The chapter starts off by announcing that we are back in 1940. A bunch of random women are fighting over an unconscious Votan. And by fighting, I mean that his divine sexiness is driving them to actual physical violence. The random women are speaking "an ancient Mayan dialect." At some point a man tells them to stop, saying that he’s dangerous and that he took someone named Itzel.
The man approaches, and the fangirling is explained as a "natural reaction to his otherworldly energy." Right. Sure.
Votan opens his eyes and finds himself in a hammock, which the narration makes it clear that he hates. He asks where he is, and the old man tells him that his name is Peten and this is his village. He goes on to explain that Votan broke his back and cracked his head open when he fell, but he’s healing quickly.
Peten explains that a similar-looking guy came through a long time ago looking for virgins (seriously?) and ended up taking his cousin. Apparently said sacrifice wasn’t lethal, because she comes back mentally scarred for life. Votan explains that he wasn’t that guy, but he realizes that there aren’t too many other people that this could be.
The narration mentions that the gods don’t speak openly to anyone except the Uchben, who are people who’ve existed for centuries and are part of a secret society.
Peten gives Votan some kind of medicine that’s so sweet it makes him hallucinate. Said hallucinations show him in the kitchen with a woman that’s obviously Emma.
Yes, really. Instead of thinking about how weird that was, he instantly feels a deep need to see the woman again. He can’t, so he sits there and waits. His wounds are healing so fast that he can feel it happening. Also, he’s certain that the man who came to the village before is one of his brothers.
The chapter ends there, and since it was so short, I’ll be covering the next one as well. I’ve found the flashback chapters to be somewhat more tolerable than the present day ones. Must have to do with the lack of Emma.
Chapter six opens with her at the airport, drinking and people watching. Then she gets the feeling that she’s being watched. Upon looking around, she finds…well…this guy.
There are lots of interesting people at airports, but I don’t think that ominous figures cloaked in shadows are a common sight. She seems to realize this, but she doesn’t have time to run. He says he’s been looking for her everywhere, touches her cheek, and asks her if she knows that she belongs to him. She probably would have been creeped out by this if she hadn’t woken up right afterward. The first thing that Guy does is guess that she was having a hot dream about him. Figures. She says that she never dreams about him unless she’s kicking him in the nuts.
I’m pretty sure there weren’t any trolls in Lord of the Rings. I know The Hobbit had a few, though. Maybe she’s thinking of Gollum?
Whatever. He laughs, and a whole paragraph is dedicated to describing the alluring qualities of said laugh.
Emma wonders if the dream she had was a premonition, and this worries her because the guy in the dream was obviously dangerous. She asks Guy if he has turquoise eyes. He denies it, but his reaction makes it ridiculously obvious that he does. That, and I’m pretty sure that was established in the last chapter.
The story skips to Emma on the plane. Guy is in a bad mood, and Emma once again tries to get him to tell her who he is. Instead, he asks her an unrelated question.
Her grandma’s been mentioned before, but I kind of assumed she’d died. Guess I jumped to conclusions. Emma gives us a page-long exposition dump about how wonderful her grandma was and how devastated her family was when she suddenly disappeared. Apparently the authorities came to the conclusion that she’d run away because she’d taken her passport and all her money. Sounds like a reasonable conclusion, but Emma insists that she’d never do that, and that she must be dead because nothing else could have kept her away.
By this point it’s glaringly obvious that this disappearance ties into the plot in some way. The next thing Guy says pretty much confirms this.
That is not what I expected. He knew her grandma? So basically he’s been stalking her family for…how long? Wow. Just…wow.
You know what? I’m going to keep track of how many times this guy gives me stalker vibes. There’s already the fact that he’s been hanging with Emma since she was little, so that’s already one. Let’s add one more, shall we?
Creeper points: 2
Emma goes into the bathroom to have a private conversation with Guy after waiting for three other people to go in and out. As someone who’s been on plenty of plane rides, I can relate. The following conversation establishes that Emma is the only one that Guy has done this mental connection thing with. Most of it consists of the two having yet another argument about Guy being secretive.
At some point, Emma wonders if maybe Guy is some kind of monster who might never let her go, and that’s why he won’t tell her anything. She tries to back out, but Guy stops her by saying that he can help her find out what happened to her grandma. This is one hell of a low blow, and Emma realizes this. She takes it as proof that he can’t be trusted. Still, she has to go along with things because she really does want to know the truth.
So she does the only thing she can to spite him. She puts in her earbuds and listens to music he hates. Chapter over.
Yeah…this is getting weird. Really weird. And trust me – it only gets worse in the next chapter.
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