Rite of Revelation (Acceptance Book 2)

by Sarah Negovetich

  Marcus nods and sets Daniel’s hand back on the bed. He punches something into his Noteboard and adjusts his shirt, avoiding meeting my gaze.

  “I…I want to say thank you.” Marcus’s eyes flicker to mine before looking away again. “Rumor has it you were the one who argued for coming back to help us. After the welcome you got here…well, you certainly didn’t owe us anything.”

  Daniel stirs on the bed and lets out a low moan.

  “Daniel?” I grip his hand a little tighter.

  “Take it easy.” Marcus pulls a bottle of pills out of his pocket and grabs a glass of water from a nearby table.

  Daniel’s eyes flutter open, and his hand grips mine tight enough to hurt. “Cardinal on a cracker.” He hisses the words out between clenched teeth.

  “Here we go,” Marcus says, holding a small pill to Daniel’s mouth. “Swallow this before we do anything else. It should kick in pretty fast.”

  Daniel opens his mouth and takes the pill without any water. He grits his teeth and closes his eyes against the harsh lights.

  “I need to check on a few other patients, but I’ll be back in a bit.” Marcus picks up his Noteboard and heads over to another row of beds.

  Patrice stares at Daniel’s tense body, her arms shaking from holding back tears. I give her arm a quick squeeze with my free hand. She grips my wrist like I’m her last lifeline. We stand there, all of us joined together, and wait in silence for the pain meds to give Daniel some relief.

  Less than ten minutes later, Daniel’s jaw unclenches and his breathing evens out. His eyes blink open again, and this time he’s able to look around and focus on Patrice and I still holding each other tightly.

  “How are my two favorite girls?”

  My held breath releases in a chuckle. Patrice’s tension escapes as a single sob. Daniel tries to smile at both of us, but it comes across as more of a grimace.

  “Daniel.” Tears streak down Patrice’s face as she lets go of me and throws herself across Daniel’s chest. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Whoa, what’s this all about?” Daniel lets go of my hand so he can wrap up Patrice and pat her back while she cries all over him.

  “I was awful to you and Rebecca and everyone and all I did was complain about everything and try to make everyone else as miserable as I was after all you did was find me a safe place to live and try to make me happy.” She sucks in a deep breath and lets it go in another sob.

  “All I ever wanted was for you to be happy.”

  Patrice stands back up and wipes her nose. “I am.”

  Eric pushes through the door and walks over to our gathering. “Look who’s awake.” He nods at Daniel, but marches straight to Patrice and wipes her tears away with the edge of his sleeve.

  Patrice looks back at Daniel and smiles with watery eyes.

  “I should apologize, too.” Daniel reaches out and grabs my hand again. “When I left for the PIT, you were still a little girl who needed her big brother to take care of her. But you grew up while I was gone, and it took me a while to realize it.”

  “I will always need you.”

  “Good, because I don’t intend to stop being your big brother. I’ll always be there.” Daniel lifts his eyebrow at Eric’s arm draped over her shoulder. “And that includes screening boyfriends.”

  “Daniel…” I shoot him a look that I hope comes across as ‘tread carefully.’

  “Fine,” he huffs out. “Eric passes.”

  Patrice laughs, and Eric tightens his hold on her. I close my eyes and laugh along with her. This right here is worth fighting for.

  Daniel yawns and fails at covering it with a hand.

  “You need sleep.” I lean down and kiss him as gently as I can. “Try to rest while you can. Hopefully, we’ll have everyone ready to head home soon.”

  “Okay, but you have to promise me something first.”

  “Anything.”

  “Can you go scope out the tech room and see what we can take with us?”

  “Barely out of surgery and already itching to get your hands on some gears and wires.” I give him another quick peck on the cheek, then shoo Patrice and Eric out of the room. “Now I know you’ll be just fine.”

  * * *

  Patrice and I push our way into the supply room, right where Margaret said we’d find it. My heart aches at the sight. Daniel would love this. The room isn’t big, but every inch of it is filled with more electronics than I’ve ever seen. It reminds me a bit of Daniel’s room back in the PIT. It has the same smell, like an Airtrain engine. The difference comes in the details. Where everything in the PIT was thrown around and mostly in a state of disrepair, this place is as organized as my mother’s closet. All the equipment is labeled and sorted, with the tools perfectly clean and hung up for easy reach.

  “I’m not really sure what to take.” I look around and grab a mostly empty box from a bottom shelf. “Put anything important-looking in here. Just remember we have to be able to carry this all home. Any idea what Daniel wants?”

  “Do you know what you want?”

  I drop the box on a bench. “What are you talking about?”

  “About this.” She waves her hands around the room, but she’s not talking about a storage room. “Have you even taken a second to think about what you did here?”

  “No, and I don’t plan to.” I turn away and fiddle with a stack of wires on a shelf. This is not a conversation I want to have. “We came in and did what needed to be done. And now we are going to go home to live our lives. That’s what Daniel and Elizabeth and everyone else keep telling me. My defiance is living a life the Cardinal never wanted me to have.”

  “And what if they were all wrong?”

  Nope, not doing this. “Is this copper?” I spin with a bundle of wiring in my hand. “I think I heard Thomas mention we could use some more of this.”

  I put the wire in the box and move a few more items around, though I’m not really seeing anything. All I can focus on are Patrice’s words.

  “Rebecca.” Her hand reaches out to stop my fidgeting arms. “Daniel might think you need his constant protection, but I know better. I’ve watched you these past few months and you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.”

  “I can’t do this. I can’t be two different people.” I push away to the other side of the room. “I used to want to fight back, but I can’t do that. I can’t hang on to that anger and hatred in one hand and keep loving everyone else with the other.”

  “So, that’s it.” She lounges on a bench with her arms casually draped behind her like nothing is wrong. “You and Daniel can just head back to Allmore, set up shop in your new house, and pretend like nothing happened?”

  “Yes, and that sounds perfect to me.”

  “And what will we do when the Cardinal comes looking for you in Allmore? What will it do to Daniel when the Cardinal finds you?”

  I shake my head back and forth. I don’t want to think about any of this. I deserve a break. I deserve to have some happiness and a chance to live my life without looking over my shoulder waiting for the Cardinal to come after me.

  The more I think about it, the angrier I get. I played his game and did everything I was supposed to. I followed all the rules and then he sent me to the PIT. Because I’m dangerous. Because I have the audacity to question. But I’m not trying to question him anymore. I just want to be forgotten.

  I sweep my hand across a shelf and knock everything to the floor. It feels good. I reach up and knock another shelf clear. And another. I turn around and grab a heavy box off a bench, hurling it at the wall. I use all the strength in my arms to crash something bulky against the door. It smashes to pieces and showers the room in bits of plastic and metal.

  Patrice doesn’t move from her perch. “Oh, are you angry now? Ready to stop pretending like this little altercation here was the end of it?”

  “It’s not fair. I just want a chance like everyone else.” I pull my hands back and run them through my hair. “Th
e Cardinal turned me into some poster child for the PIT to save his expansion deals, but now the council won’t let it go. As long as he’s in power, I’ll never be safe. You’ll never be safe. We can never have our happily ever after.”

  “So what does that mean?” She leans forward, resting her elbows on her knees. “What do you want to do?”

  The Cardinal is never going to stop. He can’t. If he doesn’t bring me to justice in front of the Territories, the council is going to force him out of power. Oh, they’ll let him retire to save face, but he’ll go down in the history books as the first Cardinal to allow a Reject to escape from the PIT. Everything he’s done will be just a footnote to this huge mistake. Any man who would send a council member’s daughter to the PIT out of spite will never accept that kind of future.

  As long as the Cardinal is in power, I can’t be safe and neither can Daniel or anyone else within three feet of me. I have two choices. And what I want doesn’t have anything to do with them. I can keep running, hide from village to village. Or I can fight back.

  “The Cardinal and his Machine Rejected me because I’m a threat. If he wants a threat, he’s got one.”

  I pick up the empty box again and hand it to Patrice. “Can you pick out supplies for Daniel? I need to talk to Liam.”

  “Sure, but—”

  A sharp bang rings out. I flinch at the sound. By now, I know exactly what that was, and it can’t possibly be good.

  Thirty-Six

  I’m out the door before Patrice can move off the bench. Outside, everyone is packed together toward the end of the road, the horses loaded up and ready to go. Thomas and Eric have Daniel strapped into a cart tied behind a horse. They are all frozen mid-motion, staring at the schoolhouse. I freeze, too. That’s where the guards are being held. Shouting pours through the walls of the building, and I know the voice instantly. She’s yelled at me enough times that it couldn’t be anyone else.

  Liam and I both make a run for the door at the same time. Two men from Arbor Glen run out of the schoolhouse, the door flapping open behind them.

  I sprint up the stairs and rush back to the room where the guards are supposed to be. Elizabeth stands like a soldier in front of them, each one gagged and tied to a chair. A gun raised above her head points straight at the ceiling, now complete with a bullet hole.

  “Elizabeth, what are you doing?”

  “Taking care of this.” She turns to me, and there’s something new in her eyes. A hardness I’ve never seen. Not even after Molly was killed.

  I wave a hand back at Liam to keep him from coming in the room. Elizabeth isn’t going to hurt me. “Okay, let’s talk about that.”

  “There’s nothing to talk about.” Her voice is flat. No anger, no sadness. Just fact. “They killed Molly, and now they need to pay.”

  The guards shift in their seats, but there’s no way they can escape.

  “These men didn’t kill Molly. You know that. Those guards are back in the PIT.”

  “But they did kill people here. One guard is the same as another.” She lowers the gun and points it straight at the head of the first guard.

  I’m losing ground. She’s right. These guards are responsible for the deaths of five men.

  “What about Eric? He was a guard. Does he deserve to die?” Her shoulders twitch, and her gun drops a bit. “He was wrong, but he can be forgiven. So can they.”

  She shakes her head and steadies the gun. “No, Eric was confused. The Cardinal lied to him. He knows what he did was wrong.” She waves the gun back and forth from one end of the line of guards to the other. “They aren’t confused. They think we’re monsters. They deserve to die.”

  “Elizabeth, they are only doing what the Cardinal told them to do. What everyone out there does.” I take a step closer. “The Cardinal lied to them, too. He lies about everything and just like everyone else, they accept the lies.”

  “Not you. Even when you thought the worst of yourself, you never saw the rest of us as criminals.” Elizabeth jerks her shoulder up to wipe her eye. “You saw goodness in me even when I was trying my best to drive you off. You were the first to forgive Eric, and when this village said we couldn’t stay, you just kept going.”

  She takes a shuddering breath and steadies her hands. “You see everyone for the goodness they could have, but they don’t. They will always look for the bad, and nothing is going to change that. They are responsible for Molly, Ana, and the men who died here, and every pile of stones back in the PIT. And someone has to pay.”

  The guards twist against their ropes and shout from behind the gags. She pulls the gun up and lines her eye up for the shot like she’s been handling weapons all her life.

  “No!”

  Six shots ring out in sequence. The guards fall over, perfect red circles in each of their chests. I turn away from the carnage as nausea sweeps through my stomach.

  Elizabeth turns away from them and hands me the gun, heat pouring off the end. “It’s done. I want to go home now.” She walks out of the room without even glancing back.

  I can’t look at the men she shot, so I stare at the gun instead. She’s right. Eric was scared and selfish and made a horrible mistake. These guys might have been assigned the role of guard, but no one forced them to hate. Am I supposed to be glad that there are six less guards out there to do the Cardinal’s bidding? If I fight back against the Cardinal, will I have to give up my humanity? Can I see these men in the red jackets as people? Can I kill them if I do?

  Liam marches into the room and hisses out a breath at the scene of death. The sharp tang of iron fills the room, and I have to get out of there before I lose it.

  Liam takes the still-warm gun from my hand. “It’s done and there’s nothing we can do about it.” He shakes his head, the strain of the past twenty-four hours etched into his face. “Let’s get out of here. I’ll have some others take care of their bodies.”

  Outside, the whole village watches Elizabeth walk down the street toward the waiting horses. Their eyes follow her movement, and I can almost read their thoughts. Is this our new future? Elizabeth may have drawn first blood, but it won’t be the last. The Cardinal isn’t going to stop until we stop him.

  Liam walks out and talks to a few men standing nearby. They nod and head into the schoolhouse. “Alright everyone, we need to head out. Load up and start moving.”

  Two men walk out of the schoolhouse holding one of the guards between them. I walk away to find the others for the long haul back to Allmore. I need a distraction. Anything to keep my mind from imagining how many more scenes like this one I might see in the future.

  The front of the long line of Freemen takes its first few steps into the forest. Daniel’s cart is in the back, so that’s where I head.

  His face is still paler than I’d like, but the pain med Marcus gave him seems to be working. I reach over the side of the cart and run my thumb over his hand. Daniel’s eyes flicker open.

  “Hey there, handsome.”

  “Hey, you.” His lips lift up in a tiny smile. “Where’s Patrice?”

  “Right here.” Patrice slides in next to me and wraps her arm around my waist. She smiles at me, and my heart grows a little bit so I can add her in with the rest of my family.

  “Don’t worry, she’s fine.” I wrap my arm around her shoulder. “Better than fine, actually. Did you know your sister is kind of a bad ass?”

  Daniel rests back against a pile of blankets. “I think these pain meds might be working a little too well. I just hallucinated that my sister is smiling like she might actually like it here, and then my wife used the word ‘ass.’”

  Patrice and I laugh, and it feels good. Our world is most likely falling apart, but these moments of normalcy remind me exactly what we have to fight for.

  Someone shouts behind us, but before I can turn there’s a loud bang. Another gunshot.

  “Oh.” Patrice crumbles under my arm.

  I reach out to catch her before she falls, but her weight pulls both
of us to the ground. A dark, red stain spreads across the front of her shirt. I pull us underneath the cart, but there’s no way to know what I’m hiding from.

  “Patrice!” I kneel down next to her, my hands pressed against her heart, but the blood is coming too fast.

  Her fingers inch over and brush my knee as her eyes close.

  “Don’t you dare,” I order her as I pick her head up and rest it in my lap. “Don’t you dare die on me.”

  Daniel is going wild in the cart above us, screaming Patrice’s name, but unable to get to us or see what’s going on. I scan the streets, but I can’t see anything between the hundreds of legs running in every direction.

  “Help, please! Someone help us.” My shouts are lost in the chaos of people.

  Another gunshot rings out and the voices around us get louder.

  Patrice coughs and a trickle of blood runs down the corner of her mouth and stains her already paling skin.

  “No, please.” I choke out the words between sobs. “Not now. I need you to stay here and be happy and help me keep Daniel in line.” I wipe away the blood from her lips, but another thick line replaces it. “Please.”

  Her eyes are almost closed, but they find mine and I stare back at her, willing her to live even as I watch her slip away.

  “Love him.” Her words are less than a whisper, falling from her mouth seconds before she goes completely still.

  A wordless scream rages out of my throat. Eric comes running and skids to a stop next to me, already on his knees. His face collapses in agony, but I can’t hear what he’s saying. The whole world has gone silent as chaos reigns around me. Eric pulls Patrice off my lap and clutches her lifeless body to his chest. His body shakes so hard her limbs flail around like a ragdoll, smacking against the broken road.

  I grab her hand, still warm in mine, and hold it up out of the dirt. She wasn’t even supposed to be here. She should still be back home in Cardinal City. Tears fall on our joined hands and mingle with the blood stains. It’s too much. It’s all too much.

  I stand up, every movement as if in slow motion. The screaming has stopped. Daniel still thrashes in the cart next to me. Thomas and Ethan hold him down while Marcus jabs his thigh with an injection. Daniel jerks once more, then his muscles relax and his eyes close, tears leaking out from under his thick lashes.