by Amira Rain
“That's the whole reason Mark hasn't gone on a rescue mission himself. So, basically, all we can do is continue to wait. Just continue to wait, and hope that Nolan is somehow able to escape from wherever he's being held...and I just know in my gut that that's what's going on...that he's being held somewhere...somewhere in one of the hundreds of little towns and villages in the north.
“So, I just have to wait, and hope that he's someday able to escape, or that someday we hear word of a North Haven shifter being held somewhere specific that we can go to for a rescue. But until that happens...." Christy paused, grimacing, and dabbed at her eyes again. "It just sucks feeling like I'm the only one in the village who thinks Nolan is still alive.
“Well, me and Mark. Everyone else thinks Nolan is dead. They all give me pitying sort of looks...Britt, Alexa, Kim...all of them. I hate their pitying looks. Especially when I know in my heart that the only real reason they have to pity me is just because my husband hasn't returned home yet, not because he's dead.”
Knowing how cruel the Angels were, I myself wasn't completely sure that Nolan would ever turn up alive; but then again, I didn't know him, and I didn't know his will to survive and live. Not to mention that he was also a former Navy SEAL, having served alongside Mark. It was definitely possible that he could still be alive. For Christy's sake and the sake of everyone who loved him, I desperately hoped that he was still alive.
After dabbing at her eyes again, Christy abruptly got to her feet, saying that she wanted to go home by herself to make a special cherry-vanilla cake from scratch. "It's Nolan's favorite, and we used to joke that any time I make this cake, he can smell it from wherever he is and comes running home." Christy began striding out of the library, but then stopped and looked at me over her shoulder. "Thanks for the shoulder and the ears, Paulina. Nolan would be glad to know I have a friend like you."
I told her that my shoulder and ears were available anytime, and she gave me a little smile before leaving the library.
When I left the library a few minutes later, after shelving the books I'd brought, I was surprised to see only a single one of my guards in the hallway. I was even more surprised when he lifted his mouth in the hint of a smile, an expression I'd never seen cross his stern features before.
"Commander Northrup just gave me a call. Says us remaining guards are to join him out on patrol now. So, you're a free woman. Guess he trusts you now."
After giving me another hint of a smile, the burly guard turned and began walking down the hallway, leaving me leaning against the wall, stunned.
I probably shouldn't have been stunned. After all, Mark had been scaling back on the guards for weeks. Nonetheless, I still just couldn't believe that the day had finally come, the day when I was a completely free, unguarded woman. The day when an escape from North Haven might finally be possible.
I walked home alone, feeling incredibly strange, and not just because this was the first time I'd ever taken a walk through the village without several lions trailing after me. I also felt strange in a way like something was squeezing my chest and throat, like I possibly had indigestion from eating something incredibly spicy, even though I hadn't.
It was only when I got home and shut the door behind me that I realized that the tightness in my chest and throat was simply due to an unexpressed, unacknowledged feeling of deep pain that wanted to manifest itself as tears. While the first fat drops began rolling down my cheeks, Rocky bounded down the hallway to greet me, making me cry even harder.
I wasn't sure how I was ever going to leave him. I wasn't sure how I was ever going to leave Mark. Even the thought of leaving the cats made my heart feel as if it were breaking in two.
I spent the rest of the day in bed, sniffling while Rocky fretted nearby, periodically licking my hands and face with a human-like expression of bewilderment on his face. After I gave him his dinner, which he barely touched, I offered him the remaining half-slice of pizza from the night before, but he wouldn't even take a nibble.
When Mark still wasn't home by a quarter past eight, I made a sandwich and ate it over the sink without really tasting it. And by the time I stood upright, brushing the crumbs from my hands, I'd made a decision. I had to make my escape very soon, before I lost my nerve, and before I became any more attached to Mark, Rocky, the cats, Christy, and North Haven itself.
Not making an escape wasn't an option. I had to get back to Dylan. I had to have him resurrect my family. I felt duty-bound, but also bound by deep love. I couldn't not try to help give my family a second chance at life and still live my own life with any sense of peace.
I'd make my move in about an hour, when it would be fairly dark out. In the meantime, I just needed to force myself to become an emotionless robot in order to actually go through with my escape. Basically, I'd just have to become the person I'd been while with the Angels for three years. Just a soldier. Just a fighter. Just a person who got the job done.
After taking a shower, dressing, and stuffing a backpack with clothes, food, and supplies I'd need for the ten-mile trek to New Bad Axe, I let Rocky out, then led him into the cats' room, where I kissed and cuddled each of the three animals in turn, and Rocky last. With tears streaming down my face, I wasn't doing a very good job of being a robot.
"I'm sorry, sweet boy." Sniffling, I caressed his silky golden ears, then kissed the top of his knotty little head. "I hope I'll see you again someday. I love you."
Before I could start crying any harder, I left the room, closing the door behind me. Even through it, I could hear Rocky whining.
Two steps down the hallway, I heard the front door creak open and close, then Mark calling out, asking if I was home. Having thought that some kind of Angel trouble must have kept him from coming home for dinner, I supposed I hadn't expected him home until much later, because when there was Angel trouble, he rarely got home before midnight.
After quickly stuffing my backpack in a hallway linen closet, I dashed into Mark's and my room and into the master bathroom, closing the door behind me. I then whipped on a headband to keep my bangs off my forehead and began hurriedly splashing my face, wanting the cool water to do away with all signs of tear tracks and eye puffiness so that Mark wouldn't know I'd been crying. Knowing I was just going to have to postpone my escape plan, I couldn't have him thinking anything was up.
I was patting my face dry with a fluffy white towel when I heard a soft knock on the door.
"Paulina? You home?"
"Yes! Come in!"
He opened the door, smiling when he saw me. "You're a sight for sore eyes. Just beautiful, even with your fancy face-washing headband on."
He and I called the particular stretchy cotton headband I was wearing my "fancy face-washing headband" ironically, because I'd spilled bleach on the navy blue fabric, turning parts of it an ugly orange, making it decidedly un-fancy. I just hadn't tossed it out yet because the band had just the right level of stretch that I liked in a headband used for the purpose of keeping my bangs out of my face.
Mustering a smile, I told Mark I'd just decided to get ready for bed early, thinking he wouldn't be home until much later.
After stepping into the bathroom, he pulled me into his arms. "I'm sorry I couldn't call you to tell you I got tied up reorganizing the evening's patrol. I'll get you a phone first thing tomorrow so that in the future, I can call you whenever I'm running late.” I
I thanked him, lowering the side of my face to his chest so that I wouldn't have to look him in the eyes anymore.
Silently, he began rocking me almost imperceptibly, how he did sometimes, and how I loved. Then, after a short while, he spoke in a low voice that was somehow tender, wary, and extremely serious all at once. "I still sometimes get the feeling that you're hiding something from me.
“You've still never told me how it came about that you were fighting for the Angels anyway. But at the same time, I get the feeling that it wasn't anything you signed up to do voluntarily...and I also get the feeling that part of yo
ur life is behind you, and you want to move on. So, I'm not going to say anything else about this subject. I called the guards off today because I trust you enough to let you have your freedom. Please don't make me regret it."
I cringed inwardly, though really I more like outright gnashed my teeth inwardly. Then, I scrambled to think of a response to what Mark had just said, knowing I’d have to lift my face and say something soon.
However, before I could, Mark suddenly kissed the top of my head and released me from his arms. "Not to rush you out, but if you're finished in here, my sore muscles are crying out for a shower."
I said the bathroom was all his, and he asked if I might want to join him in the shower, but I declined, saying that it had been a long time since I'd let Rocky out. “And I know
we don't want him to have any accidents."
Since it had been all of about ten minutes since I'd let him out, it was probably for the best that I was escaping. Lying to Mark had become far too easy for my comfort.
I soon left the bathroom smiling at him, but with a sob rising in my throat.
After leaving the bedroom and flinging off my headband, I paused out in the hallway, taking deep breaths in an attempt not to cry again. I was going to do it now, while Mark was in the shower. And the moment I heard the water turn on, I sprang into action, grabbing my backpack from the linen closet, slinging it over my back, and dashing down the hallway to the front door.
It was there that I froze, hand on the knob, wanting to turn it, but simply unable to do so. I took a deep breath, then bent my entire will on turning the knob, feeling as if it may as well have been a two-ton boulder I was trying to lift with my pinky. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't turn the knob. I just couldn't step out the door and escape. I couldn't leave Mark. I couldn't leave Rocky. I couldn't betray Mark's trust in me. It was over.
Dropping my backpack somewhere along the way, I shuffled out to the kitchen on feet that felt like they were filled with lead. I collapsed in a chair. I couldn't cry anymore. I could only just sit, seeing the faces of my parents, grandpa, sisters, and little cousin in my mind's eye.
When Mark got out of the shower, I was going to tell him everything. I was going to tell him that I hadn't been able to betray his trust in me because I loved him too much to do that. I was going to beg him to help me figure things out. I was going to beg him to give me his blessing to return to Dylan to fulfill my contract. I was going to beg him to just help me think of some way, any way, that I could get my family back.
Looking at the first stars of evening beyond the open, screened window above the sink, I sat in the kitchen for maybe fifteen minutes before the silence was shattered by some sound I couldn't identify at first coming from somewhere outside, filtering in through all the many open, screened windows in the house.
I listened for a second, realizing that what I was hearing was someone yelling at the top of their lungs, honestly nearly screaming. Alarmed, I flew up out of my chair, trying to tell who was yelling, where exactly they were, and what exactly the person was yelling.
And within two or three seconds, I had answers to all three of those questions. It was Christy's voice. She was somewhere very close by outside the house. And the two words she was yelling, over and over, almost screaming, instantly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. The first word she was yelling was he's. The second was alive.
THE FINAL CHAPTER
Thinking that Christy's yells were coming from the side of the house, I hesitated for a second, debating whether to fly out to her through the front door or the sliding glass door; but just then, banging on the sliding glass door made me jump a mile.
Before I could even open it, Christy heaved it open herself and staggered inside, half-laughing and half-sobbing. "They had him in a jail in Bennettsville, thinking that Dylan might want to use him as a bargaining chip sometime. He finally escaped. He's alive." Half-sobbing, half-laughing again, Christy briefly covered her face with her hands, shoulders shaking, before looking at me again.
"He got a phone. He called me. It was his voice. It was him. He took a little boat here to the state thumb; he sneaked past all the Angels in New Bad Axe, where he picked up the phone and now he's only a few miles away, coming straight south. He was going to just surprise me, but he thought he'd call first so that he didn't give me an actual heart attack to suddenly see him in the flesh. I almost had a heart attack, anyway, though. He's alive, Paulina. He's alive, and he's coming home. He'll be here in the village any minute."
A quiet cough from somewhere behind me made me turn my head, and I saw Mark standing a few feet behind me and to my left, dressed in boots, jeans, and a t-shirt, which was damp from his still-wet hair.
Not looking as happy as I'd thought he might be to hear that Nolan was alive, he strode over to Christy and me, his gaze on Christy. "Steven just called me, saying that at least fifty Angels and Angel shifters are creeping toward the village no more than two miles away, after having cut around our furthest northern guard to the west.
“Based on what I just heard you say, I think it's possible that Nolan may be in their path of retreat without even knowing it, and if so, he's in serious danger. He can't take on fifty Angels and shifters alone. We need to get to him first, fighting our way through the horde if need be."
Christy was already flying out the sliding glass door. "I'll round up all our Gifteds."
Mark was close on her heels. "I'll be speeding north with my men as soon as possible." Just beyond the door, he paused looking at me over his shoulder. "I love you, Paulina. Stay right here."
For the next several hours, I paced around the house with Rocky, periodically looking out the windows into the starry night, as if I could actually see what was happening on a battlefield a mile or two away. I prayed for Nolan's safety, and Christy's, and Mark's, and for the safety of all other North Haven fighters.
Finally, well past midnight, I pulled Rocky into bed with me, completely emotionally spent, yet just intending to rest my eyes for a few minutes. However, I was soon out like a light.
When I awoke the next morning, like some kind of a miracle, I was in Mark's arms.
He was already awake, brushing a few strands of hair out of my face, smiling. "Good morning, beautiful."
Soon, over coffee at the kitchen, he told me that all North Haven fighters were fine, and the Angels and their shifters had all been driven back or killed. Unfortunately, he said, Dylan had not been among the dead, and he hadn't even been spotted on the battlefield.
Also, although she and Nolan had enjoyed a blissful reunion after the fight, Christy had been zapped by Angels numerous times during it, sustaining a few pretty bad burns on her arms and one of her shoulders.
"They're nothing that won't heal within a few weeks or a month, though, and things could have been a lot worse for her. I wish I would have stopped her from fighting, because it's clear to me now that she was just too emotionally worked up to be out there."
Mark went on to tell me a few more details about the fight, saying that he was fairly certain that Dylan was going to launch another grand attack soon, simply out of frustration and desperation, using every single one of his remaining fighters at once in a last-ditch effort to take North Haven.
Then, after a few sips of his coffee, Mark changed gears, asking me why there was a backpack filled with clothes and food in the hallway. Like I'd planned to do the night before, I told him everything in a rush, from the day my family had been murdered up until the present, making it clear to him that I'd ultimately decided not to break his trust in me the night before.
"I just couldn't do it, Mark. I love you."
With his eyes filling with pain, he reached for my hand atop the table and looked into my eyes for a long moment before speaking. "I've suspected a few different things for a while...I suspected that somehow, Dylan had blackmailed you into fighting for him. And then last night...while Christy was sleeping...Nolan and I had a long talk, and he told me a few things."
Mark didn't answer right away. "Things about you and your family...and Dylan. Things that he learned while imprisoned."
"Well...what do you mean? What did he learn?"
Just then, there was a knock at the front door, but Mark made no motion of getting up to answer it. He just continued looking into my eyes with his own eyes full of pain.
"Paulina...I'm so sorry. Dylan was never going to resurrect your family. He doesn't have the ability to. He's not really a resurrectionist...just a sick, twisted fraud."
I couldn't speak for a long moment. "What do you mean?"
Another knock sounded on the front door, and Mark asked if I'd mind meeting Nolan and hearing what he had to say. "And I'll stay right here with you while he explains some things. I'm not going anywhere."