Evident

37.

I trusted him. There was no way in hell would he have betrayed the very people who took him in....

"It's definitely something worth leading. To be truthful, Mato adopted me just when I was eighteen, I came in a year after Aureliano's accident so I pretty much grew with every man, I know their weakness and strengths something that rounds us up to become one of the best warriors known across the river of the Amazon forest."

Was that a coincident?

I shook my head, no. I trusted Amerio, he wouldn't be working with the enemy.

This was someone that I thought was attractive, was even thinking about building a relationship with at one point because of Aureliano's contract marriage where I wanted to hurt him just as much as he hurt me but Amerio was sweet enough, was logic enough to show me that he wouldn't take advantage of my vulnerability because he knew I had feelings for Aureliano despite my anger.

Holding his eyes, I drilled hard into the rare irises, trying to digged deep into what he shared, the real person that was his inner man.

"I know you told me that you were tired that night when I asked you to meet me here..." He motioned to the river.

I dipped my head underneath the water, trying to cool my body down from the high temperature. Holding my breath for a minute, I pulled my head up, wiped my face then shook my now shrinkage hair that spiral up into tight curls.

"But was it really that or did Aureliano told you not to come?"

"Contrary to what you think, the reason why I didn't come to see you was because the rain was falling that night, I wasn't about to leave my bed just to please you and then get sick for what?" I huffed in annoyance. A mean a huge part of why I didn't go to see him was because I couldn't get Aureliano's voice out of my head when he begged me not to go.

What was wrong with these men, why did they have it in the back of their mind that I owed them an explanation.

"I didn't mean to upset you Concenta..." He sighed then proceeded to part his hair with his fingers in two parts then braided them individually into plaits.

"I told you that I liked you but we both know that you will never be mine. Heck, it would even be pointless for me to pursue you when I know Aurelo would fist his hand down my throat for even thinking about you as my woman...but there is one thing that he can't take away from me and that is our friendship." He smiled while titling his head to the side, the horizontal tatted marking embedded on his neck pointed in my direction.

"I'm only friends with you because of the books you have in your hut library if it wasn't for that then I would have killed you for your lingering pestering..." With a thumb out, I ran it from one end of my neck to the next, watching as he throws his head back and laughed to the bright light blue sky.

The protrusion in his neck moving a bit as he held his chest.

I narrowed my eyes at the tattoo, trying to see it up close.

"I swear I will never find a next woman like you, you're one of a kind. One Centa."

"Eww what the fuck, don't call me that."

"One Centa."

Cutting him off, I pointed to the tattoo and ask curiously.

"What's does that stands f-"

A heart-piercing scream, boomed through the heated atmosphere, Amerio and I locked eyes from that and without hesitating, I ran out of the river, listening as the tribal loud horns wrestled with the breeze that flew with the towering trees above my rushing frame.

A leaf twirl from above and fell right into my chest area as I went, its usual natural green color now an ugly dark-brown and yellow hue into my gaze. I toss it to the ground in revulsion whilst lifting my chin, I stared up at the skies which now transitioned into a gloomy grey.

The drifting soft clouds, releases a white stark of lightening which wavered against the darkness of the large region as it warned us of an unexpected rain.

When I left the track, I slowed down from the crowd of people before me, sobs varied with compound screams from most of the women who I notice was kneeling to the floor, their elbows a fixed motion into the earth as they held their wet faces.

Tilting my eyebrows down into a frown from the gloominess that had thicken the air, a soft patter of a rain drop slipped on my shoulder, Amerio's shadow falling behind me as I proceeded forward.

Aureliano was standing on a platform, his eyes narrowing in anger as he saw me and Amerio.

Ignoring him, I pushed pass the bodies that were surrounding me, their frame was taller than I so I had a difficulty in seeing what was up front.

I didn't let this stop me as I took in each tear stained faces of each women, I slid around a mourning couple, my eyes desperately searching as I tipped on my toes to see what was ahead.

A hand wrapped around my arm then as I took a step, it halted me and I turn my head up to Amerio who shook his head.

"No, don't."

"Let me go." I didn't know why he stopped me. I wanted to see what had the most humbled, calmest, most loveable people mourning away.

"You do not want to see Concenta so it's best if you come back with me."

Ripping my hand from his, I ignored his calling as I pushed forward and when I made it to the front, I held my breath from who was laying in her own pool of blood right in the heart of the square.

It ripped my heart as I stumbled on bended knees, I fell over her frame with her sister screaming out 'no's...

"Halisa?" The tears, mocked the pain in my heart as I took her in. Her dark-green brown eyes lacked light, it was pale in death. Both of her hands were beside her as she laid on her back, a gun-shot wound embedded deep in her forehead as various trails of spurting blood slid down from it towards her open mouth.

She was drenched in water as it soaked around her unmoving pale body. A obvious sign to my whimpering soul that she was no more.

No more here.

No more of her vibrant cheer...

Fuck, I screamed as I laid my cheek against her wet stomach, my eyes blurring with the salty ruthless tears, it slid to my trembling lips. The rain fell from the thundering skies in that same moment.

My heart, a squeezed force, had me sobbing on the wet dirt in a trembling position from the suffocating slice of damnation.