Page 10 of Braving the Valley

Did he stare at me the entire time I was out, or did he at least check my pulse?

Did he do a single thing a normal person would do? He certainly didn't call for help by the looks of it, but why not?

What exactly was his plan if I didn't wake up?

And most fucking importantly, did he do something to me?

I feel like I'm still me, and I'm pretty sure that I awoke exactly where I landed, so I don't think he did anything to me. I'm not sure I want to know the answers to all of my other questions, though. Most of all, I don't think I want to know what his plan was if I didn't wake up.

Though waking up is not the correct phrase because I wasn't sleeping. I would call whatever that was the opposite of sleeping. It's something that pretends to be sleeping but in reality, is just pitch-black nothingness. If anything, I'm more tired than I was before, and with every second, it weighs heavier on me as I sit cowered against the wall, watching my new stalker take another drag from his cigarette as he stares at me.

I don't like that look.

I don't like that look at all.

It makes goosebumps break out across my skin and all of me shiver.

It feels like he can see me, the real me, all of my insecurities, each of my fears, every last nasty bit of it, and I don't show that shit to anyone, worst of all to a stranger.

"What have you been doing?" I ask him when he violates all of society's norms and still doesn't say a word.

"I've been watching over you," he answers.

"Watching over me?" I ask. "Watching over me and watching me are not the same thing. You know that right?"

I'm truly not sure he does, but he ignores the dig with a frown that warns of unspeakable things. Would he set me on fire too, just like he threatened the student earlier?

Okay, I'm starting to get concerned about what the fuck he was going to do to me if I didn't wake up.

"I get it now," he murmurs, smoke sifting through his teeth on the exhale. It's a dark and dangerous sight, and something in my stomach coils not for fear but for an entirely different reason. "You're one of them, aren't you? One of the eating disorders, right?" Hetsks. "You sure got lovely bones, baby girl."

What the fuck does that mean?

I went to deny him lumping me in with the eating disorder kids. I start to, at least.

"No," I say. "What are . . ."

He cuts me off with anothertskand a shake of his head. "Nah, we ain't playing that game, Firefly. Denial isn't a good look on you."

Why does he keep calling me that? And more importantly, why do I like that he's calling me that?

He stands slowly, climbing to his feet. He looks like a giant from this angle, tall, dark, and handsome like the angel of death come to collect me.

"You'll sit with me at all meals," he says.

Uh, excuse me? Who does this guy think he is?

I answer to no one, and especially not some torch-freak playing king of the castle.

"No," I shake my head, and it sends the world wobbling again. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to calm the wobble. The creeper drops his cigarette to the tile floor a few inches in front of me and stomps it out, leaving it there like a colossal asshole.

"It wasn't a question," he tells me. His tone says the matter is already decided. It absolutely is not.

"You're an asshole," I tell him, tipping my chin at the crushed cigarette butt. "You litter all the time or just on special kidnapping occasions?"

He raises a dark eyebrow. "My littering bothers you, Firefly?"

"Yes."

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