Torrential Love

Chapter Eleven

~YAEL~

What did he say?

Yael continued to gesture to her mouth and the book in her hands. She looked at the characters on the screen and then at Duncan, but saw an amused grin on his face. She watched the characters speaking to each other. She had to copy their words somehow to show him she wanted to learn his language.

"Slep wif me," she repeated after the characters.

Duncan was still looking at her, amused grin and all. She stared at him in exasperation as she glanced at the television again. When the characters on the screen began taking off their clothes, it struck her that she might have said some inappropriate words to him. She stared between the screen and Duncan, gibberish leaving her mouth as she battled her embarrassment.

Duncan only laughed. Then he got up from his seat to approach her on the bed.

~DUNCAN~

Duncan neared her, and she peered up at him with blushing cheeks. He took the book in her hands and brought it over to his bookshelf. Putting it back onto his shelf, he removed a simpler book and took it back to Yael. He dropped it in her hands and she opened it. She looked up at him again with a smile and a nod.

She wanted to communicate with him, that much was clear to him. It would certainly make things much easier if they could. And since she was in contact with two people who knew English, it made more sense for her to learn their language instead of expecting them to learn hers.

He picked his hat off a hook and wore it. Turning half of his body back at her, he waved goodbye to her before he left the house. He was unsure where to get language books since he had never been much of a fan of studying other languages, but there was a used bookstore in the market that would probably have what he was looking for.

He stepped into the market; the breeze hitting him just right. He walked around, looking for the used bookstore. When he finally found it, he saw a large man heaving a crate of used books to pass them to the bookstore owner.

"I have about 50 books in here," the large man told the bookstore owner.

"I can give you 25 for them," the owner replied without even a glance at the titles inside.

"Done," the man said, and the owner took some notes out from a bucket to pass them to the man. He took it and soon after, was well on his way.

Duncan strolled around the worn out shelves, looking for any language books he could find. There were history books, self-help books and a plethora of fiction titles. He eventually stumbled upon a shelf that was titled 'Language' and he stood before it to browse.

The shelf was right outside the shop, amid many other shelves. There were even more inside, but from the looks of the shelf he was in front of, he could tell that the books he was looking for were there. He picked one out and looked at the cover. It taught Hebrew to English-speaking people. He held onto it as he continued browsing. He took another book from the shelf. It was a book teaching English to Hebrew-speaking people. He flipped it open.

He could tell that it was for beginners, judging from the English words he found inside. This book was suitable for Yael, he thought to himself and was about to look at the cover again when something caught his attention from the corner of his eyes.

Standing by a dim alleyway were two men shrouded in darkness. They had deep frowns on their face and were studying him closely, glaring at the books in his hands. Duncan instinctively hid the cover of the books in his hands from their sight and walked into the bookstore to pay for them. He knew what kind of people they were.

The Ku Klux Klan.

KKK for short, they were a white supremacist hate group. Among their targets were Catholics, Muslims, African Americans and most notably to him right now, Jews.

Yael was Jewish.

His stomach turned as the bookstore owner took the books from him and counted their prices. Duncan paid in full and covered the books under his coat before stepping out again. When he was outside the bookstore, he looked towards the alleyway again, but could no longer see any sign of the unfriendly men.

He took the route back home, his hands holding tightly onto the books in his coat. It was getting late, and he wanted to be home as soon as possible. He was brisk walking down the pavement when he took a shortcut through an alleyway.

Walking down that way, his breath caught in his throat when he saw two figures appearing on the other end of the alleyway.