Page 18 of Stalked By Seduction and Shadows

She swallowed hard, her gaze wavering.

“And it took me until now to realize that I held the shovel to dig myself out all along. My life is out there. I can feel it calling for me. Jaxon too. We’re just trying to make it to tomorrow.”

She shook her head, and her lips tightened into a thin line. Time hung still, and I could sense Jaxon holding his breath next to me.

“Two Seventy-five.”

Jaxon exhaled. I nodded.

Beatrice disappeared momentarily into the back, and Jaxon squeezed my shoulder. When she returned with our pouch of coin, that same expression from before had snuck into the lines of her dark skin. The one that told me she had something to say but couldn’t say it.

Tell me. You want to tell me.

Beatrice’s mouth twitched, and a flare of magick swept through the room. She placed the pouch in my hands and stared hard into my eyes.

“It’s good you’re leaving, Scarlett. Leave this place behind and don’t look back,” she said. “Your sister is not who you think—” She shook her head. “No, that’s not quite right. It is you who isn’t—but you don’t know that, do you?”

I searched her eyes as she spoke in riddles, and I hadn’t a clue what she was trying to say.

“Leave. She’s not worth your guilt. You have a good heart, better than mine. And don’t you let anyone ever tell you otherwise.”

“What aren’t you telling me?” I asked point-blank, my frustration winning out over my tact.

“Nothing you need to know,” she said. She backed away. “Just the ramblings of a sentimental old village witch. Don’t go telling anybody.”

I returned her smile, even if my guts had twisted into knots. She knew.

She knew how much my sister hated me. Maybe even the whole village knew. I wished someone could explain to me why. Jaxon said it didn’t matter—that it said something about her, not me. But I must’ve done something. Said something. Or maybe I’d accidentally leaked some of myself out into the open, the things I hid, the parts I knew would be rejected.

Was I the reason Dad had given up? What was it inside of me that made me so different from my family, so alien? I didn’t even look like them. I had the same color of hair as my mother, sort of, though mine was darker.

Jaxon shook me out of the empty place, and I leaned into his touch instead of these nagging thoughts.

We stood in the middle of the cobblestone street, and everyone else faded to the background. It was just me and him, the promise of freedom rich on our tongues.

He grabbed my shoulders as the cool wind caressed our rosy cheeks. He pecked my forehead.

“Tomorrow!” he yelled.

I stared back, my lips curling up. “Tomorrow!”

9

SCARLETT

Isabella had been working all day, which was the perfect opportunity for me to pack. I separated the money I was leaving her from the rest, placing my handwritten letter on top explaining everything cleanly and succinctly. At first, I’d tried to pour my heart out. To weep and bleed into the pages and tell her how deeply she’d hurt me with all of her cutting words and coldness.

Then I tore up all of those pages, and I kept it brief. I told her I was leaving to travel with Jaxon and had saved up enough money to make her comfortable until her wedding day. I told her I was sorry. I said that I wished we’d stayed as close as we’d been after Dad died, when we were each other’s everything. I knew I shouldn’t have apologized, but I couldn’t help it. I was grieving her too, and a part of me would always stay reaching for her, no matter how many times she shoved me away.

I’d leave the money and letter in her room tomorrow morning after she headed to work. Then Jaxon and I would head to the coast with a friendly merchant and his wife we’d recruited for our escape plan.

I hid away all evidence of my impending departure under the bed and in my closet before heading out minutes before she arrived home.

Maybe I should’ve spent this last night with her, but I couldn’t bring myself to intentionally create one more bad memory to remember her by. I wanted to remember how it was before—when we were valiant and brave and youthful, defending our home and making ends meet as a scrappy team.

I didn’t spend my last night at the tavern, either. I’d royally pissed off Cassia by saying I couldn’t come in tonight—set to be our busiest night of the season—and she’d told me never to show my face there again.

I’d said, okay.

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