Vengeance (Burning Beliefs #2)

Chapter Sixteen *edited*

SERENA'S POV

"Serena!" his voice echoes behind me. He sounds weary, lost, and desperate.

He's been trailing after me for a few hours now. I'm stumbling unstoppably through the corn maze, simply because I've been walking so long I wouldn't know how to stop. My face is dry and cracked with tears and dirt. My feet are cold and numb. The wind rustles over the top of the crops, whispering placidly into the still-as-death night air. Cicadas and crickets chirp and buzz, birds sing distantly, and mice scamper through the fallen ears as the moon slowly rotates from one end of the sky to another.

"Serena!" he calls out one last time.

I shut my mouth tight. I'm not talking to him.

"Please," he shouts. "We're going to have to stop at one point. You can't just keep walking all night. We need to stop, and sleep, otherwise we'll die before we get anywhere."

I ball my fists. I don't listen to him. I can hear him sighing as we enter another empty area, a few dried, yellow cornstalks spread out on the ground in front of us. The dirt is all torn up, bits of sediment flown everywhere like a tractor had a ceizure or something.

He enters from the corn just behind me, stumbling over a root.

"Well, this is a good place to stay for the night," he comments.

I clamp my teeth together. It's taking everything I have to not scream every cuss word I know.

"You can't not talk to me forever, Rena."

I cross my arms.

You're just pissing me off more, dumb ass.

"Please?"

Silence.

"Serena, you're going to have to say something."

Nothing.

"What if you get attacked by a wild coyote or something and you have to scream for help otherwise you'll die?"

No reply.

"What if a serial killer appears and attempts to hack your head off?"

I don't respond. But that's pretty circumstantial, and I doubt that...

"Whatever," I mutter.

I hate you.

"Oh, look, she can talk."

"Shut up."

I really hate you.

"We should get settled in," he claps his hands together. "How are we going to make a bed out of corn?"

"Excuse me?"

"Well, we could just sleep in the dirt, if you want to," he shrugs.

"No," I curl my lip. "But I am not sleeping within twenty feet of you."

"It'll take a lot more time, and you're exhausted. One bed is enough."

"No, it's not," I spit. "Two beds. On the opposite sides of the clearing."

"You're being ridiculous."

"You're the one who moved on from me, using my sister!"

"It wasn't my fault!"

"Yes it was! And was her's, too!"

"You can't blame everything on other people."

"It's not like my ghost was there shoving the motel keys into your guys' hands!"