He didn’t feel drained though, as his incredibly strong hands grasped my shoulders. My skin danced at the touch of his fingers, but there was something else as well. It was a sensation like being brushed lightly by a cat’s tail made of smoke. He lifted me and placed me in what felt like an ancient stone chair hewn from the rage of a millennium of violent waves. I felt a rope, woven from inexplicably soft and silky material, being looped about my chest and arms, binding me to the chair. And again, that strange feeling, like wisps of steam evaporating from my skin.

“Is this really necessary?” I queried, my voice as even as I could make it and my face pointed in what I assumed was Riley’s general direction. I wriggled my shoulders against the rope. “I hardly intend to run away.”

He finished tying the last knot with a sharp and precise motion, binding me fast. “I restrict your freedom for your own protection,” he said.

That seemed reasonable. I was in an unfamiliar place, after all, a place where Riley was apparently at ease. I relaxed. The chair was not terribly uncomfortable, and I felt in my heart of hearts that Riley knew best in this matter. He grasped the back of the chair and I was tilted back forty, perhaps forty-five degrees. He began to drag me. Once again, I was dumbfounded by his strength, the ease with which he moved over any uneven terrain. And we were moving over uneven terrain, that much was certain, the chair bumping, thumping, scraping and catching on various topographical features we crossed. I became aware that we seemed to be going uphill. Riley was utterly silent. Even his footfalls were apparently swallowed up by the vast space we inhabited. The only sound for many, many minutes was the dull metallic cacophony of the chair moving over the ground.

Then the noise stopped, and the front feet of the chair slammed down. I was unprepared, and I made a rather unflattering sound as the rope across my chest squeezed the wind from my lungs. For a long time, all was silent. But I could feel Riley there, watching me.

At last, he spoke. “Twice now, young one, have I prevented you from coming to the harm which you seem to seek out, like the imbecile moth seeks the scorching flame. Why do you think that that is?”

“Well…” I was flustered. I was alone with the most unusual and indescribably unordinary boy I’d ever met. My feelings were all jumbled up, all new. For the first time in my entire life, a boy had gotten under my skin. And though I felt an incredible connection with him, a synchronicity, I did not know at all what he felt.

I did not know how to answer his question.