It seems impossible that he should be able to, but he echoes her thoughts, he echoes them and adds new ones. But he can’t possibly know anything of the nightmare that had trapped her and held her hostage for what felt like a lifetime. He could be a mind reader, a magician with a cruel sense of humor. Either would make more sense than the answer blinking down at her like cold starlight. He could be playing a trick on her (why did that feel like relief).
She eyed him with sudden suspicion even though she knew, she knew.
But he hadn’t been there, he hadn’t.
The faces were still as clear to her as the faces of her scattered family and his wasn’t among them.
Two girls.
She flinches from him as though he had struck out at her.
Remembering is the hardest part, reliving the moments that had already been fire-branded to the inside of her mind. There had been two girls, one bad, one worse. She shakes her head as if this will somehow dislodge the memory stuck there like a burr.
“But you can’t possibly know this.” She says, whispers across the space between them as if she’s trying to assure herself of something. “I would remember you.” But doubt clings to the shadows on her face, filling the hollows with a strange gauntness. “It was just a dream,” she says again, a hint of quiet desperation coloring her voice, “maybe this is just a dream, too.”
The air feels suddenly cold, so cold, and her skin quivers against a wind with teeth made of ice. But even after the wind has stopped blowing and the air is still, she trembles. Her eyes flit uncertainly between him and the trees to her left, an easy place for her to disappear to and forget all about this impossible conversation.
But his voice draws her back, a single word poised tremulous on his lips.
Please.
She feels suddenly used up, exhausted by fighting this great invisible beast. She wasn’t even sure what is was she was fighting for; real or dream. But she feels something for this strange boy, this impossible parallel, feels everything for him and his plea is enough to unravel her completely. She inches closer until her trembling, heaving chest is pressed against him, her chin draped possessively over his back. It’s easier this way, she thinks, with his pulse fluttering against her chest and the horror in his face safely away from her wandering green gaze.
“If we’re both what we say we are,” she says quietly into the night (oh, it’s so much easier when she can’t see his face), “then we’ll be each other’s ruin.”
Nothing good can come of making a nightmare a tangible thing.
“Your girls,” she whispers anyway, shifting so her cheek was pressed against the warmth of his skin, “did they have names?”
MALIS
makai x oksana
idk, i almost didn't even post this.