Anna liked quite a few things. She liked late autumn afternoons, cool breezes, thunderstorms in summer, the feeling of wax pencils on a sketchpad, pressed leaves against the pages of large, dusty books, and seeding flowers in her hair. These were all things from her memories, back before Father was a dictator and when losing her sketchpad in the meadow was the largest travesty. Anna loved things from her past. She hated, however, her Darell memories.
Perhaps it wasn’t the memories she hated. No; she and Darell used to whisper about them all day or night long. Perhaps it was the waking up. The realizing that there would be no more memories made. The knowledge, the voice that said, “Hey, he’s really gone. There’s no chance to get him back, no shot. He’s gone, and there’s nothing you can do.” And that pained enough to outweigh any memory joy.
She awoke in the forest, but other than the obvious fact that she was surrounded by trees, she was unsure of her whereabouts. The world reflected quite lopsided and blurrily from her left eye. She sat up and her head began to pound wildly.
As if he had been camouflaged with the trees, waiting for just the right moment to jump out, he appeared by her side. Without thinking, she hollered. He hurriedly took her square by the shoulders.
“Hey.” His voice was sweet, easy, sincere. He looked at her passionately, fiercely. She was unaware of who he was until she felt the hatred suddenly burn deep within her. But this was not a sort of hatred that she remembered feeling before.
It was Darell.
She struggled with him for a moment before he chuckled lightly, earning him a glare; then he gently released her. “You should lay back down,” he advised in a low voice.
“I don’t care,” she griped as she complied.
He smiled faintly. “Do you remember what happened?”
She gave him a blank look.
“Last night?” He stared at her quizzically.
“With your father?”
The word ‘father’ was what reminded her. So many memories came flooding in that she was silent for a minute or two. Her mind focused on last night. Her standing up, yelling. The fight. The screaming child and the girl with the golden hair picking it up. A man bolting down the stairs and saving her. Brave arms taking her out of the broken house.
“Yes.”
Immediately he dived in. “I took you out as soon as I came to. I left you at the clinic and then ran back to the house to make sure everyone was okay.” She tuned out for a bit, thinking of what strength he must have to be able to run all the way to town and back. “The baby had fallen asleep. Then . . . the older girl, with the . . .” He gestured to his head, and Anna quickly got what he meant. Jealousy stung the back of her eyes as she imagined her sister’s long, flowing, gold hair.
“Celine . . .” She stammered, dazed. “She’s my . . . my sister.”
“Right. Well, she was in the bedroom tending to her boyfriend--”
“Husband . . . that’s Raf, her . . . her husband.”
He shot a confused look at her. “They’re married and they still live in the same house as you?”
“I know. I want her . . . gone too.”
He nodded slowly. “Right . . . so she said that your dad went out looking for you.”
“Oh, okay.” Admittedly, it took Anna a few seconds. The pain in her left cheek numbed her senses. Urgency suddenly took control of everything. Her dazed and confused state faded like snow in summer, and without even thinking about the dizziness it caused her head, she jumped to her feet immediately. “We need to get out of here. He’s going to come back with a gun, and we need to get out of here.”
Darell rose to his feet slowly, both surprised and impressed with her sudden response to an emergency. "Why would he have a gun?"
"Trust me on this." He watched as she backed up, staring at the treetops, trying to figure out their exact location. “Where are we?” And then, when he didn’t respond immediately, “Darell, tell me where the hell we are!”
He stuttered as he tried to respond quickly. “W-we’re, uh, about maybe . . . fifteen miles from town.”
She froze suddenly. A shadow passed over her face. “Fifteen miles from town?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Fifteen miles?” She turned on him slowly. Her brain begin to hurriedly question his intentions. “Darell, how well do you know me?” Before he could answer, “And yet you still find it completely and utterly fine to pick up a poor, unconscious, sad girl, and steal her fifteen miles way from town, where no one could hear her screams of terror and fear?” Her voice began to rise in pitch with every word.
The baffled, slow Darell mumbled, “What?”
“Don’t give me that!” She stalked towards him suddenly, making his eyes go wide in terror. “What the hell have you been doing with me?”
Realization. He backed away cautiously. “Nothing! It--it’s not like that, Anna, I’m not that kind of guy!”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah!”
“And what am I supposed to do?” She had backed him against a tree, and he grabbed on to the bark in support, his eyes more terrified on how quickly she changed her mood than on how upset she was. “Am I supposed to trust a guy whom I don’t know, a guy who acts like some dazed, confused, little boy just to impress me?”
“Yes!” He stopped short, realizing how stupid it sounded. “I swear, Anna, it’s not like that at all!”
“This whole thing’s just been a fake so you could get me alone!”
“No, Anna--”
She took her opportunity to deck him right across the face. He stumbled slightly, even against the weight of the tree, and looked up from his bleeding cheek just in time to see her running off.
“Anna,” he tried, through his swollen lip, “please, believe me!”
“I’m done with believing!” was her retort. Something deep, deep inside of her seemed deflected; almost hurt. Yet, as usual, she boldly ignored that part.
“Anna!” His voice had changed from just a second ago. Even with the urgency in his voice, Anna wasn’t about to turn, until he screamed for her again. His voice was suddenly cautious, scared, and that was what made her turn.
Standing right next to the suffering Darell was her father. Light from the trees peaked out on to him, curving around his rigged body. She heard the click of the ammunition in the rifle before she saw it, but as soon as she could see him holding the gun in his right hand and aim it towards her, she couldn’t help but scream.
“Run!” was Darell’s desperate holler.
As if she needed to be told. She could see in her mind’s eye her running. She could feel her soul beating viciously as she ran away from danger, ran away from her father and the boy who betrayed her. She could feel the world fall into step with her, the author’s pen turn to her story, the readers flip another page of her book. She could feel the illustrator draw her dashing figure, could see her picture in a museum on a bright summer day.
However, if she had run, there wouldn’t have been a story.
She wasn’t sure what had stopped her from moving. As the previous assumption, perhaps it was because it wouldn’t have been a good ending for a story. Perhaps it wasn’t fulfilling enough, emotional enough, close enough to the reader’s heart. Perhaps it was because of the anger her father could always summon so easily in her heart. Perhaps it was fear. Or perhaps, just perhaps, it was because she felt if she had left, she was leaving Darell behind and in danger.
“It wasn’t hard,” her father began, lowering his gun and examining it. A speech, as he begun everything. “I was walking quite aimlessly in the woods until I heard your voice. I must say, I approve.” He grabbed Darell by the shoulder and forced his bleeding face up to his eye. Both Anna and Darell tensed. “A very good hit, if I do say so myself.” He threw Darell against the tree, and her eyes followed him. “Something I’ve taught to you?”
Anna was silent.
“I think this is a good streak to act upon,” he said, retaking aim at his daughter. She backed up, just one step, and then froze once again. “Let me make the second good hit of the day.”
“No!”
It happened too fast. For years and years after the fact, Anna would sit in silence, still trying to sort everything that had occurred in those scarce seconds. Darell had jumped up quicker than she could have ever expected. He thrust his hand outwards and, so naturally, light jumped out of it. Sparkling, blue, light. Though she had never seen such a sight before, it did not feel estranged, mystified, or confused. She did not gape in wonder or freeze in shock. To her frying, sickly mind, it seemed natural. It felt as if daily people shot light out of their hands. As if the whole world had powers.
The light took her father and threw him against the tree. Snapping his fingers on his unoccupied hand, Darell released the beam of light and began to clap. The dazed man had just begun to stir when the tree, until recently still as death, latched onto the man's arms and legs with its twisting branches. Under Darell's instructions, another one wrapped around the man's neck and held him tightly. He writhed and struggled, then suddenly went limp.
Darell released him, letting the branches presume their upward battle to reach the sky. Though his face was already swollen and bleeding, it seemed particularly red.
Her mind still disjoined, Anna whispered, "Run."
As if he needed to be told.
