Hunted (Dark Secrets Book 1) by Allie Juliette Mousseau Page A
Authors: Allie Juliette Mousseau
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alone in the middle of nowhere —with no one watching out for you or concerned about whether you were alive or dead. With Theron I wasn't merely surviving, I was actually living . The isolation was replaced with the warmth of companionship.
One morning I woke up to find he had designed a vase by wrapping pieces of bark together with twigs, and he had picked the most vibrant and gorgeous bouquet of wildflowers for me.
He couldn't get enough of my music and played it as often as possible. He was like a kid in a candy store who, having never tasted sugar a day in his life, was given a hundred dollar bill and told to go for it!
Each morning brought a new hue of life across the forest —the bird songs were more cheerful, butterflies flitted from flower to flower, hummingbirds hovered in midair and dragonflies played tag over the waters.
We were getting low on food again, so I announced to Theron that we needed to harvest to add to our supplies. I grabbed my harvest bag, and we walked out onto dew covered grass that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The scent of dampened earth perfumed the air. It was a fantastic morning, wrapped in mist. We came across a shady spot loaded with fiddleheads. We sank to the ground and sat cross-legged among the early ostrich fern. I showed Theron how to snap the glossy, spiraled fiddleheads from their stalk.
"These are delicious," I said. "Very earthy flavor."
We continued plucking the heads and dropped them into the harvest sack.
"Next week, we'll hike out to the pond and gather cattails and arrowhead roots. They taste a lot like potatoes," I went on. "Everything is fresh. There are no pesticides or modifications. Everything is one-hundred-percent organic. You can totally live out in the wild without much money or conveniences."
"You said the Takers have never found you out here in the forest before?" Theron asked.
"No, they never have. I have a theory about that."
"What's the theory?"
"I don't think they can track me in here," I began. "See, out in the modern world and general population there are cameras set up everywhere for surveillance: in stores, on street corners, at banks. There are also huge satellites roving in space, picking up images from all over the world and transmitting data to wherever. I put that together a couple of years back. The forests are the safest places I've been."
"Freya?" Theron's voice was suddenly very serious. "What if you and I were to stay here —in the forest—and never resurface? Just live here together… off the grid?"
I looked at his face to gauge his expression. He wasn't kidding and he was waiting for an answer.
I found myself wanting to jump, to take the chance. The chance at normal. A real life. I registered the pleading in his eyes. I wanted to say yes. With all of my heart I wanted to say yes. I could have easily fallen in love with him—if I wasn't already in love with him.
My heart palpitated over the very real possibility. My mouth began to form the word yes as I gazed into his compelling brown eyes that could easily become like oxygen to me. But then I heard a voice that sounded just like mine say roughly, "I can't. I have to find my mother."
Chapter 9 Intimate
Theron was quiet. I knew he wanted to understand this enigma that was my mother and my relationship with her. But I had never told a soul. Not one soul. Not even Scarlett, who was her oldest friend and had known my mother before I had been born —before the stories became wild. Now, here was this beautiful boy asking me to reveal my deepest soul to him.
I stopped my busy hands and let my eyes wander to where he was —sitting cross-legged in the wide patch of fiddleheads, only a few feet away from me. He was breaking the deep green heads away from their stalks and dropping them into the harvest bag. His hands were large and strong and he went about harvesting the ostrich fern in a delicate, almost overly-cautious manner, so as not to spoil them. But
One morning I woke up to find he had designed a vase by wrapping pieces of bark together with twigs, and he had picked the most vibrant and gorgeous bouquet of wildflowers for me.
He couldn't get enough of my music and played it as often as possible. He was like a kid in a candy store who, having never tasted sugar a day in his life, was given a hundred dollar bill and told to go for it!
Each morning brought a new hue of life across the forest —the bird songs were more cheerful, butterflies flitted from flower to flower, hummingbirds hovered in midair and dragonflies played tag over the waters.
We were getting low on food again, so I announced to Theron that we needed to harvest to add to our supplies. I grabbed my harvest bag, and we walked out onto dew covered grass that sparkled like diamonds in the sunlight. The scent of dampened earth perfumed the air. It was a fantastic morning, wrapped in mist. We came across a shady spot loaded with fiddleheads. We sank to the ground and sat cross-legged among the early ostrich fern. I showed Theron how to snap the glossy, spiraled fiddleheads from their stalk.
"These are delicious," I said. "Very earthy flavor."
We continued plucking the heads and dropped them into the harvest sack.
"Next week, we'll hike out to the pond and gather cattails and arrowhead roots. They taste a lot like potatoes," I went on. "Everything is fresh. There are no pesticides or modifications. Everything is one-hundred-percent organic. You can totally live out in the wild without much money or conveniences."
"You said the Takers have never found you out here in the forest before?" Theron asked.
"No, they never have. I have a theory about that."
"What's the theory?"
"I don't think they can track me in here," I began. "See, out in the modern world and general population there are cameras set up everywhere for surveillance: in stores, on street corners, at banks. There are also huge satellites roving in space, picking up images from all over the world and transmitting data to wherever. I put that together a couple of years back. The forests are the safest places I've been."
"Freya?" Theron's voice was suddenly very serious. "What if you and I were to stay here —in the forest—and never resurface? Just live here together… off the grid?"
I looked at his face to gauge his expression. He wasn't kidding and he was waiting for an answer.
I found myself wanting to jump, to take the chance. The chance at normal. A real life. I registered the pleading in his eyes. I wanted to say yes. With all of my heart I wanted to say yes. I could have easily fallen in love with him—if I wasn't already in love with him.
My heart palpitated over the very real possibility. My mouth began to form the word yes as I gazed into his compelling brown eyes that could easily become like oxygen to me. But then I heard a voice that sounded just like mine say roughly, "I can't. I have to find my mother."
Chapter 9 Intimate
Theron was quiet. I knew he wanted to understand this enigma that was my mother and my relationship with her. But I had never told a soul. Not one soul. Not even Scarlett, who was her oldest friend and had known my mother before I had been born —before the stories became wild. Now, here was this beautiful boy asking me to reveal my deepest soul to him.
I stopped my busy hands and let my eyes wander to where he was —sitting cross-legged in the wide patch of fiddleheads, only a few feet away from me. He was breaking the deep green heads away from their stalks and dropping them into the harvest bag. His hands were large and strong and he went about harvesting the ostrich fern in a delicate, almost overly-cautious manner, so as not to spoil them. But
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