Page 38 of Forbidden Dark Vows

It takes us to Glasgow.

This city is louder, brasher, livelier, like Edinburgh’s gin-swilling, opinionated great-aunt. We wander out of the grand, high-ceilinged station, grab a kebab and sodas from a takeout, and wander along Sauchiehall Street, where the air feels charged with something I can’t quite put my finger on.

Anticipation. Tension. Confidence.

We pass a couple of uniformed cops and Harry squeezes my hand tightly, trying to tug me to the other side of the street. But I carry on walking, my head held high, making eye contact as they come closer.

“We can’t stay here,” Harry says as soon as they’re out of earshot. “They tracked us down in Edinburgh. They’ll do the same here if we check into a hotel.”

“No hotel then.”

He gives me the side eye. “I’m not sleeping on a park bench.”

“And I thought you were enjoying being on the run.”

He stops on the sidewalk and wraps his arms around me, his chin resting on the top of my head. He’s warm, and I stop shivering, just for a moment. “I’d enjoy being anywhere with you. But I draw the line at benches and doorways.”

A bus approaches us, and I realize that we’re standing next to a bus stop. Pulling out of his embrace, I join the line, dragging Harry along with me. We hop onto the bus and find a seat right at the back where the windows are steamed up, and the seats are cozy.

“Where are we going?” Harry clears a patch on the window with his sleeve and presses his forehead against the glass.

“No idea.”

“I like the sound of that.”

The bus heads out of the city, leaving the gray buildings and the colorful murals behind, and I rest my head on Harry’s shoulder, my eyes feeling heavy. The terrain becomes greener, the roads winding around turns, the bus picking up speed and slowing down at regular intervals, rocky streams following us and disappearing, only to rejoin us further down the route.

The clouds dissipate, allowing the sun to smile down upon us like ants hitching a lift on the back of a many-legged beetle.

Harry and I move closer to the window, soaking up the view, alert again.

I’ve never seen green so vibrant and glossy and glorious. The hills roll away in the distance, some growing into snow-capped mountains, others supporting wind turbines and the occasional, lonely Gothic mansion.

“That house has turrets.” Harry points to a tall, narrow house set back from the road in the middle of nowhere, the long driveway guarded by stone lions. “Must belong to a princess.”

“Or a witch.”

We pass stone huts and drywalls that crisscross the land like a patchwork quilt and fat-bellied sheep munching on lush grass in every direction.

And then the sea comes into view.

We both gape at it, wide-eyed. The sun casts a zigzag pattern straight down the middle of the gray-blue sea, sparkling like diamonds, so bright it hurts our eyes. There’s a gigantic rock in the distance, just sitting in the water, majestically, a perch for the seagulls and puffins.

We get off at the next stop, an unspoken agreement. It’s a tiny village nestled between granite mountains and the sea, the land in between filled with sheep. Even from the bus stop, we can hear the sea crashing against the shore, and my body is filled with a sense of peace that I don’t believe I’ve ever felt before, like the wilder the terrain, the calmer I feel inside.

There’s a pub in the village, a small, single-fronted grocery store, and a curiosity shop with marionettes watching passersby from behind dusty windows. The cottages are low-built and weather-worn. The wind whips across the village from the sea, tugging our hair around our faces, and making us snuggle deeper into the shawls Harry bought in Edinburgh., our fingers belonging to each other now.

Passing by the grocery store, I spot a card in the window announcing that a local farmhouse is operating as a B&B. It would mean no checking in using a credit card that the cops can trace back to us.

“We can use fake names,” Harry suggests. “What do you want to be called?”

I grin at him. “How about Mr. and Mrs. Heathcliff?”

The farmhouse is just outside the village. The sheep eye us up suspiciously as we trudge along the gravel path between fields to the large stone cottage situated at the bottom of a hill.

We knock on the bright red door and are greeted by a ginger-haired woman wearing a faded apron and a wide smile. Her cheeks are mottled pink, no doubt from the biting wind, but her eyes are bright blue, smile lines fanning from the corners and around her mouth.

“Can I help ye?”

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