Page 49 of A Taste Of Truth

The moment I’ve thought it, considered the very words I’m feeling, I let go of him and flounder backwards. I’m in pain.

I hurt.

Alice.

My hands go to my chest at the sensation, sawing back and forth across my skin, unused to its effect on me. It feels like something’s been torn from me, ripped from my being to leave me empty and hollow without it.

I stand still in the uproar around me, eyes barely focusing on anything but the feeling consuming me. I’m adrift without her, as if my veins are lacking blood to pump through them. Lost. Alone. All this around me now and yet the one thing I crave, the one thing I need to complete, to find, is missing from me. She killed for me. Saved me time and time again.

I want her back.

Chapter 17

Ally

Idon’t where I am, or who I’m with, but he’s holding me firm around my waist, as this machine thunders across the snow. It’s all a mist to me, large swathes of snow and fog blurring the landscape into nothing but a world of white ice.

And I’m alone. My feeling has gone, my heartbeat singular again rather than connected.

Malachi.

And my knife – gone. Lost.

Or taken.

My face is so cold, and I can barely feel the rest of me. Maybe I’m ice, too, like all this around me. No feelings, no heartbeat. Cold as ice. That’s what I am, what I need to be. Brothers? They need me. I should be at home, looking after them and keeping them safe. Instead, I’m here, or there, or wherever we are, and I’ve been taken from what was two, or one.

I’m not happy about that.

And I don’t even know if he made this happen.

I look at the gloved hands holding the handlebars, watch as they jump about erratically each time this machine does. They falter, as we lurch about, one of them slipping off before grabbing hold again. Slipping off. Slipping down. My gaze goes to the ground flying past under us, a smile finding its way back to my mouth. We should fall, and then I can run again. That’s the only way to escape. I’ll climb then, or dig. I could dig down until I find a cave or cover myself in snow.

My elbow rears back, sending as much force as I can at his ribs. Nothing happens, not until I near turn and try wrenching the helmet off his head. We battle in that, and I feel the machine sliding around under us, bumps and jerks sending us all over the place. Good.

I grit my teeth and keep tugging, somehow managing to get my foot up to kick him too. He grunts and pushes me around, wrangling to keep control. I don’t care about control. I care about freedom, and safety, and that isn’t with this man.

The loud bang comes out of nowhere, and I shirk sideways and tumble across rocky ground. Pain thunders across my legs and neck, but I get up and pull myself to my feet, and then I run again. Five steps clambered over the snow, and I feel hands around my leg. I kick, then kick again, and then try everything I’ve got to get him off me. It doesn’t work, and I’m being dragged across the ground before I know it,

“That was fucking stupid,” he shouts, still dragging me. Something goes around my wrists, tied tightly until my legs seems to get pulled up under me. “Stay still,” he says, going over to the machine.

The moon looks nice tonight, if it is night. Must be if the moon’s there. Don’t know, though. Maybe it’s not. Never sure when Malachi’s with me, but he’s not.

Not anymore.

“MALACHI!” I shout, trying to move. “WHERE ARE YOU?” He’s not here, or there, or wherever I need him to be. “Malachi?” I whisper. I look up through the mist, searching for him so he can help. “Please Malachi. I need you. Need help. Not safe.”

Maybe he doesn’t want to help me.

It’s all a game, he said.

But the knife was at his throat – my life to take.

That’s not a game.

I’m special. Important.

Lost. Not home.