Chapter 8 #2
I suck in a deep breath as soon as I’m one step into the trees, letting the fresh, clean air fill my lungs. The sour taste of the town square dissipates and is replaced with shades of dark green and soil. It smells like home.
I shake my head as I think of the smug look on Silas’s face when he stole that peach from me. It reminds me of him as a child.
When my parents first took him in, they hadn’t a clue how he had been raised. They didn’t know where he was from, and he didn’t either. But they quickly learned he wasn’t raised the way my parents raised us.
We would go into town as a family, and when we would come home, my parents would always find Silas with something he didn’t leave the house with, something that wasn’t his.
It took my mother a long time to get him to stop.
She would tell him over and over that it wasn’t right, but he didn’t stop.
He was always looking for something else.
He grew out of it as he got older, understanding the morals my parents ingrained in his mind, but little things like stealing that peach remind me of the boy he used to be.
“Well,” I jump as Rylan appears next to me, “that all looked pretty serious.”
“Gods,” I curse. “Do you ever just walk up to someone like a normal person? Or are you always jumping out of the shadows?”
He cocks his head as he walks next to me. “That depends on the person.”
“Oh, so it’s just me you like to scare the daylights out of?”
His face pulls into a smirk; it’s the only form of an answer I get from him. I’m quickly realising that Rylan seems to be the kind of person who doesn’t answer any questions he doesn't want to, and he’s also a master of distraction.
“What looked serious?” I ask as my mind rewinds to what he actually said when he appeared out of nowhere.
“Your stableboy’s talk with the mayor.”
“The stableboy has a name.” I give him a sideways glare. Rylan just raises his brows in waiting. “Silas.”
“Mmm, that’s the one. Silas.”
The way he says it makes my face contort into a frown. I’m unsure why it bothers me so much. “Why did you say his name like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like—like you don’t like it.”
I see a glint in his eyes, as if he’s enjoying this too much. “It’s just a name; I don’t like nor dislike it.”
I bring my focus back to the forest in front of me, doing my best to pay no heed to the man beside me. But he has this pesky presence about him that makes him almost impossible to ignore. Everything in me just wants to look to see what kind of expression he’s wearing on his face.
“What did the mayor want with Silas?” He uses that tone again, and this time I know it’s on purpose. I dismiss it.
“You have an affinity for sticking your nose into other people’s business, don’t you?”
He shrugs. “Just curious. It’s not as if anyone knows much about his agenda. I’m trying to figure him out.”
I scoff. “Everybody is aware of his agenda. I wouldn’t bother trying to figure someone like him out. All you will find is rot at his core.”
“And what is at your core?” His question throws me off balance. I stop walking. He stops alongside me, facing me as I look him over.
I have only ever seen him from a distance, but here with a small ray of sun cutting through the trees, I can see everything.
I can see the smooth, warm planes of his face that fall away like a hidden cliff at his jawline.
I can see the different shades in his hair, some the colour of soft sand that falls through your fingers, and others like the shoreline in Sunridge when the tide washes over it.
I can see the glint of gold in his green eyes, like the sun between the trees right this moment, and his dark lashes that close over the scene.
He is beautiful, really—in a way that feels dangerous. As if he could hurt you and you wouldn’t even realise because you would be too caught up in those eyes. Those eyes that somehow look like they have seen worlds beyond what I could imagine. It once again makes me wonder where he came from.
“What is at yours?” I ask, the words spilling out. I should be asking him what he’s doing following me through the forest instead, but I simply wait for his answer.
His eyes don’t leave mine, as if he’s watching a picture play out in them too. “Regret.”
My stomach sinks, and I don’t know why. I don’t know him any more than a ladybug that might land on my shoe, but I can’t help but ask, “For what?”
The air is still between us, as if the entire world is holding its breath, waiting quietly for his response.
“That’s a story for another time,” he says, his gaze wandering back to the edge of the woods. “I need to get back to work.”
“All right,” I say, feeling as if that conversation wasn’t anywhere near done, but at the same time not knowing what more I would say.
For a moment, I think he might say something else, but all he says is, “Thanks for the peach.” He throws a peach—one I never noticed him grab—into the air before catching it with a smirk.
I shake my head, muttering to myself as I turn away. “Boys.”