Dark Secrets (21 page)

I looked away,
pinching the base of my thumb with my fingertips. He was right; I
did need to talk, but I didn’t want to talk to him. He had this
delusion that I was some nice, sweet girl. He didn’t know the real
me—the one that I was trying not to be anymore.

“
Let me guess—” He
smiled, watching the road carefully, taking the curves with a kind
of precision that put my dad’s driving to shame. “You don’t wanna
talk to me about it. Am I right?”

“
I’m sorry.” I looked
out the window. “It was nice of you to bring me out here, but I
don’t—”

“
I’m not going to let
you go until you talk to me.”

“
And what are you
going to do? Torture a confession out of me?”

He tilted his head a
little, keeping his eyes on the road. “It wouldn’t be the first
time.”

“
Well, it won’t work.
I have my reasons for not wanting to talk, David.”

“
And they mean
nothing to me. You’re talking. Period.”

“
You can’t make me.”
I folded my arms and stared ahead, biting my teeth
together.

The car slowed
dramatically, gravel crunching under the tires as we pulled onto
the side of the desolate road. “Ara?”

I shook my
head.

“
Ara?” David said
again.

Begrudgingly, I
twisted my neck to look at him. I felt kind of like a spoilt kid
throwing a tantrum.

“
I’m sorry,” he said, turning his whole body to face me.
“Sweetheart, you’re taking things a little too seriously. I meant
no harm. Really. And the more I think about it—” he rolled back in
his seat and faced the front, a cheeky grin stretching the corners
of his mouth, “—the more I think I might just have to kidnap you
until you
do
talk
to me.”

A small smile crept
onto my lips. I pressed them together firmly to keep it
hidden.

“
Ara, please don’t be
so moody. It’s okay to smile.”

I let my arms fall
away from my chest with the release of a long breath. The ogre was
obviously dominating my mood right now. I should’ve eaten more at
lunch. “I know you have the best of intentions here, David. But
this is really nothing to do with you.” I tried to sound polite,
but the words came out sounding so mean.

“
I can help you,” he
said after a second. “I want to help you. All the bad things, Ara,
all the pain you feel—” he reached for my hand; I let him take it,
“—I can make it all hurt less. But you have to let me
in.”

“
I can’t,” I said in
a breaking whisper and turned away.

“
Come.”

“
Where?” I looked
back at him.

He smiled and opened
his door, allowing the clammy air to mingle with the pleasant,
artificial cool. “Somewhere better.”

“
I hope you don’t
think I’m getting out in the hea—”

“
Let’s go.” David
appeared on my right, opening my door.

“
How did you get
there so fast?”

“
Come on.” He grabbed
my hand, leaning in to unbuckle me. “I wanna show you
something.”

Chapter
Eight

The trees opened out
to a forest trail before us, and the sun streaked through gaps in
the tightly laced canopy, splashing long, dust-filled beams across
the path. Above us, the summer heat looked on, forbidden to taint
the cool, kind of clay-scented air.

“
Watch your step
here.” David steered me around a small cluster of rocks hidden
beneath a pile of leaves.

“
Thanks. I totally
didn’t see that.”

He gave a soft nod,
sliding his hand off my lower back. “I know.”

“
So, where are we
going exactly?”

“
South-west.”

“
Hm. Helpful.” I
looked to the path ahead, then up at the ball-shaped glare of the
sun through the trees, using my hand as a visor. “But actually,
we’re going slightly more south.”

“
True.” David nodded. “The path we’re on heads south, but
turns to the west up ahead.” He stopped walking and looked at me.
“Wait, how did
you
know that?”

“
I’m Aussie.” I used
my best homeland-sounding accent. “My friend Mike taught me how to
roughly guess my direction by looking at the sun—said it would come
in handy if I ever found myself in the bush…with a strange guy…who
might not turn out to be so nice.”

“
Right.” David wiped
a hand across his grin as he started walking again. “Sounds like
Mike’s a smart man.”

“
Yeah.” I followed
after him, making no real effort to catch up. “Taught me some
defensive moves, too.”

“
Is that so?” He
sprung up right in front of me, catching me as my face hit his
chest. “You weren’t hinting at me about anything, were
you?”

“
How did you get
there so fast?”

“
I was standing right
here, waiting for you. You really should watch where you’re
going.”

I glared up at him
quizzically.

“
Ara? I asked you a
question. Were you suggesting I’d be capable of hurting
you?”

“
How would I know? I don’t really
know
you.”

His eyes left my face
before he turned and trudged off. “Ouch.”

“
Well, you don’t
really give me much to go on.” I chased after him. “I mean, you’re
so secretive all the time.”

“
Secretive?”

“
Yeah.”

“
About what,
specifically?” He stopped again, wearing a defensive
smile.

“
Um—” I stopped
walking too. “Well. I really don’t know.”

“
So…you want me to be
less secretive about nothing specifically?” He nodded once and
started walking again.

“
How do you do that?”
My footfalls came down hard on the muddy leaves, slipping a little
with the weight of irritation.

“
Do what?”

“
Take my
well-thought-out point and turn it into nothing.”

The smile sparkled in
his eyes as I caught up to him. “It’s a talent of mine.”

“
It’s annoying. I
really hate you for it,” I said in a light-hearted tone.

He stopped again,
almost as if he’d been sprung back by an elastic hinge. “Hate is a
very powerful word, mon amour. Do not use it unless you truly
understand its value.”

“
Okay then…” I folded my arms. “I despise you…”
Affectionately
.

David smiled to
himself. “I can live with that—for now.”

We walked in silence
for a bit then; me, trying to control my breath so I didn’t sound
puffed out, beside him, who walked so straight and tall I wondered
if he really felt the ground beneath his feet at all.

“
But it’s true, you
know,” I said after a while.

“
What?”

“
Your inability to
elaborate. I’ve asked you heaps of questions about yourself and,
somehow, you’ve managed not to tell me anything. And I didn’t even
realise how little I actually knew until Emily started telling me
all about Spencer, you know, what brands he likes, what colour his
bike is. And she hadn’t actually even spoken to him yet.” I shook
my head. “I don’t even know if you like cats or dogs.”

He laughed to himself,
his boots crunching dry leaves beneath his steps. “Cats, if I’m
sitting at home on a cold night; dogs, if I’m going for a
run.”

“
You run?”

He nodded. “I like to
keep fit.”

I let that simmer for
a while, thinking about everything.

After a minute of
silent companionship, David stretched out his arm and pointed ahead
of us. “See that slight thinning of the trees up ahead?”

I nodded.

“
That’s
where we’re
headed.”

“
What’s up
there?”

“
It’s a
surprise.”

Everything with you
is
.

We walked toward a
newly decaying cedar tree, laying sidelong, slanted a little down
the slope of the trail, making a wooden partition between us and
the sudden openness of whatever was beyond. As we came nearer to
the opening, the muddy clay smell disappeared under a damp, kind of
mossy scent, spiked with the lemony fragrance of tree
sap.

David stepped up
quickly and took my hand, guiding me around the tree. “Welcome to
the lake.”

“
What
the…”

The leaves stole my
gaze upward before casting it out to the unspoiled, reflective body
of water in front of me. A grand pathway of clover blanketed the
trail toward the edge of the lake, and tiny hovering bugs danced
above the star-shaped foliage left abandoned by maple trees. Though
the sky dominated the space, it still felt cool and shadowed and
kind of…private. A place not so very different from the
mountain-surrounded picnic spots my dad used to take me to, but
with an element of magic to it, like, somehow, I could believe we
were the only two souls left in the world.

“
David, this is
beautiful.” I searched the vacant place beside me where David no
longer stood, finding him leaning on a bulky, waist-height rock,
right by the water’s edge. “How did you find this
place?”

“
It’s not something
you’d find on a hike.” He unhitched himself from the black rock and
walked behind it, then squatted down. “No one comes out to this
trail anymore.”

“
Anymore?”

He stood up, smiling,
and presented a pillow-sized black bag. “This land is owned by my
family. We closed the hiking trails to outsiders about a hundred
years ago.”

“
You say that like
you were a part of the decision.”

“
Well—” he reached
into the plastic bag and pulled out a picnic rug, “—it’s up to each
generation to decide. I chose to keep the land private.”

“
Why?”

“
I like knowing I can
come here to think. That when I do, I’ll be completely
alone.”

“
Alone is right.” I
looked around again. A few metres out, in the middle of the lake, a
family of trees gathered on a small island, surrounded by a moat of
algae. And the only other signs of life here, aside from David and
I, were a couple of ugly brown ducks. “It’s very…private
here.”

“
It originated as
hunting land.” He tucked his hands into his pockets, taking a long
breath, squinting as he observed the landscape.

“
What did you
hunt?”

“
Hunt?”

“
Yeah. You said it
was hunting land.”

His jaw rocked. “I
did, didn’t I?”

I nodded.

“
It was…” He ran a
hand through his hair. “Foxes.”

“
Foxes?”

“
Yeah.”

“
And…what about now?
Do you still hunt here?”

“
Only if the foxes
stray onto the land—disregarding the warnings around the
border.”

“
What!” I laughed.
“Last I checked, foxes couldn’t read.”

“
Well, then they
die,” he stated, then plonked down on the blue-and-red chequered
blanket, with his back against the rock. “Don’t be shy.” He patted
the spot next to him. “I won’t bite.”

I folded my arms,
remembering suddenly why he brought me out here.

“
Come on, Ara. You
know you wanna talk to me.” The arrogant smile on his lips filtered
through his voice. “You also know I’m not going to let you go until
you do—and no kitten-force Kung-fu is going to help you. I’m not
sure if you’ve noticed, ma petite, but I’m a lot bigger than
you.”

“
What does ma
petite
mean?” I twisted at the shoulders to face
him.

He smiled to himself,
looking down at his outstretched legs. “Roughly? Little
girl.”

I huffed. “I am not a
little girl!”

“
Good. Then stop
acting like one. Sit down.”

I wanted to sit there,
so badly, but letting him in to my world meant opening it, and I
wasn’t sure I even could anymore.

David shrugged, then
rested his hands behind his head—keeping his smiling eyes on me.
“I’ve got
all
day.”

Slowly, with his
conceited stare melting my icy exterior, my frown dropped, my arms
following, until, with a low sigh, I wandered over and sat down
about a metre across from him. And he waited, saying nothing. I was
happy to let time just pass around us—happy to be this nice, sweet
girl he thought I was, for just a little longer. But I knew it
would come to an end. It had to eventually. He had to know the
truth about me—about what I’d done. “I’m sorry, David.”

“
Why would you need
to be sorry?”

“
I
think I might’ve given you the wrong impression about myself.” I
lowered my gaze. I didn’t want to see his face as I said this—the
way any compassion would dissolve from his eyes, and that look, the
smile that seemed to be reserved only for me, would vanish into
disrespect. “Actually, I
deliberately
gave you the wrong
impression.”