Chapter 6

We hitched the rest of our way to Wears Valley. Elijah told me that it would be the best thing we could do for the moment.

He promised me that he would help me find Mr. Mike, but for now, I needed a place to rest since all of the rage I felt had taken so much out of me.

“You get riled up too easy, Mais,” he said as he draped an arm around my shoulders. I wiped away another angry tear as we walked off the beaten path around the cabins, trying to find an abandoned one for the evening.

“He stole it,” I muttered.

“Maybe, but he won’t get to keep it,” he replied breezily. “I gave it to you, and no one else. We’ll get it back.”

“But what if he throws it away?” I asked Elijah desperately as I tried to pull out of his grip.

“He won’t.”

“What makes you so sure?” I pressed as I struggled under the weight of his arm.

Mercifully, he let me go the second he stopped walking.

“Because, what could he possibly do with it, Mais? What could he possibly say to even explain having it? It’s logic. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Smiling down at me, he gave me a wink before he strolled toward a cabin not too far off.

He used his strength to pull himself up and peer into the window, peering into the small, wooden structure before he eased himself back down and slapped the dust off his hands.

“This one is empty, Mais. Come on.”

I wrapped my arms around myself as a small drop of rain landed on my face. I wasn’t sure if the weather had called for this, but I had more important things to worry about.

First, I had to make sure that Elijah was safe for the night. I had to ensure that he would be fed, comfortable, and happy.

Second, I would have to try to calm down. I still felt so much rage pulsing through me, and I knew it would worry him unnecessarily.

I walked over and took his outstretched hand, let him lead me around to the front of the cabin, then waited patiently as he used his elbow to carefully pop out one of the small window panels in the door.

Elijah slid a hand inside, unlocked the door, then walked in, holding me closely behind him.

We learned a long time ago that just because a home can look abandoned, it didn’t mean it always was.

Of course, that had only happened once, but it also allowed me the opportunity to prove to him that I wasn’t as fragile or sickly as I seemed.

Not when it came to keeping him safe.

I showed him the internal scars I’ve borne since they took him from me. Every single last one of them, and I know it frightened as much as it enthralled him.

He tried to—

“Mais? You still off in a world of your own?” Elijah teased as he pulled me close against him.

I looked up into his mad eyes as I allowed myself to ease against him.

He drew me out of a thought that I knew would consume me for nights on end if I had been allowed to relive such a painful moment, and I’m sure he was able to see the thanks I reflected back at him with my gaze.

“I’m sorry,” I murmured as I rested my forehead against his chest. Elijah’s scent was the one thing in this world that never failed to calm my troubled thoughts.

The boy smelled of the woods he ravaged to find us homes, the gentle drops of rain that would soak his hair on the nights he would become trapped in it, refusing to come back without something substantial for me to eat.

But most of all, he smelled faintly of home.

Just enough to remind me of what I would never want to be again, and everything that I had to offer him wasn’t as lost as I sometimes hoped it would be.

“Go take a nap, Maisie. I’ll go find us something to eat. When you wake up, everything will look the way it should, and not how it is.”

I nodded as my arms dropped to my sides. Before I walked away from him, I leaned up on the tips of my toes and gently kissed him on his lips.

I loved Elijah the way he should be loved, not the way he expected.

And he loved me just the same.