Page 27 of Escape from the Green

"Yeah?"

"Are you going to cross over too?" I asked, unsure why I wanted to know.

"Bring you over?" he clarified, turning back to me, brows low. "Of course I will bring you over." Something in my face must have given me away, because his head ducked to the side slightly. "You want me to stay with you for a night there? Just to make sure they didn't follow?"

That was a very small part of it, sure. And another part was simply liking his company. The third was this odd urge I had. To show him the human realm, to expose him to all the things I myself was so fascinated with. Maybe it was because he had been so trapped for so long, had missed out on so much. But there was a quiet little voice in the back of my head that suggested that I maybe just wanted to show him a little bit of what made me me.

Silly?

Yes.

Girlish, even?

Absolutely.

But true nonetheless.

"I understand if you want to get toward your homeland as soon as possible..."

"I'll stay, Amy. I've been away for so long. One more day won't make a difference."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure," he agreed, giving me a nod before holding an arm out in the direction he had chosen, leading to an area where the snow seemed lighter, like it had somehow melted even with the frigid temperatures.

"When it is winter in The Green," Drake started a while later, "is it winter in the human realm?"

"No," I supplied with some authority, a little pleased to know something he didn't know.

"That's why the trees are dripping," he surmised, looking up at the half-thawed limbs, icy water dripping steadily down on top of us.

The buzzing feeling was becoming stronger as we walked into a muddy mess of the woods. I wondered where we would surface in the human realm. It was always on the property my parents maintained when I was brought there, but I understood that most of the time, you ended up in unknown places - The Green and the human realm both being so vast.

Inwardly, I hoped it was somewhere we wouldn't look like outsiders. Winter clothing aside. I hoped they spoke the same language. I hoped we wouldn't have to slip back into The Green, walk a bit, and reemerge.

Once I was out, I hoped not to have to come back.

I hated even thinking that, knowing Jasper and Jade were still there, knowing how much I yearned to know the sensation of family, the kind that came with love and kindness instead of coldness and ambition.

But maybe they could visit me.

Someday.

Maybe I could send word somehow.

I could even give Drake a note to send off before he visited his homeland.

I knew where I was going to go.

The place humans nicknamed after an autumnal fruit.

I knew it would be busy there, that I may be hard to find, but they knew the human realm well. If anyone could do it, they could.

On a grumble as a bead of sweat trickled down between my shoulder blades, I dropped my bag, stopped, and stripped out of my heavy winter jacket and a few layers of shirts. "Aren't you hot?" I asked, watching as he stood there watching me roll up the long sleeves of my shirt.

"Yes."

"Why don't you take off your jacket?"