Chapter Twenty One Azalea's Point of View

She looked around, hardly stopping to breathe while she ran. Dwayne ran ahead of her, obviously wanting to escape as much as she did.

"Dwayne, wait!" She yelled to him. "I really don't like this idea!" Dwayne slid to a stop, causing her to collide into him. He stared at her. "What?" She tossed her blond hair behind her shoulders.

Dwayne shrugged, before turning around. Dwayne took her hand leading her to town. They had run from Fernando -Jacob- she corrected herself. She didn't have to pretend that his real name was Fernando. That was their last name. But they had left the house right after the boys had discussed the plan to keep the princess hostage. They were outside of her small cottage near the outside of town. It had a larger space for them to talk.

"Azal," Dwayne cooed. "I don't like it either."

She gasped and he bent his head down to level their gazes. "I hate the idea, Azal."

Azalea looked away. "Then why are you going through with it? Why do you want me to help you out? Jacob's," she snarled the name, "feud is with Eugene, not with Rapunzel. He doesn't care about what happens to her, and if anything, he wants her hurt." Dismay caught in her voice. "He might even want her dead, Dwayne!"

Dwayne caught her in a hug when she tried to walk away from him. "Azalea," he turned her to him. "I don't want to be involved, so why would I want you to be involved? I don't want anything to happen to you."

"Then why don't you tell him to stop? You're his twin after all. Why didn't you know that he'd plan all this?" She forced her greenish gray eyes to meet his dark gray ones.

His eyes were too much like Jacob's. When she had first met the Fernando Brothers, she had marveled at the color that had been so much like her own. Now she could hardly stand to look at them when she saw them on the face of a monster that wanted to hurt a woman he didn't know.

"Twins hearing each other's thoughts is a myth." Dwayne's serious face relaxed into laughter. "A myth that has been around for centuries, I'm sure."

"Dwayne, why didn't you know that Jacob would take a woman hostage? Much less to find out that she was the princess!"

"If I could talk to my twin, I'd be beating the devil out of him right now. If I could talk to my twin, I would have been able to unshackle her without turning around to have a knife at my throat! If I could talk-"

Azalea stopped him with a kiss. The kiss did something odd to her heart, tear at it. "I know. I'm sorry, but it feels hard to stand around and do nothing, but like you said. Then I turn around to have a knife at my throat with 'Help me out' engraved on it."

She turned away, her eyes swelling with tears. "I don't want any part in her misery, Dwayne."

"Azal, I-"

"Don't you see?" She whirled around, her eyes becoming slits. "How hard it is to say no? For whatever reason, I-I want to help you. But I won't, because if I were her, I'd want someone helping me. She was bruised and broken when we went in there. He might have been able to hide her from you, but not from me. A woman knows when another one is in trouble."

Azalea caught her breath. "But she was with my mother more than I was. She was able to hug for her, sing for her, cook for her-" She sank onto the grass with a sob. "Every time she would leave, I'd see a wrinkle on her face."

Dwayne stepped toward her and sat on the ground beside her. He didn't interrupt her.

"Every time she left, she'd have a wrinkle or a worried look in her eyes. But when she'd come back, it would be gone. She would look clearer, more alive and happy when she came back, then when she was leaving. I used to think that it was my fault that she'd seem so dead and creased because when she came back, she would be glowing. So I started to tell her to come back home less often, that instead of seeing her every two weeks that I could manage seeing her once a month. But I'd burn inside because that was my mother I was telling to go away."

Dwayne shushed her with a murmur. "Then why say no? If she hurt you that much with that other girl who was just as old as you, why not? Why not hurt the girl back?"

Azalea wiped away tears. "Dwayne, what are you saying? I thought you wanted no part of this."

His eyes hardened. "I didn't know how hard you were fighting to say no to me. If you'll feel better, then go ahead, Azal. Do it."

Jacob. The name flashed in her mind as Dwayne transformed. That was another painful part of being with Dwayne. Jacob never turned into Dwayne, Dwayne only turned into Jacob. "Dwayne, you're scaring me. I don't want her hurt. She's just like me in every way."

"No," he said softly, "she's not. She kept your mother from you!"

"She didn't know about me-"

"Azal," he looked at her with a sorrowful face. "do this for me, for him, and then we'll never speak of it again."

"What we're doing could get someone killed."

"You think Jacob doesn't know that?" Dwayne grinned, and Azalea backs away.

"Dwayne?"

"We're doing it, Azal." Azal had realized that they were in town surrounded by people when Dwayne had disappeared. "It might save him."

I don't want to do this. She thought painfully. She knew what she had to do. Jacob was losing himself. If it could save him, as long as Jacob didn't hurt her. . .

The decision was made.

At sunset, she'd have to prepare her cottage. And in the morning, she'd have to scream 'Fernando'.

Just like crying wolf.