Hey guys! Sorry it's been a few days!I kinda had a little writers block thing, but then I went to see Maleficent and it helped for some reason lol. btw, it was a really good movie! I recommend seeing it if you havent already! lol. but anyways, here's the next chapter!
We set up a makeshift camp pretty fast. We just cleared the rubble into a circle with precarious walls, thanks to the pileup of all the clutter.
We set out blankets and made a campfire, and for all an outsider would have thought it could have just been a bunch of teens on a road trip.
We heated the canned food up with a pot Gabe found in the back of his truck, and everyone ate quickly and silently. Even while cooking and cleaning up there was almost zero noise.
I'm pretty sure everyone had the illogical thought that if we made too much noise while eating that someone- or something –could find us.
After we were done eating, I offered to take first watch. Or, more like I ordered everyone to sleep while I watched. Gabe offered to take shift with me on the other side of camp.
Achan, and even Ben, kept offering to take watch while everyone fell right asleep. They said I had had a long day and needed to sleep. But I refused to let them, saying I wasn't tired. I really wasn't. I felt fine.
I told everyone that we'd work on fighting tomorrow. I had planned to save that for a few days, maybe even a few weeks after being on the road. But since I got attacked the first day of this wonderful experiment, I decided maybe sooner would be better rather than later to teach.
As everyone fell asleep, I climbed one of the highest piles debris that was as close to the camp as possible that gave me a good view, and settled on top.
I had my bow slung across my lap, and my quiver full on my back. I seriously doubted that anything was going to attack us, but then again, I thought that at the grocery store. Plus, I would never leave myself unprotected and unprepared (besides all the knives and the loaded pistol in my boot, but those were always there).
The tip of the sun was still showing when I was settled on my little mountain, and I watched as it quickly disappeared below the horizon.
I sat for a while, watching and studying the stars. The stars pulled me into a distant memory of a friend I once had when I was younger. I couldn't remember her name, but I did remember her hair. It was like her signature trademark. It was golden and loooong; her mother never let her cut it. Her mother was really protective; she would never let her leave the house, except for school. And the only reason I went over to her house was because her mother was a government official or something along with my dad, and he had to make a house call.
Anyways, since she never really left the house, and she was really artistic, she told me she spent almost all of her time painting. Her entire room was completely covered in paintings. It was amazing.
Even her ceiling was covered; in fact, that's what made me remember her. She charted and painted the stars and sun and moon on her ceiling. It just went to show how much time she spent in her room.
She tried explaining it all to me, but I didn't really remember much. I only remembered the few key facts my dad taught me, like how the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
But now, I was wishing I could remember them. Or could remember her. I wondered what happed to her. She never came to school one day, and I never saw her since.
I realized I had lain down to get a better view at the stars. Surprisingly, the pile of rubble wasn't that uncomfortable.
"Pst," a voice hissed to my right, and I was sitting up with an arrow notched and had it aimed before I even realized who it was.
"Jack!" I tried to whisper, but it came out rather loud. I sighed and pulled the arrow out and placed it back in my quiver. Jack was haphazardly climbing up the side of the mountain of debris, and reached my arm out to pull him up. I wanted to make sure he was on top of the pile so I could push him down.
"I could have killed you." I said matter-of-factly, but I was a little shaken. I could have killed him. Like I almost killed Anna. I got a bad flashback, and flinched away from him with my arm still out.
"Hey," he said reaching out and grabbing my arm. "It's fine, I'm good, no worries." He pulled himself up, but didn't let go of my arm.
I just looked at him, then looked down to where he was touching me, then back at him, until he got the message.
He looked between where his hand was on my arm and my facial expression, and sighed with a very dramatic eye roll, but he took his hand off.
"I forgot, you have a touch phobia thing." He shuffled some of the rubble around and then wiggled into it, leaning back and putting his hands behind his head. I observed him, frowning slightly.
"What do you think you're doing?" I asked him.
"Getting comfortable?" He said it in one of those questions that had an implied, "Duh," at the end.
"How about no. Go back down to camp and get comfortable." I turned my back to him and studied the area.
He did this weird little somersault thing so that he was somewhat in front of me. I tried to ignore him, but he tried to grab my bow.
"What's this?" He reached out, but I grabbed his wrist and twisted, making him cry out. I put my hand over his mouth so he wouldn't yell.
"Don't. Touch." I whispered threateningly, but he just smiled with my hand still over his mouth. "What?" I asked, drawing my hand away from him, and my bow too for good measure.
"You're cute when you're mad." He wiggled his eyebrows while he said it, making me smile despite my best efforts not to.
"You're an idiot if you don't know what a bow is," was my response to that. I couldn't tell if he was serious or not, but it didn't matter. I didn't want the conversation going there anyways.
He only smiled, and looked at the horizon.
"You should really go back, though. Get some sleep. Big day tomorrow." I said as I also turned my head back to the horizon.
"Nah, I'd rather talk to you. See what makes Elsa, Elsa."
"If you really think we're going to have some heart-to-heart conversation then you don't know me at all."
"Come on, I just want to know a few things about you."
I turned to him, and said, "I barely open up to my sister, why would I open up to a guy I just met?"
"Why don't you open up to her?" He asked, turning to me too.
I threw my hands up in frustration while saying, "You completely missed the point of that."
"No, I got the point, I just chose to ignore it." He said simply. "I just want to get to know you better."
I wrinkled my nose, a little confused as to why. But then I got an idea for a question that I thought would throw him off.
"Well, let's start with you then. How many girls have you been with?" I asked boldly.
That made him hesitate. He drew back, tilting his head in confusion.
"Where'd that come from, your highness?"
"Well, you act like girls just give you whatever you ask for. Like just because you asked nicely, I'm going to just open up," I said pointedly, confident in my plan to sway him from this conversation. "Plus, you wanted to know if there was anything going on between Achan and me."
"Fair point," he said, not even hesitating. "But to answer your question, no one. No girls. Nada. Zilch. Zero."
That actually surprised me. For one, I thought he wouldn't want to answer. And two, he was funny, and seemed like he could be very charming when he wanted, and he wasn't bad to look at…
Stop it, I ordered myself.
"What?" I asked, disbelief clear in my voice.
"Yupp. It's true." Jack said with a small smirk, seeming pleased that I thought so different. He turned to me and looked straight into my eyes.
"You're lying." I accused.
"Your majesty, not everything everyone tells you is a lie," he said while studying my eyes. "Plus, like I said before, it's not that hard to open up a little, like I said before."
I was going to respond with a, 'Well, for me it is.'
But it came out like, "Fine."
I seemed to do that a lot with him. I needed to stop.
He looked at me expectantly, and I stared back. He sighed, realizing that I wasn't going to talk without being encouraged.
"What's your favorite color?" He asked.
"Oh, now you've stepped over the line," but my smile betrayed me.
He laughed as I answered, "Blue."
"Blue?"
"Yeah, like the color of ice. That see through, almost white kind of blue. Why?"
"I just pegged you for a red or black kind of girl." He said, giving me a once over.
I just raised an eyebrow and pulled on my hoodie, motioning at the blue.
"Ah, makes sense." He studied my face, then asked, "So why is there purple?" He asked as he motioned to his eyes. I realized he was talking about my eyeliner.
I laughed, and said a little hesitantly, "Well, uh, it's kind of stupid. It just reminds me of when my, uh, parents were… still around." I ended it in a whisper, feeling as though saying it to loud would shatter the comfort of the makeup.
Jack's eyes softened, and he slowly brought his hand up to my eyes. To both his and my surprise, I didn't flinch away, or twist his arm in yet another warning.
He brushed his thumb lightly across the outer corner of my eye while his palm hovered above my cheek. It made my face tingle in a weird way.
He was studying my eyes without really looking at me in that way he did, so I took a brief moment to study him. But instead I noticed a scar on the tip of his thumb out of the corner of my eye.
I grabbed his hand quick, but gently, and pulled it to where I could see it better. He startled a little, but let me take his hand. I noticed the scars on each of his fingertips, shaped like little X's. When he realized what I was looking at, he began to pull back.
I opened my mouth to ask, but a noise to my left got my attention. I had my arrow notched and aimed in the direction of the noise. It made me forgot about the scars. But for some reason, it made me remember something else. Nick.
"Jack," I whispered, still looking in the direction of the noise, which was just a newspaper that had tumbled down a hill of rubble from the wind.
"Hmm?" He said, head down and his hands- protectively, I noticed, –in his lap.
"I need to know that I can really trust you." I whispered fiercely. I didn't know where this newfound drive was, but I really wanted to trust him, to confide in him about Nick, and whoever the man was. I didn't know why I wanted to with him either. But I did.
He looked in me square in the eye this time, in this world and not wherever else he disappeared to. Looking right at me. "Elsa, I know you don't really know me, but I promise you can trust me."
And that was all it took. For now.
Usually I would wait a few years, but I felt like the situation we were all in, and just something inside me was urging me to talk to him. I would make him gain my trust, and even then I would be a little distant with him. But I had so many questions I needed to confide in with someone else, and for some reason I felt like he had an answer.
I told Jack about what happened with Nick, and what he said about someone sending him. I hadn't brought it up again with Achan, but it had been in the back of mind the whole time since. It was bothering me more than it maybe should have. Maybe.
Jack listened to my quick retelling very well. He seemed like a good listener.
"Gabe said something about answers. Well, those are the answers I want. I want to know who 'he' is." My fists were clenched, and adrenaline started to flow through me. Just talking about it made me worked up.
Conceal, don't feel. Don't let it show. Shut it off Elsa. I talked to myself in my mind, and shut it off. Stored the anger/adrenaline away.
Jack watched me the few seconds it took to calm down, but apparently he learned his lesson not to pry as much. He just pressed his lips together for a moment, and then spoke.
"Elsa, we'll figure it out. Promise." There was his promise again. "It is strange… But we can figure it out tomorrow or something too. We have three years. And I feel like answers will present themselves at the right moment."
He leaned back, and left it at that. It felt ominous and a little creepy. Like he knew more than he was letting on.
I leaned back to, so I was lying on my back, and watched the stars, listening intently.
Jack and I made some sort of silent agreement that the conversation was over and also that it was okay for him to sit with me.
I was mulling this over, how something seemed strange about him, how I seemed to have this strange sense of comfort after just barely knowing him, when I yawned.
Jack looked over and smirked. "So you are human after all. Go to sleep, your highness. I'll cover your shift."
I was going to say something along the lines of, "Don't call me that," but another yawn came out.
I laughed inwardly. It was like an inside joke with myself about how I never said what I intended to around Jack.
I fell asleep thinking about how it felt like I've known Jack forever.
Hope yall liked it! Thank you guys also for the encouragement! Review, follow, whatever! And some of yall had some interesting ideas, and they might actually become apart of the story, so thank yall for those!(: