“I can do this,” I whisper. I don’t sound convincing, even to myself. Sobs gather at the back of my throat, but I swallow hard. “It’s just pain. I can do this.”
In the cell beside mine, a man’s hoarse voice mumbles, “Absorption. Absorptivity. Which element? Neutral solution. Need a neutral solution. Neutral!”
Slowly, I stretch my body forward and start to crawl. The back-and-forth motion of my hips as I move my legs feels like someone is sawing away at my spine with a piece of metal, but I move nearly a yard before the pain forces me to stop.
Easing my face to the floor again, I let the stone cool my flushed cheeks and tell the contents of my stomach to stay put.
“Not a neutral solution. Not that element. What is the heat capacity?” The man’s mumbles become incoherent ramblings, and I suck in a breath of air, determined not to vomit from the pain.
“I can do this.” I sound better this time. Like I believe it. “I’m Jared Adams’s daughter, and pain isn’t going to stop me. Nothing can stop me. I can do this.”
The man’s mumbling halts abruptly. Something scratches the wall beside me, and I turn my face toward it as the voice says, “Jared Adams’s daughter is Rachel. Rachel. Rachel knows Logan . . . Logan . . . Logan.” The voice rises, trembling, as if latching on to Logan’s name with all its strength, and suddenly a bright-blue eye blinks at me through a crack between one slat of wood and the next.
I jerk away from the wall and gasp as the quick movement sears my back.
“Don’t go. Don’t. Rachel Adams?”
I stare at the blue eye, and it blinks rapidly, and then the man shifts, giving me a quick glimpse of a scarred face, before he brings his other eye to the slat. This eye is covered in white film and the skin around it puckers and swells, part of a long scar that stretches beyond the piece of him that I can see.
“Doesn’t work. Doesn’t. Can’t see you. Logan? Please, my son? Please.”
My breath comes in hard pants as ice slides through me, leaving a clammy chill on my skin as I slowly inch my way closer to the crack in the wall. Time feels sluggish, even though the thoughts in my head are spinning like a kaleidoscope of images that refuse to make sense.
The film-covered eye disappears, and the blue eye returns.
“My son? Rachel, Jared’s daughter, my son?”
“Your son?” I whisper the words, and he jerks as if surprised to hear me speak to him.
“They took him. Jared promised he’s good. He’s fine. They took him away.” His voice climbs again. “They took my sons. My sons. Please.”
“Do you mean . . . Logan and Ian?” My tongue feels clumsy as I form the words. As I try to wrap my mind around what I’m seeing.
“Ian.” His voice breaks, full of the kind of terrible grief that I once shoved into the silence within me because I was sure it would shatter me if I let myself feel it. “Gone. Everyone gone.”
My skin feels cold and my fingers shake as I ask, “Are you Marcus McEntire?”
“Was. Now I’m . . .” The eye blinks once and looks away from me as if searching for the answer. For a way to sum up the person he’s become since losing all of his loved ones. Since having his leader force his remaining son to whip him to the point of death. I know that feeling. That awful darkness that presses against your skin from the inside out and whispers that you have nothing left to live for and only yourself to blame.
“You’re still Marcus,” I say gently. “And you haven’t lost everyone. They’re alive. Your sons are alive.”
Though one of them deserves to die.
He looks at me, his gaze feverish with desperate hope. “You know my sons? Know Ian? Know him?”
I swallow hard and keep my voice even. “I do.”
He makes a choked sound, and then says, “Good boy. Good son. James will punish for what I did. I did. Ian? My son is good?”
I stare at him, and realize that all he knows of Ian is the boy with dreams. The boy who just wanted his mother to notice him and his father to be proud of him. He doesn’t know that the moment Ian was forced to take a whip against his father, he started on a long, slippery slope that ended with murder and madness.
I can’t tell him. I can’t rip away the hope he’s clinging to. I close my eyes and think of Logan. Of the way he takes the time to listen to others because what they have to say matters to him. The way he refuses to let anything but his own integrity define him. The way he fights for those who can’t fight for themselves, even if they aren’t ready to thank him for it.
Holding Logan in my mind, I open my eyes, look at Marcus, and say, “Yes, your son is okay. He’s a good man. You can be proud of him.”
He pulls back from the wall, and I see what looks like a smile on his ruined face before he disappears into the depths of his cell, humming a strange, broken melody and whispering Ian’s name to himself.
Marcus McEntire is alive. One more thing James Rowan lied to Samuel about. Lied to Ian about. I wonder what either of them would do to their precious leader if I could figure out a way to show them the truth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LOGAN
Willow drops from the tree behind me on our second day of travel from the highwaymen’s camp to Chelmingford and takes her lunch portion from Jodi’s outstretched hands. “We’re being followed.”
I freeze in the act of taking another bite. “Highwaymen?”
In the cell beside mine, a man’s hoarse voice mumbles, “Absorption. Absorptivity. Which element? Neutral solution. Need a neutral solution. Neutral!”
Slowly, I stretch my body forward and start to crawl. The back-and-forth motion of my hips as I move my legs feels like someone is sawing away at my spine with a piece of metal, but I move nearly a yard before the pain forces me to stop.
Easing my face to the floor again, I let the stone cool my flushed cheeks and tell the contents of my stomach to stay put.
“Not a neutral solution. Not that element. What is the heat capacity?” The man’s mumbles become incoherent ramblings, and I suck in a breath of air, determined not to vomit from the pain.
“I can do this.” I sound better this time. Like I believe it. “I’m Jared Adams’s daughter, and pain isn’t going to stop me. Nothing can stop me. I can do this.”
The man’s mumbling halts abruptly. Something scratches the wall beside me, and I turn my face toward it as the voice says, “Jared Adams’s daughter is Rachel. Rachel. Rachel knows Logan . . . Logan . . . Logan.” The voice rises, trembling, as if latching on to Logan’s name with all its strength, and suddenly a bright-blue eye blinks at me through a crack between one slat of wood and the next.
I jerk away from the wall and gasp as the quick movement sears my back.
“Don’t go. Don’t. Rachel Adams?”
I stare at the blue eye, and it blinks rapidly, and then the man shifts, giving me a quick glimpse of a scarred face, before he brings his other eye to the slat. This eye is covered in white film and the skin around it puckers and swells, part of a long scar that stretches beyond the piece of him that I can see.
“Doesn’t work. Doesn’t. Can’t see you. Logan? Please, my son? Please.”
My breath comes in hard pants as ice slides through me, leaving a clammy chill on my skin as I slowly inch my way closer to the crack in the wall. Time feels sluggish, even though the thoughts in my head are spinning like a kaleidoscope of images that refuse to make sense.
The film-covered eye disappears, and the blue eye returns.
“My son? Rachel, Jared’s daughter, my son?”
“Your son?” I whisper the words, and he jerks as if surprised to hear me speak to him.
“They took him. Jared promised he’s good. He’s fine. They took him away.” His voice climbs again. “They took my sons. My sons. Please.”
“Do you mean . . . Logan and Ian?” My tongue feels clumsy as I form the words. As I try to wrap my mind around what I’m seeing.
“Ian.” His voice breaks, full of the kind of terrible grief that I once shoved into the silence within me because I was sure it would shatter me if I let myself feel it. “Gone. Everyone gone.”
My skin feels cold and my fingers shake as I ask, “Are you Marcus McEntire?”
“Was. Now I’m . . .” The eye blinks once and looks away from me as if searching for the answer. For a way to sum up the person he’s become since losing all of his loved ones. Since having his leader force his remaining son to whip him to the point of death. I know that feeling. That awful darkness that presses against your skin from the inside out and whispers that you have nothing left to live for and only yourself to blame.
“You’re still Marcus,” I say gently. “And you haven’t lost everyone. They’re alive. Your sons are alive.”
Though one of them deserves to die.
He looks at me, his gaze feverish with desperate hope. “You know my sons? Know Ian? Know him?”
I swallow hard and keep my voice even. “I do.”
He makes a choked sound, and then says, “Good boy. Good son. James will punish for what I did. I did. Ian? My son is good?”
I stare at him, and realize that all he knows of Ian is the boy with dreams. The boy who just wanted his mother to notice him and his father to be proud of him. He doesn’t know that the moment Ian was forced to take a whip against his father, he started on a long, slippery slope that ended with murder and madness.
I can’t tell him. I can’t rip away the hope he’s clinging to. I close my eyes and think of Logan. Of the way he takes the time to listen to others because what they have to say matters to him. The way he refuses to let anything but his own integrity define him. The way he fights for those who can’t fight for themselves, even if they aren’t ready to thank him for it.
Holding Logan in my mind, I open my eyes, look at Marcus, and say, “Yes, your son is okay. He’s a good man. You can be proud of him.”
He pulls back from the wall, and I see what looks like a smile on his ruined face before he disappears into the depths of his cell, humming a strange, broken melody and whispering Ian’s name to himself.
Marcus McEntire is alive. One more thing James Rowan lied to Samuel about. Lied to Ian about. I wonder what either of them would do to their precious leader if I could figure out a way to show them the truth.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
LOGAN
Willow drops from the tree behind me on our second day of travel from the highwaymen’s camp to Chelmingford and takes her lunch portion from Jodi’s outstretched hands. “We’re being followed.”
I freeze in the act of taking another bite. “Highwaymen?”
