AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“This has been a hard year for this school, for all of us,” Lozen said, looking out, her bright eyes glittering, “and it’s hard to believe that we’re only at the beginning of our adventure.”
She had glowed, unable to dampen her own pride at her accomplishments. Saber had beamed up at her, so very proud of her, too.
And then Saber packed her things, because the painting program started in the summer when the light in the evenings was best.
She had longed for light, and she’d get it, plenty of it, light and sun and endlessly long days. She would be free to paint as much as she wanted, free of school, free of her past, free of everything except Ansel.
She knew she would never be free of him.
She would remind herself of the horrible things he’d done, of the fact that he wasn’t human, and that he could kill her, that hehad done terrible, unforgivable things. She would do her best to move on and live her life, but she feared everything that would happen to her would happen in the shadow of having known him.
As her plane wheeled in an arc away from the airport, over the city, she saw sprawling, sparkling Seattle, then the shape of Bainbridge Island down below, green and alive. Doug was still down there, and Mia and Elijah, and of course her father. Her father had to know something had happened but had not forced her to tell him why Ansel was paying to send her to this program, had reversed course on the move to California (but not the raise). Ansel would be back soon, returning to that beautiful, quiet, lonely house filled with priceless paintings.
But she would be gone.
Maybe, she thought, she’d never return to the island, except in her memory, where she knew she’d return over and over and over again, forever.
