Page 61 of Taken

“Whatever you want,” he replied, softly stroking my hair with one hand. “Is this okay?”

I nodded. It felt nice. “I don’t really know where to begin,” I admitted. No man had ever asked me to have a real conversation with him before.

“Well, I want to get to know you more,” Mason said. “We haven’t exactly had many chances to sit and talk, have we?”

“I suppose not.”

“So why don’t you tell me some happy memories you have from the old times?”

I closed my eyes and thought back to when I was a child. “Summer,” I finally murmured. “It used to annoy me so much. The unbearable heat and sweat, and the way it never seemed to end. But now I’ve barely seen the sun in eleven years, and I think about it all the time. I wish I could run outside and play again. Lick melting ice cream cones. Get a tan. Pick some flowers. All those things made me happy and I didn’t even know it at the time.”

“What else do you remember that made you happy?”

I smiled. “My mom. She was always so nice. She used to make me my favorite snacks and have tea parties with me. And I remember she always used to watch this show called Friends. I would sneak out of bed and hide behind the couch so I could watch it too. I didn’t really understand most of it, but it was funny anyway. Everyone on it seemed happy.”

“My mom and sister used to be obsessed with that show too.” Mason kept stroking my hair. “Anything else?”

I nodded, my mind buzzing. “I remember lots of things. But my favorite thing to do was skip stones on the pond behind the house. I used to challenge myself to see how far I could get them.”

“I know. You taught me how to do it when we were kids, remember?”

I smiled again. “That’s right. It was such a long time ago.” I hesitated, letting out a deep sigh. “I know the world was filled with sin and darkness back then. That’s why the Great Reckoning happened. But there was so much light too. So much good. Don’t you think so?”

“Yes.”

I sat up, leaning on one elbow. “My father says everything about the old world was bad. But I remember Mom used to take me for long drives to see all these beautiful fields of flowers in the spring. How can that be bad?” I asked. “There were so many other beautiful things too. Like puppies and kittens. How could they be evil?”

He smiled. “They aren’t. They’re fucking cute.”

I sighed. “I wanted a pet so badly back then, but Mom was allergic to most types of animal fur. She said we could get a goldfish instead, but then she was killed in the attack before it ever happened.”

“I’m sorry,” Mason said softly, still stroking my hair.

“It’s all right,” I mumbled. “It was a very long time ago. It almost feels like it was a different life.”

We lay in silence for another few minutes. Mason finally spoke up again, his voice a deep murmur that set butterflies loose in my stomach. “You said you think the old world was a mixture of good and bad. What about the new world?”

“We are very fortunate to be here, and—”

He interrupted me. “I asked what you think of it. Truthfully. Not what your father tells you to think of it.”

I chewed my bottom lip as I considered his question. “Well… I think it’s mostly bad,” I whispered slowly. I felt terribly guilty for saying that, but it was the truth.

Mason didn’t reply, so I kept talking. I told him everything.

I told him how hard my life was here. How much backbreaking work there was to do every single day, even though we were lucky the men kept us safe down here and brought us things to cook so we didn’t starve. I told him about all the girls who had died here or been maimed from terrible punishments. I told him about Elena and the things she said in the old church all those months ago. How she thought she saw a plane and didn’t believe the Great Reckoning happened. How she wanted to leave New Eden. How she killed herself out of guilt the very next day.

I told him how this place was meant to be a paradise, but more often than not, it seemed like hell.

Mason listened to everything, his fingertips never leaving my hair. “I’m sorry things have been so hard for you,” he said once I’d finally blurted everything out. “I wish I could go back in time and take it all away.”

“Thank you,” I said in a soft voice.

We lay in silence again for another few minutes.

“What about you?” I finally asked. “You never talk about your life before you came to New Eden. How did you survive out there?”

He was quiet for a moment. “I guess I just did,” he said.

---