Wanderlove (27 page)

I compelled myself to square my shoulders and stand my ground. As much as I hated this, I resolved to get through it.

“I
do
want you to marry Annika,” I said resolutely. “This was a mistake. I should have never come here. My memories wouldn’t have started to come back if I hadn’t, and from the way everyone describes it, I’ve put the world in peril because of my remembering. So whatever this is, it stops now.”

He shook his head, refusing to believe what I was telling him. “Lola, I can protect you. We’ll find a way to make it through this. I swear it to you.”

“
No,
” I breathed.

I swallowed. I think I knew the words to say that would make him listen to me, but I was afraid of saying them-because it would be flat-out lying. But I was good at lying. It wasn’t like I hadn’t done it a million times before.

So why was it so hard to do it this time?

“Lola,” he pleaded with me. “I was lost without you. And I know you were miserable without me, too. Why are you doing this?”

For you,
I wished I could say.
So you won’t be
unhappy anymore. And because Annika deserves you much more than I do.

But instead, I lied to him. “Because I don’t want it to be like the last time, Gabe. I don’t want to commit suicide and I don’t want to put everyone else at risk. If we just stop now, maybe the things I’m not supposed to remember will never come back to me. I’ll go back to Zetta and let her curse me again. I’ll stay near her, and hope it stays powerful. That way, no one’s lives are at stake, including mine.”

I bit my lip, waiting for his reaction. I wondered whether or not he would buy it.

And then I saw the pain building in his eyes again. His expression was a stony mask, but I could see the truth there. I had hurt him. And more than anything else, I knew he wouldn’t risk hurting me.

My success caused me no overwhelming joy. Because any amount of agony he was feeling right now, I was feeling it, too.

“Okay,” he said. “I get it. I don’t want to risk your life.”

Heavy tears grew in my eyes, fogging my vision. I cast my head downwards, trying not to let him see if they happened to spill.

“So we’ll stay away from each other?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’ll stay away from you.” His voice was broken, dead. My tears started to fall, but the darkness of the night sky hid the evidence.

And besides, Gabe wouldn’t be able to see me cry. He had already started walking away from me. I guess he had meant what he said.

“You’re not eating.”

I scowled to let Cam know just how obnoxiously obvious he was being. It was lunchtime and my peanut butter and jelly sandwich sat in front of me, untouched. But so what if I wasn’t hungry? It’s not like it happened very often.

“I just thought I’d point it out,” he said, shrugging. “There’s no reason to get so moody about it. Sheesh.” Though his voice remained very even and monotone, I could hear the underlying sarcasm in it.

Annoyed at this point, I looked away from Cam, hoping he would change the subject. I don’t know why I continued to hang out with him at school. He reminded me too much of his brother, and I really would prefer not to be reminded.

“You know, not eating is a common sign of depression.”

“I’m not depressed,” I told him.

“Did you know that depression is often a result of a broken heart? Apparently, it happens a lot. People write songs about it and stuff.”

“
Cam
,” I stated emphatically. “Drop it.”

He sighed, acting as if he were annoyed also. “Fine, whatever.”

A few moments passed awkwardly before Cam asked me, “So are you going to eat that?”

I pushed the sandwich toward him. “Take it.”

Cam swooped up my food like a vulcher and grinned cheerfully. The bell rang not long after he finished eating.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk you to class.”

Honestly, I didn’t even feel like going. And next period was biology, one of my favorite subjects. But I really just felt like curling up in my bed, with my grandmother’s lavender-scented sheets surrounding me, drifting off to a blissful slumber.

I ended up letting Cam walk me to class, regrettably.

“Hey.” He smiled as we came to a stop in front of the classroom door. I looked up at him, watching as his gray eyes sparkled. Just like Gabe’s beautiful gray eyes.

Great. Another freaking reminder.

“Cheer up. Christmas break is coming soon and we’ll be off for two whole weeks.”

He made a good point. I could look forward to two weeks of peaceful, uninterrupted hibernation. It was the best news I got all day.

“Thanks. See you later.”

Biology dragged by. There were no labs today and the professor lectured the entire hour. Mostly, I just tuned him out and stared at the clock as it ticked on and on, until it finally reached my beloved three p.m. And then the bell rang. I thought it may have been the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard in my life.

I grabbed my satchel and ran out the door. Sometimes I let Cam drive me home, but today I felt like walking. Knowing he’d probably talk me into letting him drive me, I hurried to flee the campus before I ran into him.

It wasn’t a long walk to Miriam’s house from the academy, anyway. Only about twenty minutes if I power walked. I plugged my earphones in, letting the sound of the loud music tune out the world around me entirely. It wasn’t freezing, but there was a slight chill in the air, causing me to shiver. I pulled my jacket from my bag and slipped it on. The jacket was thin and had a hood, which I pulled up and over my head in case Cam drove by.

I’d been walking for maybe ten minutes before I decided to change my Ipod to a different play list. I slowed my step so I could read the display.

However, the steely arms that grabbed ahold of me and wrapped around my mouth were unexpected.

I started to scream, but the noise was only a small, muffled sound because an itchy burlap bag was thrown over my head. I couldn’t see anything through the scratchy material. My world had transformed into an inky darkness.

Fear unfolded inside of me, and it was quickly growing by the moment. I kicked and wrestled with all my might from inside of the bag, but it was no use. I felt myself being tossed up and then thrown hard against the man’s shoulder. The impact knocked the air out of me.

There was nothing more I could do. The more I struggled, the harder it became to breathe. I was terrified I might suffocate.

It wasn’t long before I heard the clicking of a key unlocking a car door. . .and then it sounded like a trunk was popped open. Feeling myself being tossed inside of the trunk, I gasped as I hit the floorboard. I wondered where I was being taken. It was absolutely terrifying, of that there was no doubt. But even more so, I couldn’t help being enormously curious. I wanted to know exactly why I had been trussed up and thrown into the trunk of a car.

Apparently, whoever had abducted me hadn’t planned on taking me very far, because it was only about a fifteen minute ride to their destination. The vehicle’s engine suddenly fell silent and I could hear the driver shutting his car door. Followed by this, I heard the sound of footsteps clicking across a cement ground. The trunk popped open and the man dragged me upwards, his arms cutting into my waist painfully. He carried me again. A squeaky door soon opened. I listened to the sound of my abductor’s boots hitting against a hollow floor. We must have entered inside of wherever that door led.

Once inside, I felt the weight shifting beneath me, as if we were headed upstairs. A few more doors opened and closed.

Eventually, I was dropped onto a cold, hard ground. However, it was a few more moments before the bag finally came off of my head. As soon as it did, the smell of dust and grime instantly hit my nostrils. I looked around in the dark, attempting to view the man who had accosted me. No features came into play until a match was abruptly lit.

The man was glaring at me. . .with green eyes that were filled with a vengeful fury. I watched as his psychotic eyes subdued into a smug gaze.

I couldn’t find my voice for a long while. Every time I tried to speak, only a slight breath of air escaped my mouth. Without any explanation, my abductor pulled me against some sort of column. There, he began tying me up with a thick band of coarse rope. I couldn’t move afterwards. The bindings were too tight. It didn’t look like I would be getting out of them any time soon.

Mustering up the little breath and courage I possessed, I whispered, “What are you planning to do with me?”

He didn’t give me an answer. He didn’t even look me in the eyes. The moment after he made sure the rope was secure, he left the room. The door slammed behind him, creating a resonating echo throughout the hollow space.

Oh God
, my mind screamed. Could he really have just left me here with no explanation of any sort? And in the middle of. . .who knows where!

As soon as I heard the sound of a car driving away, I began to struggle against the rope. I tried to find any loose knot that could be undone, but the knot had been tied with too much strength. There was no way I was getting out of the hold. And the more I continued struggling, the tighter and more painful the rope became against my body.

Later, I tried screaming. And I continued to scream for what seemed like hours. But all my efforts were a waste of breath. I was probably somewhere in the middle of the woods, for all I knew. If that was the case, I would never be heard.

When was the giant man coming back for me? And what would he do to me when he got back?

I swallowed. I couldn’t remember being this frightened, ever. The not knowing part made matters ten times worse. I couldn’t even escape the terror through the quiet escape sleep would bring. As hard as I willed myself to fall asleep, I was too anxious. Not to mention I was severely uncomfortable due to the hard post to which my back was secured. All I could do was worry and contemplate for the rest of the night, making myself sick with panic.

I remembered Zetta’s lullaby and began to quietly sing. I was hoarse from screaming and I could barely muster the words. My voice seemed…broken. Anyway, it certainly wasn't enough to put me to sleep. But the familiarity of the lullaby did bring a small form of a hazy calmness to this horrifying nightmare I was currently living in. It was something, at least.

“My darling, Lily. It’s been much too long.”

I was simply too tired to mince words with the strange, beautiful woman standing before me and so I was decidedly blunt. “My name is Lola. And I’ve never met you before.”

Her name was Natasha. She’d announced it before she walked in by shouting, “Darling, it’s
me,
Natasha!” She’d said it like she’d arrived for afternoon tea or something. And just like that, she expected me to know who she was, like she was a long, lost pal of mine. As a gesture of our apparent estranged friendship, she ordered her ruffian lackey to untie me. I was allowed to sit in an actual chair, thank God.

The lackey was the same man who’d brought me here last night. He was a massive bulk of muscle with blonde hair, green eyes and rough, patchy skin. And he was just as scary in the light as he was in the dark.

“This is no way to treat a guest, Gorge,” Natasha scolded him.

In a bizarre kind of way she reminded me of the Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle. The more I thought about it, the more I noticed that the two Natashas were eerily similar. Both had pale skin with long, dark hair, both extremely skinny, and both with Russian accents. It was really, really weird. Or maybe I was just overly tired and my mind was playing tricks on me. Either way, I was slightly entertained by her, underneath the constant state of fear and fatigue.

So now I was sitting in a cold, hard metal chair (one step up from being tied up to the pole, I supposed) and I had this Natasha chick acting as if we were long, lost buddies. Then there was Gorge, who was still staring at me like he wanted to crush me in two.

It didn’t help that I was about to pass out from exhaustion. I simply wasn’t functioning enough to deal with my abduction at the moment.

“No, we’ve never met. . .in this life, anyway,” Natasha finally spoke again. She paced the room, slowly, hovering above where I sat in my chair.
Ahh, so she’s a fellow Rom
, I gathered before my eyes started drooping. I didn’t know why, but this information put me more at ease. I figured it was simply a relief I wasn’t being held hostage by some sick, psycho killer. Just more gypsies. I could handle gypsies.

Since there was a little sunlight streaming in from the room’s one window, I could make out more of my surroundings, not that there were very many. The room was empty, save for the pole, and now my chair. I noticed the floors were made of a commercial carpet. Probably an abandoned office building of some kind. I racked my brain, trying to remember if there were any uninhabited office buildings I’d noticed before. But my mind came up blank for any immediate possibilities. Most likely, I was too tired to think clearly.

“So. . .Lola.” Natasha paused to smile, displaying a set of jagged teeth. “I like that name better. It suits you. Anyway, m’dear, Do you know why you’re here?”

“There’s something in my memories that you want.” I didn’t even think twice about playing dumb. I was simply too worn out to give her any bull.

“Good girl,” she said. “See, Gorge? And you thought she’d be difficult.”

Gorge didn’t utter a word. He stayed in the corner of the room, cast in a stony silence. Natasha turned her attention back to me now, flipping her long, dark hair in a column over her shoulder.

“So where is it, Lola?” she asked.

“Where is what?”

Natasha frowned. “Now, I thought you were going to be a good girl for us. Just tell me where it is and we’ll let you live. It’s as simple as that.”

I blinked. I decided I didn’t really care about living. If they would just let me sleep, I’d tell them anything they wanted to know.

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” I yawned. “I certainly can’t figure out what ‘
it’
means, now can I?”