Waiting in the Dark

𝓉𝒽𝒾𝓇𝓉𝑒𝑒𝓃

      I woke up in our room. The sun filtered in the window, making the room bright and cheerful.

      I pushed myself up, surprised that my arm didn't hurt. I looked down and saw the burns gone. No trace of the gruesome marks remained.  All that was left were pink scars from the poker. 

      "Magic." 

      I turned and saw Cirillo sitting in an armchair next to me. He had dark circles under his eyes and his hair was wild and untamed. He was wearing the same clothes as yesterday. 

      "The healer used magic to heal them." He gingerely picked up my hand and inspected the scars. "You'll have these forever though."

      "I'm sorry." I said. 

      He looked up at me, dropping my hand. "Why in the world are you apologizing?" 

       "This is my fault. I pushed you to let me go. Now they know you exist, they know you aren't a demon or a beast. And it's all because of me." 

      He shook his head. "No, Love, it's not your fault. I shouldn't have let you go. I should have known something like this would happen. I'm the one who should be apologizing." 

     He scooted me over and climbed into the bed next to me. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me to him. I layed my head on his chest, feeling the familiar beat of his heart.

      "You scared me so bad. You were gone almost two hours. I thought maybe you had lost track of time. Then I heard you scream. I've never run so fast in my entire life."  He shuddered as if the memory pained him. He played with the ends of my hair. 

      "All I could think was 'Please don't let her die. Please let her still be alive.'" I looked up at him. 

      "I'm fine. I'm ok, Cirillo."

      He looked angry now. "But what if you weren't fine?! What if they had killed you?" He pushed me away and climbed out of bed. He stalked angrily around the room, his footsteps heavy. 

      "Aracelli, if they had killed you, I would have slain  every one of them then and there. I would have killed them all." His brown eyes filled with tears and he put his head in  his hands. I rushed over to him. 

      "But they didn't. I'm fine." I lifted his head to look at me. "I'm alright. Thanks to you." 

      He nodded and put his head on my shoulder. "I was so scared." He whispered, clinging to me."

      "I know, I know." We sunk to the ground, clinging to each other until all our tears had dried.

      "Cirillo," I said and he lifted his eyes to mine. "I want us to be linked."