Page 34 of Far From Sherwood Forest
Several seconds pass, and I can practically hear the battle raging in his head. I may not understand what each side is fighting for, but I watch it happen, hoping the right side comes out victorious.
I don’t think it does.
“It must be nice,” he sneers as he turns his body to face me and takes a few steps forward. “To not have anything that haunts you.”
“There’s plenty that haunts me, Henry. I just don’t let it burden me.”
His scowl deepens, and his nostrils flare. It wasn’t meant to be a personal jab, but if that’s the way he takes it, then I’ve been right this entire time.
There are still a few yards between us, so I take a couple of steps in his direction, approaching slowly as though he’s a wild animal. He’s nearly as terrifying as that damn bear was, so the caution is warranted.
“I know you’ve hated me all this time,” I tell him, “but we’re not back there anymore. We probably never will be. That old life doesn’t exist for us here, so why not start over?”
“You thinkthat’swhat haunts me?” When he moves again, it takes a burst of self-control not to back away. His eyes are dark, an abyss of anger and hatred and pain. “Let me tell you something. You could go back to Sherwood Forest and shoot an arrow right through Prince John’s heart, and I wouldn’t give a fuck. It’s not the ghost of who you used to be that haunts me, Robin. It’s the ghosts ofnothing.”
I’d be impressed by how much he’s finally speaking to me if I wasn’t busy trying to figure out his riddle.
My brow furrows as I shake my head. “What are you talking about?”
He presses his lips into a thin line, and I think that’s it.That’s all I’m getting. He’s locking it all back up tight and throwing away the key.
But then there’s that war behind his eyes again, and I know he’s fighting against that part of himself that doesn’t want to talk, that doesn’t want to open up and be vulnerable. It’s a piece of him that’s so deeply ingrained that I don’t know if he can win the battle against it.
And, yet, he surprises me.
His voice comes out deeper and slower than before, the manifestation of all that anger and hatred and pain that was in his eyes. “You and John left me on that hilltop.”
My continued confusion is brief, and then it hits me all that once.
We left him…
Now that he says it—thewayhe says it—it’s as though I travel back in time, and I understand what he means. Iknowexactly what we did to him.
The air around me thins, and I struggle to suck it into my lungs as a heavy weight settles on top of my chest.
“I had to watch my cousin die—the only kin I had left, by the way—and then I was forced into this strange new world against my will.” He takes another step, and this time, Idoretreat. “You left me there. Alone. In a world and time I didn’t know or understand.”
“Henry…”
“You had John, and I had no one. Fortwo fucking years!”
I flinch as though he’s physically struck me. However, what’s really hitting me is worse than if he had. Guilt is kicking my ass, pummeling me over and over again until I can’t catch my breath. It kicks me in the ribs. Its claws tear open my skin, and its fangs sink deep.
“Henry, please.”
“Shut up,” he says, dismissing me easily. “I was alone fortwo years. Completely and utterly alone. Can you imagine what it’s like to go seven hundred and fourteen days without seeing another person? Without speaking to another human?”
He counted them? He counted the days.
All seven hundred and fourteen of them.
What the fuck have I done?
“Henry, I’m so sor—”
“I said shut up. You wanted to talk, so now you’re going to fucking listen.” He continues advancing, and I trip my way backward across roots and rocks. “You and John knocked me out and abandoned me to figure out this strange place all alone. You deserve everything I’ve done to you and more.”
“You were going to kill me,” I tell him, but it feels like a weak argument at the moment.
