“You tried to kill me.” My voice shakes.
“Disarm. To take it.” He coughs, a horrible wet sound that sprays me with blood.
“No. No.” I pull the knife free as he slides onto the ground. “No.”
My hands can’t stop the bleeding, but I try. Pressing against his wound, I try to make sense of him. Of myself. Of what we’ve done.
What I’ve done.
He raises a hand, long fingers gleaming white in the moonlight. “Eloise?”
I can’t look at him. I can’t. But I’ve lied to him before, and I can lie once more. “Yes.”
“Can’t save you.” His voice is nothing but a whisper straining against the blood filling up his throat.
“You just did.” I can barely speak past the suffocating guilt choking me. I killed him. A desperate man. A pawn of the Commander’s who wanted nothing more than to save his beloved wife.
He doesn’t speak again, and I cover his wound with my blood-stained hands until his chest falls quiet.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
LOGAN
I hear the Rowansmark battalion before I see them. No need to use stealth when you have sheer numbers on your side, I guess. They swarm out of the trees, carrying swords and torches. Quickly, I close my eyes before the firelight costs me my night vision. I can track their movements with my ears instead.
It’s immediately obvious they aren’t tracking. They’re hunting. Trying to flush out their prey. Walking with less than five yards between each soldier, beating at the underbrush with their swords, peering up into the trees they pass with the help of their torches.
I’ll be fine. I’m up high enough that the torchlight can’t reach me. I settle against the branches and wait while they spread along the Wasteland beneath me, calling to each other, swinging their swords, and making enough noise to announce their presence to anyone within two hundred yards of us.
Before long, they’re gone. I wait until I can no longer hear them beating the bushes, until their yells fade into silence, and expect the normal noises of night in the Wasteland to resume.
They don’t.
Which means I’m not as alone as someone wants me to think. Tension coils within me, and I slowly draw my knife.
It’s a smart plan. Use loud, obvious hunters and hope that once the prey eludes them, he’ll feel comfortable and give himself away. I’d have done the same myself.
Settling slowly against the tree, I hold myself absolutely still, ignoring the pain in my side demanding I readjust in an effort to find a more comfortable position.
It takes almost an hour, but then I hear him. A faint whisper of sound that could almost be mistaken for the breeze. Almost. But the birds are still silent, and the forest feels like it’s holding its breath.
I don’t try to look for him. If he’s tree-leaping, I’ll feel it if he lands in mine. But if I move to a position where I have better visibility, he’ll catch the movement. And if he doesn’t, he’ll certainly catch the noise.
Instead, I wait. I don’t hear him again, but eventually the birds hoot, coo, and chirp, and I hear the nocturnal ramblings of raccoons on the ground below.
He’s gone.
But he and a battalion of Rowansmark military men are now between me and the safe house.
The only recourse I have is to move with extreme caution and come up with a plan as I travel. I can’t single-handedly overwhelm an entire battalion. I have to hope I can outwit them.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
RACHEL
I sit by Melkin’s body until dawn bleeds across the sky. Quinn sits with me while Willow remains on guard somewhere in the trees.
I didn’t ask him to sit with me. But somehow having him there, quietly present without offering judgment, makes the ragged edges in me settle just a bit. I haven’t spoken since my final words to Melkin, but as the gloom around us lifts, I raise my eyes to Quinn’s.
“I killed him.”
He nods.
“I thought he was going to kill me first. He attacked me. He had his weapons out. I was sure he was going to kill me.” I was sure, but now I’m not. Now, I’m looking back and remembering I jumped up from my travel mat with my knife already raised for battle while his was still trained at the ground. I lunged at him, blade out, before he ever raised his sword.
He was trying to disarm me and defend himself. And I killed him.
I struggle to my feet and run to the edge of the trees, where I fall to my knees and retch.
I killed him.
My stomach is empty, but I keep heaving.
I killed him.
I’m shaking, my teeth clattering against each other violently, when Quinn’s solid arms wrap around me from behind and hold me against his warm chest.
“You thought you were defending yourself.”
I did think that, but it doesn’t comfort me now, and it won’t comfort Eloise.
“It happened fast. Did you make the best decision you could given the information you had?”
I twist around to look at him, his warm brown eyes steady on mine, his straight black hair haloed by the early morning light. “I don’t want absolution.”
“I’m not offering any. Take the blame that belongs to you, and nothing else. I’m asking you to look it in the eye and face it for what it is.”
But I can’t face it. Not really. If I do, if I let it cut me like I deserve, everything else will spill out too. Oliver. Dad. Melkin. Logan at the Commander’s mercy in a dungeon. It’s all one gaping pit of loss, destruction, and grief, and if I feel it, I’ll never be able to protect the device and deliver judgment.
“Disarm. To take it.” He coughs, a horrible wet sound that sprays me with blood.
“No. No.” I pull the knife free as he slides onto the ground. “No.”
My hands can’t stop the bleeding, but I try. Pressing against his wound, I try to make sense of him. Of myself. Of what we’ve done.
What I’ve done.
He raises a hand, long fingers gleaming white in the moonlight. “Eloise?”
I can’t look at him. I can’t. But I’ve lied to him before, and I can lie once more. “Yes.”
“Can’t save you.” His voice is nothing but a whisper straining against the blood filling up his throat.
“You just did.” I can barely speak past the suffocating guilt choking me. I killed him. A desperate man. A pawn of the Commander’s who wanted nothing more than to save his beloved wife.
He doesn’t speak again, and I cover his wound with my blood-stained hands until his chest falls quiet.
CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
LOGAN
I hear the Rowansmark battalion before I see them. No need to use stealth when you have sheer numbers on your side, I guess. They swarm out of the trees, carrying swords and torches. Quickly, I close my eyes before the firelight costs me my night vision. I can track their movements with my ears instead.
It’s immediately obvious they aren’t tracking. They’re hunting. Trying to flush out their prey. Walking with less than five yards between each soldier, beating at the underbrush with their swords, peering up into the trees they pass with the help of their torches.
I’ll be fine. I’m up high enough that the torchlight can’t reach me. I settle against the branches and wait while they spread along the Wasteland beneath me, calling to each other, swinging their swords, and making enough noise to announce their presence to anyone within two hundred yards of us.
Before long, they’re gone. I wait until I can no longer hear them beating the bushes, until their yells fade into silence, and expect the normal noises of night in the Wasteland to resume.
They don’t.
Which means I’m not as alone as someone wants me to think. Tension coils within me, and I slowly draw my knife.
It’s a smart plan. Use loud, obvious hunters and hope that once the prey eludes them, he’ll feel comfortable and give himself away. I’d have done the same myself.
Settling slowly against the tree, I hold myself absolutely still, ignoring the pain in my side demanding I readjust in an effort to find a more comfortable position.
It takes almost an hour, but then I hear him. A faint whisper of sound that could almost be mistaken for the breeze. Almost. But the birds are still silent, and the forest feels like it’s holding its breath.
I don’t try to look for him. If he’s tree-leaping, I’ll feel it if he lands in mine. But if I move to a position where I have better visibility, he’ll catch the movement. And if he doesn’t, he’ll certainly catch the noise.
Instead, I wait. I don’t hear him again, but eventually the birds hoot, coo, and chirp, and I hear the nocturnal ramblings of raccoons on the ground below.
He’s gone.
But he and a battalion of Rowansmark military men are now between me and the safe house.
The only recourse I have is to move with extreme caution and come up with a plan as I travel. I can’t single-handedly overwhelm an entire battalion. I have to hope I can outwit them.
CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX
RACHEL
I sit by Melkin’s body until dawn bleeds across the sky. Quinn sits with me while Willow remains on guard somewhere in the trees.
I didn’t ask him to sit with me. But somehow having him there, quietly present without offering judgment, makes the ragged edges in me settle just a bit. I haven’t spoken since my final words to Melkin, but as the gloom around us lifts, I raise my eyes to Quinn’s.
“I killed him.”
He nods.
“I thought he was going to kill me first. He attacked me. He had his weapons out. I was sure he was going to kill me.” I was sure, but now I’m not. Now, I’m looking back and remembering I jumped up from my travel mat with my knife already raised for battle while his was still trained at the ground. I lunged at him, blade out, before he ever raised his sword.
He was trying to disarm me and defend himself. And I killed him.
I struggle to my feet and run to the edge of the trees, where I fall to my knees and retch.
I killed him.
My stomach is empty, but I keep heaving.
I killed him.
I’m shaking, my teeth clattering against each other violently, when Quinn’s solid arms wrap around me from behind and hold me against his warm chest.
“You thought you were defending yourself.”
I did think that, but it doesn’t comfort me now, and it won’t comfort Eloise.
“It happened fast. Did you make the best decision you could given the information you had?”
I twist around to look at him, his warm brown eyes steady on mine, his straight black hair haloed by the early morning light. “I don’t want absolution.”
“I’m not offering any. Take the blame that belongs to you, and nothing else. I’m asking you to look it in the eye and face it for what it is.”
But I can’t face it. Not really. If I do, if I let it cut me like I deserve, everything else will spill out too. Oliver. Dad. Melkin. Logan at the Commander’s mercy in a dungeon. It’s all one gaping pit of loss, destruction, and grief, and if I feel it, I’ll never be able to protect the device and deliver judgment.
