by Celia Aaron
It’s time. I’m lucky Rachel hasn’t finished her work yet. I race back down the hall and open the door to the nursery again. The stack of dynamite sits in the center of the hall, several of the sticks joined at the fuses. With no Rachel in sight, I push through the doors and hurry in. A baby hiccups and another cries. All of their cribs are placed in a half circle around the dynamite.
A Spinner lies dead in the corner, her throat slashed.
I grab the closest cribs and roll them back toward the children’s area.
“I don’t think so.” Rachel bursts through the doors from the wives’ dormitory area, a pistol in her hand. She fires a shot, and I have no choice but to backpedal through the double doors. Staying would risk the babies from either gunfire or explosion. She fires another shot that splinters the wood as I fall backward.
But I don’t hit the ground. Someone grabs me and pulls me to the floor.
“Where do you think you’re going, little lamb?”
Chapter 35
Adam
Emily is finally in my arms where she belongs. Another bullet flies through the doors ahead of us.
“Who’d you piss off?” I pull her to the side, and we crawl through one of the side doors into a child’s room.
She faces me and grips my shirt. “Your mom.”
“I figured as much.” I take her face in my mangled hands and kiss her.
She clutches me close, her mouth opening for me. I take and take as more shots reverberate through the hall. Pulling away, she says, “The babies are still in there. We have to—”
I kiss her again, unable to help myself, needing to feel her alive and warm.
When she melts for me, her body going lax, her breaths mingling with mine, I relinquish her mouth, but keep my hold on her.
“She’s got a stack of dynamite.” Her tongue darts out to her bruised lips, and it takes all I have to keep from claiming her mouth again. “She’ll blow it any second and kill all of them. And us.”
“Stay here.” I stand and limp into the doorway. “She’s my mom. Maybe she’ll listen to me.”
“Nothing’s changed.” She tightens the binding on her wounded hand. “I’m going to kill her.”
I sigh. “I know.” I shut her door and plaster myself against the wall. “Mom!” I call.
“Adam?” Her voice comes back, precariously close to the double doors. She must have been about to burst through, gun blazing.
“It’s me. What are you doing?”
She opens the door with the barrel of her gun and peeks at me, then smiles. “It really is you. Good. You can help.” A baby cries behind her, its wail high and piercing. She walks through the doors and lets them close.
“Help with?”
“I’ve got the dynamite set, but I can’t figure out how to light it without being too close. I was trying to get some of the sheets off the whores’ beds to use as a longer fuse, but then that—” She gestures down the hall with her gun. “Devil of a girl showed up.” She walks to the nearest door and opens it. “She let them go. The children.” Walking farther down, she opens another and gasps. I move up behind her, readying to take her down, when I see Grace lying inside, eyes closed, not moving. The knife in her chest is final.
“And she did this, too!” Mom slams the door and whirls on me. “Killed my Grace. Left her lying here like a piece of roadside trash. That whore you fucked is ruining everything! Where is she?” Her gun hasn’t dropped, the barrel pointed at me the entire time. She’s cagey.
“She doesn’t matter. This is between us. What you’re doing here, you—”
“She’s still here, isn’t she?” Her beady eyes dart to the dark doors on the left and right. “You’re covering for her.” She takes a step toward the nearest room, but breaking glass pulls her attention back to the wives’ dormitory. “What was that?”
“I don’t know.” I gently take her elbow and turn her back around to me. “Mom, you can’t kill these children. Let’s get out of here and—”
“These bastards need to die. They’re a threat to us, Adam.” She adopts an imminently sensible tone. “Children grow up, then one day they’ll all be challenging you for the throne. We can’t have that.” She pats my cheek.
A door opens slowly behind Mom, Emily’s bloody white dress coming into view a few centimeters at a time.
Fuck.
“Let’s just go.” I put one hand on her shoulder and stare into her eyes, the ones that are still as sharp as they always were, even if I know in my heart they’re clouded with madness. “The state will come in and take all of them. Put them in adoptive homes. They won’t even know where they came from.”
The door opens farther, and Emily steps through, the blade of sacrifice in her hand.
“They’ll know. There’s DNA and all sorts of devilry now. They’ll find out. Besides, they need to be punished. Bastard children are filthy, unclean abominations. They have no place here.”
Emily slinks closer, a cat stalking its prey. I can’t let her do this to herself, and I hate to admit that some small part of me—the little boy that I used to be—wants to warn my mom, to save her. But she’s long past that. No one can save her. And she needs to answer for Georgia’s death.
There’s no move I can make. “I know, Mom, and I agree. But you don’t want blood on your hands. Living with it will break you.” I’m not talking to my mother anymore. I’m talking to Emily, but I don’t dare look at her.
My mom scoffs, her face contorting into the ugliness that now lives inside her. “You’re weak. Just like your father.” She lifts the barrel higher and points it at my chest. “I was foolish to think you could ever be Prophet. You’re too soft. You want to spare the bastard children that will one day destroy you. Idiot!” She presses the gun over my heart as the double doors from the dormitory open silently.
Noah creeps in, but Emily is blocking him. He raises a pistol and aims at Mom over Emily’s shoulder.
Sirens blare, the sound growing louder by the second.
“I don’t have time for this, Adam.” She backs away from me. “I have one more son. He’s even dumber than you, but he can be guided. He’ll be the Prophet, but if he fails me, too, I’ll find another. Blood doesn’t mean as much as it used to.” She puts her other hand on the gun, steadying it.
Emily is almost to her, the knife raised.
I break and look at her, then give a subtle shake of my head.
Mom squints. “What are you—”
“Emily, down!” I yell and drop at the same time.
The sound of gunfire deafens me, and scorching pain rips along my neck. I reach up to touch it, but my hand comes away wet.
I look over to see Mom lying on the ground, her eyes open, her mouth working silently, and a pool of blood spreading beneath her.
“Adam!” Emily runs to me and lifts my head into her lap. Her hand joins mine, pressing against the wound.
“Is he—” Noah drops next to me and his face blanches. “Oh fuck, she got him in the neck.”
“That bad?” I try to say, but no sound comes out, and the ache in my throat intensifies.
“Don’t try to talk.” His words are warm, despite the starkness in his eyes. “I’m going to get help.” Rising, he rushes out of the hall.
“It’s going to be okay.” Emily stares down at me and tries to smile despite the tears in her eyes. “You’ll be just fine.”
I love you. I can’t say it, but I hope she can hear me anyway. I will always love you. I blink, but can’t seem to open my eyes again. You saved me. I want to thank her, to throw myself on her mercy, to give her everything I am. But I can’t form the words.
They fly away in my mind like a murder of crows scattering ahead of a harsh wind.
Somewhere, a baby cries. And then I’m gone too, blowing up into the darkening sky like a single black feather.
Chapter 36
Emily
Noah pulls a flask from his pocket and turns it up. Frowning, he pulls it away from hi
s face and holds it upside down. Not a single drop flows.
“Fuck.” He stuffs it back into his pocket.
I reach out to him. He takes my good hand in his as the doctor stitches up the other one.
“Think he’s out yet?” His palm is clammy.
Mine is too. “They would have said, right?” I look at the doorway leading into the bright white hallway. A nurse in light pink scrubs walks by.
“Right. They would have said.” He nods but stares out the door all the same.
The scent of rubbing alcohol stings my nose as the doctor wipes down another part of my hand. “Can you feel this?” she asks.
I don’t look. “I didn’t feel anything, if you did anything.”
“I pinched you, so we’re good. I’ve got about a dozen more stitches to go, and then I’ll start on your back.”
She already put some sort of antiseptic compresses across my shoulder blades, but the stitches are next.
I stare out the door and spare a thought for my mother. She’s sedated a few rooms away. The withdrawal wreaked havoc on her body, and they haven’t assessed all the damage yet.
But I can’t think about her for too long. Not when my heart is in an operating room three floors down.
“He’s going to make it, right?” Noah taps his foot on the polished white tile, and scoots his gray hospital chair a little closer to my bed.
“He will. He’s strong.” I wince as a flash of pain shoots up my arm.
“She needs more pain stuff.” Noah jerks his chin at the doctor.
“Thanks.”
“No problem.” He squeezes my hand and rests his head against the bed rail. “I fucked up. If I’d been quicker, he—”
“You killed your own mother to save him. To save me.” I squeeze back. “There’s nothing more you could have done. And I will never stop being grateful to you.”
He shrugs. “I sort of… I don’t know. It’s like it wasn’t me pulling the trigger. I had to do it. So I just… did.”
“I’m sorry.” I can’t imagine what it took for him to put her down.
“Don’t be.” He sits up. “She killed Georgia. She was my mother, but Georgia was…”
“I know.” I meet his sad eyes. “She was my everything, too.”
A knock at the door pulls my attention away. Zion strides in. My stomach heaves when I recognize him, and Noah’s grip on my hand tightens.
He walks up to my bedside, his FBI badge clipped to his waistband. “Emily.” Turning to Noah, he says, “I’d prefer to speak to Miss Lanier alone.”
I don’t let go of Noah’s hand. “He can stay.”
“I’d prefer—”
“She said I can stay.” Noah scoots even closer, as if he’s guarding my side.
“Once you’re done with your medical care, I’d like to get your statement.”
I stare at him, trying to square the officer standing before me with the horrors he committed on the Prophet’s orders.
“Do you think you’d be up to that?”
“Are you giving a statement, too?” I can’t keep the note of challenge from my voice.
“Yes.” He pulls up a chair.
“I didn’t say you could sit.”
Noah snorts.
Zion pushes the chair back and sighs. “I’m not the enemy here.”
“You look like him, talk like him. You are him.” I shake my head.
“I was undercover, Miss Lanier. Trying to bring down the entire organization from root to leaf.”
“Are you going to tell everyone what you did? How you beat Noah and kicked him while you let Sarah bleed out? About how you did whatever the Prophet told you? About how you treated your Maiden?”
He puts his hands on his hips. “I did what I had to do.”
“But yet you didn’t bring it down. We did.” I lift Noah’s hand clasped with mine. “We brought it down.”
“Charges are still pending against all guilty parties.” His eyes flick to Noah.
“You can’t be serious.” I glare at him. “Noah killed his own mother to save a room full of infants!”
“She needs to stay calm.” The doctor puts down her needle and removes her glasses with the sternness of an iron-willed schoolteacher. “Her system is too taxed right now. I’ve already ordered an IV for fluids. She’s dehydrated, half starved, and she’s lost blood.”
“I understand, ma’am.” He’s apologetic.
It’s a shock to see him defer to a woman. And that alone tells me that the doctor’s right. My system is taxed, and I’m suffering from my time at Heavenly on all levels.
I lift my gaze to his again. “I’m not talking to you or anyone until I know that Adam and Noah aren’t in any trouble.”
“I can’t promise—”
“I wasn’t finished.” I continue, “I want Jez and all the women who were on that compound given immunity, too. They didn’t do anything wrong.”
Zion clears his throat. “What you did with Grace—classic case of self-defense. But, well, those women tortured a man to death. Killed him by cutting off his…” He clears his throat again. “And ramming it down his throat until he choked on it. Not to mention what they shoved up his…” He swallows hard.
“They didn’t kill a man. The Prophet was a monster! A serial rapist, abuser, murderer—you fucking name it. Don’t you dare try to tell me what they did was wrong.” My throat constricts with unshed tears. “Adam is in surgery. We don’t know if he’s going to live. And you have the nerve to come in here and tell me what you prefer I do and what you want from me.” I lean forward, needing to lash out, to hurt this creep who now acts like he’s some sort of savior. “Unless I know all my friends are safe, you can take your statement and shove it up your ass, you sick fuck!”
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” The doctor puts down her needle again and stands. “She can’t handle this kind of stress.”
Zion backs up a few steps. “I’m going.” He turns to Noah. “But I’d like a word, if I may, out in the hall.” He walks out, but I can feel him hovering just outside the door.
“You don’t have to talk to him.” I take a deep breath and lean back, the stinging along my back subsiding.
“I know.” He squeezes my hand, then lets go. “But I might as well see what he wants. Don’t worry, I think he knows where we stand.” He almost smiles. “Actually, I think the folks at the other end of the hospital know, too.”
I would shrug, but it hurts too much.
“I’ll be back.” He follows Zion, and I’m left with the doctor who returns to her work.
I peer at my good hand, dark brown blood crusted beneath the nails. Is it mine? Grace’s? Adam’s?
“All done with the hand.” The doctor pulls her steel tray away from the bed. “Go ahead and get on your stomach for me. I’ll close your back.”
She helps me turn in the bed and lie down, the back of my hospital gown open. “The cut on your arm will be fine without stitches, but you need to know it will scar.”
“That’s okay,” I murmur. “I have a lot of those.”
The room is dark when I wake, and for a moment, I’m back at the Cloister. Lying on my stomach, waiting for the next atrocity to happen to me or my friends.
“Adam?” I call out to the dark.
“It’s me.” Noah smooths my hair off my forehead. “Adam’s awake. I came to get you.”
“He is?” I try to sit up, but my back pulls, the stitches burning.
“Stay put.” He gently presses on my shoulder. “They’ve got you hooked up to an IV and some other stuff.”
“I fell asleep.”
“I know. The doctor said you were exhausted.”
“He’s alive?” I seize on the fact that matters most.
Noah nods and sits next to me. “He’s a tough bastard. Going to pull through. They gave him a lot of blood and repaired the damage in his neck.”
“I have to see him.” I try to push myself up.
“You can’
t.”
“Noah, I am going to see him or I will scream this place down.”
“Jeez.” He stands. “Okay. Hang on. Just stay put and maybe I can wheel you to his room.”
I collapse down to the bed, the ache in my back almost unbearable. “Yes.”
He tinkers with the IV and gets it attached to the bed, then toggles the wheels. “I think this makes it go.”
The bed glides across the floor, the tires whining a little as he turns me and pushes me into the hall.
He looks both ways. “If I get busted—”
“Don’t be a ninny.”
He laughs in the quiet corridor and picks up speed toward the elevators. After we get in and the doors close, he says softly, “You remind me of her sometimes, you know? She was brave like you.”
“Georgia was a lot braver. The first kid in our neighborhood to use the diving board at Sissy Lee’s house, the only girl who would play tackle football with the boys—she wasn’t afraid of anything.”
“She was still like that. The whole time she was with me. I wish…” His voice fades, and the elevator dings on the second floor.
“I know. I wish a lot, too.”
He pushes me into the hallway. This floor is busier, and a few of the nurses raise a brow as he wheels me past, but they don’t interfere.
The rooms are different, glass walls and more beeping machines. “Is this intensive care?”
“Yeah, post-op something or other. I’m pretty sure we aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Play it cool.”
“I’m trying.”
“Hey, what did Zion want?” I fell asleep before I could grill Noah.
“Nothing good. He thinks that Heavenly needs someone to transition. There are too many members who could be a danger. He wants to set something up so that I—”