∞ THEN ∞
ALANA: 11
KNIGHT: 16
"You have to promise me something, Angel," Knight whispered, his voice an echo in the endless dark.
I hummed in response, too flattered by the twinkling stars to even speak.
"If one day something happens to me─"
I cut him off with a look. "Stop. You said we won't talk about anything sad today."
He sighed roughly, yanking on the strands of his tousled hair. I was always delighted by the colour. They weren't exactly black; sometimes they seemed more dark blue than anything. Our caseworkers had mentioned something about him being half-Turkish only but neither of us knew who his mother was. Cut that, we didn't know who our parents were.
"This isn't sad," he was hell-bent on talking and I just didn't want to listen. Not today. At least today I wanted to pretend that our lives weren't completely going downhill. Every day I woke up with the hope of seeing better days. Things didn't turn out the way you liked them to, as I was now learning. "This is a reality you have to face. We can be separated anytime and don't give me that look. You know it's the truth."
My lashes fluttered against my cheeks as I looked down, the reality of his words slamming into me with a great force.
"Whether it's by death or something else," he continued, twisting the dagger deeper into my heart. I swallowed past the emotions working their way up my throat. "I want you to run away, okay? If that day comes . . ." Emerald-green eyes bore into mine with a seriousness that didn't sit well with me. "If one day he has a pistol to my head, you have to promise me, Angel. Promise you'll run away."
I hated him.
It was official.
I hated him because he always made me cry. Whenever he took the beatings, I cried. And after that when he pretended to be fine, I cried even more. When he made promises like these . . .
I buried my head between my knees, sobs racking through me. "Why do you do this to me? Do you really think I want to talk about this—about you dying—right now?" My bleary eyes met his and I hated the sadness I found there. It was all because of me. "If anything, Knight, I should be the one to die. Come to think of it, if I die, everyone would be at peace. You wouldn't have to—"
"Say another word and see what happens," His jaw ticked, eyes sharp as razor blades and the finality in his voice made me stop. "You really think I could live without you? I would rather somebody shoot me again and again than see so much as a hair being touched on your head."
And there it was.
I could keep denying it—he could keep denying it—but we both knew what the truth was. We both knew how he'd saved me that day.
"Knight—"
He shook his head, reverting his gaze. "I know what you're going to say. Don't. I'm okay. Right now, just listen to me carefully. If one day I tell you to run, you run and never look back, got it?"
I laid back down on the mossy grass—well, it wasn't really grass, more like a muddy soil with a few grains of what could be called grass. If you were colourblind.
"I'm not talking about this," I simply stated, refusing to think about a time I wouldn't have Knight by my side. What would I do without him? Who was I without him? I turned to glare at him but he wasn't looking my way. "And you know how running away turns out every time."
He was silent, just like I knew he would be.
We'd tried running away about three times already. The facilities that gave us away to Mr and Mrs Steve were the worst. They'd catch us every time and return us to them and we'd be separated from each other and locked up in the basement without light, food and water. Those were some of the bleakest moments of my life—a time I never wanted to visit ever again.
For the sake of our sanities, we'd tried. At least we'd tried.
The police in our area were of no use. This was a small town and Knight and I were orphans for all anyone cared. My parents had died in a car accident when I was five and my family had handed me over to child care. Since then, I had been moving from foster home to foster home, waiting to be adopted.
And Knight?
I had no idea where his parents were; neither did he. We'd met in our last foster home—which was less abusive than this one—and had stuck ever since. Nobody could separate us. So, it was crazy that he wanted me to run away. I would never leave him alone.
Or so I thought.