Page 95 of Beneath the Flames
“From your father?”
She nodded.
The urge to apologize was overwhelming.I tried to stop the words, but they couldn’t be restrained.“I’m sorry I tookyou from them.”
If she was shocked by my apology, she didn’t show it, simply nodding instead.What could she say to me anyway?It’s okay?No, because it wasn’t.
“I just wish my mom would do something to protect them.I wish the burden hadn’t fallen on me.”
“Why doesn’t she leave your father?”I asked.
Maren let out a long sigh, her gaze fixed on Mount Kharos far in the distance.“She tried once, when I was younger.My siblings were too young to remember anything.We drove for days, but my father tracked us down and dragged us home.She attempted to leave one more time when I was about to go to college.”She glanced at me.“I was going to study psychology and planned to be a therapist so I could help other children in situations like mine.”
Her knuckles were red from how hard she was wringing her hands.I couldn’t help it—I reached over and took her hand.Maren swallowed but otherwise continued.
“The night before I left, all packed up and car full of my belongings, my parents got in one of the biggest fights I’d ever seen.I grabbed Lila and Joey and we hid in the barn.It was after midnight before I dared bring them back inside.When my mom crept into my room, she told me we were leaving.She’d had enough.”
Tears filled Maren’s eyes, and her chin shook.“I decided to leave for college at the same time so I wouldn’t be there when my father discovered they were gone.The next night, I got a call from the hospital.My mom and siblings had been found, car in the ditch on the side of the road.There wasn’t a scratch or dent on the car, but my mom had been beaten within an inch of her life.Lila and Joey were okay though.
“I dropped out of college without hesitation and movedback home to take care of mom while she recovered, and make sure my father didn’t step a foot near my brother and sister.”
The tears finally spilled onto her cheeks, and I hated that there was a bucket between us that kept me from sliding my arms around her.The more I got to know Maren, the more I felt the urge to comfort her—a truly foreign feeling for someone like me.
“And no one ever questioned your mom’s injuries?”
“That’s the bad part about living in the middle of nowhere.There’s no one around to see, and my father always did an excellent job at pretending he was a good person whenever he left the farm.No one ever suspected.”She blew out a breath.
“My mom broke after that.She never tried to leave again and became a shell of a person.She stopped speaking up, stopped fighting back.”Maren’s sad eyes met mine, and she shrugged.“So I tried to.”
“And that’s why you’re so desperate to get home.”
She nodded.
“I’m sorry, Maren.”
A sniffle was her only response.
“I swear to you, if we break the curse, I will do everything in my power to get you home to your family.”The words were out before I could stop them, and I wished I could rake them back in.I had no business making such a promise.Not when there was no chance I could ever keep it.
Her face lit up, and nausea filled my stomach at the sight of it.I’d made an oath I couldn’t keep to a human who didn’t deserve to die.
My legs moved of their own accord, pushing me to my feet.I needed to move, to put space between us.I needed to remember what would happen in the end.I kept letting myself forget, getting lost in these stolen moments with Maren.
I muttered an excuse about needing to go do something else, and left her sitting on the balcony.
I was a coward.
Day four of waiting for the seed to sprout.
Try as I did, I couldn’t stay away from her.I was back in the Magmara room before moon rise, attempting to find some semblance of the patience that Maren demonstrated as I stared at the pot once again.Still, nothing had happened, and frustration filled me to the brim.
Breathe, Rhydian.Give it more time.
As if time was a luxury I currently had.
It didn’t take long before the creak of the door alerted me to Maren’s presence, and the clunk of her boots on the tile filled the room before she took a seat on the floor next to me.
“I finished it,” she announced, handing me the old, tattered book.“It’s a love story,” she said, looking at me like she’d never expected me to read such a book.
