Everything feels strange, wrong. Like my world has been shifted off its axis.
I straighten up and look at the woman. Aracelia. Even when I say her name in my head, it comes out in a snarl. Something about her just pisses me the fuck off.
Did she tell Esme to run?
I know that this woman has nothing to do with the weight on my chest. That she’s not responsible for my pain. That she just happens to be the only one here right now with any semblance of answers.
But she’s in my way and I’m unable to keep my fury from unfurling.
“Where is she going?” I demand.
She blinks at me. Either too stupid or too fearless to pay much attention to my tone.
“Somewhere else.”
My hands clench into fists. Even that tiny action sends pain rushing up and down my arms. I have a high threshold for physical pain, though.
It’s the emotional shit I could never deal with.
But I don’t have a choice anymore. Pain of all kinds is here to stay.
Matter of fact, pain is all I have left.
I shove past the woman and head out of the house. I’ve just limped through the door when I hear her call my name.
“Artem!”
Despite myself, I freeze.
“For what it’s worth… I think leaving was incredibly hard on her,” she tells me. Her tone is sorrowful, sympathetic.
But I am too black with loss to accept it.
I spit on the ground and keep stomping away.
Aracelia doesn’t pursue me. But when I glance back twenty minutes later, just before I round the hill and her hovel disappears from sight, she’s still there. Still standing in the lit rectangle of her back door. Watching me go.
I spit once more and keep walking into the mountains.
* * *
I must’ve left sometime around midnight, if I had to guess. And yet the sun is high overhead by the time I reach the top of the mountain trail.
My bandages are red at the edges with blood. Everything hurts. More pain than I’ve ever experienced at once.
The cabin comes into view. It looks the same way it always has. Quiet. Peaceful.
It’s painful to even glance at it.
Too many memories of happy days with Esme, waiting to taunt me like ghosts.
I don’t go inside. I’m not ready for that. There are things that need to be dealt with first.
I only stop at the shed, long enough to pull out a shovel.
Then I keep going, delving into the woods with single-minded purpose. One bloody, painful step at a time.
The smell hits me before I reach the clearing. It turns my stomach and I have to slow my pace just a little. The pungent odor smells distractingly like rotting meat.