“He’s alive, but I think he needs to get to a doctor.” Laney assured him. “There are two of them. Richard . . . he’s Grady’s Ender. He told me he was the Translator.”
“I’m the Translator.” Brian moved to the side of the room. He closed in on the Jonas’ backside.
She looked at William and then back at Brian. “But we thought you were the Gate Keeper.”
“Translating is part of the Gate Keeper’s job. My list of clients is pretty short. I can handle both responsibilities as well as keep up the façade of a college jock.” She caught a glimpse of a grin on his face in the dim light.
“But William, you’re not injured. Jonas had me stab your leg during the battle in the book. You lost so much blood.” The guilt of writing those words still stung. It helped to know that this time they were only words.
“I’m fine. Let’s get your grandfather out of here.” He lifted Grady, which proved difficult without Brian’s help.
Laney picked up his legs and walked backwards toward the door while William held Grady’s upper body. Just when they were about to get him through the entryway, a dark figure approached William from behind.
“Look out!” Brian’s warning came too late. Jonas’ blade cut deep into William’s leg, causing him to cry out in pain.
William and Grady fell to the floor. Brian skirted past them and ran after Jonas, who was already jumping into the dumbwaiter. A brilliant flash of yellow light filled the room as Brian reached forward and grazed the Ender’s arm. The light left as quickly as it came, and Laney’s eyes adjusted to the dim light of the flashlights again.
Jonas was gone.
Chapter 23
After taking a moment to comprehend the scene, Laney rushed to William’s side. “Brian, wait by the door for Richard. I need to help William.” She maneuvered her t-shirt out from under her sweater and tied it above the wound.
“I’m the one who’s supposed to rescue you.” William’s labored breathing made it difficult for him to get the words out.
“I never was one for a traditional fairytale.” Laney ran her hand across his forehead. It shook as she struggled to hold it together. “Just rest. Jonas is gone. Everything will be fine.”
“We need to get both of them to the hospital.” She leaned down and kissed William on the forehead and then did the same to her grandfather before turning back to Brain. “Remember not to touch them.” She wasn’t ready to lose either of them to the book world.
“I know.” Brian moved back as she came near the door. “I’ll just wait here for Richard. Maybe I can take him by surprise.” He wiggled his fingers, the most powerful weapon in the room.
In her haste, Laney didn’t account for two critical elements, and they stopped her at the top of the stairs. The first thing was Richard’s craftiness. The door at the top of the stairs was locked from the outside, and all her banging was in vain. Nobody entered Taylor Hall on a Sunday. The second thing was William’s bravery. Her heart all but stopped when she heard her name from the passage below.
“Laney!” William wandered the hallway below, calling her name, unhindered by Brian who was afraid to touch him. She gave up her efforts to find help and ran down the stairs to keep him from attracting Richard.
As she drew closer to the chapel, she no longer heard William’s voice. In the beam of the flashlight, Laney saw drops of blood scattered here and there, clearly leading into the pitch- black hallway. Her flashlight cut through the darkness, but only revealed another turn in the passage. The ceiling curved over her like the crypt she’d snuck into with some friends one Halloween. The path of blood trailed close to the wall, the only thing holding William up.
She listened for a few moments before continuing. The sound of her breathing and heartbeat magnified tenfold in the stillness of the hall. The silence took on its own nature, as if it were another living creature within the labyrinth. An ominous feeling in the pit of Laney’s stomach made her wonder if her quest would soon be cut short. Under normal circumstances, she would have left this crypt-like hall for higher ground, but saving William pushed all these thoughts aside.
The passage turned to the left at the end of the hallway, leading down another hall that looked exactly like the first. Reaching the end, a staircase curved to a lower level below. The blood trail led her down, and she began to wonder if she should have brought Brian with her. But it was too late to turn back. She couldn’t leave William alone with Richard.
At the bottom of the stairs, the floor turned to dirt and led to the left. Shining her light around, she saw cobwebs hanging from the ceiling. The air was dank with musk — little fresh air reached this desolate world. Claustrophobia began to set in as the passage narrowed, but she kept moving, knowing that if she stopped, she wouldn’t be able to continue.
The passage turned a corner to the right and ended at a door with a dim light escaping below. Laney shined the light on the floor in front of her. She heard a clanging sound and a voice coming from the other side. Holding her breath, she tiptoed toward the door. Fear kept her heart racing; it almost kept up with the sound in the room, driving her forward.
The metal door had a large ornate handle molded into a fierce dog that looked so real that it seemed as if it would bite any fingers that touched it. It wiggled when she attempted to turn it, so it took her a minute to maneuver it the correct way to get the door to unlatch. She hoped the noise didn’t give her away. Opening it slowly, she peeked into the room beyond.
The chamber inside was much larger than any of the other rooms in this underground lair. Ornate archways, similar to the ones in the hallway, pushed the ceiling upward. Candles provided the only light, cutting through the darkness in several clusters throughout the room. The chamber would have made for the perfect set for any of the old black and white horror films.
Three iron cages lined the wall from floor to ceiling across the hall. Laney’s flashlight wasn’t bright enough to make out anything in the cages, so she moved along the wall, keeping to the shadows, to get a better look. If Richard found William, he might have locked him up as a trap. The silence made her heart beat faster again, afraid that any noise made by her feet might set off some type of alarm.
The cot in the first cage appeared empty, so she moved along the bars to the second. Her heart rate increased, so she took a shallow breath in an attempt to calm down. William’s crumpled form lay at the back of the cell. She pulled on the door, but it was locked.
“William.” Laney kept her voice to a whisper.
“I’m afraid you will have to be a little louder, Miss Holden.” Richard pulled a gun out of his pocket.
The blood drained from Laney’s face and her fingertips grew numb again.
“You scare too easily. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re my bargaining chip with Grady. He won’t finish the story unless he has proper motivation..” Richard banged the gun on the metal bars, creating the sound she heard from the hallway. “Wake up, William! You have a visitor.”
William lay toward the back on a single cot. His skin was dangerously pale, almost gray in the low lantern light. He turned his head and opened his eyes. When his gaze fell on Laney, he tried to lift himself up, the strain evident throughout his body.
“Don’t.” She pushed back the sob in her throat.
Richard opened the cell and Laney rushed over to William, trying to coax him back down onto the cot. She saw the renewal in his eyes as he rested his head back down — maybe it was the will to live. “Laney, I’m so sorry.”
“Shhhh. What are you talking about anyway? You came to save me. We’re going to be fine. You are going to be fine. Grady and Brian will be here soon.” With her last word, the cell door slammed shut and Richard walked away, keeping them both as prisoners.
“If we make it . . .” William stopped and seemed to be pulling the strength from somewhere inside, infusing his words with hope. “When we make it, will you come with me?”
“Into the story?”
“The wor
ld you created is so beautiful. I wish you could see it.” He gazed past her as if he were staring into her fictional world.
“But then I would no longer have control, and anything could happen to you.” Laney liked the ability to take care of William, even if she was doing a lousy job of it in the present moment.
“You don’t have control in this world, either. You have to give up that ability for us to be together. I’m willing to risk it. We were made for each other.” A faint smile appeared on his lips before he closed his eyes.
“Yes,” she whispered into his ear, as she thought about his words. William was made for her, with her own essence. But did he believe that she was made for him? Continuing to wrestle with that thought, she moved away to let him rest.
After a couple of failed attempts at opening the lock with a pin from her hair, Laney sat down on the floor and rested her head against the bed, listening to William’s shallow breaths. She reached out and held his hand, knowing they had little time left.
Their personal bubble formed around them again, blocking out the bars holding them in, the faint noises in the cavern, and the creepy room that surrounded them. In this space, it was just William and Laney, a love story to rival Romeo and Juliet. They would die together.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a door opening across the room. A flashlight, held by Brian’s tall form, caught her attention. A second, hunched-over form, followed him into the room, carrying his own flashlight.
“Brian!” she whispered. “Richard’s here. Go back.”
Brian raced across the room.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Richard’s voice came from the shadows to her right. He stepped out into the candlelight, a lion waiting in hiding until his prey revealed itself in the open. In his hand, the gun pointed straight at Laney. Brian stopped, his eyes wide.
“Did you send Jonas back?” Richard addressed the Gate Keeper.
“Yes.” Brian stood still.
Could a Gate could be harmed by human weapons? She remembered that William said Brian was human.
“He was a big nuisance anyway.” Richard laughed. “Was more trouble than what he was worth.” He nodded his chin in the direction of the other figure on the far side of the room. “At least he got me what I wanted.”
Grady stepped out of the darkness into the flickering candlelight. Laney sighed, knowing that he was all right. When he looked over at her, she saw a fierce determination in his eyes. And at that moment, she knew that someone understood her. The feeling of having someone you love harmed by something you created . . . only he could grasp how that felt.
“I see you brought the story with you. That’s good news for your little granddaughter. I’m not sure if our young hero here will be so lucky.” Richard moved to the door of the cage, never turning his back on Brian but keeping the gun aimed at Laney’s head. The door squealed as it opened, and Richard reached for her wrist to pull her to him. He brushed her hair away from her face. “You see, I’ve grown quite fond of Delaney. She’s really a star pupil.”
Grady moved forward past Brian, his teeth clenched with the unfamiliar burning still in his eyes. “If you touch another hair on that child, you won’t have a chance to live to regret it.”
Richard let go of Laney and she went straight back to William’s side. “It’s all up to you, Grady. If you finish the story, everyone will live happily ever after.”
“Why do you want to go back to the diner? She’s gone, there’s nothing left for you.” Grady’s anger flared. “At least in this world you have a career. People like you.”
“Do you think I’m happy here? Rebecca kept me here, nothing else.” Richard waved the gun around. “Now that she’s gone . . . ” He lowered his hands, but quickly regained his composure. “You didn’t deserve her, Grady.”
“I created her. I loved her more than any man has ever loved a woman. My life started when she stepped off the page. I never regretted one second that I spent with her.” Grady’s fists were balled. “But I do regret creating you.”
Laney brushed William’s forehead. She wasn’t the only one who regretted a character, or at least the way they turned out.
“Of course you do. Rebecca cared for me and you wanted her love all for yourself. She came to see me in secret because she knew how you’d react to our meetings.”
“I don’t doubt that. She always had compassion for pathetic, needy people.” Grady looked at Richard like he was a homely, puppy despised by the world. “She couldn’t hurt anyone, it wasn’t how she ticked.”
“That’s not why she came to see me. I can tell the difference between a charity case and true pleasure. Our times together were filled with laughter and conversation. I wiped away her tears when you left on that golf trip to Arizona for two weeks.” A grin crept across Richard’s face. “She needed me.”
“Liar!” Grady’s voice echoed through the room.
His face turned purple and the veins on his neck stood out. Laney had never seen him so angry. It seemed that it took everything in him not to lunge for Richard, who now stood in the doorway of the cage. The tension between the two thickened to the point that she thought the gun might go off. She cast a sideways glance at Richard. His face was smug. All the tension appeared to be one-sided.
Laney knew Richard only needed her to get Grady to finish his story, so she pleaded for the man in her arms. “What about William? Please let the Gate Keeper send him home. He’s losing a lot of blood.”
“Like I said before, the sooner Grady finishes the story, the sooner everyone can go on with their lives.”
For some strange reason, Laney had thought Richard held more compassion. She trembled, pulling William’s body closer to her.
“There’s a small problem with ending my story, Richard.” Grady now stood only a few yards away. His eyes glowed with what Laney now recognized as hatred. It was difficult to recognize because she’d never seen it in his eyes before. He held his manuscript in his hands but kept his eyes on their captor.
“And what’s that?” Richard stood up. “I’m losing patience.”
“When you went to look for the source of the blackout, I added a section to my book. It’s really quite good.” Pleasure crossed Grady’s lips. “I think you should hear it.”
“Change it!” Richard’s face flushed red, screaming both words. He entered the cage and grabbed Laney’s neck, yanking her away from William.
The raw area where Jonas had yanked her back against the chair throbbed. Tears streamed down Laney’s cheeks.
Richard held her with his forearm by the neck and pressed the barrel of the gun to her head. “Change the story, Grady, or she dies.”
Was this how it felt the moment before you died? Her focus turned to William below her lying so still. She silently prayed that life after death held a place for them.
Her trance state ended with a jolting of Richard’s arm against her chin. He held his grip, but continued to move his arm around like it was being told what to do by a little boy with a remote control. Richard let go of her and she fell to the ground. She swung around to see him drop his gun and grab his left arm with his right.
“I should have known.” Richard gasped and his face drained of all color. Beads of sweat dripped down his face as his body crumpled to the ground. He clutched his chest. A ring with a skull graced his finger, the symbol of an Ender. He whispered, “Rebecca,” before collapsing on the floor.
Laney stared at Grady, stunned. He did what she didn’t have it in her to do. Her grandfather used his story to kill his Ender.
The silence in the chamber reverberated in her ears, keeping Richard’s last word imprinted in her thoughts. She stared at his lifeless body, knowing that her plan would not have included an end to his life. He lay still for what seemed like an eternity before anyone moved. Finally, Grady entered the cage and took Laney’s hand, which still shook from fear and grief.
“It’s going to be alright, sweetheart.” He enveloped her int
o an embrace. “There’s no one left to hurt us.”
“What did you do to him in the book?” She never expected to live when she felt the hard end of Richard’s gun against her head.
“Let’s just say he ate a few too many French fries working in the diner. After a while it catches up to you.” Laney expected to see a smirk on Grady’s face, but his look was grim.
“A heart attack?” Although it was a natural cause, it still felt like murder.
“Yes.” He sighed. “Every good story needs a bit of poetic justice.” Grady turned to William. “This boy needs medical attention. Do you have your cell phone on you?”
Laney removed her phone from her back pocket. “No bars. And the door is locked upstairs. No one will be around for hours.” An ache grew in Laney’s heart because she knew what she had to do. “He needs to go back to his father, so we can work together to save him.”
“Maybe we can find a way to keep him here.” Grady touched her arm.
Tears filled her eyes, thinking about her only option. “No, he needs his father.” She knelt next to William, put her hand on his and leaned over to kiss his cheek.
His fingers closed on hers as she pulled back. His eyelids fluttered and he slowly opened his eyes.
“William, I love you.” She had to tell him before time ran out.
Using most of his strength, William managed a faint smile on his lips and whispered. “I love you, too.”
“Brian’s here. He’s going to get you help and everything will be fine.” She ran the back of her hand along his cheek, trying to restrain the sobs growing in her chest.
Brian stepped forward and knelt on the other side of William. “I can send you back to your house in Lexington.”
William stared at Laney, tears forming in the corners of his eyes. “No, not yet.”
Laney’s tears streamed down her cheeks. She grabbed his hand tighter, lifting it to her mouth. “I’ll find you. Don’t forget, I weave the words. Our threads are meant to be entwined.” Each word was more difficult to get out than the one before it.
The Weaver Page 20