The Long Way Home

Chapter Five

Ever so slowly, I ease out of my sitting position until I'm crouching. With ease mimicking my own, Hades does the same.

"What am I?" Hades repeats in a teasing tone, that mischievous smile still playing on his lips. "I'm just like you, Ajalene."

"I'm human," I say, slowly rising to my feet.

"And I am not?" he says, that smile still there. I got the feeling he was feeding off of my fear.

God, what did I get myself into?

Hades and I are both standing now, calculating each other. Silence fall between us. Something about the way he's acting now puts me on edge more than the thought of what he might actually be. His lazy smile in contrast to the tense set of my lips. His calm stance in contrast to my rigid one. My attraction to him is long gone, the smile on his face turns the butterflies in my stomach into stones. With the relaxed set of his shoulders and his smooth smile, he looks as if he couldn't care less if I try to run. But I am no fool. I know he's waiting for me to make a move. I'd wager I had only seen just a glimpse of all that he's capable of. Still, I have to do something.

I can feel the buzzing of my nerves creeping up my legs and down my hands. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest as if it wants out. I can feel more than hear the pounding in my ears as if the blood coursing through my veins is screaming for me to run. My hands shake slightly and I ball my hands into fists, my hands stinging slightly from the cuts there, so he cannot see how scared I am.

On instinct, I look for a way out. I can bolt; turn around and run as fast as I can until I lose him. But he already proved that he's too fast to outrun. I can get on his good side, try to convince him that I don't care what he is, that I'd still take him to Dover. No. I can't trust to be in his presence knowing he'll try to kill me any moment. I'm left with one option:

Attack him.

I was never allowed to join my brothers when they learned defense under the reason that I am a girl and don't need to protect myself because who would attack a woman? And even if it did happen, a woman always had some strong determined man to protect her like the damsel in distress that she is.

Oh, yeah, People of Mellway? I want to scream as high as the trees so maybe the whole world can hear. My situation right now is proving you just right.

I want gnaw the face off those that uphold the idea that women shouldn't do anything for themselves. That god forbid we learn something as helpful as self-defense.

There was one person in my life, though, who told me a thing or two about defense. My aunt Tata, a fierce woman who died of sickness two years ago. People thought of Aunt Tata as the meanest woman anyone would come across. But she was far from it. She was a sweet woman, who also demanded respect. She had what people would call a free tongue; she spoke without fear of backlash. Whenever someone treated her in a way she didn't like, she made sure they knew it. That demand for respect and that free tongue of hers is what people felt threatened by. Going against the beliefs held strong in Mellway, what Aunt Tata told me was this: Fight like hell.

She told me to fight with everything I had. That sometimes my hands aren't my best weapon so my best chance would be to look for a better one. And that if I really thought about it, anything could be a weapon.

Aunt Tata's words resonates deep inside me. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to fight like hell.

For a fleeting moment, so fast in the hopes that Hades can't guess my next move, I shoot a glance at the ground at my feet, looking for anything I can use as a weapon. A fallen branch. A thick twig. A rock. Anything. When I look up at him after that split second of my eyes off of him, he's smiling wider. He knows what I'm going to do.