Chapter 30
The middle of nowhere
Ash
A few minutes later Nico, Maxon, and Lucy appeared in the clearing carrying food. Lucy had a furious expression on her face, oh no. She stormed up to me and stood in front of me with her hands on her hips.
"You!" She jabbed a finger in my chest. "What have you done! We saw Sofya running through the woods sobbing. What happened! You two have been at odds since the ball. What in the three worlds happened to you two! You two obviously like each other. We are not blind! Makeup already! It has been annoying the heck out of the rest of us. Stop pushing each other away. Sofya told me about the stupid rules, your brother, and the council. Well, guess what? I don't care! You two belong together and no one can stop that and we have your backs. So please fix this. Go after her, you big dummy!" Lucy screamed in my face. Nico came over and pulled her away but not looking any less mad than Lucy.
"Ok, Lucy, I think he gets it. But Ash, come on. Go after her. I know you care about Sofya it's written all across your face." Nico said, giving me a look. Lucy squirmed out of Nico's arms and marched back over to me.
"Ash, explain what is going on right now." She demanded. I gave her a look. I didn't know if I should tell her, she would probably tell Sofya. This was already hard enough, plus she didn't like me in the way I did. So eventually she would find someone else and be happy and love them. I on the other hand never could. Not that I wanted to anyway.
"Are you going to tell Sofya, because if so, I won't tell you." I said. Lucy looked at the others.
"We promise we won't tell Sofya if it's that important to you, right?" She said staring at Nico and Maxon, they nodded their heads. I sighed, here we go.
"Sofya and I can't be together. I have come to realize that even though I care about her, and that is one of the reasons. First of all, you guys know about the legend, she has to marry the guardian. I'm not the guardian my brother is, and right now Alek has him. Secondly, the council would kill us if they found out that I had tried to do or did anything romantically related with her. I could never put her life in jeopardy. Lastly, she thinks I've betrayed her, by lying to her about the being prisoner to Alek thing and a bunch of other information I withheld. Also, she can't even stand the sight of the real me. Not that I expected anything different but it still hurt. Even though I care about her, it's best that we're apart. For everyone's sake. After this, we will go our separate ways and she will be happy with someone else and will fall in love with them. Even if that happens to be my brother." I said gritting my teeth.
I looked up at them, Maxon was frowning. I mean he usually was but this was deeper. If that made any sense. Lucy had tears dripping down her face, and Nico was expressionless. Lucy's voice quivered as she spoke.
"Ash, you, you were a prisoner? To Alek? How long?"
"Eleven years, and still am," I whispered, not exactly wanting to think about it. Lucy bent down and enveloped me in a tight hug, her soft curls hitting my face.
"Ash I'm so sorry." She said, then pulled back wiping her face. I gave a weak smile.
"It's fine, it's not like you could've done anything. What's happened has happened, but one thing's for certain is that we are going to kill the bastard." I said, they all nodded in agreement. Lucy spoke up.
"We're going to go find Sofya, we won't tell her you like her or anything else you said. We'll be back in a bit, you really should rest." I nodded, then they set off into the woods.
Nico turned back and shook his head at me, disappointed. Before he followed the others into the forest. I rolled my eyes. Why couldn't he accept what happened, what couldn't be? It wasn't like he hadn't done the same thing. He was running away from his problems just as much as I was, if not more.
I lay back down. I couldn't wait to get this over with. I didn't know how I was going to be able to leave Sofya at the end of this, but I had to. There was no more debating it. I had to let go. Alek believed he created a monster and a monster was what he was going to get. Although, there was one factor Alek hadn't considered. Monsters couldn't be controlled.