In The Darkness (Project Artemis #1)(25)

“Can we stop for a minute? You have to be tired, right?”

He shook his head and continued walking. “Not yet.”

“My legs hurt. I just want to stretch them for a minute.”

Turning to look at her, his face no more than a few inches from hers, he narrowed his eyes in anger. “I said not yet. There’s a cabin up here about a mile away.”

He trudged up a hill, bouncing her up and down with every step and making her back ache. “I just want to stretch. I’ve been stuck in that seat for two weeks.”

Still, her pleas fell on deaf ears. Nick shook his head and continued walking toward the cabin he claimed existed somewhere out in these woods. The man had a lot of nerve refusing her even this tiny request after everything that had happened.

“I’m not going to run away, if that’s what you think.”

Nick turned to look at her and smiled. “That’s exactly what I think since you told me you wanted to go off on your own back there. I can’t let you do that.”

Frustrated, she said, “You know, you’re no better than those animals back there. No better.”

He didn’t respond to her taunt, but she knew it bothered him because he grimaced briefly after the words left her mouth. She didn’t regret them, though, and not because he wouldn’t stop to let her stretch her legs.

They continued in silence until he made a sound like a grunt of relief and she turned her head to see that cabin he promised they’d stop at. But even then, he didn’t speak to her. He simply kept walking.

“How long are we staying here?” Persephone asked.

“Just long enough to get rested and then we’ll leave. I want to have you home by tomorrow night.”

The way he said that sounded like he didn’t want to have to deal with her or the job of rescuing her anymore. She didn’t know why that bothered her, but it did. She was the aggrieved person, not him, Goddamnit.

“Good. I want to get home and see my family again,” she said, not even trying to mask the hurt his dismissiveness made her feel.

Nick pushed open the back door to the cabin and walked into the darkness inside. Persephone could make out basic shapes and saw a couch on the far wall of the room.

“Put me down over there.”

He did as she ordered and set her down as gently as he had picked her up back at the house. It felt so good to stretch her body, especially her legs. As he searched for some light, she closed her eyes and let herself truly relax for the first time since those two men grabbed her in the hospital parking garage. The couch may have been old with a spring that poked into her lower back, but it felt like heaven to her after the past couple weeks.

She breathed in the musty odor of the cabin that smelled nothing as sweet as that first breath of air she inhaled hours before but she didn’t care how dirty or dilapidated this place was. She was free.

How she’d escaped from her kidnappers weighed heavily on her mind as she lay there in the darkness. If it hadn’t been for Nick, she would still be back at that horrible house tied to a chair with a gag in her mouth. That she had him to thank for the gift of her freedom made hating him confusing and difficult. She wanted to hate him. She had every right to hate him.

But at the same time she owed her life to him.

From the other room she heard a noise and turned to see him walk toward her holding a lantern that lit his way. His expression showed how tired he was from carrying her all the way there, and a tiny lick of guilt pricked at Persephone for every time she silently swore to hate him that day.

“I found this in the kitchen. It’s not a lot of light, but it’s better that we don’t have lights on all over the place just in case they come looking for us here.”

She noted how he said us and not you. It wasn’t just her in this but them together. As much as she wanted to believe he was no better than those monsters who’d held her hostage, she knew that wasn’t the truth.

But that didn’t make what he’d done any easier to forgive.

“Okay.”

He gave her a half-hearted smile and pointed toward the kitchen. “There’s not much in there to eat, but I did find some crackers and some canned food. I can get you something, if you want.”

She shook her head. Eating was the last thing she wanted to do, even though she would have thought that she’d want to gorge on food once she was free. In fact, just the thought of food made her feel queasy.

“No, thanks. I just want to rest here and stretch my legs.”

His frown made her think her answer disappointed him, but she couldn’t imagine why. Taking a seat in a chair across from her, he sat down with a groan.

“That sounds like a good idea. We’ll get going again in a little while.”

She waited for him to say something else—what she wanted him to say she didn’t know—but he simply set the lantern down on the table between them and leaned back in the chair to close his eyes. Persephone watched him as he sat perfectly still and wondered if he fell asleep after a few minutes of not moving at all.

As she looked at him, she also couldn’t help but wonder what he felt about what he’d done. She knew no matter how much she wanted to say he was a monster like those men who kidnapped her that wasn’t true. He had rescued her like he promised, and she believed his actions proved he wasn’t an animal like them.