[Talenya]: 299.Stories.Someone's After Her.Chapter 3

Chapter 3

My brake that I had made for myself when choosing my classes is about one-and-a-half hours long it gives me time to relax in the ways I prefer after about eight hours, in classes alone. I had climbed into my favorite tree half way into this forest that grows just a little off the college’s grounds, where none of the students ever come for fear of me and the forest itself. I then proceeded to take out my mechanical pencil and the binder, in which holds my various writings and drawings for my own enjoyment, with the intention of starting to finish one the works I had started the night before. That opportunity never arrived though, no sooner had I taken out the blinder and opened it when someone came rushing into the forest. I was about to yell at them or scare them off thinking, How dare someone come into my private spot to relax…everyone knows that this place is bad news and that I’m here because I’m bad news too…they also know I don’t like being disturbed either… but then as I was about ready to jump on the person I realize that he is running from something and that something had just come into the forest. I watched for a few minutes in rapt silence as a guy about the size of a bear comes running into the place and within about ten of his paces catches the smaller person in his grip.
“You’re such an idiot coming in here. Did you think you would have been able to hide from me in here?” asked ‘bear guy’.
“No…but I was hoping to give myself time to think of a way to get away from your stupid ass! Besides they say this place is suppose to be cursed or hunted or something,” the other person says, I realize about a second later it is a guy who looks to be about the same age as me.
After a few moments look around bear guy asks with only a hint of nervousness, “You expect me to believe in such things as curses and stuff…ha…I guess that you college goers aren’t as smart as y’all think.”
By this time though I’d gotten my wits back and am fuming about having two people intruding into my forest and one of them being a college student here, so I quietly put my stuff away and leap lightly upon the ground behind ‘bear guy’. The idiot who brought all this into my forest sees me but just smiles at ‘bear guy’ that’s still got a hold on him. For a second or two I have to stop and admire the little ass-hole, him and his big mouth…which is probably what got him into the trouble he is in now. Again, I snap myself out of it and come up just out of ‘bear guy’s’ reach and go, “Hey you!” After ‘bear guy’ spins around to face me, with the idiot student still in his grasp, I start again with narrowed eyes, “Oh, you’re a smart one the last guy who came in here didn’t turn around ‘til I hit him. Who the hell are you and what business do you have being in my forest?”
“Hey bitch, I don’t have to tell you anything. I don’t know where the hell you came from but I suggest you go back to it and forget what ever you’ve seen,” ‘bear guy’ growled angrily at me.
I just smiled, captured his eyes with my purple ones and said in a low almost sing-song voice, “You will tell me who you are, what you are doing in this cursed place, and you will be very frightened of me if you know what is good for you.”
After I broke eye contact with him, he blinked, and his anger fled as his eyes again fell upon me, replaced by a fear that turned him pale. After a moment ‘bear guy’ manages to crock out, “H-Who-are-you?”
I smile wider and shake my head, “It doesn’t matter who I am, but let’s just say I’m the guardian of this forest, and you’ve trespassed into it. Now, answer my questions… who are you and what are you doing here in this ‘cursed’ place?”
“M-m-my name is William…Will…what ever you’d like to call me…I-what I mean is…what I’m here for is to … well, Miss. Guardian…I just was following this little pip-squeak for what he said to me…I didn’t know that this here place was kinda like sacred in a bad way…I’m real sorry if you’ll just let me take him out o’here I won’t never come back again…” Will looked wildly around for a way out back into the sun light and out of the dim cool shadows of the forest.
My smile faded a bit and shook my head sadly, “Well Will, you have cooperated with me very well, but you have trespassed into this a ‘cursed’ place and you may not leave…ever…unless…but no…you wouldn’t want to do that…”
Will looked at me like I was his only salvation and tremulously asked, “What…what can I do to get outta here?”
“Well,” I said looking at him intensely, “you could make a sacrifice to the forest… two of you came in so one of you may leave…the other paying the toll for this intrusion, but if I do this for you I must do something for me.” At the vigorously nodding of Will’s head I went on, “Now, when you see this person again, for we cannot have that him disappear and them burn down the forest, you will not talk to him and he will not talk to you for he will not be the same person. He will be a servant of the forest until the day he dies. If you talk to him, all that I have done to allow you to go will be for nothing for the forest will call you back to it…”
Will paled to the shade of bleached bone but nodded vigorously again. When he realized that he was holding a “doomed man” he hastily let go of the idiot and pushed him away as though he were some voile creature. Then he looked at me for farther instructions so that he may leave without the forest “keeping him forever”.
“Now, to get out of this place follow the path, do not stray, and say this: ‘I came into this forest unknowing of the price but now my enemy pays it, so that I may be free. He will live my life of service while I have only to keep my silence to be free. Never again will I enter this forest unless I wish to serve it eternally…’ while walking until you get, out then stop immediately and walk away form here as though nothing was the matter. Ok, Will…you may go now before I start the spell to bind this “boy” to the forest in servitude forever,” I said with all seriousness in my eyes as I looked into Will’s and a bit of sorrow in my voice as though I had pity for the “boy” I was “binding” to the forest.
Will nodded and waited for me to step around him and stand near the idiot, who had interrupted my time to relax, then he started off running as fast as he could and saying what I had told him to say until he disappeared from sight out of the forest and into the bright sun.
Then I turned my attention back to the jerk, which had brought all this into my forest and interrupted my time here. I turned to look at him appraisingly as though I was going to do to him as I had promised. He looked me in the eye the whole time that I had cared to look at his face. I walked around him and looked him up and down as though he were an animal I was looking to buy but all I wanted was to make him to feel uncomfortable.
At length I looked him in the eye and asked, “What is you name, you pompous jackass?”
“My name shouldn’t be any concern to you, for after you’re done with your “spell” you can rename me anything you like,” he said in the most serious tone but all the while his eyes laughed at me.
“Answer me or pay more dearly than I was going to make you in the first place,” I calmly stated in a low ominous voice.
“Hmmm…I don’t think so,” He said, this time laughing.
I darted behind him and grabbed him by the neck digging the nail of my thumb into the pressure point behind the ear, “Now, tell me your name or I will kill you and make it look like I was defending myself, do you understand you little bastard?”
He gasped in pain and squeaked, “My name is…is Devin, Devin Hayes…come on now I’ve told you my name, let go will ya’?”
I let go of Devin and slunk gracefully away before he could regain enough of his wits to lash out at me, after of course he had gotten an adequate amount of air back into his body, when you’re in enough pain your body forgets how to breathe properly. After he could stand again he stared at me, an angry light flared to life in his eyes.
At that point I couldn’t help but laugh and I did, “I had asked you nicely for your name once, threatened you once, and it had gotten me nowhere so I tried a bit of violence and low and behold, it worked.”
“You have some nerve if you hadn’t interfered…”
I cut him off and finished his sentence in a blasé tone, “…you’d be dead. And, at that, it now seems it would have saved me a lot more trouble that way, than rescuing you has been.”
At this Devin smirked, “You under estimate me.”
I shook my head looking at him carefully and found myself returning his smirk. When I realized that I quickly stopped and gave him a cold look, “Well, what ever the case you shouldn’t have brought him here…this is my place to relax before I have to go back to class and I don’t get much time, Mr. Hayes, to relax after the rest of my classes either. I have thousands of things to do after my classes…and no time to rest.”
Devin cocked his head to the side as he looked at me and said mockingly, “So…what are you going to do to me. ‘Bind’ me to this forest to be its servant forever.”
“No, I don’t want you here forever! What I’m going to do is give you a warning to get out and stay out of this forest. Next time you trespass into this forest I won’t be so kind, understand?” I said in an icy tone.
Devin sneered then looking arrogant yet beautiful in a, total male sense of the word, “Why don’t you make me?” he paused for a moment then said coolly, “tell you what, if you can hit me or make me bleed in any way by any means I’ll leave your forest…but…if you can’t, you have to allow me to hang around you for a while even here in the forest. So, is it a deal?”
He gave me pause, if it had been another person I wouldn’t have thought twice about it but there was something different about him…something darker. Finally I answered in a quiet tone, “Okay, but if I do, win that is, not only do you leave my forest you’ll leave me alone too, deal?”
Devin shook his head, “As much as I would “love” to agree to that… I can’t… I’ll only leave you alone in this place even if you win.”
Again I paused what did he mean as much as he would love to agree to that he couldn’t was this the protection that Mr. Marcuzo had been talking about if so why the whole running from the Neanderthal? I didn’t know…I wasn’t even suppose to be talking to anyone new anyway, if I was to believe what Mr. Marcuzo had written. Do I continue? Is he my protection or is he…Devin the person or part of the thing that I needed protection from? I didn’t have any of the answers to any of these questions all I knew is that the only way to make him leave was to take the offer he had made. It made me more than a little mad that I had so little options, so many questions, and so few answers that I had only the choice to agree to Devin’s offer.
“Fine…” That one word trembled with all the furry, frustration, and maybe even a little fear, I felt.
Devin smiled, “Then let the games begin.” And then he stood there unmoving waiting for me to strike.
My jaw nearly went through the center of the earth when I realized that he wasn’t going to move until I had made the first one. When I finally recovered from the shock of this crazy behavior I did the only thing that I felt was the least dangerous, I used my speed, to seem as though I had vanished from where I was. Really, though all I did is run and jump into one of the trees, at that moment I was very glad that there was a slight wind making the trees rustle that hide my assent. I crouched on the branch and watched as Devin, staying in the same spot, looked about for me. I stayed as quiet as I possibly could, I slowed my heart rate, concentrated on not just what I was seeing but what I heard, smelt, and instincts that I had not known I had possessed. I stayed there like that until I felt the need to move to another place making sure I stayed out of the way that the wind was blowing directly. That I made not a sound. In the next minute I was glad I had moved for if I hadn’t I would have surly been hurt or wounded, for Devin had thrown a blade were my left shoulder had been.
Well, I was never one to be hunted so if he wished to use knives and such I was more than happy to oblige. With that thought, I moved carefully making my way to the tree in which my belongs were. From there I pulled a small “harmless” looking set of chopsticks, I often used for my hair, out of my bag and moved away from the tree. I got on the other side of him after he had thrown two more knives, one at the tree I had my belongings in and the other a few trees away from it but in the direction I had come from not gone to, which I guess is a good thing. I crouched on the branch I was on, quietly taking one of the chopsticks and pulling the cover off the bottom half. Smiling I took careful aim and in one fluid movement threw it, Devin had turned, not even five seconds after the blade left my hand, but could not avoid it in time and he let out an angry hiss of pain both from physical wound and the wound to his pride. The blade had hit its mark, which was just across his cheek not the bone, as some would have hoped for, I had known I would not be able to accomplish that. My fun was over; the game had ended after my blade had wounded him even as shallow as it was, so I jumped down from the tree. A none to graceful landing later and a look at my watch made me moan as I ran and collected my blade and my other belongs. As I ran out of the forest I shouted over my shoulder, “Remember our deal you have to give me the privacy of my forest, now be gone from here!”