I Thee Take (To Have And To Hold Duet 2)

“I bet there are ghosts down here,” Michael says.

“I know there are,” I tell him. It’s even colder in here than it was in that cell. We take a few more steps, even the sound of our breathing seeming to echo off the walls.

Michael turns to me. “You scared, little brother?”

I shake my head, but it’s not true. I am a little scared.

“It’s okay,” he says, taking my hand. “I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.” His smile is kind, reassuring.

A few minutes later, Dad’s flashlight bounces upon us.

I turn in time to see him, see his smiling face one more time before a sound catapults me out of the memory and into the present.

Before I can think, before my vision even returns, I act. Instinct. I lunge blindly at the shadowy form of whoever followed me down here. I hear a gasp, then air forced from lungs as I smash the intruder into the jagged, hard wall.

“Cr—”

I hear the gasp, but it takes me a long time to come back to the present. For my brain to make sense of who it is. And all that time I have her back to the wall, my forearm at her throat cutting off her air.

She makes a gurgling sound, and her hands fall away from my arm. She was clawing at me.

I look at her. At what I’m doing. I blink, draw back.

Scarlett.

Not a threat.

Just a Little Kitten who needs your protection.

Something crunches underfoot as I move back, shift my hands to her arms to keep her from dropping. I look down, smell whiskey, see the shattered glass, the liquid already absorbed by the stone.

Scarlett is coughing, almost doubled over. I return my gaze to her. I was choking her. I didn’t even think. Just attacked. It’s dangerous for her to be around me.

“What are you doing down here?” I ask, my voice hoarse, my mind split between past and present.

My father. Michael.

I want to see them again. I’d give anything to see them again.

At least Dante is alive. He needs you too.

“What are you doing down here?” I demand, angry now, shaking her. What else would I have seen if she hadn’t interrupted?

Her eyes are wet and red when they meet mine.

“I needed to talk to you, and I saw you come down here.”

I shake my head trying to clear the thoughts.

She coughs again.

“I didn’t know it was you,” I start, releasing her. I give her a little more space and run a hand through my hair.

She stares up at me and I wonder what I look like.

“Are you okay?” she asks me.

I look away from her, look into the tunnel.

Her gaze follows mine. “What is this?”

I walk a few steps into the tunnel and pick up one of the flashlights. It goes on instantly, the light it casts down the tunnel strong. I check the date on a couple of the cans of food, the water. All up to date. I wonder if Dante’s been keeping the supplies fresh like our father had shown him. Like Michael should have been doing.

“Come here,” I tell her.

She comes and it surprises me when I feel her little hand slip into mine.

“It’s cold down here,” she says, shivering, leaning into me a little. Her gaze is wide in the darkness that goes on for miles.

I watch her in that leftover, shadowy light of the flashlight. She shifts her gaze to mine as if she’s oblivious to what she just did. “What is it?”

“Tunnel. It leads to the mainland. I just remembered it.”

She stops walking. “What do you mean you just remembered it?” she asks, her forehead wrinkling.

I study her face in the dim light. Her whiskey-colored eyes. I feel her warm hand in mine and hold it tighter.

She trusts me. Whether she realizes it or not, she trusts me.

“Scarlett.” I touch her cheek, tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

Did my uncle give up her location? Did he know what they’d do to her? Is that why he came with me to rescue her? To keep an eye on things? He’s never been involved in anything outwardly criminal. It had surprised me he’d wanted to come.

Her hand comes to my face and she wipes something off my cheek. We both look at her thumb and see the smudge of red. The small but sharp shard of crystal.

“What did you do?” she asks.

I lean in and kiss her. She’s safe. She’s here. Safe and warm in my arms.

“Cristiano?” she asks when I pull back.

“Doesn’t matter.”

I kiss her again and this time her eyes close and she kisses me back.

I set the flashlight on the shelf beside us, knocking two bottles of water to the ground. They make a thump then roll away into the pitch-black dark.

When she looks back up at me, I take her face in my hands and kiss her deeply. Sliding one hand beneath her top, I slip it up over her belly to cup her breast. She’s not wearing a bra. She’s in an emerald-colored slip. She must have just come out of bed.