Escape - Chapter 33.1
Chapter 33.1
For three days, she slept as if dead. In her fitful slumber, dreams flickered, fragmented and rewritten like a much-edited novel, blurring the lines between what had happened and what hadn’t.
Had she truly been consumed by him, just once, in that swirling phantasmagoria? But even if it were true, it wouldn’t matter. If that was the price of becoming one with him, of never being apart, she would gladly pay it.
“Sometimes… your relationship isn’t… normal,” Lilith, her old friend, had once remarked. But wasn’t that to be expected? After the Night of the Massacre, they had only each other. Two fourteen-year-olds, utterly alone, orphaned in a pool of blood—how could they possibly have formed a healthy bond?
Their love, if it could even be called that, bloomed in the mire, a dark and clinging morass where they blindly sought solace in each other’s touch. There had been no problem as long as the seesaw remained balanced, as long as neither of them tumbled into the muck.
Which made Damian’s absence all the more devastating. The seesaw, suddenly bereft of its counterweight, plummeted to the earth. Only in the painful aftermath of the fall did Adeline realize the pool of blood, thought to be gone, had been there all along.
Damian’s presence, the weight of him, had kept her suspended above it, allowing her to forget. But the night had never truly vanished.
Adeline opened her eyes to the night. A dark, indistinguishable blend of dream, memory, and reality. Tonight, as on so many other nights, she was held in someone’s warm embrace.
She nestled closer, and as if on cue, lips met her neck. A damp warmth trailed down her throat, then lingered, gently sucking at the delicate skin. A soft moan escaped her. In that instant, the man holding her slowly pulled away.
“Adeline.”
The clear sound of her name brought her back to the present. This was real. Before she could answer, a cool hand brushed her forehead. Cold. She was still feverish, even after so long.
“Wow, this is crazy. I’m usually never sick. I guess that ocean was colder than I thought.”
Ignoring her drowsy mumbling, the man gently stroked her cheek. The cool touch felt soothing. Adeline blinked slowly, then a question surfaced.
“…Why did you save me?”
His large hand stilled. As if on cue, a gust of wind ruffled his hair, revealing his smooth forehead, the strong line of his nose, the starkly masculine features now arranged in an unfamiliar, impassive mask.
“You asked me to come with you.”
“Do you remember who I am?”
“You said your name was Adeline, I believe.”
“Not my name. I mean… do you remember our childhood together?”
“Childhood?”
“Yes. You used to follow me around constantly because you liked me. Don’t you remember?”
It had been the other way around, of course, but Adeline brazenly twisted the truth. After a moment of silence, he answered quietly.
“I don’t remember. I’m not him.”
“Then… tell me what you do know. Anything.”
The man fell silent, lost in thought. His attention seemed to shift to her hair, his long fingers toying with the fine, brown strands. Finally, his voice, flat and emotionless, broke the silence.
“You smell familiar.”
That was all. He offered no further explanation, nor did he seem inclined to. Their gazes locked. Looking down at her, he added with a crooked smile,
“So you must be mine.”
He trailed his fingers slowly along her jawline, up to her ear. Adeline, frozen until now, instinctively reached out, her arms encircling his neck. The words tumbled out, clear and unwavering.
“You’re wrong. You are mine.”
She drew him down, and he stiffened for a moment before yielding, allowing himself to be pulled close. They lay together on the black sand, facing each other. He was so large that she felt less like she was holding him and more like she was enveloped by him, but it was good, nonetheless. He tightened his arms around her waist. Warm. Yes. You are mine. Human or Serpiente, it doesn’t matter.
Perhaps that single word, “familiar,” was enough. If existence resided in memory, then her memories would define his being. But why, then, did this unsettling anxiety linger?
The broken threads of lost time could be rewoven, the missing stepping stones replaced. That was what she had been tirelessly doing since she was fourteen.
The roar of the waves crashing against the shore filled her ears as she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to silence her thoughts. Her fevered body relaxed into the soothing warmth, a pleasant lassitude spreading through her limbs. The sound of the ocean brought home the reality of crossing the World Sea.
I’ll take a nap, and when I feel better, I’ll reread the Midgard section of Escape… she thought, just as her eyelids began to droop.
Wait a minute.
Her eyes snapped open.
“Oh my god, Luce.”
***
“Gone?”
Eric frowned. He had just been informed that Luce had vanished from their lodgings.
To be fair, Eric had been somewhat preoccupied since returning from the Serpent’s Lair. The District 12, now flooded, had transformed into a vast network of caverns leading out to the open sea, and rumors of an District 8 beyond the horizon were running rampant.
The reason they hadn’t found a single trace of the District 8, despite a year of meticulously searching the area around the 9th, was simple.
