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“You can’t just demand that I obey you at all times,” I tell him. “I might be your prisoner, but I am more than that.”
“You are not. You are nothing else to me.”
It’s a lie, but I’ll let him have it. I know I’m special to Farwol. I know I’m different. It’s obvious in the way he treats me, in the way he protects me. He cares about me deeply. He just doesn’t know what to do with those feelings because he’s never experienced them before.
He doesn’t know how to put into words that I’m not the same as all the other people in the world.
I want to reach for him, to take his hand and promise it’s going to be okay, but before I can, the banging starts, and the mansion begins to shake.
Chapter 11
The villagers are determined to break into the mansion. The solid wooden doors won’t hold them out for long. Not when they’re yelling for Forwal. Not when
they’re demanding his head.
“What did you ever do to them?” I ask, crossing to the dungeon window to peek out the front of the mansion. “You’ve never done them wrong. They have no reason to hate you.”
I’m not scared of the villagers. Perhaps I should be. Forwal probably has some sort of escape plan or attack protocol in place. Mrs. Paughts was anxious for me to find him, but she didn’t seem scared or afraid. She just seemed a little bit nervous.
It’s not fair that these men should come here now to attack him. They have no business doing so. They have no business coming for the man I love.
This is our home.
I’m more angry than I am scared.
Fuck these men for coming here, for coming in the middle of the day, for thinking they can just attack and get away with it.
I look outside in time to see several men walking down the path to the house. There are already three men at the door, hitting it with their fists. They’ll never break in that way, but then, if they get enough people, maybe they’ll figure out a way.
Forwal looks sad, but resigned to his fate. He looks like he knows they’ve been planning this, like he expected to go out this way.
And then I realize he’s not going to save us.
He’s not going to fight them.
His face is shrouded in sadness, and he’s not going to rescue us.
Not this time.
“You can’t just give up,” I say, looking from him to the window and back again. “You just can’t. You have to do something. Don’t you have a plan? Do you have weapons? What do we do, Forwal?”
“The world is not as simple as you seem to think it is.”
“At least I’m trying!” I hit the glass window. It wobbles, but doesn’t shatter. It should. It should shatter and break and fall into a million pieces because that’s what I feel like my heart is doing right now.
“You should go,” he says. “They won’t hurt you. You’re one of them.”
“I will never go back to them.”
Forwal stares at the wall, but something tells me he’s not thinking of the stone that lines the sides of the room. No, he’s somewhere else, somewhere in his head. He’s somewhere I’m never going to get to be and he’s thinking about something I’ll never get to understand.
He’s not who I thought he was the day he took me. There’s something dark and dangerous about him, something deadly, but there’s also something broken.
He is damaged, perhaps beyond repair.
“What should we do?” There are more people coming out. I can see at least 15 men, including one I know very well. “My father is here,” I point to the window. The familiar face isn’t a welcome one. I can’t explain why seeing him makes me feel uncomfortable. I should miss my father. I should pine for him, but I don’t.
“You need to leave,” Forwal repeats. “But do not go back to your father’s home.”
