Diana didn't look like she believed him 100%, which meant that her intuition was as sharp as ever, but she didn't pursue it.
"Get a couple of hours sleep, we'll leave on the first flight out," she told him.
Just like that, it was all back to business for her. Will wasn't so sure he could do the same.
One Week Later
Chapter Twenty-Two
Everything had begun to move very quickly after Caleb told Master Mahmid what had happened the night of the gala. It was clear that an attack was imminent, so they had to start calling back the Guardians and Chosen who were still loyal, which included Caleb and Kiara. Hallie had been adamant that she was going too. There was no way she was watching either of them go off to fight and staying behind so she could fret. Lily had much the same reaction, except calmer. They were all going, there was no changing their minds.
It was the night before their flight to Italy and Hallie was almost ready to go. There had been a lot of running around getting all the stuff she and Kiara needed for an extended stay in Europe. They had imagined travelling across the continent together after they had both graduated, but life had a funny way of messing with your dreams. If they made it through the ordeal ahead intact, they were taking a vacation afterwards. They deserved it after the last few months.
Hallie had left Kiara sorting out the last of their clothes to take out the trash. She didn’t want her apartment reeking of banana peels and half eaten chicken when she returned. That would be gross.
She had just lifted the lid on the building’s big, plastic rubbish bin when she heard footsteps approaching behind her out of the darkness.
"Back off!" Hallie cried out, brandishing the trash bag in the lurker's direction.
The person immediately raised their hands in surrender, stepping into the light so that she could see his face.
"Will?"
She let out a huge sigh of relief.
"God, I thought you were going to murder me."
"I think that would have been--"
He didn't manage to finish his sentence because suddenly he was being slapped across head with a dirty sack of old food.
"Where the hell have you been?!" she demanded, switching from relief to pissed beyond belief in under five seconds.
Hallie had every reason to be angry with him. It had been almost four years since any of their family had seen Will alive, they were all worried sick. She still wouldn’t have known anything if Kiara hadn’t seen him at the gala with Caleb’s Mom.
“Just let me--”
Will caught the bag with his hand when she raised it to smack him again, throwing it to the ground. They squared off, only a couple of inches between them in height. It was like they were kids again and Will had just stolen Hallie’s toy car.
“Didn’t your girlfriend explain?”
“Well, yuh. But I want to hear it from you, the jerk who abandoned his entire family without so much as a word.”
Will looked wounded, but she wouldn’t take it back. She hurt more.
“I had to leave. I couldn’t stick around knowing that I was going to die. It would have been such a burden on all of you.”
“Don’t you think we deserved that choice? Instead of sparing us pain, you only caused more of it! I’ve been worried about you every day since you left, wondering where you were or if you were even still alive. That wasn’t fair.”
“I wasn’t…” Will stopped and started again. “It would have been worse if I stayed.”
“How are you supposed to know what would have been worse? I’ve been going through all of this with Kiara and sticking together is what has made it bearable,” she said. “You just don’t want to admit to yourself that we’re not the reason you left.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You were scared, you freaked out, you didn’t want to be the cause of our pain and so you ran. It was all about you, Will, not us. We love you so much that we would have taken anything just to be able to spend this time with you. But you took that away from us.”
Will started to look guilty.
“These last four years we could have been visiting all the places on your list, eating ridiculous amounts of junk food, spending time as a family. All that time you stole, we can’t get back. It’s gone. How were you expecting me to feel about it?”
It didn’t look like he knew.
Will slumped back from her, becoming smaller physically and figuratively.
“I didn’t think,” he said.
“No, of course you didn’t. If you had, then none of this would be happening right now. We wouldn’t be on opposite sides of a stupid fight about stupid revenge.”
“No, wait,” he went to defend Caleb’s Mom, but a sharp laugh from him cut him off before he could really start.
“Don’t you dare. If you had seen how heartbroken Caleb was after what happened that night, you wouldn’t bother trying to protect her.”
“Caleb wasn’t the only one who was heartbroken that night.”
This took Hallie by surprise.
“You didn’t see Diana when she came back from trying to convince him to join her, she was an absolute mess. I’ve never seen her fall apart like that before.”
Hallie opened and closed her mouth.
“Does this mean that she’s reconsidering?”
Will shook his head. “If anything, it spurred her on.”
“Well, there’s goes my sympathy,” Hallie said.
“How can you still stand beside her when you know how many people could get hurt by this, including me and my friends?”
“I…” Will faltered. “I don’t know.”
Hallie looked at his face, seeing the confusion there. He had been committed to Diana for who knew how long, but one argument with her and his resolve was crumbling. The Guardian hadn’t been able to break his loyalty to his family, not really.
“You don’t have to follow her to the end of this road. You can change your mind.”
“Hallie…”
“You want to tell me it’s not that easy, but it is, Will. Diana was doing this because she thought her son was dead, but he’s not, he’s alive. She should be able to take anything else up with those who wronged her, she doesn’t have to attack a Citadel full of people to get what she wants. You have to see that she’s being unreasonable.”
Will rubbed his forehead the back of his hand, taking a moment to hide behind his arm as he considered what she was saying.
“I can, but…”
“But what?”
“I’ve been at her side all this time. If I turn on her now, then it’ll be like I’m betraying her as badly as Mahmid and the others did all those years ago.”
“That’s not your problem.”
Will didn’t look so sure.
Hallie reached out to him and took his hand in hers, squeezing it gently.
“Will, please. We’ve spent so much time apart. I don’t want whatever time you have left to involve us fighting.”
He looked into her pleading brown eyes, the same eyes that had ended so many of their arguments over the years, then linked his fingers with hers.
“I want to say yes, but I can’t do anything without talking to her.”
Hallie’s fingers began to slip away from his, but he kept a hold of them.
“I know how dumb I’ve been. I’m going to try and make this right. Can you at least believe that much?”
It took her a moment, but she nodded.
“Thank you.”
Without asking for permission, Will wrapped her up in a bone crushing hug. If she wasn’t so tired of missing him, she might have protested, but the truth was that she’d forgotten how good it felt to be smooshed under his big, strong arms.
“I love you,” he said. “Whatever happens, that’s never going to change.”
“I love you too.”
Hallie would have usually followed that with some sort of insult or quip, but she didn’t want to ruin the moment in case this ended up bein
g the last time she ever saw him.
Will eventually pulled away, putting a little distance between them, she assumed so that he wasn’t tempted to stay.
“I’ll see you around,” he said. “Stay out of trouble, Trouble.”
“Right back atcha, Big T,” she replied with a tight lipped but genuine smile.
A couple of steps back and, just like that, her brother was gone.
Hallie didn’t know where exactly he was headed, or how his talk with Diana would turn out, but she hoped that she would see him again. After all, parting was supposed to be sweet sorrow. It wasn’t supposed to suck.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Will felt sick. His stomach had been churning the whole overnight train ride back from London, worrying about what was going to happen. Hallie hadn’t been gentle with him, which was probably what he had needed. He had spent so much time in his head assuming how it would go that everything had got twisted. She brought him straight back to reality. He had been selfish and stupid, he knew that now. However, knowing that he had her to go back to wouldn’t make talking to Diana any easier. He wanted to see her get what she wanted because her ideas, when you boiled them down, were the direction he believed the Guardian order should go. But he couldn’t stand by and see his sister get hurt when he knew he could have stopped it and he certainly couldn’t be the one to hurt her anymore.
“There you are,” Diana said.
The woman had been waiting outside his tent, no doubt wondering what was taking so long. All he had said was that he had one more thing he had to take care of before the siege, he hadn’t told her that thing was seeing his sister.
“Yeah, hi.”
His voice was strangled, that wasn’t how it was supposed to come out.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, instantly knowing that something had changed.
Will looked around, they weren’t exactly alone right now.
“Can we go somewhere a little more private?”
Diana motioned for him to lead the way. She was probably wondering why he was leading her so far out of camp, but he didn’t want to cause a massive fuss in front of everyone, especially if this went badly.
“I didn’t know we needed this much privacy,” she remarked when they came to a stop, looking at him with a raised eyebrow.
“You’ll understand why in a moment.”
Diana looked puzzled. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
Will took a deep breath, knowing that what he said next was going to change everything between them.
“I’m leaving.”
Diana actually laughed.
“Is that a joke?”
“No,” Will replied quietly.
Her expression shifted from disbelief to serious as the realisation that he was being honest settled in.
“Where were you the last couple of days?”
“I went to see my sister, Hallie. I couldn’t resist the opportunity, not after I found out that she was in London.”
“How did you find out?”
“Caleb’s Chosen, Kiara, she’s dating my sister.”
It was such a massive coincidence that he couldn’t ignore it.
“So, she’ll be fighting for the other side,” Diana deduced.
“Yes.”
“And your conscience can’t take it.”
“Exactly.”
It seemed like Diana was being understanding, but then he saw it in her eyes, how wounded she was by this.
“So, you’re going to abandon me too?”
If Will hadn’t been upset, he probably would have noticed how she was loading her language.
“I don’t want to, but--”
“Then don’t. What if I promised that no harm would come to her?”
“You can’t make that promise. There are a hundred people here. The fight is going to be out of control once it gets inside those walls, she could get hurt regardless.”
“I’ll order them to--”
“No. There’s too much of a risk.”
Diana could see him slipping away, her anger and panic making it hard for her to form words.
“If you give me some time, I’m sure we can figure something out,” she said.
“Something that doesn’t involve violence?”
“You know they won’t respond to anything but, we’ve gone over this.”
“Then there’s nothing to figure out. You’ve been the best mentor and friend that I ever could have asked for, but I have to choose family over everything else. I can see how choosing the opposite is tearing you apart, I can’t do that to myself or my sister.”
“I’m doing that because I know that it will provide a better future for the both of us,” she told him, her voice getting louder. “Why give up on this now when we’re so close to getting everything that we want?”
“Because if someone who I recruited to this cause hurts even one hair on Hallie’s head, I will never forgive myself. The end does not justify the means.”
Diana snapped her mouth shut and turned away from him. It looked like she was about to explode.
“I…” he tried, but he saw her clench her fists.
“If you’re going to go, then go,” she said harshly. “Get out of my sight before I do something that I regret.”
“Diana.”
“GO.”
Will knew that the only reason he wasn’t being beaten to a pulp right now was because of the connection they had. Anyone else would have been pinned down and locked away so they couldn’t cause any more trouble.
“Goodbye,” he said softly, before turning on his heel and putting as much distance between them as quickly as possible.
Will sprinted back to the main camp, ripping open his tent so that he could throw all of his stuff quickly into a duffel bag. If he didn’t leave right now, people would start asking questions.
Too late.
“Will?”
It was Priya, poking her head into his tent.
“What’s going on? Where are you going?”
“I can’t stay,” he said, not looking at her. Instead he focused on packing everything in as tightly as possible so that nothing got left behind.
“Why not?”
“I saw my sister.”
“Oh.”
Will turned his head and saw the understanding but disappointed expression on her face. Zipping up his bag, he crawled over to her and stood up.
“It turns out that she’s going to be right in the thick of it when the siege goes down and I can’t--”
“Will, you don’t have to explain it to me. I know how much you love her.”
He scooped her up in a grateful hug and she squeezed him hard, not wanting to let go. In truth, neither did he.
“Take care of yourself, okay? If we’re lucky, when we see each other again, we’ll be on the same side,” he said.
“I pray we are.”
Will put her back down on the ground and took a step back.
“Tell Aaren and Eshe to keep an eye on Diana for me, will you? I don’t want her to spiral completely out of control, so many more people could end up getting hurt.”
“I will, I promise.”
Will smiled.
“I’ll see you around.”
“Good luck,” Priya called after him, but he was already gone.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kiara had never flown in a private jet before. It had been a surreal experience going to London City Airport and not having to go through the usual long wait, security checks and the awkward hour of boarding where everyone queued for ages, then walked onto the plane at a snail’s pace because they were all faffing with their hand luggage. They walked straight through a part of the airport she’d never seen before, had a few quick checks and then they were off. Hallie kept giggling at the expressions on her face as she looked around in wonder or bewilderment, depending on what was happening.
Caleb was with them, but he was very focused on what lay ahead. This was going to be
his first time back at the Citadel since he discovered everything about the accident and the cover up with his Mum. He was certainly going to be having words with Master Mahmid, Kiara imagined.
Lily had flown out a couple of days ago with a couple of Guardians and another healer that she knew who lived in London. They wanted to help get everything set up as they were going to need regular medical supplies, as well as their healing hands. Anything that wasn’t life threatening was going to have to be bandaged up and dealt with after the battle was over.
The plane wasn’t very big, but the inside was very cosy. Cream leather seats, proper carpet, food and drinks provided. They weren’t sipping on champagne or anything, but the can of lemonade and packet of crisps tided her over until they touched down on Italian soil.
She and Hallie spent most of the flight talking about Will and what to expect at the Citadel. For Hallie’s sake, she really hoped that Will came through. It would be great for her to spend some time with her brother, try to make up for what they had lost.
In keeping with the same theme as the safe house, the Citadel wasn’t much to look at on the outside, other than the fact that it appeared to be an old 14th or 15th century castle, which was pretty cool. It had a boundary wall and a gate, where a member of security let them through when they pulled up in Caleb’s car. They drove up a dusty road which wound its way up the hill to a large courtyard of cobbles. The car bounced along as Caleb veered off to the right towards a ramp which she hadn’t noticed at first. It turned out it led to an underground car park where there were plenty of cars of all shapes and sizes, from all over the world.
Hallie whistled when they parked up next to a very flashy car.
“Someone here is weal-thy,” she said. “One of my Dad’s friends has one of these. He makes a shit ton of money and he still says it cost him an arm and a leg.”
“That’s Master Talbot’s car. He’s been a Guardian for close to five decades,” Caleb explained. “He trained Master Mahmid.”
“Dammmmmn,” Hallie said, still looking at the car approvingly.
“I didn’t realise you earned that much money,” Kiara said.
“We keep a decent living,” he replied. “We’ve built up lucrative deals with agencies around the world, then there’s rewards. Some Guardians take up second jobs when they don’t have an assigned Chosen, it’s how they make the big bucks.”
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