Page 52 of Creatures Like Us

Nobody cares about me.

The realization hits me like a punch to the chest.

They don’t care if I live or die. They don’t care if I vanish in the middle of a party and don’t show up to school for weeks. They don’t give a shit about me.

No one does. No one but Noah.

Where the hell is he?

I don’t have his number, so I can’t call him. I could look for him, but where? I’ve never ventured into the forests where he does his hunting, and forests creep me out, anyway. All I can do is wait.

I glance out the window and at the back door to the yard. The weather outside is a dreary mixture of white and gray. The light is already waning.

I thought I’d be relieved to be free, but instead, my mind is occupied with worry for my captor. Myformercaptor, I suppose.

I could run right now. I could walk out of here and never come back, but I can’t escape the feeling that something is wrong. Something is really, really wrong, and my mind fills with dread and a possibility I don’t want to consider.

If you don’t, I’ll do it myself.

He can’t?…?He can’t have just left me like this, right? No, I have to wait for him to come back. When he returns, I can get out of here, but not before I know he’s okay.

I wait for hours, until tears press against the back of my throat, and as time passes, so does the hope that he’ll ever return. What if he’s truly gone? What if he’s done what he promised he’d do, what he was about to do the night he found me?

I hide my face in my hands, elbows on the kitchen island as I sob, feeling more alone than I ever have in my life.

“Noah,” I whimper. “Please come back.”

Fleeting thoughts come and go of getting out of here and getting drunk or high. I could use some distraction from the pain of losing Noah—Noah, who I’m supposed to hate, who causedme so much humiliation and despair. But what he’s done so far is nothing compared to this.

The worst thing he’s ever done to me is leaving me alone.

I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting and crying by the kitchen island. I can’t think through my grief, can’t move through it, even if I wanted to. My palms are covered in snot and tears, and I wipe at my face, but they keep coming. The grief?…?I can’t stand it. I can’t stand him being gone, and the feeling alone is terrifying, but what if it’s true?…?What terror would come to me, then? I’m completely alone. Without Noah, I have no one.

Damn him for making me this way. Damn him for making me depend on him for more than food and water. I need his comfort, his compassion, his touch?…?I can’t be without him, and he can’t make me. But what do I do if he doesn’t come back? Return to my old life of drugging and drinking and not giving a fuck? I can’t do that. I don’twantto do that.

There’s a scratching noise to my right, then a blast of cool air to the side of my body, but I barely notice it. I keep hiding my face in my hands, wiping at my tears, still lost in my grief.

“Asher?”

I look up.

Noah stands there, a rifle in his hands, hair soaked from the rain-mixed snow.

“Oh god, Noah?…” My voice is thick, choked up, as if I’ve swallowed all the sorrow in the world. “I thought?…?I thought you’d left me.”

“I thought you’d done the same.” Noah places the rifle on the kitchen island. He looks like he’s been crying too, his eyes red-rimmed and shiny. Fuck, he’s so beautiful.

“You let me go,” I sob.

“I know.”

“And you?…?you were?…”

“I was about to go through with it, but?…” He shakes his head, jaw clenching.

“Why didn’t you do it?”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t do it. I’m sorry.”