“I do know that. I’ll find you wherever you are.”
I believed him but it was a lie, nonetheless.
“Just tonight.”
“Just tonight.” He agrees
I move across the bed, opening up a small amount of space. It really wasn’t big enough to fit two.
Slowly, he rises and comes towards me, sitting at the edge of the bed.
The lights are cut off just a minute later and my heart gets lodged in my throat, my body flinching as if the dark physically touched me. I hated the dark. Hated it more than anything.
“You’re afraid?”
“I don’t like the dark,” I tell him.
Arms come around me, pulling me to him, “I didn’t know.”
“I didn’t tell you.”
I allow his comfort, I let him wrap me in his arms. He was warm and strong.
“Did I ever tell you, you remind me of a princess?”
My laugh is a quick burst of noise, “No.”
“Snow White,” he whispers, “a beautiful princess caught in an evil web. Nothing she had done deserved what fate delivered her, taken away from the people she loved and forced into a life of running and hiding.”
“She had the dwarves.”
He chuckles, “Do you happen to have any magical creatures, Snow?”
My heart squeezes with that name, “If I did, do you think I’d be here?”
His arms tighten, “When we get out of here,” he speaks with a confidence that was simply unfair. It wasn’t an if, never an if. He was sure we would get out, but I knew we wouldn’t. We would die down here, forgotten by the rest of the world.
I wondered what Kingston was doing, how his life turned out. I wondered if my uncle still controlled him or if he’d finally passed on the baton and my brother now ran London like my uncle wished for him to do. Did he remember me? Did he search for me?
“I’m going to take you around the world, I’ll show you it all. I’ll run you that bath and I’ll fill all the rooms with light, so you’ll never have to be in the dark. There will be no shadows for Snow White.”
Silent tears roll down my cheeks, disappearing into my hairline. I could dream, just once, I could dream that what Hunter says will become a reality, I’d have that bath with the bubbles, I’d finally get to travel. I’d get to be free.
“Don’t cry, pretty Snow,” Hunter soothes, his thumb swiping the tears I’d thought I’d kept hidden, “I’ll give you it, do you hear me? I’ll give you it all, even if it kills me.”
“Why?”
“Because, Snow,” he shuffles onto his elbow and though I can’t see his face and he can’t see mine, I feel his eyes burning into mine, “for a long time I’ve been lost, dead inside, but you, you make me feel alive.”