Taken

Chapter 7 (Part 2)

I stilled under his gaze, suddenly aware of how much bigger he was as he looked down at me. His eyes lowered as he reached for me again. Placing his thumb on my lips, he dragged my lower lip down until it sprang free. I didn't dare swat his hand away this time.

I swallowed hard past the fear that had my hands shaking. It had taken a moment to arrive, delayed by the help this stranger could provide and I had desperately needed. Had provided, I corrected myself, hugging my ribs that ached from the tight confines he had freed me from. Even if it wasn't in the most ideal way. I would take the hard landing over the confines of the vines any day.

"I didn't do anything," I said, my voice lower than before as I tried to gauge the threat that he posed. His abrupt shift in demeanor at the mention of the men had me on edge. Even if he wasn't with them, that didn't mean he was any safer. "I was just heading home with some food after work. They're the ones who attacked me. They dragged me away without explaining anything and then drugged me when they thought it was convenient."

That had his brows raising. "And were they the ones that strung you from the trees as well?"

"No... that happened after I managed to get away." And saw one of them get killed by something that couldn't possibly be real.

There must have been a rational explanation. There always was. Like, maybe whatever they had given me was making me hallucinate.

My eyes found their way to the withered vines that lay on the ground nearby. They wouldn't have been real if it was all a hallucination.

He gave me a pointed look as my thoughts wandered. "Trouble."

His deduction had my eyes narrowing in return. "I'm not trouble. I just want to go home."

It took a notable amount of effort to keep a grimace from twisting my features at the words. Go back to Ash, I corrected myself mentally to make it more appetible. That only made it worse when it dawned that the anger my dad would hold at me for not returning with his money would be aimed his way in my absence. I had to get back to him.

"Do you even know where you are right now?"

I looked around our surroundings, a sinking pit forming in my stomach as I took in the forest with details that the darkness of night hadn't allowed me to see before. Although there were mostly just trees and bushes changing as the season shifted into autumn, something was off. It wasn't glaringly obvious, but the closer I looked, the more I found that I didn't recognize. The plants and leaves were different than the ones that I knew would have filled the woods I had been dragged off into.

"...No," I reluctantly admitted. But we couldn't have gone that far...

Not unless mystical lakes, magic, monsters, and all the other bullshit that served as an escape in my childhood were real.

But it wasn't. The stories in the books I read were fairytales. They, their heroes, and their happy endings weren't real.

Silas rose to his feet, crossing his arms to look down at me. "Did Cedric not tell you anything before bringing you here, human?"

I frowned at his use of the word human. "I don't think it was a priority while snatching me off the street."

He sighed, closing his eyes as he rose a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You don't know where you are." The words were stated in realization this time rather than a question. His jaw clenched, causing a muscle to jump in his cheek.

My fingers curled in the dead leaves and dirt I had landed on as sweat gathered at the back of my neck. Crawling back a step, I rose to my feet, not liking how intimidated I felt with him towering over me.