The door creaked open, slow and deliberate as if that sound warned us alone.
I pressed the blade tighter; my knuckles were white against the hilt, but Kael's reaction froze me in my tracks.
Her breath came fast and shallow, like a trapped animal sensing its predator nearby.
She succumbed -colored but strong, pushing up with unsteady arms, her shoulders that of a beaten wrestler; no thousand pounds could compress the feeling of the room pressing down on her.
"What is it?" I asked, keeping my voice low and measured.
She didn't reply, her eyes were on the door. Her lips moved but no voice came.
For a moment I thought she might lose consciousness from the terror that had frozen her.
Then she shook her head as if to dismiss some annoying thought in her head, which caused her weak fingers to relax from their curled position to hang limply at her sides.
"I..." Her voice faltered. "I don't know."
Her vagueness had indeed heightened the density of the air but also made the walls seem more prone to a mutual inward tendency.
I took one step and grabbed the hand, but in that gasp of breath I took, I silenced my second step.
"Don't," she said softly. Her voice trembled, but it was quaking with a quiet desperation nonetheless. "It's not safe."
I looked back at her, squinting. "What isn't safe?"
While I was gazing at her, she shifted her focus towards the warm glow of the fire. It seemed as though she was about to attempt to explain the situation to me, but once more, she shook her head and squinted her eyes tightly.
"I am not... I can't..." she mumbled, mostly to herself more than to me.
The fire pulsed and hardened a moment later, wrapping her face in rough shadows. She looked dangerous.
Her gaze was fixated on the door, and her expression was pale and rigid with fear. But for someone so petite and delicate, she managed to look intimidating.
"What aren't you telling me?" I asked Kael, my voice strained from impatience.
She finally lifted her gaze, and the emotional fragility in her eyes was somewhat unexpected. "I don't remember," she said flatly, this time cracking her voice a little.
Just as I tried to ask more, a faint thump resonated from the outside. Instead, she flinched and her fingers clenched around the bed blanket.
"No," she became vivaciously opposing, this time allowing a stranger to get through to her. "You can't do that."
Once again, I got her on the verge of unfolding something as I could see her lip tremble, and there arose an uncanny flow of unwillingness to deal with my question. "Just stay there", I proclaimed, covering the distance towards the door.
Although I was given some physical support and she was weakly embracing my arm, "so no goals."
It was at that very moment that I began observing her closely. Beneath every single attainable emotion, there was a stream of anxiousness. "Surely, you are aware of something," I calmly replied.
Resolutely, the words remained unvoiced, only her lips unfurling. An instant hiss interrupted from the fireplace and without hesitation, my gaze shifted towards it.
The very second I returned to her, bewilderment grabbed her as her color turned pale while her pupils glued behind me.
"Do not move your sight," the voice even struggled with stubbornness, pronouncing each word carefully, "but do so slowly."
Kael trembled as she was able to keep herself in an upright position. Each bone of hers was so exhausted that she felt like collapsing, although she didn't have that option available. And she wouldn't do that either.
I remember watching her battle for her fingers to unflex, literally braiding the blanket like it was the only piece of clothing keeping her sane. Weak, but still fighting.
"You're staring." Her voice was weak and coarse, just like her body.
"Yeah, you're breathing," I found myself smirking.
The glimmer of amusement in her eyes was almost good until it dimmed behind the caution. I almost convinced myself that it was so fast, I surely imagined it.
But her lips began to twitch, "Did you expect me to stop?'"
"Would've made my life easier," I responded.
She let out a weak puff of breath that was bordering on a laugh
She looks down, her fingers tracing invisible patterns against the fabric. "I don't know why I read that, " she admitted.
"You don't lie with a lot of affairs, " I pointed out.
Her center snapped up to mine, and I thought she might snap back, but instead, something soft intersected her font. Not anger. Not even frustration.
Simply hesitation.
I didn't want it. It made her seem real. Like someone I shouldn't ignore.
Like someone, I could lose.
I play a hand through my hair, exhaling sharply. Calculate, I don't know who's after you, and I don't know why you're here. But I demand to know if going along with you actively is going to cost me my life.
Something flutters in her gaze—quick, uncertain. And then, before she could reckon, she said something I wasn't expecting.
"I don't know if I should be alive. "
Silence.
The fire crackled. My fingers tightened around the hilt of my blade.
She wasn't looking at me anymore.
The here and now were gone, shattered like glass.
"What the Hell does that mean? " My voice was sharper than I intended.
Kael opened her rima oris, hesitated, and then shut it again. She takes care. . . lost. Not the kind of mislay that derives from running—but the kind that came from not loving where you belong at all.
Her hand twitched again, just now slightly. Like she was going to reach out—but didn't.
Instead, she gave a humble, breathless laugh. It wasn't good. It wasn't anything close to that.
"I think I'm dangerous, " she murmured.
I should've cut it. I should've let her silence settle.
But I couldn't.
"Dangerous to who? "
Kael finally looked at me, her expression unreadable. And then, in a voice muted I barely heard it—
"To you. "
The flame blind. The air between us tightened.
For the 1st time since I found her, I wasn't certain if I was protecting her. . .
Or keep her from destroying me.