“That one. I found the monastery and I’ve always wanted to see it.”
“Then lets go!”
As Will steered the car out of the city, I enjoyed the warm sunshine and the wind blowing through my hair. We drove out of the city in silence as we soaked in the beauty of the city. The architecture was a combination of the old, with Greek and Gothic influences, with the new. Somehow the city joined old and new together like a complex jazz piece with all the instruments working together to create music.
The further away from Paris, the more open the landscape was. Eventually we were surrounded by green rolling hills that reminded me of the landscape of Canyon Cove. If it wasn’t for the occasional spire of a centuries old church or the cut of a castle against the sky, the two places might have been interchangeable.
After about an hour into the drive, Will reached for his folded suit jacket and pulled a folded map out of the inside pocket and placed it on my lap.
“I need your help. We should be right around here,” he said as he tapped a yellow section of the map. “I circled the monastery in red, let me know where I need to turn. I think it’s coming up and I was told it’s hard to spot from the road.”
As I collected my bearings looking at the map, I found the turn off he was talking about and placed my finger on it. “Wait, you asked about the monastery? Don’t you think Stewart will find out? Knowing him, he’ll be there waiting for us.”#p#分页标题#e#
Will laughed. “No, he’s not going to care.”
“I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking about. He seems very concerned about you being in danger.”
Will’s knuckles whitened on his hand that rested on the shifter while his face grimaced. Thinking I struck a nerve, I dropped it. Last thing I wanted to do was ruin a day out with him in such a romantic location. My big mouth messed things up enough for one trip.
“The road should be right up here,” I said after spotting a mile marker the map indicated was before the turn.
An old stone carved road marker had the name of our turn and Will slowed down as he maneuvered the car onto the road. The dirt road was packed so tight from centuries of use that we didn’t have to worry about dust flying into the car.
After driving further down the lonely road, the monastery appeared in the distance. The white limestone silhouette of the abbey jutting up into the sky, growing more luminescent as we arrived.
“How did your mom even find this place?”
“She loved history and this is one of the oldest monasteries,” he said as we walked among the ruins. “You can see how the church still stands with its towers, and over there is what’s left of the cloisters and the library. The original building is well over a thousand years old, but was destroyed first by the Vikings, then later in wars after being rebuilt each time.”
The abbey was the largest of the ruins and still impressive. It looked like a medieval castle and I could easily imagine monks from centuries ago praying there. Following the path, we came upon two pylons on either side of where the path widened.
“This must’ve been where the gate was,” he said as he walked over to one of the stone columns and placed his hand on it.
His face softened and briefly crumpled and I knew he was thinking back on his brief childhood. It hurt to see how close to the surface those memories remained.
Hearing a sound come from the abbey, I turned around but saw nothing. Probably just an animal, I thought. As I looked up into Will’s face, his eyes brightened, and he wrapped his arms around me.
“Thank you for coming here with me. You have no idea what this means to me,” he said before kissing my forehead.
“Of course. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.”
“Well isn’t this sweet,” a male voice with a thick Eastern European accent echoed against the ruins. “Come out, Marco. It’s him.”
As I turned around I saw another man approaching from one of the other ruins. Marco was a monster of a man in a painted on black t-shirt and bald head. The man who spoke looked exactly the same except for his crooked nose which must have been busted years ago. Will tightened his grip on me as they came closer, but it didn’t matter.
Marco grabbed my arm and roughly pulled me out of Will’s grasp while the man who spoke lifted a gun to Will’s head. I couldn’t breathe. I considered screaming, but knew there was no one around to help. As I trembled in fear, Marco squeezed his thickly muscled arm like a boa constrictor around me further as if to tell me I was in more danger than I realized.
“Oscar, what to do with the girl? Kill her now, yes? That will be fun,” Marco said with a cheerfulness in his voice that sent chills down my spine.