Deception

by C. J. Redwine

“She did.” His eyes are steady as he looks at me. “And then we captured Jared, and I refused to kill him. I knocked my father unconscious and took Jared to the leaders so they could detain him while we tried to decide if he was a legitimate threat. And Jared was . . . kind.” His hands squeeze mine. “He was kind, Rachel. He didn’t see Willow and me as monsters like the rest of the village did. He treated us with respect, and my father couldn’t stand it.”

  I know what’s coming, and a slick, icy dread fills my stomach.

  “He turned Willow loose. Ordered her to kill Jared, and make it truly awful, or I would pay the price.” He pauses and then says quietly, “And so I killed my father.”

  The breath I don’t realize I’m holding explodes from me in a rush. I’d thought he was going to tell me he killed my father to spare Willow. But instead, he’d sacrificed another piece of himself to save both his sister and a man he barely knew.

  “Quinn . . .”

  “I didn’t tell you that so you could feel sorry for me. I told you because I know what it’s like to make choices that leave you with nothing. I know how it feels to be so broken you think nothing will ever make it right.”

  He leans forward. “Rachel, I know the pain scares you. It should, because healing is so much harder than being hurt in the first place. But you will never get better until you stop running and start looking things in the eye. Until you give the things that hurt you the label they deserve, feel the way they make you feel, and then let the pieces slowly settle until you can breathe again.”

  I shiver beneath the intensity of his gaze. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  “Start small. Pick up one piece of it, look it in the eye, and let yourself feel it. You won’t break, Rachel. You’ll heal.”

  I shake my head. There’s so much. Where do I start?

  He rubs his fingers lightly across my knuckles, and waits until I meet his eyes. “Sylph is dead, Rachel. She’s gone. You didn’t get enough time with her, and that isn’t fair. You loved her, and now she’s gone.”

  My body trembles as his words slam against the silence within me, leaving a spiderweb of cracks in their wake. “No,” I say, as though by protesting, I can push the truth away from me.

  “Yes. This is true, and you won’t be whole again until you learn how to live with the truth, even when it hurts. Sylph is dead.”

  Grief surges out of the silence, hot and sharp and utterly devastating. It wraps around my chest, crushes the air from my lungs, and sinks into every inch of me. I open my mouth to give voice to the horrible keening locked deep inside of me, but the air won’t come. I’m choking on the memories. On the way her eyes lit up over every little thing. On the smile she gave to everyone else and the smile she reserved just for me.

  “Oh.” Air rushes past my lips, and the grief becomes a creature of terrible strength determined to turn me inside out as tears pour down my face, and I sob her name.

  His arms wrap around me as I cry and cry and cry. He doesn’t tell me it’s okay. He doesn’t try to calm me down. He just holds me and lets me cry.

  When the knife-sharp edge of the grief eases into a dull ache, I find I can touch Sylph’s face in my memory without falling to pieces. It hurts, and maybe it always will, but by letting what she meant to me fill me up and spill me over, I find that a few of my ragged edges are a little smoother. A little less scary.

  Quinn pats my back, and I realize I’m nearly in his lap with my face pressed to his chest, and I have no idea how long I’ve been there. I push away and wiggle back to the top of the cot, and someone clears his throat in the doorway. We glance over and Logan is there, looking like he did when he stood on the Claiming stage beside me, forced to give permission for another man to take me as his wife.

  I open my mouth to explain, but he doesn’t even look at me as he says, “Quinn, a word please?” and then walks out of the room.

  Chapter Fifty

  LOGAN

  I cross the hall, yank open a door, and barely contain myself while Quinn slowly walks in. Slamming the door shut behind him, I stalk to the other side of the room, where I have a better chance of keeping my fists off of him. I’m still reeling from the shock of learning who I really am, still wondering which of the people I’d come to trust and love knew the truth about me and which were in the dark, and I’m in no mood to keep my temper.

  “Logan, that wasn’t what it looked like,” he says, but his voice is unsteady. Vulnerable. Very un-Quinn.

  I think he’s lying.

  I think the fascination he’s had with Rachel from the moment he laid eyes on her in the Wasteland has grown until . . . until what? Until he took advantage of her in her current state of distress? Distress she won’t even talk to me about?

  Maybe he didn’t take advantage. Maybe she chose to go to him because somehow she can no longer talk to me.

  I turn to face him. “I don’t know how to feel about you right now.”

  His brow rises, but he remains quiet.

  “On the one hand, I’m incredibly grateful to you for saving Rachel’s life. It almost cost you your own. I don’t know how to repay that.” I realize I’m advancing on him, and make myself stop halfway across the room. “On the other hand, I want to kill you.”

  “You’re welcome. And please don’t.”

  I wheel toward the closest wall and drive my fist into it. “How could you?”

  “As I said before, it wasn’t what it looked like.” His voice is stronger now.

  “She was in your lap. Your arms were around her.” Which is closer than I’ve been to her in days.

  “How long were you standing there?” he asks.

  “Long enough.”

  He sounds like he’s coming closer. Which is a truly, spectacularly bad idea. I don’t care if he’s an expert in self-defense. I will destroy him.

  “Logan, how long?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty seconds? Thirty? Long enough.” I turn to face him, and vaguely realize blood is dripping from my knuckles. “I thought you had honor, Quinn.”

  He looks like I’ve struck him. I don’t give him time to respond.

  “Why do you think I asked you to help me protect her in the first place?” I ask.

  “Because you figured out I know how to fight.”

  “Because of the way you look at her.” My voice rises. “Because you’re always ready to step in. To fight. For her.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “You love her. I get it. And because you do, you’re the perfect person to protect her. But if you think you can just . . .” I choke on the words. On the image of Quinn’s arms wrapped around Rachel while she snuggles against his chest. “I respect you. Don’t make me have to hurt you.”

  His mouth drops open. “You think I’m in love with Rachel?”

  I stare at him for a moment as the anger slowly fizzles and confusion takes its place. “Well, I did until you just said her name like that.”

  “Her father traded his life for mine. He gave himself so that Willow and I could live.” He leans forward. “You don’t know how to repay me for saving Rachel’s life, and I lived. How do you repay someone who dies for you? What kind of price can you put on that sacrifice?”

  My anger drains away completely. “You think you owe Jared.”

  “I know I do. And Rachel meant everything to him. What better way to pay my debt than to keep his ridiculously headstrong daughter alive and well?”

  “She is ridiculously headstrong, isn’t she?” A weary smile tugs at my lips. The rest of my life might be an ugly lie, but I can trust Rachel to be exactly who she’s always been.

  He rolls his eyes. “I care about Rachel, but you have to admit she’s unbelievably stubborn. Bossy. Never listens. Never! Keeping up with her is a full-time job. There’ll be no rest for the man who chooses to spend his life loving her.”

  I feel a little lighter. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.”

  “I want to explain what you saw. I think it’s important that you
understand.”

  “Yeah, I’m still wondering what the girl I love was doing in your lap.”

  “The short answer is I was there, and you weren’t.”

  Now I’m the one who feels like I just got punched. “In case you haven’t noticed, I have one hundred fifteen people to take care of and a killer to catch.”

  He raises his hands as if to placate me, and I notice they’re shaking. He should be in bed, but we are going to finish this conversation outside of Rachel’s hearing.

  “I wasn’t criticizing.” His hands lower. “The long answer is I woke up to see her falling to pieces. She was . . . hurting herself. Rebandage her wound if you want to see what I mean. She needed to be stopped. And she needed someone to confront her with the truth so she could stop running away from it and feel it. So I did. And the little piece that you saw was her seeking comfort after the first storm of grief had passed. It could just as easily have been your lap. I was just there.”

  I’m silent as I absorb this. As I see the depths to which Rachel has sunk. It hurts that she didn’t trust me enough to tell me how dark things were inside her head. Then again, maybe trusting me isn’t the issue. Maybe Quinn’s right, and she was too afraid of her grief to ever speak of it aloud.

  And maybe I’ve been too focused on the things I need to fix, the scenarios I need to be prepared for, to really see how much Rachel needs me.

  How much I need her as well. As soon as possible, I want to get her alone and have a long talk about my past, her past, and how we move forward from here.

  “Come on, let’s get you back to bed,” I say, and wrap an arm around Quinn’s shoulders to support him. We move carefully out into the hall. Rachel is kneeling beside her bed as if she’d tried to follow us but lacked the strength. I smile at her, help Quinn lie back on his cot, and then move to her side.

  “Can I help you up?” I ask softly, and now that I’m paying attention, I see the wild ravages of her grief still etched onto her face.

  “Don’t be mad at Quinn,” she says as I scoop her up and lay her carefully on the bed. Her white blanket is covered with a large patch of drying blood. The sight pierces my heart, but I don’t say anything about it as I strip the blanket away and reach for a fresh one.

  “I’m not mad at him,” I say, and smooth another blanket over her. My fingers itch to unwind the bandage she wears so I can see what she’s done to herself. What she’s been driven to. But I can’t bring her secrets to light until I unburden a few of my own.

  “I want to have a long talk with you,” I say. She glances at her bandaged arm, and her lips tremble. I reach out and rub my thumb along her cheek. “I’ve learned some things about my past, and about who might be hunting us, and I need you to help me figure it all out.”

  Her voice is husky, as if the storm of grief that took her left her throat raw. “I need to talk to you, too.”

  The tension gripping me eases a fraction. “Good. But first, you look like you need rest. I’ll be back soon.” Bending down, I kiss her gently. “I love you, Rachel.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Holding those words close, I leave her room and start looking for Drake, Frankie, Nola, and Ian. If we have someone targeting us because of my past, it’s only fair that those I’ve come to love and trust know exactly what’s going on. Plus, they need to know what Willow and I observed while we were on the hospital’s roof, and that if we need to escape whatever is brewing inside Lankenshire, there are tunnels beneath the city that will help us do that.

  Best Case Scenario: The tension in Lankenshire doesn’t put us in danger, the triumvirate agrees to an alliance with me, and the next time the killer makes a move, the triple security we’ve instituted stops him in his tracks.

  Worst Case Scenario: We’re caught in the crossfires of Lankenshire’s current unrest, the triumvirate throws us out of the city once they learn we’ve brought along danger of our own, and the killer somehow manages to hurt us again.

  The answer to all of them is to have backup plans for every backup plan. Heading down the hallway toward Drake’s room, I start working on exactly that.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  RACHEL

  There’s something strange about the look in Logan’s eyes, but I don’t have time to dwell on it. The second he leaves the room, Elim hurries in with her arm wrapped around Eloise.

  “Don’t worry, dear,” Elim says. “We have a bed available for you right here. Now just breathe, slow and steady, and the pain will ease again.”

  Eloise doubles over and moans. Her pale skin glistens with sweat. Elim rubs her back in small, soothing motions, and then deftly transfers her patient into the bed beside mine.

  The room seems infinitely smaller than it did a second ago. The air is harder to breathe. And the part of my soul reserved for the guilt I feel over Melkin’s death burns as Eloise turns her head and stares at me.

  Can she see her husband’s blood on my hands? Can she look through me and find him crouched in the corner of my mind, his dark eyes accusing me of ripping his family to pieces?

  Bile rises up the back of my throat, and I turn away when Elim says, “Why don’t you come sit by her and hold her hand? She could use a friend right now.”

  “Quinn?” I cast a panicked look across the room, but Quinn is already pulling his blanket up over his head.

  “Not a chance,” he says, his voice muffled by his bedding.

  My fist grips my blanket with white knuckles. I could pretend I hadn’t heard Elim. I could lie and say I’m not strong enough to sit up yet. I could, but just like grieving Sylph, feeling guilty for Melkin is mine. I can’t run from it unless I want to lose myself.

  The white carpet is soft beneath my feet as I shuffle toward Eloise, pausing to lean against the wall when the room does a slow, sickening spin. I breathe in through my nose and wait for my head to settle, and then I lower myself to Eloise’s bedside.

  She groans and clutches her belly. Elim reaches out to smooth Eloise’s hair from her forehead with one hand while her other presses against Eloise’s abdomen.

  “Contractions are nice and strong. I bet you’re feeling this one, aren’t you?” She smiles at Eloise.

  Sudden pain shoots up my right arm, and I jerk my hand out of Eloise’s viselike grip. She pants, her face turning red, the tendons on her neck standing out like ropes as she hunches her shoulders, and then she slowly deflates back onto the mattress. Her thin hand flutters over mine.

  “I’m sorry,” she says in her timid, caged-bird voice. “Forgot your injury. I wasn’t thinking.”

  The burning guilt in my soul spreads through my veins until I am turning into ash from the inside out. She can’t apologize to me. Not for anything. Not when I’m to blame for the grief and loneliness in her eyes. Not when her husband will never know his child because of me.

  Another contraction seizes her, and she arches her back and cries out. Her hand reaches, grasping for the man who loved her. I look at Elim and then at the exit.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I say.

  “Just talk her through the contractions and help her stay calm,” Elim says as she arranges herself between Eloise’s legs.

  I look at the ceiling and take another deep breath. “I’m not suited . . . you really need someone else in here.”

  “No time,” Elim says in the same tone of voice my father used when he pushed me to my limits as we sparred. “Do you want to hold her hand and help calm her down—”

  “No.”

  “—or do you want to catch the baby?”

  “What? No. I . . . isn’t there another option?”

  “Rachel, the baby is coming. Another few contractions will do it. Either hold her hand and coach her to push or get down here and guide the baby out.”

  Guide the baby out? Absolutely not. I shudder, and Eloise comes off the bed again, her cries of agony filling the room. “Fine. I’ll hold her hand.”

  “And coach her. Calm her down.”

  “I�
��m not good at calming people down,” I mutter, but I let Eloise’s grasping hand find mine. I swallow the scream of pain that wants to tear out of me as her fingers squeeze the burned flesh at my wrist, and tell myself it’s no better than I deserve. One small piece of penance I can offer to Melkin.

  When Eloise collapses against the blankets again, her eyes find my arm, and she whispers, “Your wrist. I’m sorry.”

  “Please.” I choke the words out. “Don’t. Don’t ever apologize to me.”

  Her weary gaze meets mine, and the hopelessness in her face hammers against my silence. Tears sting my eyes, and as the next contraction starts, I lean down and say, “Take a deep breath and hold it. There. Now push. You’re strong enough for this, Eloise. You’ve been through hell, but soon you’ll meet your child. You’ll see proof that Melkin loved you, and that you aren’t alone.”

  She sobs as the contraction eases, and her fingers refuse to let go of me. “Why did he have to die? You were there. Can’t you tell me?”

  A stone is lodged in my throat. Holding back my words. My tears. The truth I owe her. I make myself meet her eyes and swallow past the stone. Truth is what will make me better. I don’t know if truth will make Eloise better, too, but I can’t stomach another lie.

  I’m finished with running from the things I’ve done. I help Eloise settle back against the blankets again, and say quietly, “Melkin died because I killed him.”

  She lies there, stunned and silent, as Elim murmurs something about seeing the baby’s head and one more push.

  “Did he try to kill you, then?” she asks, and the pain in her voice isn’t for me. It’s for Melkin. For her husband, who wasn’t a killer but who was backed into a corner by his leader. Forced to do the unthinkable or lose everything that mattered to him.

  “I don’t . . . I thought he was. He needed the device, and I wouldn’t give it to him. I didn’t want the Commander to have that much power. But my reasons don’t matter, Eloise. What matters is that I regretted it the moment I did it. I’ve regretted it every day since. If I could go back and do things differently, I would.” My voice breaks, and I clench my teeth against the pain as Eloise rises off the bed and screams like a warrior while Elim yells encouragement.