“Like me?”
“You’re…bigger than the men of my land, and your skin is a different shade. There are stories of men like you, but they were more like tall tales than fact. Or I thought they were.”
His head cocks to the side, his cold eyes growing curious. “We are not so big. It is you who are small.”
“I’m kind of average for my people, so I guess you’re probably average for yours. Are the women also tall like you?”
His face falls. “Last I saw, they were near as tall as I.”
Last I saw,implying he hasn’t seen one in a while, which means his people are all men…
This can’t be good…because an island full of men would surely want one thing…
“I think I should go back to my people,” I say carefully.
“Why? You said you’d rather go at it alone,” he says, looking me up and down. “And you are stronger than them.”
Yeah, but not strong enough to survive what your ‘people’ are going to do to me,I think to myself.
Instead, I say, “This world is too unforgiving to make it on my own. Sometimes strength comes with numbers.”
“So you would align yourself with the weak?”
“You don’t know weakness like you think you do.”
He looks at me like what I’ve said is ludicrous.
I gesture to his body. “You have muscles. We might not be strong, like you, but that doesn’t mean we’re not strong in other ways.”
He looks like he’s about to laugh.
“We came up with a plan to overcome our captors.”
“And how did you do that?”
“We were chained to the side of the boat, but when one of the men came for me, we managed to—”
“Came for you?” he says each word sharply.
I decide not to tell him I was nearly raped, and instead say, “He hurt me, but while doing so, let down his guard.”
“And you overpowered him?”
“With the help of a friend, I did.”
He nods. “Sometimes my people work together as well.”
“Yes, and that’s how me and my people are strong.”
He contemplates my words, his face unyielding of his true emotions.
“So…I should probably get back to them.”
He has this way of making me feel small, and it’s not just his massive frame. His silence is…large. I don’t even know what that means, but I know it’s true.
He’d be a terrifying adversary, and I feel lucky that I’m not on the wrong side of his temper.
And from how he’s acting, he doesn’t seem to be interested in me sexually, which is a relief. Perhaps he’s more interested in the women of his ‘people’, wherever they might be.