The Risen Series | Book 5 | Defiance

by Crow, Marie F.

Whatever she sees, sends her face to a neutral mask even Leigh couldn’t match. She doesn’t ask me any more questions. There’s no long list of verbal check points, as she held with the men. She just watches me with eyes betraying her flat expression.

  This should worry me. Somewhere, in some small rational part of my mind left to me, I know this should worry me, but it doesn’t. I surrender to the pain, letting it wash over me and pull me into the blackness of oblivion. I can hear her say something to Dolph sitting beside me, but I can’t make out the words.

  I let it all slip away to escape the fire eating me internally. I don’t even cringe when Margaret begins to sing her damning song, but when her new playmate calls out for her mother from a dark corner of the cage I’ve invented, it shatters the last piece of my soul.

  Chapter 39

  My body is shivering, sweating as the flames threaten to engulf me. I cry out with the pain, begging Paula for help, but she just watches, as she tries to hide her tears. It comes in waves, pushing me to the breaking point and then dragging me further each time. It’s unrelenting and I don’t understand what is happening.

  Collin is sitting beside me, holding my hand. He’s the last person I want to see, yet at the same time, he’s the only person I want to see.

  “I think I should tell you about your mother.” Collin’s voice cracks when he says the words we have both been avoiding.

  I chuckle, amused by his horrible timing. “Now?” I look to him, asking again. “Really? Now?”

  I don’t miss the image his eyes hold. Those blue eyes, so like the ones who had damned me long ago, stare at me with a sadness I didn’t know he could hold for me. He stares at me as if this may be the last time he sees me.

  “I think so,” he whispers.

  Sighing, I breathe through the lull the pain has allowed me. He takes this for an invitation, beginning a story I have both dreaded and craved.

  “Her name was Alicia Helen Clark. I named you after her,” he says this with a smile of a soft memory. “She had the most amazing green eyes. All I ever had to do was look into those eyes to warn me of her mood before her sharp tongue could.”

  “It’s why she hated my eyes.” I don’t ask it, but he nods to confirm it. He knows which ‘she’ I am referring.

  “Alicia and I…” He pauses, trying to find the right words for his indiscretion.

  I wave him off, avoiding having to listen to his past romances. “I get the idea.”

  “No. You don’t. She loved you, Helena. I snuck her pictures of you behind Carol’s back. I wasn’t supposed to have contact with her after your birth, but I did. We would meet and all she wanted to know, all she wanted to talk about, was you. I failed you both. Too afraid of upsetting Carol and too afraid of being found out, I never picked a side. I never fought for you.”

  His confession doesn’t move me. Once, it may have been everything I wanted to hear, but now, it falls flat with a past constructed of too many mistakes and too much anger.

  “She came for you. That day it all started she came to the house looking for you. It’s how we found each other. We both walked out of that house not knowing where our children were. She held that against me until the day I lost her, too.”

  Turning to him, he pushes away the hair matted to my face from the salty water and thick layers of my sweat.

  “She would have been so proud of you,” Collin tells me, cooing with his statement. “You are so incredibly like her – strong, resilient and as defiant as they come. When I hear you laugh, it’s like she’s standing beside me, again. You both have that ‘I dare you’ attitude which makes you unbreakable.”

  I don’t want him to see me cry. Not over this. Not over a woman I never knew. Not over the gaping holes my childhood left in my heart.

  “Genny is so like you both” Collin’s words are fading as the pain begins to climb. “Helena, rest now. I promise you, I won’t fail, again. Just let go, Helena. I’ll stay right here until you let go. I won’t leave you again.”

  I don’t understand what he’s saying. I scream with the pain. I can’t control the convulsions, snapping my body rapidly on the bed. My head slams against the cot, and I’m terrified my neck will snap from the force of it.

  “Helena, listen to my voice,” Paula whispers, trying to calm me through the red haze of pain. “You were bitten, Helena. There’s no reason to fight this. I can’t save you, but I can stop it, or you can hang on for a few more days until your body burns itself out. Just tell me what you want. I’ll do whatever you want.”

  I can’t speak through the cresting wave of agony. I can only scream disjointed syllables. I don’t want to die, but I don’t want this suffering, either.

  Looking to my father, I see that he’s kept his promise. He holds my hand to his lips, not looking away as my body rips itself apart, but it’s who is over his shoulder which breaks my heart.

  Ashley, in her soft pink pajamas and white socks smiles at me. She’s holding hands with Conroy who still wears his cowboys and dancing horses. Lilly is standing beside them, twirling in her white night gown around the room. They smile at me, silently beckoning me.

  “Stop being a douche, Helena,” Conroy tells me, with a wide grin of a shared secret. “Come play.”

  “Won’t you come play with us?” Lilly asks me, her voice twinkling with her soft bell of a pitch that only innocence can gift someone.

  There is no sinister motive behind their smiles. They are as they were before all of this. Three perfect angels left to an imperfect protector. I’ve tried so hard to make up for my sins since that day, hoping they would forgive me for how tragically I failed them.

  “I left them alone.” I struggle through the pain to say. “I didn’t know where else to take them. I just wanted to take them somewhere they would be safe, somewhere that they knew and could keep them safe until you were found. I didn’t want the responsibility. I had just killed Carol. I didn’t know what to do.” The pain has me panting, struggling to stop the confession of my soul and struggling to keep it going. “I left them, and I went to the bar to hide. I just left them.”

  My tears are as hot as the fire inside me, streaming freely along my face. Collin thinks I’m searching for redemption, some pardon for my sins, but I just want them to understand. I never meant for any of this to happen.

  “It’s okay, Helena,” Collin whispers into my hair. “I should have been there. You never should have had that burden. There’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “I’ve killed so many.”

  “You’ve saved so many more.”

  “I left them behind.”

  “It was never your fault.”

  Collin repeats the words Chapel once told me before I scream as the wave reaches its full strength, but I never take my eyes from my angels.

  Ashley leans so close to me, for a moment I don’t understand why he doesn’t see her. She tells me, “They don’t need you, anymore. We do.”

  “Helena,” Paula shouts over my brutal screams. “Tell me what you want me to do!”

  “Do it,” I hear Lawless from the corner of the room.

  He comes to stand on the other side of me, my lighthouse, but he can’t guide me home from this. Not anymore.

  I don’t know what the command was he told Paula. I don’t feel the needle slip into my arm, or the deadly cocktail she pressed into my veins. My breathing becomes slowed, less painful, and heavy. My body loses its tension, letting me rest mutely on the stiff fabric. The fire recedes to nothing more than a warm blanket wrapped around me. I feel featherlight, floating even as Lawless cradles me.

  “You should go,” Paula whispers, her voice hoarse with emotions. “I’ll finish it.”

  Neither men show any signs of listening to her, and I’m so happy to be pain-free, I’m not following the conversation.

  Paula clears her throat, fighting down the sadness which coats it. “There will be a few seconds before it happens. She won’t wake up. I’ll make it fast.”

  My
vision begins to blur. The room fades into shades of greys before becoming total darkness. I can hear Lawless moaning, such a tormented sound to come from a man, but it doesn’t reach me. Nothing does. I’m floating in a warm bath, fading deeper into the darkness.

  “Helena!” Conroy is shouting for me, skipping ahead of me as if riding an imaginary horse. Upon his feet are bright red sneakers with yellow markings. “Can’t catch me, Helena.”

  I follow him into a memory of a time long ago. A time before scents became dank and smothered in loneliness. When hope was more than just a rope we clung to, but a memory of times long forgotten. I smile at him knowing we will never again endure nights too dark or dawns which come too soon. We are no longer surrounded by fragile things and our nightmares no longer walk among us. I guess you could say, I’ve always had a hatred for the dawn.

  Epilogue

  Dear Journal,

  I don’t know what will happen to us, now. There are ghosts in their eyes, only Helena could chase away. I may be her cousin, but I’m not equipped to cleanse such damage. She held them together when she thought she tore them apart, and now, they are hanging by a rope; a rope which resembles a noose more and more every day.

  It’s been three weeks since her death and we still haven’t found the girls. Rhett and Marxx go every day, but they always come back without them. Rhett finds comfort in the fact there’s no trace of them. I know what he’s saying without having it explained to me. It brings me comfort, too, but we are leaving now despite Rhett’s many objections. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he knows if they haven’t been found by now, we won’t find them.

  Lawless doesn’t talk much, anymore. He’s stepped down as our leader and handed the reins to Marxx. Marxx wasn’t happy about it, but he accepted. We’re all worried Lawless will try to follow my cousin, but there’s nothing we can really do about it to stop him. He sits by her grave every morning, talking to her about his regrets. I wonder if she ever really knew how much she meant to him.

  Aimes is trying to hold everything together. She keeps her banter on the lighter side, less of her harsh wit, but I see her when she thinks no one is watching her. She hides her tears well, but I see them. Her and Rhett haven’t been the same since that day. They try, but there’s too many unsaid things between them.

  Collin hovers over me. I can’t breathe without him asking me if I’m okay. I know he’s just trying to take care of me since we are all that we have now, but the man really needs a hobby. He keeps saying how he won’t fail again, but I have no clue what the man is talking about.

  Dolph and Paula keep to themselves. The scars the island gave them are still healing and they are both afraid to have them picked at. All-in-all, they are suffering like the rest of us, but just want to do it alone.

  I worry about all of them, but I’m not sure what I can do.

  My cousin taught me that defiance is sometimes loud, like an unsettled crowd, jeering each other into a frenzy over imagined injustice. Defiance is sometimes silent, like the lost souls standing wordlessly in their suffering, united against the world. Sometimes, defiance is an act, bold and unnerving as you stare into Death’s dark eyes and tell her, “Yes. I see you.” with nothing more than a smile and blood-soaked hands. My cousin was a hero, despite how she saw herself. Collin says I have her spirit. I can only hope he’s right.

  “What are you doing?” Aimes asks me, as I close the thick book I have begun keeping.

  “Something my mother taught me,” I tell her with a smile.

  “What is it with you Clarks and your mothers?” Aimes smiles with her question, but I know what it cost her to ask.

  I shrug, packing the book into a purple book bag she had found for me in one of the rooms of the fort. I told her we should have asked before we took it, telling her it might make someone angry. She had said, “Good, I hope it does.”

  “They ready to leave?” I ask her, figuring that’s why she’s come to find me.

  “Yeah.” Aimes is staring at the makeshift marker my cousin’s memory now represents. “I guess we are.”

  Lawless comes to stand beside us, watching the same spot as we are.

  “You really coming with us?” he asks me with his eyes still for my cousin’s memory.

  Nodding with my words, I tell him, “Yeah. You really going to play nice with Collin?”

  Lawless half smirks, turning just the corners of his lips. “Just keep him in the truck.”

  He turns to lead us towards the boats, but after a few steps he stops, telling me without turning towards me, “Put it on. It’s yours now.”

  Looking to Aimes, she nods, approving of what I’m about to do.

  With shaking hands, I unzip the purple bag slung over my shoulder. I stare at it before I pull it out. I’ve come to know their scent like a comfort, something I’ve used to chase the nightmares away, and I smile at the skull who stares up at me.

  Dropping the bag to the ground, I pull out the leather vest. The weight always shocks me. Heavy enough to hold a life of its own, I slip the leather over my shoulders like a taboo ritual. It settles on me, as holding a hug from a long lost relative. The long, double-edged blade with its leather holder I tuck into the safety of my boot. It caresses my ankle, and I feel safer just knowing it’s there, that it was hers.

  Lawless is watching me now. There’s a sadness to his brown eyes, but he smiles at me over it. “Looks good,” he tells me, but I know a part of him is breaking seeing her items. “She would have wanted you to have them.”

  I don’t argue with him. I didn’t argue with him the day he handed them to me. I’m happy to have them, to be immersed in her memories. I know I can never replace her. I only hope I can live up to her reputation. I hear she had a thing for doing stupid things.

  Extras

  Verona has lived in the safety and bliss of the palace and the luxury of what being a Siren means. Content to live her life in the shadows of her beautiful mother, Ostila, and the enchanting, dark beauty of her aunt, Morlena, Verona never thought about what life would be like should they be taken from her. At her mother’s coronation, these once impossible thoughts become shockingly real.

  Corander has lived his life in the shadows of his father, Kurt. At the head of the Empradar bloodline, Kurt holds no mercy for those who fail him and even less for those he distrusts. When the palace falls to madness, it will be Corander who is tested by his father’s desires and torn by his own.

  Together, Corander and Verona must discover who they really are, and who they are truly meant to become, before all is lost to hidden plots and crowns of betrayal.

  Continue Verona and Corander’s story here!

  About the Author

  Marie F Crow weaves her stories around the human element of the horror verses the ‘monsters’ themselves. She believes that the real horror of life does not come from the expected, but from the unexpected responses of the human nature and what depths of trauma a person must survive in certain situations. She began writing The Risen series when feeling that the popular genre was slipping too deep into the realm of pure ‘slasher’ and forgetting what the horror of zombies can mean for a story.

  Now, with her children's series launched, Marie hopes to use her favorite ‘monster’ as a teaching tool to inspire children to understand that not everything that looks scary, is scary. With Abigail and Her Pet Zombie series, Marie hopes to further spread her love for all things "that go bump in the night" with small children showing them that it's okay to be different and to embrace those same differences in those around them.

  Social Media Links

  Facebook: @MarieFCrow.Author

  Instagram: @authormariefcrow

  Twitter: @MarieFCrow

  Additional titles by Marie F Crow:

  The Risen Series

  Dawning

  Margaret

  Remnants

  Courage

  Defiance

  A Risen Series Novel

  Genny (Coming Soon)

 
; Lost Doves (Coming Soon)

  The Siren Series

  Crown of Betrayal

  Crown of Remorse (Coming Soon)

  The Abigail and her Pet Zombie Series

  Illustrated Children’s Books

  Abigail and her Pet Zombie

  Zoo Day

  Spring

  Summer

  Halloween

  The Abigail and her Pet Zombie Series

  Beginner Chapter Books

  Abigail and her Pet Zombie

  The Great HEXpectation Series

  The Little Lies (Coming Soon)

  About the Publisher

  Kingston Publishing offers an affordable way for you to turn your dream into a reality. We offer every service you will ever need to take an idea and publish a story. We are here to help authors make it in the industry. We’ve been hurt by publishers in the past and we want to provide a positive experience that will keep you coming back to us.

  Whether you want a traditional publisher who offers all the amenities a publishing company should or an author who prefers to self-publish, but needs additional help - we are here for you.

  Now Accepting Manuscripts!

  Please send query letter and manuscript to:

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  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14