Keep Me Safe

Chapter Seventeen

"I don't much care for the dark. I wish we could've taken the car."

Agnes quickly shushed her. "Be quiet. If someone's lurking around, I don't want them to hear us. Taking the car would've been too noisy."

"We're tromping through the woods. If someone's out here, they already know we're here."

"Just humor me," she groaned, tightening her grip on the suitcase. "If you make me mad, I'll force you to carry this."

"I offered to when we left the house. If I remember correctly, your exact words were, 'Mama didn't raise no weakling'. I assumed that meant you were strong enough."

"Don't you dare throw my words back at me."

Lottie chuckled and grabbed the suitcase handle. Before Agnes could protest, she yanked it out of her hands.

Agnes tried to grab it back, but it was so dark in the woods that she accidentally hit Lottie in the nose.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped after hearing Lottie squeak in pain. "Did I break it?"

"No, but it sure does hurt." She held the suitcase with one hand, and rubbed the offended area with the other.  "Dear lord, you hit hard."

"I really didn't mean to. Please give me the suitcase back."

"No. Didn't you say we were almost there?"

Agnes looked up for the first time in a long time and stared at the treetops in front of them. A few hundred yards away she could see the break in foliage, which was the clearing that James lived in. She also heard the faint gurgling on the stream that ran near him.

"Yeah," she sighed. "He's just up ahead."

Ever since she had left the house thirty minutes ago, Agnes had been experiencing an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach. Every step left her feeling like she had just drank six colas and couldn't get herself to burp. It only got worse the closer they got to James' house, and she was forced to come to terms with the fact that she was nervous.

The last thing she wanted to do was leave Lottie with someone else. Just the thought of not being there to protect her anymore filled her fear. She felt personally responsible for Lottie's health and well-being. It didn't matter whether or not she reciprocated the complicated feelings Agnes was experiencing; she loved Lottie more than anything else and she wanted to always be there for her.

After a while, Lottie nudged Agnes' elbow. "You're being silent. I don't like that. What's on your mind? You've been frowning for a while."

Agnes' mind blanked as she struggled for a good response. She eventually managed to get out a lame, "Nothing."

"Come on," she prompted. "You know you can tell me anything. What's up?"

"I'm scared." The words tasted bitter in her mouth, and she spat them out.

Lottie sighed. "I am, too. I wish none of this had ever happened. What I wouldn't give to be back home, laying in my own bed and listening Catherine and Aunt Mary argue all night."

"But then you and I wouldn't have met."

She laughed, but it was bittersweet. "You're right. I wish I had never met the Blackwells, but had still gotten engaged to your brother and come to stay here. This whole mess is like one never-ending nightmare, but all of y'all make it bearable."

Agnes' heart seized up when she heard Lottie's words. "You actually want to marry Floyd?" It had never occurred to her that their engagement was anything more than a ruse to explain her presence in  town.