Unwilling (Book One of the Compelled Trilogy 1) (17 page)

That night they all sat around the table. Rowan was feeling much better than she had in what felt like years. Everyone laughed, and ate, and told stories about what they would do after this was all over. Rowans cheeks hurt from smiling so much, even though Tomman’s death was still too fresh for her to actually laugh, and when she crawled into bed well after midnight, it was with a content feeling in the pit of her stomach. Jace came in several hours later, stumbling in the dark. Rowan had been thinking of their plans to head to the capitol, and what she would do once she found Elias.

Jace had been sleeping on the floor while she was sick and since she had awakened, but now that she was well, she saw no need for him to sleep on the hard, wood floor. Since this would be their last night here, he might as well get a good night’s sleep.

“Jace?” She ventured, speaking into the darkness. Her voice seemed loud to her, even though she had whispered.

“Hmmmmm?” Was all he replied, already half-asleep.

“You’re welcome to join me.” Rowan stated simply. Jace didn’t answer, only gathered himself and slid into the bed, as if he were comfortable there. As though that’s where he had always belonged. “Thank you, for looking after me.” She whispered into the dark, hoping he hadn’t already fallen asleep again.

“Of course,” he said, then a while later, “it’s my…” he trailed off, searching for the right word.
Pleasure? Privilege? Desire?
“Job.” He finished unsure.

His job
. Rowan thought
. His duty. Because he feels like he has to, because something in me is making him.
Suddenly she was angry with him, at herself, for being what she was. Rowan sat up right in bed, swinging her legs over the edge, wishing to be anywhere but there.

“What’s wrong?” Jace asked, sitting up behind her.

“It’s your job!” She whisper yelled at him, though she knew that would make no sense to him.

“Well, job isn’t the right word, its more-“

“No, I understand. I understand why you’re here, why you’re doing this! I know, and don’t think I don’t hate every second of it!” She spat out, her words jumbling as they tumbled from her mouth. Jace shook his head, clearly confused. “Don’t you understand?” She asked, though she knew he didn’t. “I want it to be more than just your job! I don’t want to force you-“ she broke off, an angry wail rising from her lips.

Rowan stood, so furious, she could no longer stay still, her body shook and she clenched and unclenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms, most likely drawing blood.

“I’m not here because I have to be.” Jace said softly. “There’s nowhere else I would rather be.” He tried. But of course he thought that, because of her curse, even when she didn’t want to use it she was.

“You don’t understand!” She yelled at him. “You DON’T want to be here, I’m making you, just like Elias makes people!” She fought back the angry tears that stung in her eyes, uncertain of why she was so bothered.

Jace stood from the bed and Rowan followed him wearily with her eyes as he came to stand in front of her, the moon illuminating his bare chest. He gazed into her eyes and Rowan’s stomach flipped, making her blink rapidly.

“I love you.” Jace breathed, his eyes wide and he said it so earnestly, so willingly, that it devastated Rowan more than anything else could have. Only a few inches separated them but it felt like a canyon, an ocean, an entire world of space and time and lifetimes of millions of miles that seemed unbearably uncrossable to Rowan.

“No you don’t.” Rowan said back, her heart splintering into a million tiny fragments of wishing she could reach out and touch him feel him hold him. Kiss him. “Not really, you can’t. You only think you do.”

“Because you’re making me?” He replied. He didn’t sound hostile, or angry, just flat.

“Yes.” She closed her eyes, aching to be wrong, knowing she wasn’t.

“You’re wrong.” He tilted her chin, making her look up at him and her skin sizzled at the contact. “I loved you before you ever said a word to me, before you ever even saw me. I’ve loved you since I was nine, before you even knew I existed.” He said it with such force, with such BELIEVING, that she almost did. Almost.

“Leave.” Rowan said softly, barely a whisper.

“What?” Jace asked, taking a step back from her, his face turned down in a frown.

“Leave. Get out, right now. I don’t want you here!” She pushed his chest and he staggered backwards but regained his composure and looking at her incredulous.

“Rowan-?“ Jace said disbelieving, taking a step closer to her.

“It hurts to much, to hear you say that, I can’t bear it Jace!” She said to him, tears spilling from her eyes as she tried to hold herself together even though she was falling apart at the seams.

“It doesn’t have to Rowan, it’s true, I lov-“

“LEAVE!” She bellowed at him, probably waking up everyone in the cabin.

He gave her a last uncertain, hurt look, before grabbing his clothes off the floor and leaving the room. When the door shut behind him, Rowan crumpled to the floor. Rowan felt as though she had been hollowed out from the inside, everything that was good about her leaving with Jace, her heart contracting painfully in her chest. She remained on the cold floor, breathing heavy for quite some time, Jace’s words bouncing around inside her head. She wanted to unhear the words, to make them disappear from her memory, to scrub them from her consciousness, but they stayed, mocking her cruelly.

I love you,
he had said. Rowan knew it was lies, beautiful lies wrapped in sincerity and handed to her with such tenderness she felt herself bleeding on the inside from the vicious cuts it had dealt her.

Rowan cried, and then then she cried some more, feeling more lost than she ever had in her life. When father had killed himself, when Elias had abandoned her, when mother... no other moment felt as devastating as this to her, stripping her of everything she knew to be true, to be right, she was a monster just like Elias, but instead of cutting the life from everyone around her blatantly, like her brother, who made no pretense of who and what he was from those around him, Rowan had buried herself in denial, steeped herself in ignorance, and lost herself to the fact that she didn’t WANT to be like Elias, so maybe she wasn’t. Beautiful lies, wrapped in thorns and glass, sorrow and devastation, destined to decimate anything good in the world, just like Elias.

When Rowan felt in control of her emotions again, or at least, able to control them enough to hide them from the others, she stood from the floor and wobbled out into the hall. “It’s time to wake up, were moving out!” She shouted, banging on the other bedroom doors with grim determination.

                                          ҉              ҉              ҉

Jace wandered around all night, fuming, kicking at trees and leaves scattered on the ground
. I finally have the courage to tell her how I feel and she sends me away
? “GAH!” He shouted, kicking up a stream of dirt and twigs. He wondered if that was really his heart beating inside his chest, or just a shriveled pit of pain and sorrow, the look on Rowan’s face as she demanded him to leave her, making his sorrow bleed into his body, making his body hurt and shake, when all he wanted to was to hold her close, say anything to convince her that what he said was true, that he meant it.

That he loved her. That he couldn’t live without her.

He eyed the sun cresting through the trees, casting the world in soft light. Jace set his head high, determined. No matter how hard she protested, he would make her understand, HAD to make her understand, there was no him, without her.

Jace wandered back toward the cabin, so lost was he in his thoughts he did not notice the looming silence like an actual presence lingering in the large cabin. 

Jace was already standing in the kitchen before he noticed anything was wrong. “Hello?” He called, his voice falling flat in the stale air. A feral panicked feeling rose in his chest. “Rowan?” Silence. “Pickard?” Silence. “No. no, no.” He stammered out, checking every room, before he believed they were gone.

He sat there for a couple hours, angry in his woe, before jumping to his feet, cursing himself for being such a damned fool. One person could easily catch up to a group of seven! He was not much of a tracker but he figured a group that big would not be too hard to follow.

Jace smiled,
I will have caught up to them by nightfall!

FOURTEEN

It had been the loneliest day of her life. She was overflowing with hollowness, it filled her veins, replacing her blood with the pounding of nothingness. She was empty inside; it was bursting through her thoughts, flowing down her body and shooting out her fingertips, her toes, trying to escape her body, to find some other emotion to fill her besides this overwhelming numbness that had encased her. No one commented on Jace’s absence, but Rowan knew they all felt it. There was a Jace shaped hole that yelled, shouted, screamed so loud at her she thought her eardrums might burst from the piercing silence of it. The air hung heavy around the group and no one talked, not even Pickard, as they made their way through the forest, each step drawing them closer to Elias, and further from Jace.

Rowan was in a sour mood and no one tried to converse with her. Not after she had snapped at Jonquil earlier for asking if they were still headed east.

“Of course were still headed east! Where else would we be going Jonquil?” Rowan had exclaimed. She’d felt horrible afterwards, but was to hurt herself to apologize.
What do I even have to feel hurt about anyways? I sent
him
away!

They had been walking for almost a day straight and the sun was beginning to set low behind the trees. Rowan was walking with her head down, staring at her feet, her thoughts heavy. She jumped as Vordis approached, appearing by her elbow as if he had materialized out of thin air.

“Rowan, if you make me walk much longer you might just force me into an early grave.” He rasped, his words dragging out and hanging in the air menacingly. Rowan cringed; she did not want to force*+ anybody to do anything.

Rowan relented, her own feet sore from the grueling march she had forced herself to do through the forest. “Alright we can set up here for the night!” Rowan called to the men, who had gotten quite a ways ahead. Rowan heard their sighs of relief as they unshouldered their packs, dropping them on the ground and sinking against them exhausted. Chev let his pack slide off but continued to stand, looking down at his comrades with his eyebrows raised.

Rowan gathered twigs for a fire, stooping to grab up the thinnest branches she could find. When she had an armful she returned to where the group was gathered, sitting silently in the dark. Rowan fumbled to use flint to catch the branches on fire, her hands shaking.

“Here, Rowan.” Barton said, gently taking the flint from her hands and Rowan relinquished it, taking a step back. Barton had the fire going within a minute, the flame springing to life with a hiss.

The fire seemed abnormally dull, its light muted as if she were looking at it from far away and no matter how close Rowan got to the flame, she was never warm enough. Ever since Jace had left her side she was not warm enough, like the world was one hundred times colder, duller, broken, empty, empty, so empty when he wasn’t with her.
Is that what love is
?
This aching feeling inside one’s self.
Rowan felt lost, as if she was wandering in search of a missing part of herself. Like a piece of her was with Jace. She desperately wanted it back.

Am I in love with Jace?
She felt infinitely sad, wretched, miserable when he was not around her and when he smiled at her, her insides melted. And when he touched her, her skin seared in the most amazing way and she ached in unfamiliar places. She knew she loved things about him, his sincerity, his generosity, his kindness, how he managed to put every one else’s needs above his own. She loved his unruly hair, and his deep ocean green eyes.
Maybe I can live with his love even though it’s forced
. Rowan immediately shook her head
, I want true love, and not something that just has the appearance of it,
an illusion was still an illusion, no matter how perfect, how beautiful, how right it felt, it was nothing but trickery and promises yet to be broken, but broken they would be.

Rowan withdrew from the fire and the mute men that sat around it, going to lie down on her pallet. She listened to the animals chitter about, settling in for the night. She turned her head, wishing more than anything that Jace would come back
. It’s probably for the better,
she thought,
now I can find Elias without any more distractions.
Rowan knew she was lying to herself.

She thought more about Elias, trying to take her mind off Jace’s looming absence.
I wonder what Elias is doing right now. Does he miss me? Does he regret what he’s done?
She thought of the two old people, murdered and left out to rot, like trash.
Did he kill them himself, or did he order someone else to
. Rowan knew it was him, those words, those painful words that made her think of her mother, her mother…Rowan rubbed her hand across the ground, dirt catching beneath her fingernails.
Has Elias walked on this ground, maybe slept where I do now
?