Us Against The World

Chapter 24

"Farrah, wait!" I yell as she runs away from me. I look down and grab the book from the ground and run after her. When I catch up, I wrap my arms around her chest. She bends over and screams and I cover her mouth and stand her up again. I turn her around, sure to have a good grip on her shoulders.

"Get away from me!" she yells. "I want nothing to do with you!" 

"Farrah, look at me." I repeat myself until she finally does. "They put you in danger. They meant harm to you. And as much as it will hurt you to say this," she cringes and stares at the ground, but I continue to look deep into her face. "after I killed your mom, you stayed with me. Those men were nothing. They put you in danger." I repeat and she sniffles. 

"I know they did," she says softly. "but you didn't have to kill them! You didn't have to kill them like that!" she raises her voice and manages to slip from my tight hold. I take a step forward, daring her to try to run away again. She knows I will always be faster and stronger than her; so she doesn't have a choice but to stay with me.

I look down at the book that I had forgotten I brought with me and dropped as I grabbed a hold of Farrah. I squat down and pick it up when I notice her staring at it. I stand again and brush off the dirt from the gravel that has made a thin layer over the cover and hand it to her. 

"I saw this on your bed and I thought it had some importance, so I grabbed it. Even if you were gone, I still wanted something." I say softly and she smiles and wipes her eyes with the back of her dusty and ash covered hand. "Thanks." she whispers excitedly and opens the book. I find that it is a photo album full of pictures of Farrah and her father and mother. 

"Where are we gonna go now?" Farrah asks as we begin walking again. We have done this so many times since we met. "All of our food's gone, weapons are gone, home's gone, clothes—" I interrupt her mid-sentence. "Farrah, even though everything's gone, we can't live in the past. We have to start new every time." she turns to me with her lips pressed in a straight line. 

"Every time?" she asks and I can tell she's getting upset. "No matter what we do, where we go, bad things will always happen. There's nothing more we can do." 

"Yes there is!" I raise my voice and attach my sentence to the end of hers and she is startled by how fast I spoke after her. I sigh and shake my head and look down. "Look, I know we've been to hell and back, but we have to roll with the punches, okay?" she nods and stays silent. "Just trust me, okay?" I ask and she looks at me in a way I have never seen before.

Farrah's POV 

When Jexton asked me to trust him again, I felt a sense of urgency to decline and yell at him. I'm still questioning how I came to trust him again after all he has done to me in the first place. I thought that watching him kill my mother was the worst thing I have experienced, but then I watched him kill two men, who were bigger and taller than him, with a flame thrower. I have never seen something so sick in my life. But then again I live in a world like this. I stare at the twisted and delusional mess that is Jexton.

I know he is trying to make things right. I know that his life is just as hard as mine. I had no idea, though, that he could go so far as to kill someone for me. Two someone's, at that. 

"For you." he said to me. "I did it for you." 

It seems as though whenever something bad happens, he is always there. Things were going just fine for me until he came into the picture. I lost my necklace because of him. I lost my mother because of him. I lost my house because of him. I lost every little thing that ever had meaning to me because of him.

And even though he has taken every last bit of my trust- ripped it into tiny little pieces and blew them into the wind, he somehow manages to revive it every time.

My mind begins to play games with me by replaying every memory I have ever had. It takes every last bit of strength to not cry and break down. And as my heart skips every other beat knowing that I will be spending a lot more time with Jexton than I thought I would be, I begin to wonder how my journey would have been if I hadn't come across him back in that alley way up the road from my house. 

As we walk in silence, I think about everything I have been through with Jexton. Of all the messed up things we have been through. I don't know why I stay with him and I don't know why I keep letting him in when I know I need to push him away. Then again, he always finds his way back into my life no matter how far I cast him out. 

"She was chosen." Jexton's voice echoes in my head. What did he mean by that? What would I have been chosen for?

I continue to think more and more about my ability to trust him. Of all the things he has put me through, I know I shouldn't. But then again, he is the only person I have left. Without him, I'd be alone—fighting for myself and protecting myself, fending for myself. I know I can't do any of those things without him.

For every lie, every manipulative story he has told, he did something good in place of it and tried his hardest to make me trust him the way he so desperately wants me to again. And every time I give myself reasons to not trust him and leave him, I am reminded that this sick, twisted, delusional and scarred boy saved my life.

But for all I know, this could be another one of his tricks.