Algernon Black

(Chapter 66) Disgusting Hope

"I swear to god if I get woken up to any kind of animal in my hair, I will burn this island to the ground," Pecilia vowed as she laid down in one of the cots.

Freya had been able to make a pretty luxurious dinner from the food Brickwood gifted them and some freshly caught fish she roasted over the spitfire she had also made.

"Freya?" Jasper said, eating one of the skewered carp. "How did you learn to do all of this?"

Freya eyed Jasper back in confusion. "Is this not innate knowledge you have?"

"No," Jasper stated, even more confused. "In fact, I don't think that's knowledge anyone innately has."

Freya pondered for one quick moment before shrugging her shoulders. "I guess I must have just picked it up somewhere."

Jasper ogled Freya like she was a completely unsolvable puzzle, but decided he was too tired to investigate further and set off for bed. Freya finished two more crispy fishes before she headed for the cots as well, which left Lucy at the fire. Her mind stirred the greatest at night, and after her fight with Algernon, she found her thoughts louder than ever.

Algernon dwelled at the fire too, just as unsettled by their fight, but without any idea of how to fix it.

Lucy felt the tension in the silence growing ever more present with each passing moment and decided it was about time to fix it or ruin it further.

"You never did answer why you saved me," she said, knowing her mind would not rest until she at least spoke about it. 

Algernon frowned down at the fire. He'd been thinking of the answer to that question since she'd asked it. "I don't know why," he replied hardly louder than the sound of the crackling fire.

Lucy moved the embers of the fire around with a stick. "You're lying."

"Careful," Algernon said, meeting her eyes with his narrowed. "I'm tired but I'll find the strength to fight you if you make me."

"You wouldn't," Lucy mumbled back.

"And why are you so certain I won't?"

"Because." Lucy pulled her knees to her chest to rest her chin on them. Her wrist still throbbed from Algernon's grip where a bruise was already forming. "I think it's hurting you too."

Algernon looked through the flames at Lucy. In the dim light of the fire, he noticed how delicate her features were, and how her perfectly shaped lips dyed in a permanent pink hue highlighted the sunburn on her nose. He also saw the dark blue forming of a bruise around her wrist in the markings of his finger. He hated to see it on her, and even more to be the cause of it.

"If you know that, why not end both of our pain?" he asked, his voice falling softer as he leered at the injury he didn't mean to cause. She was just so weak, and he wasn't used to holding back. "Why not leave?" he demanded in a shaky voice that was much less the threat he had intended it to be and much more the plea it was to stay.

Lucy's eyes opened wide. To spill the entire truth would show her greatest vulnerability. And she wasn't nearly strong enough for that. Instead, she replied with something her brother had told her once. "Pain isn't why we leave," she lightly recited. "But the reason we need to stay."

Algernon flinched back from her words.

He had been raised to inflict pain. To be the best person in the world at causing it. It had kept him safe from everyone as much as it kept everyone safe from him.

But what else but pain was there to force her away? What else did someone like him have to offer? What more could he do to keep her safely away from him? And it was his disgusting hope that thought maybe that meant she could be the first person that didn't.

"You're terrifying," Algernon whispered, his voice nearly drowned out by the fire's sudden spurting of ashes.

Anyone coming upon the scene would have thought him sarcastic. He was the brute of a boy who looked more like a demon than a man, especially when he fought with a 7-foot scythe at his side, but Lucy was scarier than any person Algernon had yet faced because she made him face himself. "Truly terrifying."

Lucy gazed him over. Whatever anger he had for her in his eyes before had vanished, but she couldn't read what replaced them. She could only gape at the fire dancing alive in his black pools, lighting them in a beauty she rarely consciously acknowledged but always sensed.