Return to Celio by Sasha Cain Read Free Book Online Page A

we left behind will serve as a warning to the others.”
    Bodies? Eeyuck. I shivered, glancing around nervously, reminded just how strange this place was to me.
    “This is the longest dream I’ve ever had,” I muttered to myself.
    Darrios stopped. “Maggie, please tell me you’re not still clinging to that theory. It will make you reckless. You need to acknowledge that this is real. Say it.”
    I stared at him again.
    “Say it!” he ordered.
    “Okay...okay...this is real,” I said, halfheartedly.
    He glared at me. I acknowledged the look he was giving me. Was he kidding? After all we’d been through, I definitely believed it.
    “It’s real,” I said, more convincingly.
    Nodding, he turned and we started walking again.
    “So, Darrios, how do I get back home? I mean, it seems like we’re walking farther and farther away from where I came in.”
    “We are.”
    “Why?”
    “The portal...or door is gone. Another won’t appear there. And it doesn’t matter anyway. You can only come in through the doors. You can’t get back through them.”
    I started feeling anxious. “Then how do I get home?”
    He sighed then stopped. He put his hands on his hips. Without looking back at me, he answered, “In order to get you home...the only way I know...is for you to get to Avascon first.”
    “Will you help me get there?”
    Darrios’ head snapped up and he whirled to face me, looking stricken.
    “I...I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. You’ve already done so much for me,” I rambled.
    “No, it’s not that. I’m just...a little surprised, that’s all. Um, yeah, sure, I’ll help you.”
    “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s do it.”
    “Whoa, whoa, slow down. Jeez, first you push me away entirely, and then you want me to take you right now. We need to get to Inland before we can even think about Avascon.”
    “Why?”
    “Trust me. It’s going to be far more likely for me to get you to Avascon after we get to Inland. There will be far less stress. Nothing will be trying to kill us. We can both clean up first...”
    “But once we get to Inland, you won’t make me wait, right?”
    Darrios furrowed his eyebrows, let out a breath, and shook his head. “No, Maggie, I won’t make you wait.”
    I smiled warmly at him and thanked him. He smiled back. First he saved my life, then he kept me out of harm’s way, now he was taking me somewhere where I would be safe, and then on top of that, onto the place I needed to get to so I could go home. And he hadn’t asked for a single thing in return. He was a good man. I just wished I had some way to repay him for his kindness.
    We walked for the next few hours relatively peacefully. I noticed the ground becoming hillier and a little bit greener with grass. Darrios asked me to tell him about my family.
    “My parents died when I was nine. My brother Brendan was six. My grandmother, my Aunt Gin’s mother, took us in, but she wasn’t exactly the warm, baking cookies, granny-type. A better description would be cool and aloof, maybe even resentful at times.”
    “Was your own mother like that?
    “Not as much, but yeah, some. Honestly? With my grandmother as a mother, I don’t know how Aunt Gin turned out to be so loving and affectionate, but she was the one who tucked us in at night and read us bedtime stories. She kissed our scraped knees, attended the school plays and sports events. She doled out hugs when we were sad and helped us with our homework. She was more of a mother than an aunt.”
    “That’s nice that she was there for you.”
    “Grandmother died when I was nineteen. Brendan graduated high school a year later and went off to college the following fall. Aunt Gin sold grandmother’s house to pay his tuition. She rented us a little place about fifteen minutes out of town.”
    Maggie stopped and placed her hand on her hip. “He graduated almost nine months earlier than he planned, but he took classes every summer so he could.”
    “Wow, that’s