Fairest (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #2)(22)

She pulled away. “N,n,no. I have to get home.” She was shivering uncontrollably.

“Mina! Your lips are blue! I’m so dense. I forgot how frail you humans are.” Jared swatted away Mina’s hands and pulled her over to an outcropping that jutted out from the cliff. It was a natural made cave that didn’t look big enough for one person let alone two teenagers.

He pushed her inside and pressed his hands to the back of the cave wall. His hands began to glow, and she watched as the rock changed beneath his hands and moved back making the cave bigger. When it was big enough for them to fit in it comfortably, but small enough to keep them warm, he switched to making a fire. He quickly dug a hole with a large rock, lined the hole with small kindling and a few sticks, and pulled out a zippo lighter.

“What, you can’t make fire?” Mina tried to joke, but she could barely get her mouth to form the words and she was sure it came out in an unintelligible mumble. Mina didn’t believe it would light, but was surprised when the spark produced a yellow blue flame. Minutes later, Jared had a small fire going right outside the cave. Mina drew as close to it as she could, but her fingers were still frozen. She was so cold she actually considered putting her hands into the flames.

Jared crouched near her and began to rub her hands between his, trying to bring warmth back to them. His clothes were completely dry, and his body temperature was warmer than normal.

“Are you sick?” Mina asked. “You are so hot.”

“No, I can make my body temperature rise to warm me.” Jared unbuttoned his outer flannel and handed it to her. “Put this on.”

Mina shook her head. “N,n,no.”

“That wasn’t a request! Here, I’ll walk over there.” Jared immediately walked a few paces toward the river, keeping his back to her.

Mina quickly took her shirt off and pulled on Jared’s. It was completely dry already, unlike her shirt. It even smelled like him and was still warm with his body heat. When she was done, she laid out her shirt to dry on a bush. A few minutes later he walked back over to her.

“I think we should stay here until morning. We aren’t making good time, and you need to get dry.”

“But what about my mom?” she whined.

“There’s nothing we can do now. She’s probably already contacted the police and they’re looking for you.”

“Oh no! They’re going to think that you kidnapped me!” Mina brought her hands up to her mouth in horror.

Jared just shrugged. “In a way, I kind of did.”

“They won’t know where to look!”

“I’m sorry, Mina. This is my fault,” he said solemnly.

“Yes, Jared. It is.” A few seconds later her stomach growled noisily, and Jared started laughing.

“Holy cow! Did you hear that?” He blurted out.

Mina punched Jared in the arm. “I’m hungry, which happens to be your fault too.” Ignoring him, she crawled into the small cave and tried to curl in a ball to sleep.

“Hey, is there room for me?” Jared looked into the cave expectantly.

“NO!” Mina growled at him. “Don’t even think about it. And just because you got us into this, you can keep watch and tell me if you see anything. ”

“Fine,” Jared stated and leaned against the outer wall of the cave.

A few moments of silence passed, and Mina was almost asleep when she heard Jared speaking out loud in a droning voice. “I’m keeping watch, and I see the river. I see the moon rise over the trees. I see that the forest looks really, really creepy right now. I bet you there is some sort of killer vampire turtle slowly crawling toward us out of the woods. Yep, I can almost hear its little turtley steps inching closer to us.”

“Jared?”

Mina had no idea where Jared’s sense of humor suddenly came from, but it seemed to pour out of him in the most annoying boy fashion. Something about being outdoors and away from people brought out a different side of him. He didn’t seem so surly and angry. Maybe it was because something had changed between them, or he didn’t feel like he was hiding from her anymore. He was finally free to be himself. Mina would bet anything that there still were loads of things he wasn’t telling her…but it was a start.

“Yeah?” he answered a little too brightly.

“Are you going to shut up?”

“Nope,” he answered back. She could hear the grin in his voice.

“Will you shut up if I said please?”

“Probably not!” he chuckled. He was enjoying teasing her.

“Fine, then you can sleep in the cave if you promise me that nothing is going to eat us during the night.”

“I promise that if something comes to harm us during the night, I will eat it, instead.” Jared crawled into the small cave, being careful to not touch her. He turned on his side and faced away from her. Mina mirrored the action. She watched the dying fire cast shadows on the cave wall.

All of a sudden, Mina couldn’t sleep with Jared so close to her. For some reason, questions kept plaguing her and they were ones she was pretty sure he wouldn’t answer. She shivered again from the cold as her pants were still wet. But you could bet to high heaven they were staying on.

“So how come you never told me you’re an Ogre?” she asked quietly, her finger tracing circles on the ground.