Out From the Shadows

Chapter 20

I participate in my favorite activity: watching her sleep. Nothing like a stalker or a creep, she just seems so different awake than she is asleep.

Very cautiously, I sit up and shuffle away from her form, still asleep and peaceful. I leave the blanket for her, the newly morning chill settling in and replacing the smoldering pit where a warm fire once remainder.

I rifle through my valise, finding new clothes at the bottom with my light jacket. I don't bother to change behind the couch or away from her line of view; there isn't anything to hide, not any more.

Something slips from my shirt as I put it on and falls to the floor with a tiny clunk. I reach down and pick up the opal trinket and put it inside the pocket of my slacks.

The floorboards creak as I exit the shelter to relieve myself. I head into a thin part of the woods, in view of the shack, and head back inside once done. Al stirs and her eyes flutter open at the creaking of more floorboards.

"Good morning, I hope," she says as she wraps herself in the blanket and sits up.

I politely smile and go to put my trinket back in my bag.

"Very," I respond, though my back aches a bit from laying in the floor.

The trinket is halfway to my bag when something tickles my neck. Al, wearing the blanket like a make-shift dress, is on her tiptoes and looking over my shoulder. Her breath is what's tickling the bare skin of my neck as she snoops in my bag.

"What is in your hand?" She inquired innocently. I have the slightest inclination not to answer. My hand opens anyway to reveal the opal.

She visibly sucks in a breath and holds it for longer than is needed.

"Where did you get that?" She asks with her jaw wobbling. Her eyes glitter with unshed tears and I'm worried she's going to freak out.

"It's the trinket left where my mother was kept prisoner. I told you about this a couple months ago. The opal belongs to a chain and that's all I have to go on."

A single, solitary tear spills from her right eye and I watch as the dam cracks under the pressure of built up tears.

"Ashton, it's mine."

Pause.

"What?"

She puts her hands to the back of her neck and unhooks the bare gold chain that she always wears. I realize how stupid and ignorant I have been, a girl with a simple gold chain from Omaha district is exactly what I have been missing.

"Where did you get the necklace?" I ask calm and collectively. My head is throbbing with irritation and rage.

"I found it along the river bank when I was little. I forgot it came with a trinket, having lost it without even knowing it was lost. If I had known it was the same trinket as yours, I would have told you, I swear."

"How did it end up in that under ground cell then?"

More tears.

"I don't know Ash."

"I don't believe you."

"Please, I have no idea how it got down there. Maybe someone found it and brought it there. Maybe even your mother."

"Don't. Talk. About. Her."

She winces as my voice becomes harsher and more aggressive with each question.

"Tell me...Did you kill my mother?!"

"No! I was only thirteen when she died!"

"That's not a solid excuse!"

"Ashton! I had nothing to do with your mother's death! I'll even help you..."

She drops to her knees and throws her hands to her temples. Her jaw locks in pain and I feel absolutely terrible for yelling at her.

I drop to comfort her, holding her tightly in my arms. We sit like this for awhile until she looks up at me, pain still stitched on her face.

"I'm sorry."