TEN #2
Finally, she took a chance. “Would you like me to have Levi come out and take his place with the flock?”
Uh oh. Too soon.
He cut his eyes at her. “No. I’ll take the watch.”
Feigning surprise, she said, “I was just trying to help.”
Again, he met her with a gaze of intensity. “Sure about that?”
The question was all it took to make her blood turn to ice. It was one simple question, but so much seemed to lie behind it… Whatever it was, it wasn’t attraction like Levi believed.
The innocence act had never been her forte, so she wasn’t sure why she thought it would work this time. Willing herself not to flee, she tried the one thing that had proved true.
“Fine, you’re right. I don’t want to help.
I want you and your friend to leave. Leave my friends in peace.
They haven’t done anything to you, yet here you are.
Taking their possessions, food, their home.
All under threat that if we don’t give you exactly what you want, then what?
You’ll drag a man towards his death? Are you even human?
” She let the anger talk and steer the conversation back to a topic she knew Sullivan couldn’t resist. War.
She pushed further. “When I first met you, you were ecstatic at the prospect of all the sheep your army would get to eat. Then, they left you as a watchdog and you turned into this hateful creature. As if it is our fault that you got sentenced to be stuck here. You don’t realize that you are lucky to be here.
Instead of some fodder on a battlefield.
Never remembered, never named. The only evidence that you ever existed is the possibility of your enrollment being recorded. ”
She breathed heavily. At first, she had only intended to get his thoughts fully back onto the war at hand. But her deeper thoughts had surfaced.
He was an enemy. But he wasn’t. He was part of ‘her people’ and he’d defended her with Griffen.
Yet, he was here pillaging from people she had grown to love.
Pillaging from people who truly just wanted to help all people.
It was all confusing. What would she have done if her brothers had been ordered to keep watch here?
No answer mattered because her brothers were dead. But not knowing the answer alarmed her. She loved the Howards. And with her feelings towards Henry… Did that make her different now?
She watched Sullivan process her words. He looked away for the first time and put his hands on his hips. He hadn’t interrupted her.
Hope flared. Maybe what she’d said had changed his heart, too.
But when he turned his head back to her, that feeling of hope evaporated. Even in the dim moonlight, she could see he was incensed. His eyes and mouth were hard as stone. As abrasive as he’d been in the past, she’d never seen him look like this.
She’d gone too far. The realization was triggering. Why had she trusted she could speak brashly to him? Subconsciously, she began to back away as another flashback overtook her and she was right back in those woods with James.
After James had attacked her, she’d tried her best to build up a wall so nothing could touch her again. But it hadn’t worked. With that one glance from Sullivan, the fear entangled her, freezing her to the spot. Her vision blurred and she realized she was hyperventilating.
Muffled words like “Whoa, whoa. Calm yourself,” could’ve been a figment of her imagination.
The roar in her ears blocked everything.
She was lost, back in time, feeling the pain of the blade, her skirt sliding up her leg.
The desire to fall to the ground and curl up into a fetal position was strong.
Henry wasn’t here to save her. She may never see him again.
And that was her fault. It was always her fault.
But then, just before she gave in to the darkness and collapsed, the roaring subsided.
And she could hear Sullivan. Not what he was saying, but his tone.
It was frightened and thick with an accent she hadn’t noticed before.
Focusing his face back into view, she saw a baffled, perhaps even a worried, man.
The expression that’d sent her spiraling was gone.
“Are you okay?” The words finally came in clearly. “In a split second, you went from mad to falling over. You looked… scared.”
Great. Now I’ve melted down in front of everyone on this farm.
“Back up,” she moaned. He’d come closer during her episode and was standing over her.
“Oh. Uh, sorry.” Sullivan stepped a few feet back and cleared his throat. He looked at her for a long time. When he finally seemed to think she wouldn’t panic again, he said, “What just happened?”
Maggie pursed her lips, considering what to say. “I thought you… I thought you were going to hurt me.”
His eyebrows knit together. “I didn’t lay a hand on you. Why would you think that?”
“You think you’re the first soldier I’ve met? That all of you are ‘good guys’? Please.” The sarcasm thickened.
“I don’t understand you.” He threw his hands in the air, exasperated.
Understatement of the century.
“What business does a southern girl have with the Quakers? It’s a question that has plagued me since day one.
You told Captain Lynch that your family died—your father and brothers serving our country—and then you magically came here?
See, that, among many other things, I find perplexing.
Yes, I was angry. Because I’ve watched countless men get blown, shot, and cut to pieces.
It’s not a pretty thing. But what’s less pretty is hearing you talk about men who are dying for you like they’re monsters.
Do you think your family would be proud of you dishonoring their memory and God knows what else? ”
She let him ramble. The longer he went on, the louder he became.
Part of what he said did cut her—he was right, she didn’t know what her family would think.
But she wasn’t afraid of him anymore. As he rambled, she realized that she’d heard it all before.
From her father. From her brothers. Everyone thought they were the hero, and the other side were the monsters.
What her experiences of the past few years had taught her was that the line was blurred. So blurred that both sides merged at times. Evil existed on both sides. She wasn’t sure if there wasn’t some sort of bad in everyone. It just depended on how they acted on it.
“I don’t know what they would think, because they’re dead. Gone forever and all for ‘the cause’. And it doesn’t matter how I came to be here, whether you care or not. I’m here and you’re here. For entirely different reasons. What matters is what we do now.”
He shook his head and gave a sarcastic laugh. “And you expect me to take that answer?”
“I don’t expect you to, but I hope you do. It’s all I’m offering.”
Maggie and Sullivan stood off, both seemingly refusing to back down. The heated conversation could take a dangerous turn if he pressed. She was just bargaining on him not.