Hunted (Dark Secrets Book 1) (9 page)

His forehead touched mine. Our faces were impossibly close.

Slightly frightened, I laid my cheek on his collarbone. He pulled me in closer to him.

The song ended and an upbeat song began. Neither of us moved. I realized my breathing had become shallow and ragged.

"That was—good—dancing," I said, my words tumbling out.

"Yeah," he agreed as he stared at me with that same intensity.

"I'll show you how to work the iPod and change the songs," I said breaking the spell.

The rest of the afternoon and into the night, Theron played song after song after song while I meandered around the camp doing various chores. He asked me questions and I filled his head with band and music trivia.

When it was time to turn in for the night, he declined with a sheepish grin. "I'd like to play with this some more," he said, indicating the iPod.

"Okay
—goodnight." I lay in my bag, listening to him change songs. Each time he landed on one he really liked he would play it over and over again. I had to laugh.

I just gave him the gift of music,
I thought.
Pretty cool.

I closed my eyes as he selected "Iris" again
—the Goo Goo Dolls' song we had danced to. I thought of his deep eyes and pale, apple-colored lips just inches from mine as he held me close, protecting me.

Sleep didn't come for a long time.

~

In the next few weeks, Theron and I did everything together. In addition to morning runs, we also hiked through the forest. He had never been camping and approached everything with childlike enthusiasm. I taught him the names of plants, flowers and trees and which plants were richly edible, perfect for foraging. I explained to him how he should avoid mushrooms altogether because too many toxic mushrooms mimicked edible ones. I steered him toward plants without poisonous copycats.

We plucked fat round pine cones from the trees around us and plunked them into my harvest bag. Later, we would roast and eat their inner seeds. A big bunch of dandelion greens were easy to obtain. They grew all over the place. I showed him how to dig with a spoon around the plant and how easy it was to yank it up out of the earth while keeping the edible leaves and roots intact. We found fragrant patches of sweet clover. I explained that I personally liked them better raw as a salad, but you could cook them too.

Having someone to be with dissolved the sometimes crippling paranoia that came with being utterly alone in the middle of nowhere
—with no one watching out for you or concerned about whether you were alive or dead. With Theron I wasn't merely surviving, I was actually
living
. The isolation was replaced with the warmth of companionship.

One morning I woke up to find he had designed a vase by wrapping pieces of bark together with twigs, and he had picked the most vibrant and gorgeous bouquet of wildflowers for me.

He couldn't get enough of my music and played it as often as possible. He was like a kid in a candy store who, having never tasted sugar a day in his life, was given a hundred dollar bill and told to go for it!

Each morning brought a new hue of life across the forest
—the bird songs were more cheerful, butterflies flitted from flower to flower, hummingbirds hovered in midair and dragonflies played tag over the waters.

We were getting low on food again, so I announced to Theron that we needed to harvest to add to our supplies. I grabbed my harvest bag, and we walked out onto dew covered grass that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The scent of dampened earth perfumed the air. It was a fantastic morning, wrapped in mist. We came across a shady spot loaded with fiddleheads. We sank to the ground and sat cross-legged among the early ostrich fern. I showed Theron how to snap the glossy, spiraled fiddleheads from their stalk.

"These are delicious," I said. "Very earthy flavor."

We continued plucking the heads and dropped them into the harvest sack.

"Next week, we'll hike out to the pond and gather cattails and arrowhead roots. They taste a lot like potatoes," I went on. "Everything is fresh. There are no pesticides or modifications. Everything is one-hundred-percent organic. You can totally live out in the wild without much money or conveniences."

"You said the Takers have never found you out here in the forest before?" Theron asked.

"No, they never have. I have a theory about that."

"What's the theory?"

"I don't think they can track me in here," I began. "See, out in the modern world and general population there are cameras set up everywhere for surveillance: in stores, on street corners, at banks. There are also huge satellites roving in space, picking up images from all over the world and transmitting data to wherever. I put that together a couple of years back. The forests are the safest places I've been."

"Freya?" Theron's voice was suddenly very serious. "What if you and I were to stay here
—in the forest—and never resurface? Just live here together… off the grid?"

I looked at his face to gauge his expression. He wasn't kidding and he was waiting for an answer.

I found myself wanting to jump, to take the chance. The chance at normal. A
real
life. I registered the pleading in his eyes. I wanted to say yes. With all of my heart I wanted to say yes. I could have easily fallen in love with him—if I wasn't already in love with him.

My heart palpitated over the very real possibility. My mouth began to form the word yes as I gazed into his compelling brown eyes that could easily become like oxygen to me. But then I heard a voice that sounded just like mine say roughly, "I can't. I have to find my mother."

Theron was quiet. I knew he wanted to understand this enigma that was my mother and my relationship with her. But I had never told a soul. Not one soul. Not even Scarlett, who was her oldest friend and had known my mother before I had been born
—before the stories became wild. Now, here was this beautiful boy asking me to reveal my deepest soul to him.

I stopped my busy hands and let my eyes wander to where he was
—sitting cross-legged in the wide patch of fiddleheads, only a few feet away from me. He was breaking the deep green heads away from their stalks and dropping them into the harvest bag. His hands were large and strong and he went about harvesting the ostrich fern in a delicate, almost overly-cautious manner, so as not to spoil them. But he looked stormy now—concerned or conflicted. Maybe he was just frustrated with me. Maybe my answer disappointed him. Had he really meant it? Was it more than just an off-the-cuff suggestion?

"How does this look?" Theron's voice broke through my inner musings. "The bag is just about full." He held it open for me to inspect.

"So it is," I said.

We carried our bounty back to camp, and Theron lit a fire. I secured the fiddleheads up in the Ursack. I could hear the iPod playing The Black Keys. I came over to join him.

"Don't sit down," he said as I approached. He stood up to stand in front of me as if to block my way. "Since you've decided to track down your mother I want to teach you some combat moves."

"I've handled myself pretty well in the past," I said, a little smugly, "without your tutoring."

"Yes you have, but you've always had access to a weapon. What if you were caught off guard with no protection? What would you do then?" he asked seriously.

Before I had even had a chance to formulate an answer, Theron was behind me and had me to the ground on my knees in a headlock. I was pinned.

"Get off of me!" I said severely.

"I've seen you with a bow and arrow
—and a hair pin—but what do you do if you have nothing to grab?" He wasn't letting up.

"Okay fine, I'll play your way." I tried to scratch at his eye, but he dodged that easily and laid his head on my back. I couldn't get to his groin or his nose.
Great.

"Come on, Freya! I'm a Taker. What are you going to do?"

"Get taken," I said sarcastically.

"Not an option!" he said severely and squeezed me tightly in his grip.

I felt my pulse react to the adrenaline he had just sent surging through me. But it immediately turned into panic because I couldn't reach any of the vital areas I knew.

"Grab hold of my ear in a firm grip and peel it away from my head as if to rip it off," he instructed.

I reached my hand around me and grasped the soft moon of his outer ear and pulled.

"Don't really rip it off!" he said as he rolled off of my back and to the right side of me. Without hesitation he locked his hands around both of my wrists like a vice. "Now what?" he challenged. "And no groin kicks! You've already proven that they have armor there."

I tried to break free conventionally, but he was too strong.

"Solar plexus," he instructed. "Drive your elbow with all of your force into the center area of his middle trunk, below the diaphragm." He let go of my left wrist to position my right elbow onto the top of his vulnerable solar plexus. He continued, "Use your momentum to propel you. You'll disable your attacker and have a good chance to get away."

I nodded, "Okay."

"Now," he continued as he helped me to my feet, "remember, I will never hurt you, I promise." With that, he girded his fingers around my throat and threatened to choke me.

Outstanding,
I thought.

"To break out of this, lace your fingers together like you're going to pray," he explained. "Only firmly. Then thrust your hands up as hard as you can into the bottom of your attacker's chin. The hit will knock him off balance. When that happens, you push against him with all your body weight and bring both arms up into the crooks of his inner elbows and slam outward."

We worked through the movement like a dance. When he was pleased with my performance, he smiled proudly. "Very good. That move will also work if you can break the hold first." Again, he showed me how to maneuver my arms into the bend of his inner elbows. "But this time come down forcefully on the bridge of his nose with your linked hands."

I demonstrated that I understood, placing my double handed fist on his nose bone.

"Perfect," he said. "Another… The Taker secures you from behind." He had me in another hold before I could stop him. "Try stomping down hard onto his instep." He shook his foot to indicate where I was to stomp. "If that doesn't knock him completely off, bring your knee up and force the sole of your foot into his shin. And if that doesn't do it, work your hand up behind your head and plunge your thumbnail in between his tear duct and his eye socket. He'll let go."

He proceeded to show me how to throw a punch to the vocal box, putting all of my weight behind it. He positioned my legs for proper balance and stability during fighting. He
taught me to center my body and which foot to use as an anchor and which to use for pivoting and when.

Theron had us drill these moves and hand-to-hand combat skills every day. They became as routine as my runs. Soon each maneuver grew into muscle memory. No longer did I have to think about which position or stance to employ
—Theron grabbed me, and I automatically knew what to do.

One afternoon, as we were practicing, something more intimate occurred. He was describing to me what the knife side of my hand was
—the flat side of the hand when the little finger is tight against the other four fingers.

"Like a Karate chop," I said, taking a ninja stance.

He shot me a this-isn't-playtime look. I stood straight, and he took my hand in his and set it, blade side down, onto the precise place where his neck met his collarbone.

"You'll stun the carotid artery and possibly render them unconscious." He locked his eyes on mine to make sure I got it. But our faces were so close
—like they had been the night we had danced.

Neither of us pulled away. In fact, Theron kept the hand that was over mine where it was and brought his other hand up tenderly to my face. He caressed my jawline with his fingers, continuing until his hand came to rest sensuously over my collarbone.

"You are so beautiful, Freya."

I wanted him to kiss me. I had been frightened before, but I wasn't frightened anymore. Could my heart end up broken? Yes it could. But I knew now how much worse it would be to never know. The dull ache had become acute over the past few weeks. I slid my hand gently over the strong muscles of his neck and noted the contrast between it and his soft black hair.

Theron inched his face closer. His lips hovered in the space over mine. Then I saw a puzzled look cross his face.

"What is it?" I hesitated.

He inched back a bit and gestured toward a necklace hidden underneath my shirt. "I know you like to keep things secret, but what is this? I've seen the outline underneath your shirt before, but I figured you had it hidden for a reason and that you'd tell me about it when you wanted. But, Freya, an attacker will use whatever leverage they can against you—that could be a bun or ponytail in your hair or a necklace around your neck. Someone could choke you with it. You might consider removing it."

My eyes widened.
Did I understand him correctly? Did he really just interrupt a first kiss moment to caution me on the dangers of… jewelry?

"It was my mother's. She used to wear it," I started to explain. "When she left me, she fastened it around my neck and told me never to take it off, that it was very special and to never sell it but to guard it. I haven't taken it off since she put it on me. She always kept it under her clothes, so I figured that was what I should do too."

"Can I see it?" he asked.

I unearthed the ornate gold necklace, which was inlaid with precious jewels and gemstones, and laid it against my burgundy T-shirt.

"It's gorgeous. It must be worth a fortune." Theron studied it. "You've been smart to hide it all of this time," he stated, very somberly. "Someone would want to steal it and might not even hesitate to kill you to do it—especially in areas like the train tracks or on a bus." He traced over its intricate details carefully with his fingertips. "Is it a family heirloom?"

"She didn't say," I answered.

"No backstory?" His eyes darted to mine.

I shook my head. "I think it was just the only thing of value she owned. She told me it was made for me when she put it on me. But I couldn't understand if that meant it was made for me because it fit me so well or if it had actually been designed for me, and I was too young to have worn it before?" I shrugged.

"It adorns your throat magnificently." He began to lean back in just a little.

The moment was gone for me. The conversation had brought my mother's face to my mind.

"We've been working hard. Are you ready for some lunch?" I said more than asked and trekked over to our food supply.

~

We sat around the small cooking fire and nibbled on wild turkey, steamed fiddleheads and wild strawberries.

"These have been the most amazing foods I've ever tasted," Theron said suddenly.

"What are you used to eating?" I asked. Soldiers in the U.S. were fed pretty well with three squares a day and plenty of carbohydrates and protein for building muscle mass.

He stopped chewing and stared down at his meal. "We were fed the same thing for breakfast, lunch and dinner
—day in, day out, all month, and all year long." He breathed out through his nose and sunk his teeth defiantly into the turkey breast. He chewed and swallowed, then inhaled a satisfied breath. "The crap we ate was made for orphans. If we were strong enough and reached the age of ten, they vamped it up with more vitamins and proteins to get us bulked up and strong. But no matter what they did to it nutritionally, it was still a gray-green mush with no flavor and the consistency and texture of mucus."

"I'm so sorry."

"It was their way of rounding out their desensitization regimen."

"What do you mean?" My eyebrows knitted in concern and apprehension. "Desensitization regime" didn't sound good.

"It was experimental. The experts said it would build better soldiers—an unfeeling, unemotional, elite killing force." He continued, staring down at the ground. "The plan was to eradicate our emotions—dull them, make them numb—so they wouldn't get in the way of our orders. For our opponents we felt no remorse, no pity, no mercy, and in battle we were to have no terror or even fear. We were nothing but machines."

I remained motionless. I perceived the pain in his eyes even though he very convincingly masked it with hardness.

"We weren't allowed friendships or any kind of camaraderie. We lived and ate in tiny isolated bunk coves and had no physical contact except during combat training." His breath was even and steady as he explained, "There was no music, no celebrations or family visits, no books or motion pictures. Anything that conjured up any type of emotional response except for violence was strictly forbidden. If you showed any emotion—you'd be punished severely."

"What would they do?" I asked quietly.

"There were other forms of punishment, but I hated the cane and whip lashings across the back the most. They were bad—left nasty scars. You sort of got used to them after a while though."

"How often did they
…?"

He found my eyes and answered with a dark smirk. "I was bad a lot, Freya."

I nodded, trying to comprehend it.

He was still as a statue, staring at me. It was like he was trying to say something without words. He stripped his shirt off over his head quickly, as if afraid he'd change his mind, and dropped it to the ground. I realized that, although there was no scarring on his stomach or chest (those areas I'd seen when I fixed him up in the lean-to) I'd never seen his back.

"I've never had someone that I shared… "—he groped for the correct word— "confidences with." He stopped talking, looked away and poked a long stick at the burning logs. He couldn't bring himself to turn around.

I took a deep breath and stood up. His eyes didn't follow me
—they stayed fixed on the fire. I comforted myself, thinking,
How bad could they be?

I circled around behind him and slowly moved my eyes to his back.

I gasped, startled.

Theron, surprised by my reaction, jumped up and whipped around defensively.

"What is it?" he said, ready. But there was nothing there. When he figured that out he got angry with himself. "I shouldn't have shown you. I'm sorry." He snagged his shirt up and started to thrust his arms through.

"No, don't," I pleaded. "I wasn't expecting it. Please
… "

I touched his arm gently, and he froze. I circled back behind him. Both of my hands wandered over his skin
—feeling every pore, every line and every muscle—to prepare myself to take in his mangled, scar-ridden back. This beautiful, kind boy had been abused beyond my comprehension. Silver scar tissue, in thick deep grooves and thinner lines, formed a morbid pattern from the back of his shoulders to his waist. My breath became shallow as I traced them with my fingertips—like a blind person perceiving a story scribed in Braille.