Destiny's Revenge (Destiny Series - Book 2) Straight, Nancy (book club reads .TXT) 📖

His voice was full of hate and his eyes were locked on mine. I knew there was more to the story, but I wasn’t going to push it. After I had said my goodbyes to Christy, I walked back toward the house with Max in lock step with me.

Not understanding the contempt I heard in his voice, I told him, “We should go for a ride later.”

Max’s reply held no emotion at all. “No.”

Surprised by his abrupt dismissal, I was sure he saw the confusion I was wearing. I asked, “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just don’t want to go for a ride.”

“Okay, maybe tomorrow?”

“No, not tomorrow either.”

I stopped and looked at him. He wore a painful expression but didn’t offer any explanation. I didn’t think I should have to ask the question, but ultimately I did. “Why not?”

“Lauren, I don’t ever intend to get on a horse again, and I don’t want you on one either. I don’t blame them for what happened, I blame myself, but there is no way I’m going to take a chance like that again.”

I knew this was coming. In the days since our reunion, we had spent every waking moment living in the now, not the past or the future. We hadn’t even discussed my accident, and it seemed like now might finally be the right time.

“You aren’t blaming what happened to me on the horses, are you? I mean it had nothing to do with them.” He shook his head that he wasn’t, but there was so much pain shining through his face that I knew he was lying. “You aren’t to blame either.” I could see the disbelief, so I added, “I think we need to talk about it because there are some aspects that you don’t know about.”

“Sure, I left you alone, at night, in a forest, with no protection, and a bear mauled you. You’re right we do need to have a discussion, which should take all of 30 seconds.” The contempt in his voice would have normally made me want to stomp off, but I knew this contempt was masking guilt - guilt that he didn’t deserve.

I motioned for him to follow me to the trunk of a tree and sit down. He did, but it had less to do with wanting to talk and more to do with the fact that he wouldn’t leave my side. I started slowly, “There was absolutely nothing you could have done to prevent the attack.” He rolled his eyes not believing me, but I continued anyway. “It wasn’t a bear, Max. It was something else.”

I knew I had his attention, but he didn’t say anything, so I continued. “I remember the whole thing, Max. This thing came into our camp. It looked like a man at first, and I thought it was just a guy lost in the woods. He wouldn’t talk to me for a long time. He just kept watching me.” I could see my hands starting to shake. I hadn’t told anyone the truth other than Rewsna. “After I started to get scared, the stranger said I had to choose a damned life or a quick death – then everything went black.”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Okay, so my girlfriend was ripped to shreds by a psychopath in the woods. I still wasn’t there; I was chasing after a stupid horse.” I could only imagine what he was feeling right now.

I didn’t want this to turn into a fight, but I needed for Max to know what had really happened. I abandoned further discussion about the attack in favor of trying to explain what had occurred when I was comatose. “What happened was unavoidable - It could have happened anytime, anywhere. Let me fill you in on some pieces of the puzzle. When I was in the coma, I thought I was stuck somewhere between dead and alive. I called out to Rewsna; she helped me break free from whatever it was. Then I woke up and found out it had been over two years. The doctors told me they didn’t know why I was in a coma, but Rewsna told me that this thing was just holding me there.”

“So a man did this to you?” His disbelief was apparent, and he stared at me as if daring me to lie to him.

“No, it wasn’t a man. It looked like a man, at first, but he was something else.” My stomach knotted and I felt like I was going to vomit. Reliving the whole ordeal with Rewsna was one thing, but reliving it while explaining it to Max was horrible.

He must have noticed that I was about to heave. Max looked to the ground and quietly asked, “But why? What was he trying to do?”

“Rewsna says he is essentially pure evil and he was targeting me. If it hadn’t have happened on the mountain, it would have happened somewhere else. Don’t think that you could have stopped him. If you had been there, he probably would have attacked us both.”

That realization was clear. I wasn’t sure if he really believed me or if he thought he should play along with my fantasy. “All the more reason for me not to let you out of my sight.”

“Max, you can’t keep this up. I’m telling you there is nothing you could have done to stop it.”

Max opened his mouth to say something and then stopped. I could see he was deliberating on what he wanted to say or how he wanted to say it. “You will never understand the emptiness I felt. I don’t expect you to comprehend it. You lying there was in some ways worse than death. I died a little every day, sitting there watching you waste away, knowing it was my fault…”

I cut him off, “I just told you that you couldn’t have prevented it; none of this was your fault.”

“It was my fault, and I couldn’t do anything to make it right