“Think about it, Marian,” he called. “All the red ribbons you could want. Though I imagine your hair is a little too short for them since our last encounter.”
Frowning, I pushed my hair off my face. It were wild, never staying tied back since Gisbourne had thought he could use it to hold me and I’d cut it off to be free of him.
I reckoned he left then. I didn’t hear nothing more, but I didn’t move from the roof none.
John called up to me but it were Robin that climbed the roof, taking my hand. “You’re not going anywhere near him, Scar. We’ll find another way.”
I nodded and sniffed, and he tugged my hand and we climbed down, side by side. He held fast to my hand the long way back to the monastery, and I loved it. I wanted him near me more than anything.
He showed me the vial the monk had given him as we took out the bedrolls and set them near the fire. “He said I’ll sleep sound,” he told me. “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Scar.”
I tucked close along his side as he drank it down. “I weren’t never afraid of you, Rob,” I said. It were a lie, I think. But it were truth in the notion that the fear weren’t never what I chose to hold to. I loved him more than I feared his dreams.
When we laid our bedrolls out, I nudged mine closer to Rob, and he nudged his closer to mine till they slid together and looked like one bed. When we laid down, his arm slid over my hips and snugged me close, his chin hooked over my shoulder and his breath rushed over my neck, like every bit of him were slipping around me and binding us together. This were what two souls merging into one were meant to feel like.
I wanted to stay awake, to treasure this, to roll it over in my mind till I had picked up every little bit of it, like baling hay. But it were just moments before I fell asleep, safe in his heart.
Chapter Five
I woke in some strange form of hell. The fire weren’t all out; it were glowing and red and making red glow around me. But Robin weren’t behind me, he were on top of me and screaming. His fist crashed down over my face and I yelled too, finding my legs and bucking him off me. I reached for the knife I kept by my pillow when I saw it flash in his hand.
“Scar!” yelled Much as Rob lunged for me.
I swung my leg down and kicked his out so he fell. The knife skittered and Much ran for it. I jumped on Rob, pinning his arms down. “Robin!” I shrieked. “Rob!”
He roared like a gutted animal. He twisted his leg up and kicked me hard in the belly. I fell off him and he followed, slamming his bear paw on my face again. I rolled him, punching him back and hitting him so hard in the face it made pain rush up my arm.
“Scar, get him outside!” Much yelled.
Rob rolled me again, but I were ready this time and tucked both my legs up to push him hard back. I leapt up, dizzy and swimming, and grabbed Much’s good hand and ran.
We ran for the door and the night and the snow, and Rob followed us, grabbing my hair as we opened the door.
I swallowed a scream but fought tooth and nail to get outside, letting him crush me into the snow.
The moment the snow hit us he sucked in a hard gasp and rolled off of me. “Scar?” Much called. “Scar?”
I pushed up off the snow, and it were stained with red where my face were. I were shaking hard and when I tried, my legs wouldn’t hold me none, and I fell to the stone in the cloisters.
Much stripped off his overshirt and stuffed it with snow, bringing it back to me and pressing it to my face. Rob were down the row, huffing and trying to breathe and I couldn’t help him. My bones were shaking so hard I thought they’d tear straight apart.
“Don’t let him see,” I mumbled to Much. “Please.”
Much were whiter than the snow, but he nodded.
Rob turned toward us. “Scar,” he said, like his mouth were half full of rocks.
Much stood over me, blocking me from him. “Just go inside, Rob,” he said quiet.
“Where’s John?”
“I don’t know,” Much answered. “Please, go inside.”
I heard Rob’s breath still huffing out hard. Then I heard his feet scuff over the stone and the door creak open.
Much turned back to me, but I were bent over my body, heartbroken and bleeding and letting rivers run from my eyes, cursing the day they tortured Rob and brought back whatever phantom he were fighting now. They had tortured him and now it were torturing me too.
Much went back in after a while. The monks filed past me for their prayers at sunup. Then John came along and found me, and his face went flat and he went into the warming room.
I heard raised voices and smacks and thuds. Heat and shame rushed up and I stood, wobbling on my legs, wavering toward the door that didn’t look so fearful in the daylight. My body hollered at me, my stomach turning and rolling. I went into the warming room to find John and Rob with their shirtfronts caught up in each other’s fists, bellowing in each other’s faces.
“Stop,” I said, and they both fair shocked me by obeying. Rob saw me and he went slack and more than a bit green.
John let him go, and Rob just hung there like God were a puppet master making a toy with his body. John could bare contain himself; he were huffing through his nose like a bull in pasture.
“You have to go,” Rob said. I knew he said it to me; he were looking right at me, but I couldn’t imagine he meant it for me.
We all looked at him. “What?” I squeaked.
“You have to go,” he said again, swallowing whatever were stuck in his pipes. He looked at me and away. “All of you. I want you to go to Tuck’s and stay there.”
“No,” I spat. “Don’t be daft.”
“Daft?” he growled. “Daft? I beat you within an inch of your life and you’d stay here, but I’m crazy? You want me to do it again, is that it?” His voice raised. “Do you want me to kill you?”
John pushed Rob hard, and he hit the wall.
“Rob!” I yelled, and it made me hurt everywhere. “We don’t leave each other. You made me promise to stay when all I wanted to do was run, Rob, and that were the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Don’t make me break that oath.”
Rob straightened up, staying farther from me. “No,” he said. “No. This isn’t the same. This is your safety and my sanity, so you leave or I will, Scar. Tuck will take you in, but I don’t trust myself there.” He swallowed again. “I don’t trust myself anywhere.”
“I won’t go, Rob,” I told him. “Why can’t we fight this together?”