by Jenn Vakey
“I did.”
With a heavy look, he nodded. “Because they had Lillith. But things have changed since then. We rescued everyone they were holding, and everyone knows now that my brother and I are alive. That we intend on taking the city back. The only way I could see someone working against us at this point was if they were loyal to Dex. That would be suicide for any Tainted. He said so himself.”
“But it’s still possible, which means we’re not going to take a chance.”
Rhydian smiled, although it was small. “I’ll never take a chance when it comes to you.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RHYDIAN
Leeya was asleep with Kip when Lillith came in with a plate of food for her. I was grateful. She had been through a lot, and didn’t need to deal with everyone at dinner. I also wanted to keep her away from Maizie as much as I could. At least until she could remember what we had. It was one thing for her to just believe what I was saying. I wanted her to be able to feel it.
After briefly going over the new guard assignments with Lillith, I left them and went to the dining hall for dinner.
Leeya had agreed after we talked to have Auggie watch her when needed. They had become closer after that day he let her leave the wards. He blamed himself for what she had gone through, and she had refused to let me punish him for it. With her remembering his words when needed today, I think she now felt like she owed him in a way. It might have even helped to lessen some of that residual guilt he still had.
After filling him in on the situation, I grabbed my plate and walked over to where Dallin and Paxton were sitting. I needed to talk to them both, and it gave me the opportunity to avoid having to deal with Maizie.
“How’s Leeya?” Paxton asked when I took the seat next to him.
“She’s asleep,” I said. “She’s exhausted, but she’s okay physically.”
“I filled Paxton and Lillith in on what Nikan said,” Dallin said, speaking just loud enough for us both to hear. “And your theories about why they could be after her.”
“The Sentry won’t be a problem as long as she’s within the wards,” I told them. “But we do have another problem. Leeya doesn’t know how she got into the river. It’s unlikely, but we can’t completely rule out the possibility that she was attacked and thrown in.”
I let them absorb that for a moment before going on.
“I’ve already talked to Lillith. Until things change, I’ll be with Leeya as much as possible. Paxton and Lillith will watch her when she’s in the dorm, and when I can’t be with her during the day, she’ll either be with you or Auggie. She understands now that she can’t go anywhere alone. I think today scared the desire to wander out of her.”
They both nodded.
“What about Linley?” Paxton asked.
I groaned. Sadly, that was probably going to be more difficult. She rarely stayed where I wanted her to. Unlike Leeya, I couldn't visibly put someone on her. It would draw too much attention to her.
“I’m going to have an additional person put on child care duty at all times. No one will question protecting the group as a whole. She’s not to leave the dorm without one of us with her to walk her to the schoolhouse, and I’ll make sure whoever is guarding the children knows she has to be supervised when she’s going somewhere else. She knows enough about the situation in Eden that she shouldn’t push me too hard on it.”
Paxton chuckled, and I could tell he wasn’t so sure about that. Even in the short time he had spent around her, I was certain he had already picked up on how headstrong she was.
“Is Leeya still going with you in the morning?” Dallin asked.
I blew out a breath. I hadn’t talked to Orson yet, but I already knew he was going to tell me not to take her. I understood that he was her father by blood, but that was the extent of the relationship they had. She was mine, and I was going to be the one to decide how to best keep her safe. I might listen to Dallin’s opinions, purely out of respect and the fact that I knew he truly loved her, but I was going to do what I thought was best when it came to her.
“She needs to be,” I answered. “Now that we have confirmation they’re looking for her, it’s even more important that the people coming in are vetted. No one in camp will be able to do that better than Leeya can. We can’t risk letting someone in who could try to harm her just because of the risk in taking her there. We’ll have a team with us. She’ll be safe.”
He looked a little uncomfortable after what happened today, but he didn’t challenge me on it.
“Dallin said she remembered something else today,” Paxton said.
I smirked, the tension at the table lessening. I considered just confirming it, knowing that the details of that day might make them worry even more. It was true that that day had been nearly as terrifying as today had been. Especially with how we had found her. On the other hand, it was proof of just how strong she really was.
“She went on a retrieval with Auggie her second week here,” I told them. “They found a child alone at the archway. She said her mother had been hurt. Leeya broke our rules and talked Auggie into letting her go after the mother. She remembered what he told her about hiding if there was any sign of Sentry. She ended up taking the entire team out and saving the mom.”
That was all they really needed to know. I had already told Dallin that she had been the one to kill Adler. It was up to her if she wanted him to know there had been others. As there was an unspoken understanding not to talk about what had happened that day, it wasn’t something someone else would willingly share with him.
They also didn’t need to hear about what the Sentry she had killed had been planning to do with her.
“That girl will be the death of me,” Dallin groaned.
I smirked. He wasn’t the first person to tell me that. Sadly, I doubted he would be the last.
Although I didn’t want to, I had to have a conversation with Orson before I went back to the dorm. He needed a full report about the Sentry. It was required anytime we had a run in with them.
He was waiting for me in the meeting hall when I walked in, his arms folded across his chest as he leaned back against the table.
“I expected you earlier,” he said.
I struggled not to roll my eyes. We had always had a good relationship, but things were definitely strained right now. For the sake of our community, I needed to get past it. Even if I didn’t really want to at the moment.
“I was with Leeya,” I said simply.
“What happened out there today?”
Taking a minute, I thought about what I actually wanted to tell him. He didn’t need to know her reasoning for being out there in the first place. That was between the two of us. It wasn’t his business. I certainly didn’t need him to try to use it to say that I wasn’t in the best position to keep her safe.
So I told him all he needed to know.
“Leeya was out for a walk in the woods. She isn’t sure how, but she ended up in the river. It carried her several miles outside of camp, beyond the wards.” Orson tensed, clearly ready to say something. I didn’t give him the chance to. “She was following the river back when she encountered a group of Sentry. They were tracking her. She hid, then after one of them sent the others ahead, he found her and put her in a more secure hiding place.”
“The Sentry hid her?” he interrupted. “From us?”
I shook my head. “We found the rest of his group stopped along the river. We took out all but one, planning on asking him where Leeya was. He held his gun on Auggie. Not someone willing to cooperate with us. A Sentry named Nikan came up from behind and disarmed him, then rendered him unconscious. He told us where to find Leeya. From what she said, he had been trying to keep them from finding her. His plan was to keep her in a safe place until she knew they were gone, at which point he told her to continue following the river until she was back within the wards.”
Orson just stared at me for several long moments, trying to understand everything I
had just said. Before the unrest we had started in the city, it wasn’t anything we would even consider a Sentry doing. Now I don’t think any of us could predict what they were going to do.
“The Sentry is someone Dallin knows,” I added. “Leeya was certain he was being honest. She said he had recognized her, but he had been attempting to help her even before then. Even when he only knew they were tracking a woman Dex wanted. Dallin should be able to give you more information on him.”
“And he confirmed that Dex really is after her?”
I nodded.
“I’ve changed her guard assignments,” I said. I decided not to share the suspicions Leeya and I had about how she might have ended up in the river. Not until I saw something that made the possibility plausible. Orson was a good leader for a reason. He always put the good of the community as a whole above anything else. If he thought there might be someone here who was working against us, he might take it out on all of the new people. Limiting their movements, monitoring them. The majority, if not all, were innocent people. Afraid. They needed to feel safe here. So for now, I would watch and wait.
“I won’t be leaving Leeya’s side unless I have to,” I told him. “Lillith and Paxton can still watch her when she’s in the dorm, but I’ll be with her whenever she leaves. If I can’t be, she’ll either be with Dallin or Auggie. She knows now how important it is not to wander off.”
He thought it over before nodding.
“I’ll have someone else take your place in the morning,” he said.
I shook my head. “We have a large group coming in tomorrow. Now that we know Dex is looking for her, we have to consider that he would try to use the group to get someone in. Leeya’s going to be needed there to ensure that doesn’t happen. The most the rest of us would be able to do is search them. We need her ability to know when people are lying. I’ll have a full team out with us. Nothing will happen to her.”
He didn’t like me questioning him. Had he not known how much she meant to me, he might have pushed me on it. I was part of the leadership group, but he was still our leader. He had seen everything we had done for each other, though. It was part of the reason he had chosen to put us on different teams in Eden in the first place. He knew I would never let anything happen to her.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LEEYA
It was still dark when a knock at my door pulled me out of my dreamless sleep. I sat up slowly, looking around as I tried to orient myself. When there was a gentle movement beside me, I was surprised to see that I wasn’t alone.
Linley.
I smiled. I hadn’t even heard her come in during the night.
Not wanting to wake her, I slipped out of bed carefully and tiptoed to the door. Rhydian was waiting for me when I opened it. He looked past me to his sleeping sister and smiled, not saying anything as he stepped in and pulled clothes out of the dresser.
I was unsure what I was supposed to do. He had asked me to go with him to the archway this morning, but that was before everything that had happened yesterday. Rhydian must have sensed my uncertainty, because he pulled a second stack out and handed it to me. My clothes. I smiled again.
As soon as he was gone, I quickly shed my sleep clothes and tugged on the pair he had given me. After putting my shoes on and glancing back to make sure Linley was still sleeping, I slipped out of the room and hurried down the hall to the restroom to finish getting ready.
Rhydian was waiting for me in the common area like he had been last night when I finished. He was wearing a pair of black pants that were similar to my own, along with a grey sweater that fit him snuggly in the shoulders and arms. His blonde hair was tucked behind his ears like it always was.
The man was beautiful, and my body seemed to agree as my insides made one of those strange flipping motions again.
“Here,” he said, holding something up for me to see. He didn’t really give me time to get a good look at it before he was turning me around and pulling my arms into a pair of straps. Spinning me again, he moved quickly to fasten it in place. After he was satisfied, he reached down to retrieve a pair of long sticks from the table next to him. Rhydian stepped close enough that his warm scent filled my nose as he lifted them over my shoulders and slid them into the harness he had attached to me.
“These are your bastons,” he said, stepping back. “Reach up and pull them out.”
Doing as he had said, I found both sticks and gripped them, lifting them up. They came out easily. Holding them out in front of me, I was able to actually look at them. So these were the bastons everyone told me I fought with. I hadn’t really known what to expect, but there was something almost comforting in the way they felt in my hands. They were heavier than they looked, but not in a bad way. The narrow sticks, which were nearly the length of my arms, actually felt like they belonged there. Like they were an extension of my body, something I needed to make me feel whole.
I didn’t really understand it, but it had to mean something.
“I’m not anticipating a problem today, but it’s better to be safe than sorry,” he said. His eyes were on my hands as I twisted them around, moving the sticks–bastons–easily. The way his green eyes lit up made me feel like he also believed they were at home in my grip.
After giving me a minute to acquaint myself with the weapons, Rhydian wrapped his hands around mine and helped me to reattach them to my back. That part wasn’t quite as easy, as I couldn’t actually see what I was doing, but we were able to get them into place without much difficulty. Then he nodded his head toward the door at the other side of the hall, and we started walking in a comfortable silence.
There was a small group of people waiting for us when we went outside. Aarys was there, along with Zaydan, Auggie, and Prestyn. They were all standing around a large piece of machinery. It had a low platform that was a little over a foot off the ground. The front of it had a panel that looked to have controls on it. At our arrival, the others started climbing onto it. Aarys bounced on first, walking to the side and pulling something down. A thin square shaped piece folded down. It was a seat. One Aarys quickly dropped into. The others followed.
“It’s a hovercraft,” Rhydian said from my side. “They were given to us during our escape out of Eden. We’ll take it up to the archway, then walk back with the group. We just want it there in the event that our people in the city were able to send supplies. Or if anyone is injured. I had to carry you the entire five miles when I found you at the archway.”
I looked up to him for an explanation, but he only smiled and walked to the hovercraft. I did the same.
There were three seats on one side, and two on the side that had the controls. When they were pulled out, there really wasn’t much room for anything else. Bags could be left in the middle or pushed under the seats, but I couldn’t see it being able to hold more than six adults. As that was the exact size of our party, we were snug without being uncomfortable.
Then we were moving.
There was something exhilarating about traveling like this. It wasn’t something that struck me as familiar, but the speed and the way it vibrated just a little under us as it quite literally hovered over the ground made my heart race with excitement. I couldn’t keep myself from smiling.
Before I was ready, we were slowing. I looked ahead, expecting to see the archway, but we were still in the woods.
Prestyn, who had been driving, pulled the hovercraft to a stop along the side of the path. Everyone stood, folding their seats back up before jumping off. My legs felt a little funny when my feet hit the ground. They tingled slightly, but the sensation didn’t last long. Then we started walking further ahead down the path.
It only took two minutes before the woods opened up and I could see what we had come for. There were remnants of stone walls that had long been broken. The tallest of the remaining sections were nearly the same height as Rhydian, but most were no more than a foot or two. With the sunlight just starting to reach it, the ruins had an almost eerie feeli
ng to them.
At the far end of it was a nearly intact archway.
That was where I could see the crowd of people who were watching our arrival. There had to be twenty or so adults staring back at us. Around them I could see children.
They looked scared and tired. Rhydian had said it was a day’s walk. Knowing there were Sentry out here, I doubted they had stopped along the way to rest. Given my own experience yesterday, they were lucky as it was that they had made it here.
“Good morning,” Rhydian said, stepping ahead of our little group. Several of the adults looked at him with wide eyes, murmuring things too low for me to hear. The one word that did make it to me was prince.
It was like his very presence here made much of the tension that had been emanating from the group disappear. It was the first time that I could truly understand the significance of who he was. What he was.