I'm With You

Chapter Ten: Marcella

           

Chapter Ten: Marcella

                I stumble over a tree root that had become invisible in the inky blackness of the night. A curse slips past my lips before I can stop it, and coupled with my bumbling footsteps the sound seems to bounce off the trees around and echo into the distance.

Ash turns back to spare me a glare before turning his attention back to the path we are on. If one can even call this a path. Almost immediately as we got on the official trail for Bracken Preserve, Ash took a sharp left up an incline, and we've been seemingly walking aimlessly since then. Night has already fallen, and there's a chill to the air.

While I'm used to the sudden drop in temperature, Ash has always despised the cold. While he tried to hide it, I could see his body wracked with a shiver every now and then. The stubborn man didn't say anything about his discomfort, so I took it upon myself to search in the duffle strung on my back.

Luckily, he was smart enough to pack a long coat the same color as his evergreen shirt. I stood my ground and refused to move until he slung the heavy thing on. While he grumbled, I could only guess that the over coat is from his land with it's strange silky-smooth fabric.

Now, he seems much more comfortable with the cool night air, but he hasn't said a word (besides to tell me ten minutes ago that we were close) since we started this trek and the silence is starting to fray my nerves.

I keep expecting another battle axe to come whirling out of the shadows cast by the trees around. Any moment, I feel as if dozens of those elves will descend upon us with their Legolas height and speed.

I know I'm being paranoid, but how else am I supposed to feel? Soon enough I'll be going through a portal to another world that's only proven to be filled with killers and liars. I may be willing to raise my fist and take my chances with some brutish bully in the lunchroom, but how can I defend myself from these giant axe-wielding ninjas?

And what if I truly can't keep my promise to my parents, and I die in this world?

A thick wave of guilt and shame washes over me as I think of the pain I'll cause them if I never come home again. They deserve better than a daughter who says goodbye to them over the phone and then heads to her potential doom all so she can see her presumed dead best friend.

"Marcella," Ash stresses my name and it brings me out of my deep thoughts. "You're scaring away every animal within a hundred-yard radius with your stomping! Could you at least step lighter?"

"I'm sorry I don't have night vision eyes like you seem to, but it's a little hard to see my way around," I snap.

Ash stops so suddenly that my "stomping" runs me straight into his solid back. Before I can question him, he turns around and levels a scowl down at me. At least, I assume it's a scowl, but his entire face is cast in shadow that I can only manage to make out the sharp edges of his cheek bones and jaw bones, and the glint of his emerald eyes.

"Here, hop on," he says, turning back around and leaning forward as if to invite me to hop on his back for a piggy-back ride.

"I don't need to be carried!" My words come out far too defensive, but I know being pressed so close to him, and feeling his heart beat and his muscles move beneath me won't help me clear my head of him.

"No offense, but this trek shouldn't have lasted into the dark hours of the night, but your-"

"I swear to God, if you say it's because of my short legs-"

"I won't have to if you hop on!"

Without thinking much more about it, I jump onto his back with far more force than necessary. Other than a quiet "umph" he doesn't sway in the least. I can tell he hardly feels my weight at all because he straightens up and takes off at a much faster pace than before.