J. Mitchell - Midnight City

In spite of the facts, her thoughts were divided between the trading post on the river… and the waltz from last night. What each represented were polar opposites.

Mira shook the images from her mind. She never should have let that dance happen. But watching Holt put Zoey on his feet and spin her around the fire had all been too much. The feelings that had been building inside her, feelings she had adamantly denied, were stoked to life.

Was she insane ? There was absolutely no way she was falling for her captor. For the bounty hunter who planned to turn her in for a reward, who’d kept her tied up for almost a week. And then there were her… other responsibilities. Her other relationships. Had she forgotten them, too?

Mira sighed. Why did it have to be so complicated? Why couldn’t Holt have been completely appalling like most everyone else? Why did he have to have that subtle sense of kindness, those annoying heroic impulses? Why did he have to have such strong hands, such a crooked smile?

From nowhere, the Tone swelled up from her subconscious and pushed to the forefront. The whispering, the voices, the static—they all began to press in on her. Mira groaned, gripped the tree for support, fought against the sounds, trying to push them back.

“Are you okay?” Mira barely heard Holt’s voice as the incessant, swirling whispers overpowered her. “Mira?”

The static hiss in her mind slowly dissolved, and she managed to push it down to the edge of her awareness, keeping it at bay. She took a long, deep breath, steadying herself. It was over. For now.

“Mira?” Holt asked more firmly. She felt his hand on her arm. When she looked up at him, there was genuine concern in his eyes. But something else, too. Fear, it almost seemed like. An old fear. She wondered, yet again, just whom he had lost….

“I’m fine,” she said. “Think I’m getting better at fighting it, like you said. How often will it do that?”

“It’s different for everyone,” he answered. “But it’s usually when you’re the weakest, when you’re hurt or… worried or frightened or sick. Times like that are when it can get the upper hand. It’s always looking for the upper hand.”

He was still looking at her with worry, and she almost smiled, felt the initial tinglings of warmth beginning to spread through her.

Then she saw the rope in his hands, and reality came flooding back.

Mira’s stomach knotted. She quickly looked back down to the trading post on the river. She couldn’t believe he was really going to do it. But here they were, back where they’d started. She felt his silent, uncomfortable gaze.

“My dad told me once how you could tell which things in life were real,” Mira said. Without looking at him, she put her hands behind her, so that he could tie them. She felt Holt step close.

“And how’s that?” Holt asked.

“When you stop believing in them… they don’t go away. I wonder which one last night was?”

She kept waiting for the soft rope to circle her hands. Instead, Holt gently pried open one of her palms and set something in it. Mira couldn’t identify it at first. It was dusty, wrapped in some kind of thin plastic wrap, and spongy.

There was a slight smile in his voice. “Don’t squeeze, you’ll crush it.”

He didn’t try to stop her as she brought the mystery slowly around from behind her. In her hand were two black cupcakes resting inside clear plastic packaging. Each was topped with black frosting and a zigzag of white trailed down their centers.

A smile grew on Mira’s face. She couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t just that he had actually found them… it was also that he had remembered.

Hostess CupCakes. Just as she’d described.

Mira turned slowly around and looked at Holt. He stared back. She didn’t know what this gesture meant, but all the same, there was no rope on her hands yet.

“Where did you find them?” she asked.

“Back in the Drowning Plains, before the Forsaken tried to kill us. I got more at first, but that was all I could save.”

Mira looked at the package in her hands. It had been so long since she’d seen one, they looked like something out of a fairy tale now. “So… what is this?” Mira looked back up at Holt, searching for a sign of his intentions. “Final meal for the accused?”

“Is that the tradition?”

“I think so, yeah.”

“If it was, it would be pretty pathetic, wouldn’t it?” Holt gazed at her with his clear brown eyes, made no move to use the rope. He studied Mira, weighing his thoughts, like he was trying to put words to some foreign concept he’d never expressed before.

“I think,” he began, “I held on as long as I could to the way things were, you know? Telling myself the same answers to the same questions. I held on until… I don’t know, about an hour ago, I guess, when we got here, and I knew we’d made it and things could go back to how they were.”

Mira’s heart beat loudly in her chest. She was sure even Holt could hear it.

“I realized I just… didn’t want things to go back to how they were,” he said, looking down, embarrassed almost. “Not now. You’re… a friend. You saved my life, even. And you’re not worth sacrificing just to solve my own stupid problems. I’ll figure out some other way to deal with them.”

At the words, Mira felt hope welling up inside her. “Are you saying… you’re letting me go?”

Holt was silent a moment, then he just nodded.

When he did, a tidal wave of different emotions washed over Mira. This was more than she ever hoped. It was strange, like waking from a dream to be disappointed it wasn’t real. Only in this case, it was the opposite. She was waking from a nightmare to find the reality was far better. Her throat tightened; she felt her eyes glisten. Before Holt could see her cry, she grabbed his neck and pulled him close.

Holt went stiff as she hugged him. She could feel his discomfort, his uncertainty, but she didn’t care. She had no idea how much tension and worry she’d been carrying around with her until it was gone.

“Thank you, Holt,” she whispered, trying to hold it together. “Thank you.”

She felt his arms slowly encircle her, pull her even closer. One on her waist, the other resting on the back of her neck. His fingers stroked her red hair.

“Sorry, I… I haven’t hugged anyone in a while,” he said with a hint of nervousness.

“You’re a natural,” she said. And it was true. She very much liked being held by Holt; she seemed to fit perfectly in his arms. She let the moment last a little longer, and then pulled away and wiped her eyes quickly.

When she was done, she looked up at him. “I… don’t know what to say.”

“Well,” he said, his voice even more nervous now. As he talked, he rushed the words, like he was trying to get all his thoughts out before the moment passed them by. “I was thinking you could come with me. You know, if you wanted, of course. It makes sense, in a way, right? I mean, people are after you, people are after me. I think I’m going southeast, toward the Low Marshes, see if I can’t find someplace where no one knows who I am. Maybe that place is there for you, too.”

A mass of feelings rose up in her, most of them very pleasant. “That sounds amazing…,” she automatically said, without thinking. And it did. But it took the time for a smile to form on Holt’s face before she realized what she had almost done. “But… I can’t do that, Holt.”

God, she’d almost said yes! Almost threw away everything she’d worked for. Had she lost her mind? Mira watched the newly formed smile on Holt’s face dissolve, and instantly hated herself for giving in to her gut reaction. Holt had just made an incredible gesture, and she’d thrown it right back at him.