Love Hurts ((ON HOLD))

Chapter V

Malisa ignored the curious glances she received as she ran through the kitchen and out through the rear servants' entrance. Barely taking the time to close the heavy wooden door behind her, she cut through the gardens, kicking cabbages and shaking tomatoes off their vines as she picked up speed towards the far end of the property.

She just needed to get to the break in the wall and onto Ander's side of the property line and they'd be able to speak freely and plan accordingly. She hadn't dared try it before because she thought there would be too much of a chance, but now she had nothing left to lose and was going to get away from her father on her terms, one way or another.

But as she approached the familiar landscape, the break between their properties wasn't there. Malisa had to stop running or else she would have collided straight with an extension of the stone wall that wasn't there before. Her hands passed over a newly-masoned partition with the mortar still drying.

When? How? Or better yet... why?

Turning around, she quickly surveyed the land around her. There was no sign of any work being done—not boot prints in the moist earth, no trampled ground from rocks or labor, no sign of any remaining materials used for the repair. There was no indication that anyone was ever there to fix the break as if it had always been that way.

Had she imagined it? The gap between the boundary walls? She lifted her fist and hit it as hard as she could— the new stone wall was as solid as rock should be, and the pain reverberated up her arm as she gritted her teeth against it.

Very real.

Leaning against it, Malisa let her pounding heart calm. Surely Ander would have seen the wall being repaired and faced the same circumstances as she, and if he hadn't already he would. But she couldn't wait and had no other way of finding him, not when there was so little time and she knew Demetra was waiting for her. She had to somehow figure out a way to get a message to him.

A cast of a shadow out of the corner of her eye dragged her attention from her thoughts and towards the stables not too far away from the property line. Of course— the one place they had that they knew no one could interrupt them, that no one would find them. If he wasn't there already, she'd find some way to leave him a note informing him she had finally fled to Demetra's and he should meet her there as soon as possible. It would be the first step in the plans they had been planning for so long... and it was finally going to happen.

Things were moving faster than Malisa expected, and this new sense of self-preservation came over her as she realized that she no longer wanted to live under her father's rule and her mother's judgemental attention. She was eighteen now— it was time for her to finally begin to live the life she never was allowed to before. And she would be damned if her father was going to give her away to some unknown lord just because they paid the highest price— she was not going to be cattle sold to the highest bidder.

They would make it work, she convinced herself with each step towards the stable. They would adapt and they would make the best of it. Others had survived with less, and now that Demetra had shown an unexpected interest in her, they could perhaps reconsider their plans and see what they could do to include her.

But one thing at a time... she needed to reach Ander first and she wasn't going to attempt to breach more than one wall today when she knew for certain another led to a far more certain future.

The horses were out in the yard, tended to and running freely. It was the usual morning practice— the yard hands would feed and care for the horses at dawn, let them out of their stalls until sunset where they would bring them back in and get them settled for the night. The hands would then tend to the rest of the grounds, generally not returning to the stables until sundown, which made sneaking away with Ander an easy task when they knew well the schedule to avoid and use to their advantage. Which was why she knew no one would bother her in broad daylight as she entered the quiet, straw-lined stable, now silent without the horses to startle her in the darkness.

Reaching up, she removed one of the pearl drop earrings she wore from her earlobe and clutched it tightly in her hand as she slowly walked the length of the stable towards the ladder at the opposite end that lead to the loft where she and Ander enjoyed each other's company just the evening before. Leaving a trinket for him would let him know she needed to speak with him, and if he happened by throughout the day just as she had, he would find it and they would meet once the sun had set. She'd have to get a note to Demetra as well, if only to let her know she would be arriving later than planned, but she'd figure that out soon enough— one step in the plan at a time.

A creak of the floorboard made her pause— no one was supposed to be in the stables at this time of day. Was it possible Ander was already a step ahead of her? Did he already know about what had happened to Demetra? Perhaps he saw the guards walk her from the property and he figured it out on his own... it was possible. And after what happened to the wall, it would make their next moves easier if they worked together...

There was no more hesitation as she began to climb the ladder. She could taste her freedom on her tongue with each rung she gripped. There would be no more hiding, no more loneliness. Each step closer to the top was one step closer to finally being able to live the life Malisa knew she was born to live.

She and Ander would finally be together without the hiding, without the sneaking.

A smile grew across her face, so wide it almost hurt. It had been so long since she had a reason to truly smile. She had something to look forward to now, something to—

As she climbed that final rung and crossed the threshold up onto the loft, those dreams, those plans, those hopes and ambitions... were as dead as the body lying across from her.

She scrambled onto the loft's cold wooden floor, now damp with blood that had seeped into the boards. She couldn't stand— she could barely breathe— as she crawled across the floor to the mass of meat and bones and blood, near indistinguishable save for the very same blanket beneath it that matched the one Ander brought to their tryst the night before.

She didn't care how dirty her dress was, or how bloody her hands became as she crawled over the mess of human remains. She didn't know when the tears flooded her cheeks or when the air refused to enter her lungs but she moved almost as if possessed by the morbid curiosity for needing proof. But there was just so much red... she barely found his head among the mess, nearly severed, eyes wide as they stared upon his attacker in those last helpless moments of life before the soul left in finality.

Blindly, she gathered it up into her lap, the cold mound that proved her lover was dead.

As dead as any chance she had to finally be happy.

She let out a scream that reverberated throughout the stable, the fields, the manor, the world, and sobbed until the world turned dark around her.