Free Twisted Heart by Eden Maguire Page B

argument, to let it go. ‘I know. I hear you.’
    ‘Good. So no volunteering?’ Orlando was strident, demanding in a way I didn’t recognize or like.
    ‘No,’ I agreed reluctantly. ‘In any case, how can I?’
    The puzzled frown came back, the uncertainty behind his beautiful grey eyes.
    ‘What do you mean – how can you?’
    It wasn’t exactly the way I’d planned the break the news – not after our difference of opinion over New Dawn, but it came out anyway. ‘How can I volunteer when I’m not going to be here?’
    ‘Why, where will you be?’ His eyes widened, he had a moment, a flash of hope that I would be in Dallas with him.
    ‘Paris,’ I murmured. And God, forgive me, I saw the hope die. ‘As soon as Mom is well enough, I fly back.’

    I lay for a long time without sleeping, remembering how Orlando had walked away. He’d left the room without switching off the camera, without saying anything.
    ‘You OK?’ Dad had asked when he came in from feeding the dove. ‘You and Orlando, you had fight?’
    ‘Kind of. I told him I was going back to Paris. He walked out on me.’
    ‘He wants you in Dallas?’
    I’d nodded, bit my lip to stop it trembling.
    ‘He loves you,’ Dad had pointed out. He’d said this to comfort me but it only brought on the tears. ‘Big passion, you’re his first girl. I remember this.’
    And now I couldn’t get to sleep for running over the options – Paris and my career, or Dallas and the guy I loved. And was it possible to have both? Was it greedy to want both?
    I turned over to my right side, stretched out the cramp in my legs, turned over on to my left. A breeze disturbed the dreamcatcher hanging over my bed.
    And the wolf man leaps in through the window, teeth bared. Bearded and with amber eyes, he creeps out of the forest, out of the thorns and thickets where he has his lair. He leaps and tears me apart .
    I sat up in bed, in the dark, trying not to cry out, remembering all the times I dreamed of fire, smoke and the child in the burning house who called for her mother. And how Mom was always there to comfort me.
    Where is Maia, my gentle good angel, to protect me from danger? I don’t know my enemy. I don’t know him yet but he is in the room, he has me between his jaws. One more bound takes us out into the night, across the water to the island in the middle of Turner Lake. ‘Help!’ I cry, knowing that no one hears .

    I didn’t sleep and my head felt dull and empty when I got up the next morning, I wasn’t so much tired as confused and not wanting to talk to anyone as I left the house to drive into Denver.
    Luckily Dad had already set out to check out a new construction job, locally in Paloma Springs, but unluckily Holly caught me in the driveway.
    ‘Hey, Tania, you want to drive down to New Dawn with me?’ she called over the fence.
    I waved my car keys and shook my head. ‘Sorry, I’m visiting the hospital.’
    ‘Not now. Maybe later this afternoon. Richard wants to show me some video footage.’
    ‘What video?’ I noticed she was already on first-name terms with the fascinating Mr Ziegler.
    ‘A documentary shot by the Explorers last week – Conner and Jarrold went up to Carlsbad, above the snowline. The video shows the type of survival skills I’ll need when I accompany the next group. They call them bands, named after natural objects. Mountain Lion, Falling Leaf – that kind of thing.’
    ‘So you’re definitely still planning on volunteering?’
    ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Holly paused to consider the implied challenge behind my question then understood. ‘You talked to Aaron?’
    ‘No, to Orlando.’
    ‘And he’d already talked to Aaron. Those guys trade gossip faster than we do! What did Orlando say?’
    I shrugged, got in my car while we were talking. ‘He said, don’t do it.’ I closed the door. ‘We don’t know enough about New Dawn: he doesn’t like the sound of Antony Amos, yabber-yabber.’
    ‘Just like Aaron,