Page 59 of Teach Me How To Fly

“I didn’t say that I’m fine with it, but I accept and respect your wish,” he answered and finally looked at me, his dark eyes pinning me and making me understand that he was a little unstable at that moment. “Only with one condition.”

I was expecting that answer. I nodded, moving a little on the chair and the moment I touched Maksen’s leg with my knee, he shuddered and almost grabbed me with anger.

“What happened?”

“Nothing. Let’s go outside and see if we can find some fruit trees or something we can eat.”

That was strange. He walked away from me in no more than two seconds and I had to jump down from the chair and follow him quietly.

Did the wound my father made on his leg still hurt? Maybe.

We left the house and the chilly wind grabbed a hold of me. Maksen’s broad and muscular back was the only thing I could look at as I was walking behind him. It was tensing with each step he took, making me feel tingles all over my body.

I looked at the driver that was sitting in the car and wondered how he was feeling. I was sure that he was as hungry as we were and I felt bad for a second.

As we entered the woods, my attention was driven to a huge wooden door hidden by a small metallic building.

“What’s that? Is it a basement?” I asked and Maksen turned on his feet, looking right at me.

“Where?”

“Look,” I replied, pointing my finger to the spot I wanted him to look at. “Maybe it’s the basement. As far as I know, peoplekeep cans and drinks in their basement, so maybe we’ll be lucky to find something.”

He followed me as I moved my feet towards it. When I reached the door, I tried to pull the doorknob, but without any success because it was locked. Maksen pulled it too, but mumbled something indecipherable when he couldn’t get in either.

“Get away from here.”

I frowned and stepped back, giving him enough space to do what he had in mind. Little did I know that he was literally going to kick down the door.

After it fell on the ground, he turned to me with a sly grin on his face that made my lips curve up into a smile.

“Good job, assassin,” I said, and his eyes became darker.

Maybe there were things or situations that were triggering him so badly that he didn’t even realize how his face or his eyes were changing. Without saying anything more, he stepped inside and I saw how he pressed the light switch on the wall.

“Perfectly fine that the light works in the basement, but not in the bathroom,” he said, letting a giggle come out of his mouth.

I could’ve listened to his giggles forever, but he didn’t do it too often, so I was enjoying every second of the moments he did.

We walked down the stairs and the smell of mold and humidity bumped into my senses, making me squint.

Once we stepped down from the last stair, I raised my glance up and saw lots of metallic shelves with cans, boxes, and lots of empty bottles of rum.

“Guess someone loved to get wasted with rum,” Maksen said as he approached one of the shelves.

“Look! There are cans of food,” I said, making a step towards one of the shelves.

I got up on my tiptoes to get the cans, and the moment I pulled the box they were put in, I accidentally pulled the box next to it too, making both fall on the ground.

“Oh, God!” I exclaimed and placed the box of cans back on the shelves so I could tidy the place up.

The moment I bent down to collect the things that fell out of the box, my blood froze in my veins and I felt like I was going to fall. I let myself fall on my knees as my hands started trembling with the old albums that I now had between my fingers.

“What are those?” Maksen asked as he came closer to me.

With each photo I turned, the fear gripped me even more, and my heart was beating at such an alert rate that I thought it would soon come out of my chest.

There were pictures with me and Sylvian.

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