Hold Me Never (Holding Never) Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Of
course! Didn't you...” I bite my lip, remembering the hungry,
lascivious look of the Emperor as he raked his eyes over my body.
His eyes had glinted with delight when I showed fear. He gets off on
fear and threats. He wants me frightened, not dead.
    Cool down that hot little head—and body, of
hers. Oh, we're going to have fun, so much fun!
    He doesn't want a corpse delivered to his Palace. What
fun would that be? He wants to...
    As if he has been following my twisting train of
thought, the Commander carries on, “He wants to show his
authority, frighten you, and the townspeople. Fear is a very
effective weapon.”
    With a heavy sigh, he removes the metal cuffs from
around my wrists. As I massage my wrists, he takes off his silver
helmet, and rakes a hand through his dark brown hair. With his
tousled hair, he looks even younger.
    He catches me staring at him and smiles.
    Embarrassed, I mutter, “How old are you?”
    He looks surprised, but he answers calmly,
“Twenty-eight.”
    “ And you're a Commander?”
    “ I've been a soldier since I was nine.”
When my mouth forms a silent 'o', he blows out a ragged breath and
says, “I know what the Emperor wants.”
    I frown. He has been a soldier for longer than I have
been alive. Serving a monster all these long years. So—what
does that make him?
    “ Will you kill me?”
    The Commander shakes his head.
    “ Will you let me go?”
    He swallows hard. Then very slowly shakes his head.
    “ Will the Emperor let me go?”
    The look on the Commander's face kills that flickering
spark of hope instantaneously. My shoulders slump. I'm going to die
after all. Just not by the Commander's hand.
    “ I...I'm sorry, Zoey,” the Commander says at
last.
    I nod sadly. “I know. So am I.”
    The Commander wraps his arms around my waist and holds
me. I lean back, suddenly overcome with weariness, letting my head
rest on his shoulder. Staring up at the stars, I am struck by the
fact that what I am seeing is just an illusion. The dying light of
stars which may be long dead. Everything just seems to tiny and so
temporal. “You know, I've never been held like this by a man
before. You're the first.” I hiccup a laugh. “And the
last.”
    I hear him suck in a breath, and feel his heart thudding
against my back.
    Having him hold me, listen to me, gives me a certain
calm and courage.
    Maybe this is how people who have been condemned to
death feel. Traveling inexorably closer to your death every minute,
staring death in the face everywhere you turn. The stark, surreal
inevitability of your fate pounding into your mind with every
heartbeat.
    Every minute seems so poignant, so precious. The past
is the past, and the future will never come. There is only the
moment. Here. Now.
    It is terrifying. But liberating, in a reckless, morbid
way.
    Even though I am journeying to the Palace, in the arms
of the Emperor's Commander, my enemy, I no longer feel any fear. For
the first time in a long, long while, I actually feel safe. Safe in
the arms of the enemy.
    Words bubble up my throat, tumbling from my lips
heedlessly. Things I wouldn't normally say, thoughts I wouldn't
normally think, emotions and memories I fight against every waking
minute in order to stay sane and alive—everything surges over
the brim and overflows, gushing from me in a warbling, messy torrent.
    I tell him about the people I will miss, the women in
the factory, sad, sweet faces that offer strength to each other
through their smiles, the girls in my dormitory, the wild flowers we
glimpse growing at the side of the road as we walk back to our
dormitory every evening. And I tell him about my mother, what
happened to her, what I saw and never forgot.
    I just keep talking, my vision growing hazy, the light
from the stars stretching and distorting into silvery ribbons across
the sky.
    “ You know,” I giggle, but the sound is more
like a hiccuped sob. “I'll be eighteen soon. But...I guess I
won't live to celebrate my