Taken [Zayn Malik]

ch.29 The way

Sebastian and I ran through the forest that I had once tried to escape into. We ran through the trees and the flowers and the pesky mosquitoes that were all normal, nothing fancy or fuscia like before. It seemed so depressing now. Like everything was dying with every step that Sebastian and I took.

I swallowed hard.

Everything was dying. Zayn was dying. As much as I didn't want him or Sebastian to die, I wished we could just part ways and forget anything had happened. But that was as likely as me cutting my hair off and growing feathers.

My heart twisted and squirmed in my chest, urging me to turn around and run back to Zayn's arms, to save him and say my good-bye to Sebastian. But I couldn't.

I had chosen Sebastian because he would never dare to let me leave his sights again. He wouldn't dare let another man claim what is "his."

I swallowed even harder.

Was that all I was? Someone's girl, someone's princess? Couldn't I just be my own person? Why did the person that supposedly loved me have to hold me or carry me like a doll?

"It's just over that boulder" Sebastian told me. He pointed at a clearing just beyond the end of the forest and the edge of a cliff.

I nodded, but my throat was closing in on me. How long would it be before Zayn d-died? Was he already dead? Was he taking his last breath? 

~~~

Zayn's POV:

"Are you insane?" M. L. hissed. 

"Yes" I answered.

I stared forward at the door Tar had run out of. I stared, thinking that the grey that illuminated a path from her eyes, might appear again. That I'd see the crinkles by her eyes when she smiled or the redness of her lips when she started to cry or when she was pissed at me (which was so often that I had gotten used to it).

But I wasn't used to it because I had taken advantage of it, of her. I hadn't stared long enough. I hadn;t touched her carefully enough. I hadn't tasted her precisely enough to remember her.

I didn't even want to remember. I wanted her here, in my arms, at this moment. I wanted her in my castle for another half century, until we were so old, we forgot each other's names and just counted our children and grandchildren to pass the time we couldn't spend outside.

"She was your only hope!" M.L. shouted.

She ran her fingers through her wiry white hairs and patted her puffy cheeks. From the way it was affecting her, Tar may as well have been her lover and now she was furious that Tar was gone.

"I know" I whispered.

I stared down at the ground.

"You know?!" she demanded. "YOU ARE TAKING YOUR VERY LAST BREATHS AS WE SPEAK!"

I blinked.

"I raised you like my son, I gave you a beautiful girl, I asked you to get rid of her little Southern charmer, but you didn't and he came back to bit your pretty little lashes!" she screamed.

I dug my hands in my pockets.

"She didn't love me" I mumbled.

I avoided her eyes because it was embarassing and painful enough to know that the girl you loved only wished to escape you, but for M.L., a woman who was like my mom, to see me in this situation was just embarrassing.

M.L. blinked.

"She was completely and utterly head over heals in love with you!"

My mouth literally hung open.