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Ask me to pick the perfect travel companion and the answer is Marigold. The worst?
Roi.
Marigold brings, on a usual day, beauty, smarts, energy. Even on a night when she’s having to admit that her family is a bunch of cannibalistic freaks, Marigold still trumps Roi. Not because Roi is weird, even though that doesn’t help his cause, no. Roi is that rude guy that brings uninvited friends along for the journey.
And Roi’s only friends are spiders.
“It is okay.” Roi smiled at Marigold and me. He waved his hands and made some more of his spider-talk to his companions. The spiders slowly approached us, not making any sound.
Marigold tugged away from me like she was going to run.
“Don’t.” I breathed the word into hair.
She looked up at me, her wavy hair framed her face in a frazzled chaos, her eyes frightened and confused. “What?”
“No running.” With difficulty, I kept my voice calm. I wanted nothing more than to run, but the residual pain in my head wouldn’t let me forget what happened when I tried to run away from the spiders last night. “It only makes things worse.”
Maybe Roi noticed we were on edge. “It. Is. Okay.” He said it to us slower this time, like we’d believe him more if he said it that way. He could have stretched the words on forever and it wouldn’t have worked.
The spiders came closer and I backed Marigold toward the house, but within seconds we were pressed against the wall, nowhere to go. Only a few feet away from us, the spiders stopped. Light from the house illuminated the spiders, glinting off their multiple black eyes and white fangs in closer and more vivid detail than I’d seen before.
In my mind Marie Suiza screamed at me to run. Run! Run! Like I did so many years ago, to my house, to my parents, to safety. But I was already at my house. My parents weren’t there. I stood between the spiders and Marigold, telling her everything was fine, reassuring that I’d keep her safe.
But surrounded by spiders, I had no safety to give. Again, I was a little boy grasping a burnt-out rifle. Holding onto a lie. I would never leave Erimia. I would die in Brunning. By Roi’s spiders or by the Thurns’, it didn’t matter.
Roi walked to the nearest spider. He bent to rest his head against the spider’s, right below it eyes. I could only hope the monster would bite his head off right then. The bastard had led us right into a trap.
No such luck, though.
Roi stood up, rubbed his hands back and forth, clapping them and clicking from his mouth. All of the spiders rose up on extended legs so their heads were almost level with my own. They keened and chittered, the noise of it disrupted my heart beat, it was so loud. As quick as it started, the noise stopped and the spiders settled down. Roi walked toward me, no expression on his ivory pale face, his green eyes fixed on Marigold and me.
I turned to Marigold, taking her hands. “Marigold, forget what I said. You have to run. Get to the meeting hall. Mom’s there.”
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“What about you?”
“I’m not going to let both of die tonight, if I can help it.”
“Xander, he’s not—”
“When I jump him, you go through the house and to the meeting hall.”
I took a deep breath to psyche myself up and spun around ready to pounce. Roi stood right in front of me, a huge goofy smile plastered on his face. Not what I expected. I hesitated.
“Damnit!” He should of been glaring at me, ready to kill me, not looking like a puppy wanting a belly rub.
“My spiders say they are ready. They will help Xander.” He rubbed his hand excitedly and chirped. “Xander and Ovidia ready?”
The spiders were going to help me? “What? Who’s Ovidia?”
“Girl.” Roi chirped that staccato spider laugh and mixed in a few goofy guffaws—sounded like a malfunctioning water pump. “Ovidia is friend to Xander and he does not know her name?” He laughed some more.
“I think he means me.” Marigold stepped out from behind me. She stood before Roi. I didn’t like the way she looked at him, how she was so obviously intrigued by him. “My name isn’t Ovidia. It’s Marigold.”
Roi shrugged and walked back toward the spiders. “Roi not like Ovidia’s new name much. But okay. Marigold.”
“What in the deepest blighted heretic’s hell is that spider-loving lunatic talking about?” Roi didn’t kill us, yet, but that didn’t mean I didn’t want to bash his head in just to keep him from confusing me so much. It was embarrassing.
Marigold scrunched her brow, a look she made when thinking real hard. “I don’t know. There’s something about him…”
“About Roi?” I pointed at him, glaring. He waved back at me, still smiling. “Too much sun and spider venom is what I say. Dude. Is. A. Freak.”
“I…” Marigold dropped the scowl and cocked her head in a bemused smirk. “He’s waiting. Let’s go.”
“What?” I hissed, taking Marigold by the arms. “Marigold, don’t tell me you’re actually considering going with that freak. Might as well slit our own throats right now. Save him the trouble. Don’t want him to work too hard for his meal.”
Marigold grabbed my hands off her arms, but held onto my hand with hers. “Xander, I know you’re scared. I was too. But now there’s hope.” Looking up at me, her eyes were so big in the dark, radiating that goodness that made everyone in Brunning love her. Made me love her. After all she’d just been through, how could she talk about hope? As much as Roi confused me, Marigold mesmerized me. I’d do anything for her. “I don’t think Roi’s going to kill us. He hasn’t hurt anyone.” And that is where she lost me.
“Besides bashing me in the head and punching Sam Jans in the balls!”
The light in her eyes dimmed, her head dropped a little. “Still not as bad as what my family did to Sam—what they’re going to do Jamus and your dad. And if we are going to save anyone, we need all of the help we can get.”
She was right.
The truth of it hit me in the gut. I’d charged out of the house ready to wage war on the Thurns and as soon as I saw spiders I turned into a blubbering weakling. What was I thinking? We weren’t even armed, any weapons were in the meeting hall. No way I’d take those from Scio and Knox, they needed them to protect the women and children. To protect my mom.
Almost an hour had passed since my father and the others left to go get Jamus. In another hour they’d be walking into a spider-infested trap. Even if Marigold and I arrived in time to save them, what could we possibly hope to accomplish on our own.
“Why do you trust him?” I asked Marigold.
Gathering her long hair in a bunch and securing into a bushy ponytail, she shrugged. “I don’t know that I do completely. But he wants to help…”
I dropped my shoulders, taking a deep breath. “…And we need any help we can get.”
“Exactly.”
“Fine. I’ve wasted enough time on this. Let’s go.” Holding her hand, I led us to Roi. I couldn’t believe I was walking deliberately toward a spider, let alone a dozen. “But don’t think he’s innocent or anything. I have a lump on my head to prove otherwise.”
“Okay. But I’m sure there’s an explanation for that.”
I really didn’t like her mounting fascination with Roi. It didn’t make being around him any easier. “Whose side are you on?” I grumbled.
“What?”
“Nothing.”