Maybe a quarter mile.
The driveway to the estate is miles long. Miles. The cast iron streetlights that line it cast a pale yellow glow down the paved road that winds through the woods, and I got maybe a quarter mile from the gate before I heard the gravel kick up as tires moved behind me. Gazing to place where the woods begin, I think maybe they’re another quarter mile away.
The car heading toward me isn’t driving fast and I merely walk to the side of the road and stand there crossing my arms when I hear it approach. I imagine I look like a petulant child, but it’s only because I’m cold. The evening air in the shade is bitter and unforgiving.
My shoulder is numb, and so is all the pain. I’m ready for it to end. However it comes, I’m prepared for what’s next.
The thought makes my throat tighten and that’s when the window rolls down. It’s Sebastian, not Carter. It takes me a moment to even recognize that it’s him. Addison told me about him when we were at his safe house. She showed me a few pictures of Carter and his brothers with Sebastian in them. I know it’s him, but that doesn’t dampen the disappointment that Carter didn’t come himself.
“Carter sent you?” I ask beneath my breath. Hating that I even expected Carter to bother with acquiring me. Of course he wouldn’t. With the car idling, I wait for the man to speak.
He’s obviously older, but his features are classically handsome. He’s the type of man who could get away with whatever he wanted; he could charm you into anything. Even if there is an air of danger that surrounds him.
“Will you do me a favor and get in easy?” he asks me and a handsome smirk shows off his perfect teeth. “I’ll do you a favor in return,” he offers.
Kicking at the driveway, I let my gaze fall and then feel the chill in the breeze before I ask him, “What’s that?”
“I’ll drive; we can drive a bit until you calm down?” he offers. “You can tell me why you’re upset.”
Although he’s seemingly kind, I loathe what he just said. “Upset?” I swallow thickly after speaking and Sebastian puts both of his hands up in defense.
“I don’t want to make anything worse or step on anyone’s toes, Aria.” His voice pleads with me as he adds, “Just help me make this better if I can.”
The sky darkens as I wait a moment. Watching this man and finding myself envious of him. He knew Carter. The boy before he turned into what he is now. Curiosity overwhelms any anger with that thought.
My legs move on their own and I find myself climbing into the car. The door shuts with a dull thud, silencing the faint sounds of the forest.
“I’m Aria,” I offer him even though he already knows. “I’m sorry we had to meet this way.” My manners seem to come back to me as he lets off the brakes and we move forward.
The locks in the car are automatic and they slam down, sounding far louder than they should and reminding me what all of this is for me, a prison.
“I’ve met people under worse circumstances,” he tells me. He keeps his word, driving slowly on the long path. So slow I could walk faster than this, but I’m simply grateful to be heading away from Carter’s castle of heartlessness.
“I don’t want to go back,” I say absently. I don’t expect it to make any bit of difference. As the confession leaves me, I stare at the lock on the door, so easily lifted if only I were to reach out.
“You know I have to give you back to him, right?”
My pulse races and then seems to frost over as I remember Daniel offering me an out only days ago. I could have run, I could have accepted Daniel’s offer, although who knows if he truly meant it or not.
“I’ve never seen him like this.” Sebastian starts to say something else, but then he shakes his head and waves off the thought. “I don’t want to get in between you two,” he tells me.
“Everyone else is,” I answer flatly and then really look at him until his eyes dart to mine. “Everyone has always been between us.” That’s the sad truth. If it were only us, there’s no question I’d be by his side.
Parts of Sebastian remind me of Eli, or maybe I simply long for someone to confide in, someone who understands and respects the situation the way Eli did. The thought brings a swell of emotion up my chest and I stare out of the window, at the dark green leaves strewn in between the dried-up amber ones.
“Hey.” Sebastian’s voice brings my focus back to him.
“Have you talked to him today?” The concern on his face seems out of place as he waits for me to answer.
“I just got up, and…” I trail off to swallow the sickness rising up my throat, remembering what happened when I made it to the bathroom. “I haven’t.” There’s nothing left to say. That’s the truth of the situation, but I don’t bother to voice it.
The silence in the car is awkward. Sebastian asks questions I don’t want to answer.
“What’s wrong?”
I don’t bother to even give him a response to that one.
“Do you like the quiet too?” he asks me after a moment passes with neither of us talking.
“You like the quiet?” I ask him to clarify and he shakes his head no.
“Carter always did.”
Again I turn to the window. It’s not shocking that the brooding man prefers silence. And the way that little fact tugs at me makes me wish I hadn’t climbed into the car.
“Although some days he’d turn up the radio just to numb it all out.” He clears his throat and turns the car around. As he’s making the three-point turn to head back to the estate he tells me, “When he’d stay with me, back when his mom was sick, he always wanted it to be quiet. He used to say the quiet was his safe place, but then again, he grew up with four brothers and the only time it was quiet was when he wasn’t home… so…” He shrugs.
“What was he like back then?”
Sebastian regards me for a second and slows down as we near the estate.
“Stubborn, ambitious,” he answers me and then says, “loyal to a fault.”
He stops in front of the gate and I ask him to go around just one more time. My hands feel clammy as my gaze flicks to the lock and then back to him. I don’t think he saw though.
“So he’s always been like this?” It comes out as more of a statement than a question, but Sebastian refutes it.
“Carter wasn’t ever like this. He wasn’t brutal, he was fair. He didn’t…” Sebastian stops his thoughts again and this time a darker set of emotions plays on his face. “I should have never left,” he confides in me and I give him a weak smile.
“If I could go back,” he starts to say, but I cut him off, stating, “You can never go back.”
The moment ends with silence as the car continues to move farther away. Closer and closer to the point in the road where I’ve chosen. The place where he turned around last time. Where he slowed down the most, and the farthest down the drive that he’ll go.
“Why did you leave?” I ask Sebastian, more to distract him than anything else.
Sebastian doesn’t even spare me a look as I reach for the lock. He’s too busy pinching the bridge of his nose to keep whatever emotions are haunting him at bay.
Click. I shouldn’t have turned to look at him, wasting the split second but also feeling guilty from the look of surprise and hurt on his face when he sees me rip the handle back and push the door outward.
He hears the lock click up though and his fingers wrap around my wrist, my left one with the deep gouges from the cuff last night. Fuck! The pain travels quickly and in a single electric motion. I hiss from the sudden jolt of pain as I rip my arm from his grasp, nearly falling out of the car until I have both feet on the ground and run as fast as I can. I don’t stop. Not for a moment. Not when he cusses and puts the car in park. Not when I nearly trip moving from asphalt to dirt as I enter the woods. Every breath hurts my lungs as I heave in air.
A few men’s voices are carried into the woods. I know there are more men who guard the estate, but I don’t know where they are. Somewhere they saw, which means they’re close.
My legs are far too weak, and I can hear Sebastian’s car door open and then his hard steps on the pavement as I whip past branches. More men shout and the tree limbs lash out at me as if to punish me, and I take it. I take every bite of the thin boughs and when I get to a sudden edge, I fling myself over, eager to get away. To fall hard, and that’s exactly what I do. Landing on my back, I hit the cold dirt and roll.
My palm braces against something at the same time my legs bash into the rough trunk of a tree. The bark tears at my legs and I bite down to keep from screaming in agony. It hurts to stand up, but I do. Feeling lightheaded and weak, I stumble at first but keep moving. The voices sound farther away now. I hope they are.
I don’t know which way is which, but I run as fast and hard as I can. I can’t outrun Sebastian; he’s far too big, and I’ve never been a runner. But I’ll hear him when he comes, and I can at least hide.
“Fuck!” Sebastian’s voice reverberates in the forest and it sends birds flying out of the treetops. Their sudden movement makes my heart lurch, and I’m staring up at them as I run into something hard.
Something with hands.
Something that grabs me.
The scream in my throat is held back by a large hand over my mouth.
My heart thumps and my anxiety spikes wildly until he shushes me, holding my small body close to his and hiding behind a thick tree.
“Shh, be calm, Ria.” Nikolai’s voice is the most comforting thing I could have asked for in this moment. Tiny cuts on my arms and face sting as I cling to Nikolai. Tears burn in the back of my eyes.
“I’ve got you now.”
