Page 107 of Emma & Edmund

"You must have faltered enough to hit your head again if you think happiness lives here for you." Simmering fury was evident in his eyes. The memory of them filled with affection fueled Emma onward.

With feet as swift as she could make them, Emma rushed to catch up to him, lifted skirts balled in her fists. She only dropped them to wrap her hand around his bent elbow.

He could have easily pulled out of her grasp, maybe even take her hand off the bone with it. She would have allowed herself to be dragged behind him if it meant slowing him down.

She knew it was selfish, to demand his attention now. She also knew that she would lose the love of her life if she didn't.

"I'm begging you to listen to me."

Even if he had stopped, the look Edmund gave her over his shoulder was as cold as stone. "Why should I?"

Despite everything she had planned, every speech she had meant to practice in the agonizing travel back to Belmont, her tongue dried up and words stuttered in her throat.

"As I thought." With a small shake, Edmund freed himself of her hand. "Whatever you had hoped to accomplish-"

"I'm sorry!"

The chill remaining in his eye, Edmund paused.

"What did you say?"

Emma took a stuttering breath, desperation pouring through her veins, needing the one before her more than air. If an apology was what he needed, she would give one a thousand times over.

"What I said to you, how I treated you, I am so very sorry," she nearly gasped out, trying to get the words out of her mouth as quickly as possible. "When Molek showed himself, I-"

"Don't bring me into this!" The named demon laughingly called from his tree.

"You brought yourself into this when you brought her here!" Edmund called back, sounding far more confident than when Emma had heard him speak to his father last.

"It's my fault alone!" Emma pounded her chest with a fist, yelling above them both, not feeling the impact as her eyes bore into his, desperate for the softness to return. She would beg for it if she had to. Damn Molek's unending giggling. "The words I said, the actions I made, they were mine alone."

"The words you said...," Edmund mumbled, tone as bitter as soured milk, lip curling. Staring up at him as she was, Emma caught the full impact of the glare he shot down at her before stomping away, his footsteps shaking through her whole body.

In just a few steps, he would cross through the threshold to the cabin. He could shut the door in her face, and as long as she would wait, she knew he could outlast her in there.

Like sand through an hourglass, she felt Edmund slipping through her fingers. In the sand's place, sobs crept up her throat.

She couldn't hold them back, tears cascading down her cheeks in an endless stream. Something broke within her, twisting in her chest like a knife. She couldn't even bring herself to watch him leave her.

"Damn you, Emma," she blubbered, barely getting the words out, roughly wiping the moisture from her face. "Damn you, London. Damn you, Molek. Damn you-"

"What are you muttering?"

Snapping her eyes up from the dirt, Emma saw Edmund had passed through the doorway to the cottage. His hand was wrapped around the half-closed frame, just about to slam it shut. But he didn't.

Emma knew this was her final chance to get through to him, to express herself properly.

Straightening her back, with the final shred of gumption she could muster, Emma stared back at him, hoping he could feel the divine purpose she felt. With one final deep breath, she laid her heart on the dirt path between them.

"I let others determine my life for me. Even worse, I let them decide my heart. I let my pride guide my hand. I thought so fervently that I would choose the right thing, but I only brought myself misery. After I left here, I spent months thinking about you, wondering what you were doing, wanting to be with you. I thought that being miserable was my lot in life. My punishment for holding you, for longing to do so again.

"But how can following my heart be a transgression? How could I allow anything to pull me from who I love? I am so ashamed of what I did to you-"

"What did you say? Just now?"

Edmund hadn't moved an inch since she began her speech, his eyes hidden in the dark, but his voice rang strongly in her ears.

"I am so ashamed of myself, I wish-"

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