10 #2
“And what am I supposed to do?!” she yells at me, standing right next to me instead of staying hidden like anyone with city blood in their veins would. “I’m not going to just stand here with my arms crossed while your animals tear the stables apart!”
I look at her through the shadows, impressed in spite of myself. She’s a sight to behold—and a fantastic one.
“Go to the back and secure the latch!” I tell her, pointing toward the gloom. “And stay well away from their hind legs—they’ve got nasty tempers!”
Camila nods without a word and dashes off, moving with an ease that shows that, no matter how much time she spent away studying maps and storms, this place is seared into her memory.
We work against the clock, in perfect sync, as if we’d done this just yesterday.
I take charge of calming the younger ones while she closes the gates and secures the latches the wind is rattling.
“Darana!” she suddenly calls out, pointing down the central hallway. “Angus has escaped from his pen and is coming this way!”
She shouts just like Johanna in The Hunger Games. “Damn spoiled donkey.”
I spin around in a hurry. Sure enough, Angus is trotting toward us, snorting and threatening to wreak havoc if he wanders into the horse area. I didn’t even know he was around here.
“Don’t even think about it, Angus!” I stand my ground, spreading my arms to block his path.
Camila appears at my side, standing shoulder to shoulder with me and mimicking my stance.
“On the count of three, we’ll cut him off from the side passage,” Camila suggests, breathless. “One, two, and three!”
Working together, pressing our wet shoulders against each other, we manage to guide the animal back to the safe area of the stable before he causes any trouble. Camila bolts the door and leans against the wood, panting heavily.
“Good job, scientist,” I acknowledge, trying to catch my breath as I wipe the water from my face.
“You didn’t do too badly yourself, Calloway,” she returns the compliment. “It turns out we make a decent team when we stop snapping at each other around every corner.”
The hail continues to pound the roof, and the cold begins to seep through the building’s planks, making me shiver uncontrollably.
“We can’t stay here,” I declare, rubbing my soaked arms. “We’re going to catch pneumonia.”
“And where do you want us to go?” she asks. “Crossing the whole field to the main house would be suicide.”
“We can go up to the hayloft,” I suggest, pointing to the wooden trapdoor and the ladder leading to the upper floor. “The hay holds in the heat, and we’ll be safe until Bert or one of the boys can come get us. You go up first.”
Camila doesn’t hesitate for a second. She grabs the wooden rungs and climbs the ladder, disappearing onto the upper floor. I follow right behind her, dragging my heavy boots and closing the wooden trapdoor behind me.
And suddenly… the outside world disappears completely.
The roar of the rain becomes a distant, muffled murmur thanks to the insulation up here.
“It’s so cold…” I murmur, fumbling around in the corner until my hands bump into something. And then, I smile from ear to ear. “Look, there are a couple of dry blankets here that we keep for winter births. Thank goodness.”
I walk over to where she’s standing in the middle of the hayloft, shivering, her shirt clinging to her body and highlighting every curve. I stare at her and swallow hard.
“Take that off,” I say bluntly. “If you stay in wet clothes, you’ll be frozen solid before the storm is over.”
“Excuse me? Are you trying to boss me around here too?”
“I’m not giving you orders on a whim, Bennet!” I retort with an impatient snort. “Either we take off our wet clothes and wrap ourselves up together in these blankets, or Bert is going to find us frozen stiff tomorrow. So stop being so prissy and do me a favor—cooperate.”
Camila holds my gaze for what feels like an eternal second, trying to figure out whether I’m serious or if this is just another one of my cheap tricks. Finally, when she realizes that her teeth are chattering badly, she gives in. She unbuttons her shirt, and I do exactly the same with mine.
On the count of three, we wrap ourselves in the wool blankets, squeezing into the narrow space formed by the bales of straw to shelter from the air seeping through the cracks. There’s no room for distance. There’s no room for pride.
She’s so close to me that I can feel the warmth of her chest.
“Darana… I…” she murmurs.
I clench my teeth, trying to keep my pulse from betraying me, but the curiosity and resentment I’ve been holding in since she returned make it impossible for me to keep quiet.
“Why did you leave like that?” I ask her before my pride can silence me. “Why did you pack your bags one fine day, abandon Elijah, and take off without saying a single damn word to anyone in town? We could’ve talked it out.”
Camila looks down for a second, absorbing the blow of my words, and I notice her fingers trembling beneath the fabric of the blanket.
“Because I had no other choice. And because I wasn’t happy,” she replies, lifting her head to look at me.
“Everyone in town expected me to stay, to be Elijah’s perfect wife, to follow the script others had written for me.
No one understood that I needed to study and get out of this environment, to fulfill my dreams. To discover what lay beyond.
And after the… incident, I saw it very clearly. ”
I see something else in her eyes, but she remains silent.
“You could’ve at least told me,” I reproach her. “We used to spend whole days riding through these fields on horseback… I thought we were inseparable, that you trusted me more than anyone else. And the way you left… it cut me to the core, Bennet.”
I wait for a response from her. One of those many speeches that always made me smile, no matter how annoying she was. But Camila says nothing; she just shrugs and presses her lips together as another clap of thunder sounds outside.
“It doesn’t matter what happened. The past can’t be changed.”