by Merry Farmer
There was no response from the beacon. The static disappeared. The entire device went dead. He stared at it as if it he’d never seen the like before, as if it was some strange alien technology that had dropped from the heavens, interesting but useless. He narrowed his eyes at Kutrosky.
“You want your beacon?” he snapped, fury for everything the man had put them all through clenching together with his elation. He threw the useless hunk of metal, hitting Kutrosky in the chest. “It’s yours. Welcome to our world.”
He waited, half expecting Kutrosky to hurl another string of invectives. The man was silent, limp. His dark eyes stared out at nothing as if failure was incomprehensible. Sean removed his hand and leaned back. Stacey stood and stared down at him, shaking her head. A hint of a smile played across her lips.
“Nothing to say?” Danny took a step toward Kutrosky. All of the bitterness and animosity he had carried for the man for months, since before the crash, melted like snow in the sun. The terrible Brian Kutrosky was just another man scrambling in the dark now. “Secure him and find a place to hold him until we figure out what to do with him.”
He turned to walk off, handing the gun to Grace so that he could shrug off his coat to comfort the screaming baby against his chest. Gil had been standing behind him at the edge of the pavilion. He rushed forward now.
“Kutrosky’s ship might have problems entering the atmosphere, like we did,” he began. “Whatever disturbance—”
A roar cut him off. Danny twisted in time to see Kutrosky scrambling to his feet. He broke away from Sean and knocked Stacey to the ground. Heather screamed, “Danny, watch out!” as Kutrosky extended his arms, lunging for Danny’s throat.
Danny twisted, baby in his arms, to defend himself, but it was too late.
Grace fired the gun. Her baby wailed anew at the blast. The bullet smashed into Kutrosky’s head. Kutrosky dropped to the snow.
The winter forest was silent.
Grace’s face went white. She dropped the gun, straightening and staring at Kutrosky’s body as red spread out in the snow around his head. She tipped her chin up, mouth set in a tight line of determination, staring at Kutrosky’s body.
When his shock subsided, Danny inched to her and put one arm around her waist, holding her baby with the other. She let him draw her close, kiss her forehead.
“It’s all right,” he whispered, sounding loud against the force of the silence enveloping the settlement. He squeezed Grace as tightly as he could. “It’s all over now.”
“I know.” She nodded. “He had to die.”
She continued to stare at the body, the spreading pool of red snow, stiff in Danny’s arms. Then she sucked in a deep breath, circled her arms around him, and dropped her head to bury her face against the fur covering his shoulder. She didn’t cry. She just stood in his arms, trying to breathe.
“Disarm Kutrosky’s men,” Danny ordered, holding tight to Grace and the baby, filled with enough calm and determination to set the world around him straight. “If the pavilion is safe and the fires are extinguished, bring them inside so we can assess their condition and decide what to do with them.”
“What about the trouble-makers?” Stacey jumped to follow his orders, the soldiers right behind her. The settlement flowed to life again.
“Do whatever you need to get them in line.” By the look of the people he could see, there wasn’t much fight left now that Kutrosky was dead and their dreams of rescue dashed. “Put the wounded in the pavilion, closer to my office, if it’s still in one piece.” He would have to treat them before he did anything else.
“Your office and your herbs are safe,” somebody called to him over the slow rumble to action. The battle was over, and across the snow victors and vanquished alike moved with stunned silence. The sun filtered down through the treetops, bringing hope with it.
“Good,” Danny answered. “I need somebody to locate and remove all the bodies.” He glanced down at Kutrosky’s body. “And somebody get rid of this.”
“Yes, sir,” one of the soldiers answered.
Danny nodded as two men scooped Kutrosky’s body under his shoulders and dragged him away. He turned from the sight. He would never waste another thought on Kutrosky ever again.
He scanned the area. Nothing was distinct. He couldn’t count or distinguish the bodies from the wounded. He did, however, catch a fuzzy, writhing shape at the edge of the clearing.
“Somebody go get Kinn and put him with the wounded.” His face darkened at the thought of having to patch Kinn up.
“Kinn?” Sean stepped into range of Danny’s focus. “You found that bastard?”
Grace lifted her head from Danny’s shoulder and turned away.
“He went after Grace,” Danny explained. “I found her first.”
Sean opened his mouth to ask more questions. His gaze dropped to the baby as Danny took the red, flailing boy out of the sack and held him against the soft fur of his coat. Sean clenched his jaw shut, murder rising in his eyes.
“He’s Kinn’s?” he asked.
Grace hid her face further instead of answering.
Danny shifted toward her. Sean hadn’t known Grace was pregnant. How would he?
“He’s mine,” he answered.
Sean narrowed his eyes in confusion. “That’s impossible.”
Danny continued to stare at him, unmoving. Sean’s confusion flickered to rage as the truth dawned on him. The story of everything that had happened to Grace since she had gone solidified in his expression. He glanced from the baby to Danny to Grace. Grace refused to meet his eyes.
“I’ll bring Kinn to your office,” he hissed as though vowing to kill the man with his bare hands. His fists clenched at his sides as he stormed off. Soldiers jumped out of his path as he made his way to where Kinn lay bound.
“Come on.” Danny rested a hand on Grace’s back, nudging her toward an open flap of canvas in the wall of the pavilion. “You need rest and treatment as much as any of the men.”
“Take care of them first,” Grace murmured, eyes downcast.
“Only if you take the baby and find somewhere within my sight to lie down.”
She hesitated. He watched her swallow as they crossed from the bright, snowy sunlight into the heavy, smoke-scented air of the pavilion. At last, without words, she held out her arms for her son. Danny handed the boy over with tender care. The poor thing had exhausted himself with screaming and was asleep once more. Grace stared at him as she tucked him close to her chest and searched for a place to sit, eyes empty.
The inside of the pavilion was more intact than Danny expected it to be. One corner still smoked and the charred edges of the canvas wall smoldered with orange embers. Beth and Marjorie worked to put out the last of them, careful to preserve as much canvas as possible. Soldiers were already dragging men through a large gap in the wall closer to his office.
The wall of crates and canvas separating his space from the main room of the pavilion was untouched. His animals skittered and shuddered in their cages, but they all seemed accounted for. He touched the herb box on his desk as though it were a holy relic. It was his future, the half-blind healer of Grace’s moon.
“Danny!” Grace’s shout sent him dashing out of his office. She met him five feet into the main room and clutched him with white knuckles, turning to stare across the jumble of wounded.
There, seated against one of the tables in the center of the pavilion, surrounded by blankets, a baby in her arms, was Carrie. Her face was ghostly pale and wan, but she was alive.
“Grace?” Carrie stared at her old friend, struggling to sit straighter. She was as weak as her own child in her arms. Tears filled her weary eyes. “I’m sorry,” she croaked, dissolving into tears that shook her feeble form.
“Carrie.” Grace’s own eyes brimmed with tears. She broke from Danny and rushed as fast as she could, face pinched in pain, to crouch by Carrie’s side. Danny was sure they would have hugged each other and held on for dear life if they eac
h hadn’t had a tiny newborn in their arms. As it was they clutched each other as best they could, touching each other’s faces and hugging with one arm each, looking down at each other’s babies.
“Danny told me you were probably dead.” Grace found her voice first. “I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t believe him.”
“I’m so sorry, Grace.” Carrie wept on her friend’s shoulder. “I’m so sorry.”
“I don’t care.” Grace shifted to sit beside her, resting the baby in her lap so she could hold Carrie with both arms. “It’s all over now. It’s over. We’re safe, really and truly. Kutrosky is dead. I killed him. I killed him, Carrie.” Her face contorted in misery so pitched it was like a knife in Danny’s gut.
The two of them sat together, weeping bitterly over their wrongs, old and new. Danny had to turn away, swallowing the lump in his throat. Some things were too intimate even for him to be a part of. He glanced up, as Sean lurched through one of the pavilion’s canvas doors, dragging a struggling Kinn with him. Kinn had been freed from all of his bonds except those holding his hands. He limped. Fresh bruises and a cut marred his face.
“Put me down, you piece of shit!” Kinn did his best to threaten through his injuries and loss of blood. His eyes rolled as though he were on the verge of passing out.
“Where do you want him?” Sean rumbled. His knuckles were reddened and bruised and blood stained his boot.
God help him, Danny never thought he’d be proud of Sean in his life. Kinn deserved everything Sean could give him and more.
“Take him to my office.” He strode past the bench of wounded soldiers, motioning for Sean to drag Kinn with him. Some of them stared, most of them turned away, wanting no part of their former leader.
“I’m gonna kill you, you shit-eating cockroach!” Kinn struggled in vain against Sean’s hold as he was dragged into Danny’s office. He groaned as he bumped a pile of crates.
“So you’ve told me.” Danny ignored his threats. He closed the screen that separated his office from the rest of the pavilion. “Put him on the table there,” he directed Sean. He grabbed Kinn’s feet and helped to hoist him up onto the table.
“I am gonna fuck you up!” Kinn continued to buck as they held him even though his efforts earned him nothing. The wound in his shoulder oozed afresh.
“He hurt Grace, didn’t he?” Sean asked through clenched teeth. “That baby—”
“He’s mine!” Kinn roared. It sapped his strength and left him panting.
Danny met Sean’s eyes across the table and Kinn’s writhing body. Sean had lost. He had moved on. He had built a new life and a new family, but he still loved Grace. The thought didn’t spur Danny to anger or jealousy. A new feeling took the place of that darkness. Admiration. Gratitude.
“Keep his shoulder still,” he ordered Sean.
He left the table to fetch his herb box from the desk and a knife along with it. When he returned to the table, Kinn’s eyes widened at the glint of the knife’s long blade.
“Sorry we don’t have any anesthesia,” Danny drawled before digging the knife into Kinn’s shoulder to cut his way to the bullet.
Kinn shouted, screaming with rage and pain.
“It hurts, doesn’t it,” Danny spoke through gritted teeth, fingers feeling around for the bullet. “It hurts when someone violates you, takes everything that’s good and innocent from you.” Kinn continued to shout.
“Kill him,” Sean hissed. “You have the knife. Slit his throat and end it.”
Danny shook his head.
“He deserves to die for what he did to Grace.”
“No one deserves to die,” Danny said, barely audible. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, only that Grace would never forgive him if he spilled one more drop of blood. He would spend the rest of his days earning her forgiveness. He would bring life, not death. For her. He found the bullet and yanked it out with a grunt.
Sean was not so ready to embrace mercy. “Grace would—”
“She’s mine!” Kinn half shouted, half grunted, sweating and shaking as he fought not to pass out. “Grace is mine. You can’t have her, and neither can you.” He thrashed his head from Sean to Danny. “She was mine this whole time. In my house, in my bed.”
Danny slapped a wad of cloth bandage over Kinn’s shoulder as it poured blood. “You’re nothing more than a rabid animal, a rapist who kept her prisoner.”
Sean took a step back from the table, eyes flashing up to Danny. Dark understanding brought color and fury to Sean’s face. “There’s more? He kept Grace prisoner all this time?”
Danny started to nod. Kinn took advantage of the lack of restraint and swung a leg around to kick Danny. Strength gone, he missed.
“Hold him down!” Danny shouted at Sean, hands slipping off Kinn’s wound, bandages already soaked through.
“So what if you had her first,” Kinn raged on. “You aren’t half the man I am. And she liked it. She took it like a pro when she was with me. Sweet as honey and burning for it, begging me for it. I would fuck her all night sometimes.”
Danny slammed the bandages harder into Kinn’s wound. He wouldn’t bring death, but he could bring pain.
Sean tore open Danny’s herb box, digging inside.
“That’s my kid she carried inside her all this time,” Kinn raged on, growing weaker by the second. “I put it there and I had one hell of a good time doing it too. Doing her.”
Sean pulled his fist out of the herb box. Red juice squeezed out through his fingers like blood. “Are these the berries?” he asked.
“No, those ones are poison.”
“Good.” Sean slapped a handful of red berries to Kinn’s mouth.
“Sean—” Danny stopped short of holding him back.
“Eat these.” Sean shoved the berries between Kinn’s lips. “They’ll take away the pain.”
Kinn thrashed as Sean forced him to eat the entire fistful of berries, then held his mouth shut until he swallowed.
“You’d better run for your life, jackass,” Kinn gasped as Sean pulled his hand away and returned to the herb box, “because the second you let me out of here, shoulder or no shoulder, I’m gonna find you and flay you alive. Both of you. I’m gonna—”
Sean shoved another handful of berries into his mouth as Danny watched, horror mingling with approval. Kinn chomped on them, swallowed, and raged on.
“You think things were bad for Grace before? You don’t know what bad is, motherfucker! Think locking her in my house was bad? I’ll tie her to the bed. I’ll keep her there with—”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes bulging as he tried to force the rest of his words out. They didn’t come. His struggle changed from bucking against Danny’s restraint to writhing in agony. Sean jumped away, eyes wide. Kinn continued to twist and squirm, mouth open but no sound or breath coming out. He flopped to his side, rolling into the fetal position in spite of his bound hands. Dark red foam oozed out his mouth as his lips turned blue and his face grew splotchy. He kicked and struggled, jerking his way off the table and falling to the floor.
Danny and Sean both backed up, watching as Kinn convulsed, retching with nothing coming up. His tongue swelled, protruding from his mouth, thick and purple. He began to seize, eyes rolling back in his head as violent tremors shook him, blood from his shoulder staining the floor under him.
The seizure stopped suddenly. Kinn’s body was still. The bloodshot whites of his eyes glowed against his dark skin.
Danny wanted to kick the body over and over for good measure. Instead he glanced to meet Sean’s eyes.
Silent understanding passed between them. The punishment fit his crime.
“He died of his wounds,” Danny told Sean in a steady voice. “We were treating him and he had a seizure as we worked and died from it.”
Sean nodded. He glanced to Kinn’s black and swollen face then to Danny. “You did everything you could to save him, including trying some of your herbs, but he died anyhow.”
“We agree, then,
” Danny said.
“We do,” Sean murmured. “He will never hurt Grace again.”
Sean, the man who had caused infinite problems by coming between him and Grace, was his ally. It truly was a new world.
“Help me get him back up on the table,” he said.
They hefted the body back onto the table. Danny closed Kinn’s bulging eyes as Sean searched for something to cover the body with. They stood there staring at it for a moment before leaving for the main part of the pavilion. Far more deserving people had wounds that needed treating. Sean crossed through curious stares and questioning eyes to Carrie. She pulled away from Grace as he crouched by her side and embraced her.
Danny let them be. Whatever anger Sean had in him, it was invisible to outside eyes as he kissed Carrie and cradled his daughter’s forehead. As it should be. Danny turned away and began inspecting the wounded who were lined up to be treated. Cuts from knives and puncture wounds from crossbow bolts and arrows were easy to treat compared to healing the trauma of the attack.
Grace left Sean and Carrie to themselves and got up to cross the room to him, baby now sleeping peacefully in her arms.
“I thought you were resting,” he admonished her as gently as possible.
“Do you need any help?” she asked, eyes carrying more worry than her simple words implied.
He glanced up to her from the bandage he was tying around the chest of one of Kutrosky’s men. Her gaze flickered past him to his office and the fur-covered body on the table.
“He’s dead,” he told her what she needed to know. “I tried to cut the bullet out of his shoulder but….” He couldn’t lie to her. He couldn’t tell her the truth either.
She met his eyes and held them. Whether she could see through his lie or not, the guilty relief that flooded her face spoke volumes. She sat heavily on the bench next to the man he was treating and broke into silent tears, holding her sleeping baby against her chest.