Beyond His Evil

NINETEEN.

🥀
~~~

I hated the way he was staring at me.

His gaze was intense—filled with longing, desire, and something even deeper. It felt as if he wanted to close the distance between us, to pull me into a world where no one else existed but us.

As if holding me in his arms would mean something. As if I meant something to him.

The thought irritated me. It confused me. And, more than anything, it hurt.

A tear slipped down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly, refusing to let him see it.

"Devon, are you even listening to me?" Evelyn snapped, her voice sharp with impatience, pulling me back to the present.

Tearing my focus from their conversation, I studied the boy instead.

He was fidgeting with his fingers, a nervous habit I hadn't noticed before. But then, something happened—each time he moved them a certain way, tiny droplets of water appeared.

I stared, mesmerized before my gaze drifted to his features. His dark hair was nothing extraordinary, but his eyes... they were unlike anything I'd ever seen. A deep, hypnotic blue, streaked with hints of white, like lightning trapped in a storm.

"Evelyn, I..." Devon started, but she cut him off.

"Don't," she said firmly. "You're coming. End of story."

He exhaled in defeat. "Alright then."

I stepped back as Devon approached the child. His black hoodie was pulled low over his face, and when he crouched to the boy’s level, he kept his gaze down, deliberately shielding his eyes.

"Can you place your hand in mine, child?" Devon’s voice was softer now, almost gentle.

The boy hesitated, then obeyed.

Devon held his tiny hand for only a moment before letting go. He straightened and turned to Evelyn. "His parents aren’t far," he said, "but there are a lot of hunters in the area."

Wait. Did he figure that out just by touching him?

What else could he do that I didn’t know about?

"So, we take him to his parents and move on," Evelyn said simply.

"I can’t go," Devon replied.

"Of course, you can," she shot back, clearly not understanding his hesitation.

"Evelyn, I don’t—"

"Nothing bad will happen, Devon," she interrupted. "They know this is a neutral land. Besides, we’re just returning a child to his parents."

Devon’s gaze flickered to mine. I saw the battle in his expression—the unspoken weight of whatever he wasn’t telling her. Then he looked away.

Evelyn took that as his agreement and started walking forward. "Shall we?"

I lingered for a second, wishing—for the tenth time tonight—that I had just stayed in my room and let the world go on without me.

~~~

The walk was torture.

My feet ached, my head throbbed, and hunger gnawed at my stomach. Every step felt heavier than the last as if I was dragging myself closer to my own death.

Meanwhile, Evelyn kept talking about nothing in particular—just mindless chatter meant to fill the silence, which could even bore the gods. It did nothing but irritate me.