This is war (Theo James)

02 ~ We haven't just lost the way back

“you can let go of my hand now” I said as we walked through the forest, back to my house. “and we should hurry up a bit, I don’t want anyone to catch us or something” I looked around me, what if someone was watching us? We could be dead any minute if someone was watching us.

Although I asked Theo to let go of my hand, he didn’t remove it. He just looked straight ahead of himself, his eyes on the road. I could see that something was bothering him, but I didn’t ask why. Instead, I thought I could better remind him of the good times, before this war.

“So, what was it like before this war?” I asked him as I sped up my pace, he did the same.

“it was good, better than this, much better” that was the only thing he said, a frown became visible between his eyebrows.

“is there something wrong? You look angry or something” I finally asked him and I stopped walking. I know we shouldn’t, but I was growing tired.

“never stop walking” He said and tried to drag me with him.

“no, answer me” I said, pulled my hand out of his and crossed my arms over my chest. I tried to look intimidating, but I was pretty sure I failed.

“I lied, okay? My dad isn’t working for the government. He died when I was fifteen, along with my mum. They killed them. They murdered my only family, and they left me to take care for myself.” Theo said, his eyes filled with anger and his hands balled into fists. Behind his furious and heartbreaking words, I could hear that he was sad and broken. The way he talked about them killing his family made him weak and angry.

“I’m so sorry, if I knew I would’ve never asked” I said and took his hand back, which was an odd gesture. No one had ever held my hand as far as I knew, everyone was so distant. Except this boy, he almost immediately took my hand and didn’t let go, even though it was against the law for a young couple to hold hands, although we weren’t a couple.

“I know you didn’t know, wow that sounded weird” we both laughed and just looked at each other for a while before Theo spoke up again, “I think we should go, we don’t have a cover up or anything and I don’t want you to get in trouble” We both walked again, we as further as we went, the more sure I got that we were lost. 

“are you sure we are going the right way, because I don’t remember walking this path?” I said and looked in Theo’s direction. His face showed the same confusion as mine showed.

“what do you mean? This tree, is so familiar, I mean I think I’ve seen it at least ten times before” He tried to sound as serious as possible, but the crinkles in the corner of his mouth showed that he was joking.

“don’t fool me around here, where do we need to go if we don’t get to my house on time? I’m really tired and every second we hang out here more, the chances of us getting caught are getting bigger” I said, truly serious. My heart started pounding faster and faster and I felt a panic attack coming up. I had those a lot since I was fourteen years old when I saw someone getting killed in front of my eyes.

Blood rushed out of my head, my hands started trembling and my vision became slightly black. I stumbled slightly and held onto a tree.

“Amber? Amber, are you okay?” Theo said next to me and touched my face, taking my hair out of it.

“I’m fine” I said, but it came out as a mumble.

“no you’re clearly not, I’m taking you to my place, I wasn’t kidding when I said I knew that tree, I carved something in It” He said and placed one arm around my waist, dragging me forward.

My head was pounding and my body was tired from all the running and walking. I held onto Theo as we both continued to walk, beside each other, him practically carrying me.