Siren Song

'I should have more extensive pathways built into the gardens at home so that we can take walk togethers as this is very pleasant. I will have them built as a surprise for her when we return. I should have a willow tree facing a pond added to the garden as well. Hmm, with a hanging swing too, she should like that."

Walking beside each other, he mused until he no longer heard the sound of her feet crunching on the small stones beneath their feet. Liang JianAmal turned to see what she was doing. Smiling as he turned, Liang JianAmal chuckled thinking she would probably be stopping to smell a flower, or to admire one of the pollinating insects.

'She thinks she has changed so much, yet some things never do. She may not run off to chase them and smell as she used to, but the caution may be better for her.'

When he turned instead of seeing her joyfully smelling a blossom, Chang stood in the center of the pathway, her shoulders hunched with her head hung low. Her expression was bitter as tears fell from her eyes. Both her fists hung at her side clenched tight.

Seeing her looking so forlorn Liang JianAmal quickly made short work of the few steps between them. Crouching before her, he tried to look into her eyes in case something had maybe blown in with the breeze.

"What happened did something get into your eyes." Searching his pockets, he remembered that he did not have anything fresh for her to wipe her eyes with. Shaking her head Chang pushed his hands away from her face.

Feeling a sense of foreboding Liang JianAmal's forehead knitted up as he looked at the woman before him.

"Jian.."

"What is it?"

"Jian.."

"What is it?"

Wordlessly she just looked up into his eyes the tears, having left dark tracks and smudges below her eyes from her tears. Her eyes searched his looking for something soundlessly, as her mouth twitched and twisted.

'What is she doing? Why is she looking at me like that and what has caused her to cry so much as to ruin her makeup. She is rather fastidious about her appearance in certain ways unlike before. And she does love to use the makeup she does not need." Snorting at her so called morning ritual Liang JianAmal could only she his head in his mind

"I can't go with you." After having stared into his eyes for several heartbeats, her deep blue eyes traveled away from his down, still searching. Once her eyes had left his though her words came.

"What do you mean?"

"I can't go with you back to Shanghai." Feeling like her throat was dry and the ground was swaying beneath her feet Chang let the words fall from her lips, forcing them out from the inside where they ate at her relentlessly.

"I still remember the helpless feeling from being bound in that cellar, awaiting to be sold. Or when he took me and my mother away at gunpoint after torturing me. He is ruthless and will stop at nothing.