“I’ll think about it.” There isn’t really much to think about. Eric would be handy to have on the trip, and I already know he gets along well with Ethan after their last ride together. My desire to say no isn’t based on logic. Eric and Daniel are both dealing with Patrice’s death in different ways, and I’d take withdrawn over Daniel’s quest for vengeance any day. But I don’t know if I can help Eric find his purpose again while leaving Daniel here to stew in his rage.
Elizabeth opens her mouth to argue, but closes it again and nods. She’s one of the few people that Daniel doesn’t throw out of the house, so she knows exactly what I’m fighting against. She’s known Daniel even longer than I have, and the two of them might as well be siblings. His complete change in character is hurting her as much as it hurts me.
“I was thinking,” Elizabeth rests her hip up against the desk, “when you go on this trip, maybe I could move into your house with Daniel. It wouldn’t be too hard to haul one of the beds from our room over there. I can find some privacy, and Doc will have his recovery room back.”
“Thank you.” The words come out a whisper. If anyone can take care of Daniel, it’s Elizabeth. Maybe she can even smack some sense into him.
“Don’t go getting all soft on me over there, princess.” She stands up and heads for the door. “I’m not planning on playing homemaker while you’re gone. Don’t expect to come back to a clean house and floral curtains.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.”
Shouts from the main street carry up through the open window, interrupting our banter. More voices mix in with the first until the individual shouts are a steady roar of noise.
“You two stay here.” Elizabeth doesn’t give us time to argue before she’s out the door and down the stairs.
Constance sinks down into her chair and takes a sip from her mug without even making a face. Her eyes never leaving the empty doorway. The shouts from outside continue as if the whole village is standing right under our window.
After what feels like an eternity but is probably only a minute, heavy steps sound on the stairs again. Elizabeth appears in the doorway, pulling Carol up behind her.
I jump off my chair and help Carol to sit down. “What’s going on?”
Elizabeth stares out the window, eyes wide with fear. “It’s Cardinal guards. We’re under attack.”
Five
The office spins around me, and I bump into the desk. Cardinal guards here in Allmore. We always knew it would happen eventually, but not so soon after the attack on Arbor Glen. I thought we had more time. So did Liam. They shouldn’t have found us so quickly.
Elizabeth hands me the bow that’s been hidden behind Carol’s counter since we returned from Arbor Glen. Liam ordered a weapon to be in every home and common building so we wouldn’t be caught without a way of defending ourselves. “You stay here with Carol and Constance. I’m going out to help. Keep this door closed and move the desk in front. It won’t keep them out forever if they really want to get in, but it will buy you some time.”
I hand the bow to Carol. “No, I’m going with you.”
“No, you aren’t. Liam’s orders.”
“What are you talking about?”
Elizabeth hesitates for a second, and Constance jumps in to fill the silence. “We had a meeting one night at dinner while you were with Daniel. Everyone here knows how important you are to taking out the Cardinal. He said if something happened here, we protect everyone, but we make sure you are as far away from the danger as possible.”
“What!”
“Everyone agreed without needing any convincing, honey.” Carol’s motherly voice joins into the noise swirling through my head, and she lays a calming hand on my shoulder.
"But Daniel." Tears sting my eyes and I dash at them before they can fall. When was the last time I told him how much I love him? I crept out of the house this morning without even giving him a hug.
“I'll try to find him. Keep her here,” Elizabeth says, nodding at Carol, and dashes back out of the room.
Carol steps around me and closes the door. She moves to one end of the desk and pushes it a few inches toward the door. I grab the other end without thinking and pull with her pushes to navigate the desk to block us in and our attackers out.
My thoughts are jumbled together with the yells still floating up through the window. Liam has too much faith in me. They all do. Everyone here thinks I’m the answer to stopping the Cardinal. As if I have some kind of magic power.
I push my cheek against the top half of the window, straining my neck to catch a glimpse of anything. But the buildings are too close together. All I see is a tiny slice of Main St., empty except for the weeds pushing up through the cracked asphalt. Somewhere beyond my limited view, the people of our village are fighting for their lives, and I'm up here hiding.
Outside, the shouts raise an octave, turning from the tenor of warning to one of terror. The first gunshot rings out, and I hope on every star in the sky that it came from one of our limited guns instead of those of the guards. Carol rushes to the window, nudging me aside, and shuts the glass so hard it rattles in the frame.
Constance pushes her chair into the corner farthest away from the door and sinks down, sucking in breaths in a slow, steady rhythm. She clutches the still-warm mug of whatever Doc sent her, but she doesn’t bring it to her lips. Carol scoots my chair over next to Constance and wraps one of her arms around Constance’s slim shoulders. She mutters words through barely moving lips, but she’s too quiet for me to hear what she’s saying.
I stare at the bow in my hand. The quiver of arrows rests on the desk in front of me. I have a vague idea of how to string it, but if a guard gets in here, I have no idea how to aim or shoot.
I turn back to Carol and hold out the bow. “Do you…”
Carol nods and walks over to take the bow out of my hand. She tilts her head toward Constance, and I take Carol’s place, laying an arm over her shoulder.
So much for Rebecca the Savior. I can’t even use a basic weapon. Even if I manage to convince anyone at the other villages to join us in fighting the Cardinal, what use will I be in any kind of forceful attack?
The closed window shuts out most of the noise of whatever is happening out in the village, but several guns fire in quick succession. My shoulders flinch with each jolting pop. I hate that I can recognize the sound and the awful images that accompany the memory from the last time I heard it.
“What’s happening out there?” Constance’s voice is little more than a puff of air escaping from between trembling lips. The question she must really want to ask is left unspoken. Is Thomas okay?
I’m not even sure where Daniel is. I left him asleep in bed when the sun was little more than a promise. He spent all day yesterday locked up in our new home, not even leaving for meals. Is he still there, safely separated from the heart of the village? Was today the day he ventured out for breakfast? Will I lose him before I get him back from the hold his grief has on his heart?
Before I can answer Constance, the door to Carol’s bakery creaks open downstairs, and Constance whimpers beside me. The mug shakes in her hand, splattering bits of Doc’s concoction into her lap. I take the mug away and set it on a small side table against the back wall. Carol takes several steps back toward us, her eyes never leaving the door. A crash from downstairs shakes the whole building and makes each of us jump. My arm shakes around Constance’s shoulder. Guessing from the size of that crash, I’d say whoever is downstairs just knocked over Carol’s counter. The banging of metal against metal floats up the staircase. All of Carol’s carefully stacked bowls, pans, and cups are probably covering the floor with some careless guard stomping through the mess.
I cringe at the destruction happening downstairs. Carol’s shoulder twitches. She must be dying a bit knowing that her neat and orderly kitchen is being dismantled into complete shambles.
A staccato gunshot echoes inside the building, and Constance’s whimper morphs into a shriek.
I kneel in front of her and wrap both arms around her, trapping her arms at her side and holding on tighter than I need to. Her shaking torso vibrates through both of us.
Quiet settles over the building. I suck in a quick breath to hold it silently in my chest. An unknown rests in the stillness that sets my imagination running on a tangent of potential disasters.
A creak of a door breaks the quiet, and I wish for a return of the silence. Booted feet pound up the stairs, moving fast enough that whoever is there must be taking the steps two at a time. Carol lifts the bow and draws the arrow back, lining the deadly weapon up with her eye, the tip aimed at chest level of whoever intends to come banging down our door.
The handle turns and the door budges open a tiny fraction of an inch, but the heavy desk keeps it in place. Carol is a statue in her ready position. If whoever is trying to come through that door thinks they’ll find a helpless group of women, she has a surprise in store for them.
“Constance?” A trembling voice calls from the other side of the door.
Constance pushes me away and into the side table, sending her full mug flying to the floor and shattering into a hundred jagged pieces. “Thomas?” She pushes against one end of the desk, but it only rocks on its legs before settling back into place in front of the door.
I rush to her side and help push the heavy wooden furniture out of the way. Carol stays planted in her spot, bow raised, silently watching our progress. If anyone other than Thomas comes through the door, she’s ready.
We just barely have the desk out of the way when the door bursts open and a giant of a man comes barreling through, scooping Constance up into a hug that is equally fierce and gentle.
Constance weeps gently into Thomas’s chest, releasing all the fear she kept barely restrained while we waited for an unknown outcome to the attack. Carol lowers the bow and tosses it to the floor before sinking into the chair.
“Rebecca, are you up there? Rebecca?” Daniel’s panicked voice howls up the stairs.
I sprint to the door and meet him at the bottom of the staircase. He drops his crutches and wraps his arms around my waist. I sink into his comforting familiarity.
The building eases into another silent lull, but this one is filled with relief instead of tension. We stand together, wrapped up in each other for longer than we’ve touched since before our wedding that ended in disaster. There are a million questions I need to ask, but I can’t bear to put an end to this brief moment of perfection.
Daniel pulls back and checks me over. “Are you okay?”
“We’re fine.” I glance over his shoulder. “What about out there? What’s going on?”
“Cardinal guards showed up. They must have followed our tracks back from Arbor Glen.” He leans down to pick up his crutches and tucks them back under his arms. “I don’t know much more than that the fighting is over and I guess we got them all.”
“Anyone he—” Liam pushes through the bakery door, but stops at the scene of destruction around us.
Daniel pulls me tighter as if I could disappear if he doesn’t keep a hold on me.
Liam catches my eye. “Everyone okay?”
I nod, feeling anything but okay.
“Thank the stars for that.” Liam’s eyes are heavy, and he might have aged a decade since our breakfast conversation. “Watch your step down here, there’s broken glass everywhere. We’re gathering everyone for a meeting in the dining hall.”
Liam turns and rushes back out of the building, probably to go check on more villagers. The rest of the group makes it downstairs, and we get our first look at the destruction that we could only guess at from the noise. Carol gasps behind me as we take our first steps into what was once her pristine kitchen. Every table is turned over, and there isn’t a single item left on her meticulously organized shelves. Pottery that was probably older than Carol herself splatters the floor in tiny pieces, threatening to slice open a misplaced hand or foot.
A dead Cardinal guard rests in the middle of the chaos, the likely cause of Liam’s unsteady words earlier. Thomas tucks Constance’s head against his chest to keep her from witnessing the displayed death. Daniel doesn’t bother. It isn’t the first body I’ve seen, and it probably won’t be the last. He marches on his crutches past the scene of destruction, unbothered by the chaos. I shouldn’t be bothered either. It’s nothing more than a prelude to what I’m sure is to come. But I rush past the carnage anyway.
Six
The dining hall is a writhing mass of humanity, holding way more people than it was ever intended to contain. Our group of five slides in, and a few people sitting at a table get up to give Constance and Daniel their seats. We all crowd around them and stare at the mass of confused and frightened faces. The attack is all anyone is talking about, but there are too many different conversations going to listen to any one of them.
The reality of the situation smacks home. I was there in Arbor Glen. I saw the guards in action. I know what happened in Berry Hill. But until right now, this was all something happening to other people. Other cities were the ones in danger. Not anymore.
The door behind us opens and Liam strides into the room like a man on fire. Every conversation in the room winks out like a candle on a birthday cake. People split down the center of the room to give him a path to the front. Once there, he stands on a table so everyone can see him. Liam glances around as if to gather everyone’s attention, but he doesn’t need to. Every eye in the room is targeted on him with a laser focus.
“I know you all have a million questions, so I ask you to bear with me as I break down the past hour and get us all on the same page.”
Was it really an hour since the first shouts of warning rang out from the street below my window? It could have been fifteen minutes.
“Shortly after breakfast, the watch patrol reported seeing Cardinal guards in the vicinity. They sent up the alarm, giving us valuable time to get our people protected and prepare for the attack. I want to recognize the efforts of those first guards. Richard.” Liam points out Richard in the crowded hall and a round of applause rings out in appreciation. Liam lifts a hand to calm the crowd. “And to Jeremy, who lost his life in the fighting.”
The crowd is silent. There’s no one to applaud. My heart stutters against my chest. Richard and Jeremy are two of my riders. They’re the ones who found the medicine for Ana, riding for days straight to get it here as quickly as possible. They were both with us when we went to rescue Arbor Glen from the guards that attacked there. They found Berry Hill. Richard and Jeremy; Jeremy and Richard. A constant pair. And now Jeremy is dead.
“About two dozen Cardinal guards came into town from the north. Our shooters took out most of them quickly. Luckily, they weren’t expecting an organized resistance. More brave souls than I could possibly list gathered up our weapons and tracked the rest of them through town before they could take out too many of our own. Sadly, we are not without our own casualties.”
Who else? I stare around the room as if I could spot the missing person in the crowd. Where are Eric and Elizabeth? I whip my head around the room, but there are too many faces all wearing the same shocked expression. I can’t lose them. What would that do to Daniel?
“In addition to Jeremy, I’m heartbroken to report that today Allmore lost Karen and Frank.”
I never really spoke much to Karen, but she was there in the kitchen every morning serving up oatmeal that was as different from what passed for oatmeal in the PIT as Carol is from my own mother. I grab Daniel’s hand, though he barely reacts. He worked with Frank every day, turning odds and ends of old electronics into useful gadgets and technology for the village. Daniel doesn’t show any reaction to losing his mentor.
“And Arbor Glen has lost Alan.”
The room takes a collective gasp. Alan, Liam’s dad, was their leader. He kept them together and made everything alright, the way Liam does for us. He survived the attack on Arbor Glen only to lose his life here a few days later.
“Sever
al members of our community are out now, cleaning up the wreckage and prepping for a brief release ceremony. Unfortunately, we’ll have to skip the usual post-release celebration in order to prep for departure.”
A soft murmur rumbles through the crowd as everyone realizes what Liam just said.
“Departure for where?” a deep voice calls from the crowd, though I don’t know who it belongs to.
Liam lifts his hand for attention, and this time it’s needed. The tenor of the crowd has changed from one of resigned mourning to tense apprehension.
“I know this is all unexpected, but obviously we can’t stay here. The Cardinal knows where we are, and when his guards don’t report back in, he will come back. Next time we may not be as lucky. Allmore is no longer a safe place to live.”
Several people around the room hold tight to each other, crying. Allmore has been their home much longer than me, but just like me, for many of them, this has been the first place they could be themselves. It’s so much more than a collection of buildings. It’s home.
“I’ll need everyone’s help to make this transition as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, with the size of our growing community we can’t expect another village to take all of us in.”
“We have to separate?” another voice shouts from the crowd, but this time there aren’t any quiet murmurs. The room breaks out into hundreds of conversations, and dozens of others shout questions at Liam that he can’t possibly hear.
“Please, please calm down.” Liam raises his voice above the crowd, and the shouts soften to a low murmur. “Believe me, this is the last thing I wanted for any of us. For now, I think the best thing to do is for everyone to head back to your homes and pack. Keep in mind that you’ll need to be able to carry what you take with you. I’ll be around to visit with everyone and work out the details of our move. Meals will go on as planned, and after dinner we’ll hold the release ceremony.”
Rite of Redemption (Acceptance Book 3) Page 3