by Kate Martin
My stomach dropped down to my feet.
“That’s good,” Cade said.
“Good?” My voice cracked, I hadn’t taken a breath to speak. “You think this is good?”
“It gives us more time.”
“More time for what?”
“To prove him innocent. It gives us eternity, even.”
“Eternity?” My throat had closed up. I couldn’t breathe, and I wanted to so badly. I wanted to hyperventilate. I wanted to pass out. Neither would happen.
The General shook his head, still looking at nothing and no one. “Tyrus has reserved the right to change his mind at any time. Whenever he chooses, he can ask for something far worse.”
“What’s worse than Rhys being torn to pieces?”
“Execution.”
I didn’t even know who said the word. All I knew was the terrible sinking feeling in my chest, the tightening of my lungs, the horrible white noise in my ears and the darkness creeping along the edges of my vision. The wall hit my back; the only thing preventing me from completely collapsing.
Cade grabbed me by the shoulders and gave me a rough shake. “Stop it. He is not dead. He will not be dead.”
“Tyrus could change his mind tomorrow!”
“He will not.”
“His love was murdered! He can’t possibly be happy with dismemberment!”
“Dismemberment is painful and if done improperly can be crippling. Without concrete evidence of the crime he is satisfied for now.”
“Crippling!”
He shook me again. “Listen to me. Focus.”
I choked on my own breath, then held it, unable to do anything normal with my lungs. I stared at Cade hard, hoping he would take that as my attempt to do as he had asked.
“Remember what I told you. That first night. Remember. They will not execute Rhys.”
My gaze flicked over his shoulder to the General and Aurelia who watched me with unreadable expressions. I realized then that Cade had spoken to me outside of their range of hearing. I scrambled through my memory of that night as though looking for a needle in a haystack, but then the glimmer of silver sparked against dull straw. The Council had an interest in Rhys. An interest that would not be satisfied by his death. I looked back at Cade and saw that I was right. Tyrus had wanted death for Rhys, but had been denied. The rest of the elders wanted Rhys alive. The number of pieces didn’t matter.
But what kind of hope was that if we couldn’t get what we needed to have him put back together?
Cade tightened his grip on my arms for a brief moment. The discomfort kept me grounded and focused on him. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said, though I doubted I made any actual sound. “When will it happen?”
“There is no date set yet.”
“So he’s okay for a while longer?”
“Yes.”
It was a small comfort. Yet, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut so I could just live in a tiny little bubble of protection. “What is dismemberment like? What do they do?”
“Kassandra, I think it would be better if—hi”
“Is it like when we kill the cariosus? Because that’s the only point of comparison I have.”
“No. No, it is nothing like that. Not nearly so messy. The procedure will be done cleanly and neatly. Not all dismemberment is for eternity, it is designed so that the prisoner can be reassembled at a later date with few repercussions.”
I had nothing left to say. Nothing. That part of my mind had been lost. I wanted nothing more than to curl into a ball on the floor, right there in the hall, and never move again. Or, at least, not until Rhys came back.
A few knocks on the wall were enough to startle me.
“Uh, sorry.” Brody’s voice. “But, uh, Kass’s grandmother is on the phone. She wants to talk to her.”
“Tell her she will be right there,” Cade said.
“No!” It felt like my body had been jump-started. I grabbed at Cade’s shirt. “No. I can’t talk to her right now.”
“You have to maintain your cover. Speak to her briefly, then we can talk more.”
I spent a few more precious seconds arguing, but my effort was pointless. Cade all but picked me up and carried me to the kitchen, sitting me in a chair by the phone on the counter and pressing it to my ear.
I concentrated on every nuance of my voice. Normal was the hardest thing in the world at that point. Luckily, I knew I could get by with little said on my end. Grandma would take care of business whether I answered her or not. “Hi, Grandma.”
“Oh, Kassandra, there you are. Good. I have a meeting in a few moments but I wanted to speak with you about the final plans for next Friday.”
“Next week?” Wasn’t it only Monday? I was losing track.
“The party, Kassandra. The party. Now, I have your dress, as you already know, so you don’t have to worry about that. I have taken care of all your accessories as well, including shoes. Really, you don’t have to do anything but show up. We will get you here nice and early so my stylist can work her magic. So, the only thing I need you to do is be ready when I send the car.”
The party. Oh, god. I had completely and totally forgotten about that monstrosity of a plan. I looked at Cade, knowing he could hear every word my grandmother said, hoping he would give me some sign that I should cancel given all the recent events.
No such luck.
“Okay, Grandma. What time should I be ready?”
“Friday morning. Nine o’clock sharp.”
“Okay.”
“Are you still bringing that boy with you?”
I dropped the phone.
My hands shook uncontrollably while Cade picked it up and pressed it back into place for me, this time not letting go. “Just say yes and end the conversation,” he said.
“Yes,” I said.
“All right then. But he’s on his own for attire. Make sure he dresses appropriately. Oh, we’re ready. I must go to my meeting now, Kassandra. But I will see you next week. I am so looking forward to it.”
“Me too, Grandma.”
“Goodbye, darling. Love you.”
“Love you too.”
She hung up, already issuing orders to someone else in the office.
“I can’t go to that party.”
“You can, and you will.” Cade hung up the phone.
“Why? Why is it so important that I go?”
“Because you need to be human, and because you should spend time with your family while they still exist. Forever is a long time to be without your blood kin.”
He speech made me remember just how old Cade really was. I kind of liked when that happened; when he sounded like he spoke from outside of time. But it didn’t alleviate any of my worries.
“You are the one who always complains that you want a normal life,” he said. “This would be happening for you regardless of whether or not we had ever interfered. This is your normal. Enjoy it.”
I didn’t have the energy to argue with him. “Do you promise me that Rhys is really all right? That he will be all right?”
“Yes. You have my word. He is not in life-threatening danger.”
“At this time,” I added for him.
“At this time.”
“Thanks.” I peeled myself off the chair and dragged my feet over the tile floor, across the wood of the front hall, up the stairs and to my room.
I fell onto my bed and buried my face in my blue and purple dragon, clutching the sixpence in one hand.
I have no idea how long I stayed there, in that position, not moving, trying not to think. I wanted time to stop.
Chapter Fifteen: Infragilis
I ran along the stone corridor, feet slipping in the blood and gore that covered the floor. The ever-present feeling of something breathing down my neck pushed me forward, deeper in the darkness. Alone. The torches hadn’t been lit here, which was a pity, because I really could have used the fire.
The hall turned suddenly, a sharp corner r
ising up out of nowhere. I slammed into the far wall as I slipped around the bend. I had only just regained my footing when another sudden corner greeted me, catching my nose this time. The whole place was a labyrinth, and I had no clue to help me along. No prior knowledge, and no ball of twine to lead me back to the entrance. Stumbling forward, I knew I had only one option; find the end.
Horrid screams rolled down the hallway behind me; a grim reminder of what gave chase. The cuts and bites on my arms stung in unison with the sounds. I told myself to ignore it all and keep running. I had one thing I wanted, and one thing alone.
A massive metal door rose up in front of me, a thick bar lock stretching all the way across. I grabbed at it, fumbling with my slick hands, unable to quickly settle my grip. Behind the door I could hear laughs, jeers, and moans of pain. Desperation crushing my chest, I struggled with the door one last time and finally slammed back the lock. The door swung open on its own, revealing the dark room beyond.
Chains hung from the ceiling and drew up from the floor. Gold sparkled everywhere, lining the walls and glittering along the thick chains. A pool of blood rippled along the stone floor.
And amidst it all was Rhys. Broken, bruised, bleeding, and chained.
I screamed his name and rushed forward, but faceless vampires dressed all in black grabbed me and held me back with grips like unbreakable steel.
Rhys’s head rose, his eyes glazed with pain as he first saw me. But he didn’t look relieved or hopeful; he looked resigned, horrified, and heartbroken. “Don’t watch,” he said, his lips cracking with the small movements of speech.
I kicked and screamed, but the vampires holding me were too strong. I couldn’t take my eyes off Rhys.
More vampires moved in, all the same, all dressed in black. They took hold of the chains that bound Rhys hand and foot and pulled them taut. Large rings above directed the movement of the chains—all in different directions.
“No!”
With a single nod from another vampire, this one in uniform rather than black, they all pulled.
I sat upright in bed, screaming my throat hoarse and shaking. My hand groped along the sheets next to me, searching for a body that wasn’t there. Clutching those cold sheets, I held my breath and forced my eyes to remain open, to see my room, my things, and not the blood-covered stones. Not Rhys, drawn and quartered like criminals were so long ago.
I’d had the same dream every night for the past week. Every night I ran through the bloody darkness to find him, every night I struggled with the lock on the door, and every night I arrived only in time to watch as the other half of my soul was ripped apart. My shoulders and hips ached where his limbs had been wrenched free. I wrapped my arms around myself as though the simple act could hold us both together.
I couldn’t take it anymore. Throwing my sheets from my bed, I hit the floor running, knowing exactly where I would go.
I all but threw myself at the door, opening it with my shoulder and both hands. Cade looked up at me from across the long table that dominated his room. The force of my entrance sent his papers and maps fluttering.
“You have to let me see him.”
The confusion slipped from his face and he shook his head. “No.” His attention went back to his work as though I no longer existed.
I covered the short distance with vampire speed, slamming my hands down on the table causing his papers to fly away. “Yes. I have to.”
“Absolutely not.” He bent to retrieve what had fallen to the floor.
I leaned forward, refusing to let him out of my sight, as though not seeing him would mean not getting what I wanted. “Cade, you don’t understand. Every time I close my eyes, all I see is him in pieces. I know he’s still whole, but it’s hard to believe. Please, just tell me where he is. I’ll take myself.”
He stood and mirrored my own position on the table. I always forget how truly terrifying Cade can be until I’m face to face with the most serious of his expressions. But this was too important. I swallowed my reflexive fear and glared right back at him.
“The prison is no place for you,” he said.
“It’s no place for Rhys either.”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it.”
“You don’t know what it’s like. I worry constantly. I can’t sleep because all I think is what if he’s sick, or hurt? I have to know. I have to see him for myself. I need him, and he must miss me. Don’t you think that would help? If he could see me?”
“He doesn’t want you there.”
My frantic urgency died instantly, replaced by desolate confusion. “What?”
Cade’s mouth was still set in a grim line, but his eyes reflected his reluctance to go on. “He doesn’t want you there. He made us all promise not to bring you.”
Things started to fall into place, hitting me as hard as a punch to the chest. Millie’s odd excuses, Aurelia’s short business trips, the General’s days away when he was so desperately needed here. “You’ve all been going. You’ve all seen him. And you left me behind.”
“Yes.” Cade looked guilty.
“Why?”
“I told you why. Rhys doesn’t want you there.”
How could he not want to see me? If I were imprisoned he would be the only thing I would want to see, and I’d want to see him day in and day out. But Rhys didn’t think the same way I did. I tried to put myself in his position, to think the way he did. He had an understandable, though bothersome, complex about protecting me. So what would I see in the prison that he would want to protect me from? The criminals were all locked up. And safely so. The General and Cade had both made it clear to me that there hadn’t been an escape from Infragilis in over two hundred years. Technology had made it nearly impossible.
Then it dawned on me. He wanted to protect me from seeing what prison had done to him. He was sick or hurt, or both. The burn on my shoulder from the gold locket flared with remembered pain. The prison was laced with gold to keep the criminals contained.
Cade’s hands on my arms snapped me out of my intense realization. He had jumped the table to reach me. I stared at him, anxiety rising up my throat.
“Forget it, Kassandra.”
“He’s sick!” My voice rose, I couldn’t help it. “He’s sick with gold poisoning!”
“It’s not enough to kill him. That’s not their intention. The gold is simply the only way we have of preventing escape attempts.”
“Until you dismember them!”
“Not everyone is dismembered.”
“No, just the innocent ones.” My cheeks went hot with anger. “And what happens once Rhys is taken apart? Do they keep poisoning him?”
“No. The gold will no longer be necessary. His parts will be kept separate in order to prevent reassembly.”
I wrenched myself away from him. He let go, otherwise I never would have been strong enough to break his hold. “What kind of barbarians do this?”
“Kassandra, we have explained this to you. How else do you expect us to keep others of our kind confined?”
“But Rhys is innocent!”
“I know that.”
I turned away from him and did my best not to pull my hair out. I needed to see Rhys. If I didn’t, the blackness that threatened to swallow me would win. My anger didn’t help anything. “Take me there,” I said, trying to make myself sound as unwavering as Aurelia.
“He doesn’t want you there,” Cade repeated.
“I don’t care.” I spun to face him. “Rhys doesn’t get to decide everything. If you and everyone else are allowed to see him, then so am I. Take me there, now.”
“Go ahead, Cade.” The General’s deep voice startled me. He stood in the doorway like a dark shadow, not making eye-contact with either of us. I was suddenly reminded that Rhys’s absence was probably as hard on him as it was on me. “Take her to see him. It will do him more good than he thinks.”
He left just like that, without another word.
I looked at Cade, shocked,
elated, and suddenly terrified. Like the General, he didn’t look at me; he just sighed and walked back towards his table. “Pack a few things. We’ll be gone overnight, possibly longer. We’ll leave in an hour.”
I had gotten what I wanted, but now I dreaded what I would see. I ran to my room, my head in a fog, and tried my best to think only of Rhys as I had seen him all those weeks before. Happy, safe, and whole.
“Are you ready?”
No. Absolutely not. This was place was huge, dark, dreary, and smelled like the worst kind of death. When Millie had first told me about Infragilis I had pictured something ominous, but nothing like this.
I had been certain it would be subterranean. Otherwise how would it have gone unnoticed for so long? But I had been wrong. Huge towers rose into the sky, reaching towards the oppressive sunlight. At the very top, the spires gleamed. Windows. Closer to the ground, the fortress was dark, with only small barred openings dotted rarely among the stone, concrete and steel. It looked like something out of an old horror movie; a haunted castle where the moans and pleas of the ghosts inside echoed through the night. But I knew there were no ghosts within. Just vampires. How many were the worst of our kind, and how many were wrongly incarcerated like Rhys?
I stared at the prison for an undetermined length of time. I was vaguely aware of the sun setting against the horizon beyond the thick forest that surrounded us, but nothing else. I tried to estimate how many cells lay within, how many levels there must be, and how many of them would be filled.
Cade waited patiently at my side, making no attempt to hurry me along.
“So . . . where are we anyway?” We had taken a small private plane, and no one had mentioned the destination once. The roads taken to get there had been devoid of signs, and I didn’t know enough about trees and plants to discern anything from the flora and fauna that grew up all around. Cade offered no help. “Oh, okay, sure. I get it. I don’t get to know. What can I know then?”
“There are thirteen floors above ground,” he said. “With another five below ground. Those are the newest additions. The top floors are reserved for the worst offenders.”
“Because of the windows?” My voice sounded thin and childish. Like I feared the monsters under the bed.