldn’t have that conversation - I just couldn’t. And he wouldn’t let me shut him out. I knew that. I couldn’t leave him behind because he vowed to ‘never leave’ me, ever. So it was now. It had to be now. Who knew when I would have this chance again?
My mind went into hyperdrive as I did what I always do. What I have perfected.
I ran.
Thirty minutes later I was still fighting tears as I sped toward town. It took everything I had to keep my hands on the steering wheel, to keep from turning around, to stop imagining Drake’s face when he woke to realize I had gone. I had to get to my rental and get everything set to disappear again. I should have been prepared for this before I’d left but I didn’t think I’d be in this much of a rush to change identities again. I slowed as I approached the exit from the highway and focused on my tasks.
It was still early morning and I creeped the car to a slow crawl across the street to not risk waking anyone by pulling in the driveway. I got out, moving quickly but quietly and straight into my studio.
“Okay, cash, note, bag,” I whispered aloud to myself.
I moved with purpose, repeating the three steps to myself while I took care of it all. I left my kind landlord Johan a note with cash - only having half a month’s rent for the trouble. I hadn’t meant to leave this life so fast and hadn’t had much saved. I need some money for gas and to switch my phone and car, I couldn’t give it all. I made a mental note to myself to send him anonymous money in the future somehow.
With my bag of clothes and essentials I poked my head out the door making sure no one was out there. After a minute of feeling for auras and finding none outside, I briskly walked back to my car and tossed the bag onto the front passenger seat. I put my keys into the ignition and froze, a flash of Drake’s face above me on the couch came to my mind. My heart hurt so suddenly like something was squeezing it suddenly from the inside. I gasped at the intrusion of a thousand thoughts.
A sob bigger than my own body wretched through me and I crumbled against the seat, holding myself, one hand above my heart. I weeped, choking back sobs, fighting my tears to breathe. I felt cold, hollow, and in active pain. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this kind of pain before. I could almost feel Drake’s gaze on me. It was such a strong feeling that I sucked in a breath and looked around frantically for him. But he wasn’t there.
My hearing got overwhelmed. I heard his voice saying all the things anyone would want someone to say to them.
“I’ll take care of that, okay?” in the forest when we met.
‘I got you’ in his text.
“Don’t you feel something? A pull?” in the parking lot of the corner store.
“I’m better already,” he teased in the woods by town, his bruises worrying me.
“Our gods and goddesses blessed us with soulmates. One true soul to compliment our own. And you see… Freckles, you’re my - we’re each other’s - we’re mates,” he explained, scaring me into my first run from him.
“And what does it normally feel like?” his low voice in our dream meeting. “Please let me help you… I need to know you’re safe.”
His low rumble, “Freckles,” when I opened the door to his naked self when he found me at the cabin.
“And if you’d realized I was coming, what would you have worn exactly?” Drake’s sultry question on our first night at the cabin.
“Freckles - I’m not leaving you. Not now, maybe not ever.”
“I’m sticking with you for the long haul. Even if you don’t want me to.”
“I must have done something right to deserve such an astounding mate,” when he showed me how to free the fish I hadn’t meant to command.
“Mate, if you keep doing that I’m going to have to insist on helping,” his eyes pure black.
“Freckles… I meant what I said. I’m sticking with you. You’re - you’re all I have left… Maybe you just need me to prove it. So that’s what I’m going to do. I’m not leaving you. Not now, not ever. And if you need me to say it a hundred more times, then fine. I will.”
“I see you,” after we had slaughtered so many, after I’d exposed what I do to the recently departed I murder.
His rare, magnetic laughter, the light in his eyes when he teased me.
I cried through it all. I was boiling up and I was going to lose it.
The panic of that thought had me looking around in a panic. I opened the car door and ran as fast as my feet could carry me. I ran and dove into the water by Johan’s property. I swam down, down, eyes open, my tears getting lost in the water, and when I couldn’t contain it anymore, I screamed.
My cry vibrated through the water. It went on and on as his voice, his touch, his words, replayed over and over in my head.
I screamed over and over again. I screamed for my loss, my heartbreak. I screamed for the way I needed to hear Drake say he would stay but how I couldn’t promise the same. I screamed for Drake, saddled with a disaster like me. I screamed to the Goddess for doing this to the both of us. I screamed at myself for being so afraid.