He removed my cap, running his fingers over the top of my hair and then cradling my face. “Marrying you. Giving you children, should you want them. Making your favorite meals. Singing your most beloved songs. Wearing a red coat to bed. . .”
Gasping at the teasing reminder of my admiration for his uniform, I playfully slapped his chest, scooting away.
He laughed, capturing my hands once more and placed a light kiss on my lips. “Whatever you want,” he whispered, staring into my eyes. “That is what I have considered and accepted. In three weeks, when we are free from our burdens at last, we will work our way through the little things one step at a time.”
The sentiment touched my heart in exactly the way it should have. Warmth blossomed through my body, and I nodded, agreeing to the plan as I leaned in and kissed him again.
Our lips moved slowly together, the embrace starting out sweet. As his fingers brushed along my neck, his pulse racing beneath my thumb on his wrist, I felt myself wanting more than a momentary distraction.
A loud pounding on the front door yanked me from the delicious feelings before I could expound on them further, and the pair of us stood up in shock. My mind immediately went to the only person who would have known we were in the city, the sole man who would knock in such a manner.
“August,” I muttered, squeezing his hand tightly.
Smith’s voice rang through the house, followed by more pounding. “Open in the name of the King!”
Panic gripped my heart, my eyes going wide as I spun around, staring at August. “Run!” I whispered, urging him toward the back of the room. “Go out the window, and I’ll find you later!”
Shaking his head, he stood still, staring at the wall. “I cannot,” he muttered. “If I flee, the soldiers will search the house. Everything we have worked to gather for the siege will be found and taken. You will have nothing but scraps as the weeks go on.”
Frustrated, I shook my head, pulling on his hand, attempting to drag him to escape myself. “I would rather have the scraps than see you hanged!”
He closed his eyes, sucking in a deep breath, and shook his head. “They will not hang me. No time remains for issues such as desertion to be dealt with. The whole lot of the army will be forced to face Washington.”
Staring at me, he gripped my hands, speaking quickly. “I will find a way out. You and Charlotte stay here. Stay safe. Stopping Gabriel is more important than me being free.”
“August—”
There was no stopping him. Squaring his shoulders, he strode from the bedroom, waiting for me to exit and close the door, and then answered the barrage of shouts and pounding at the front.
No less than six soldiers stood on the street outside, guns held in hands ready to fire if necessary. At the forefront of them, Smith wore a sullen expression, his eyes flicking toward me in annoyance.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” August stated cordially. “Smith. I see that your instincts for tracking are as unparalleled as ever.”
Huffing, Smith motioned to the others, moving aside so they could come in with shackles. “Private August Bancroft. You are hereby under arrest for the crimes of desertion and treason against His Majesty, the King.”
Charlotte stood beside me as we watched August have his hands wrenched behind him, wrists placed in tight, metal cuffs connected by a short chain.
“Where are you taking him?” I asked quietly. Blinking hard, I refused to cry, too shocked to argue over this course of action.
Smith stared at me hard. “Headquarters,” he finally said. “And then the local jail. You may petition to see him as he awaits a verdict on his punishment.” Peering at August, his frown deepened. “Though I wouldn’t hope for much. I imagine every loyal British soldier will be preoccupied over the next day or so.”
“Oh?” August mused. “Why is that?”
It was apparent the Redcoat had been hoping for another fight, his form twitching as he glared at his captive. The longer August seemed unbothered by being caught, the more frustrated Smith appeared, until he was red in the face and struggling to stay calm. “Take him away,” he finally muttered to the others. “I’ve enough of this unapologetic sop.”
“Wait!” Stepping forward, I plead with him with my eyes. “Why should I not hope for much? Do they not allow visitors at the prison?”
Shaking his head, he sighed, rubbing his brow before answering. “Washington and his men have surrounded the city. While we have fortified Yorktown to the best of our abilities and supplies, I do believe it will come to arms before victory can be claimed. If I were you, I’d think less about visiting the prison and more about leaving while you still can.”
Kneeling on the floor, my skirts tucked around me, I laid my head on the thin bed, eyes squeezed shut as the never-ending rain of cannon fire continued from the American batteries.
I’d read the books, watched documentaries, heard about the Battle of Yorktown and the crowning success it was for the Continentals. All that knowledge didn’t prepare me for how truly awful the past weeks had been, though, huddled in corners, listening to the cries of those left in the city, jumping at every crumbling brick and beam.
It was worse when Cornwallis abandoned all but three of his redoubts, bringing the soldiers into the earthworks, crowding the streets and sucking away all the rations left. Men who had been staunchly ready to defend the city were now abandoning it, others falling ill with malaria as they became forced to share close quarters. Desperate to preserve what little they did have, the army had slaughtered hundreds of horses and laid them across the beach, in full view of the ships they’d scuttled in the bay to keep them from falling into American hands.
At times, it felt everyone in Yorktown must have been praying for the horrors to stop, but God had turned a blind eye on us, choosing instead to allow the Americans their victory.
What are we going to do?
The dying cosmic string would be here tomorrow, open for only a moment on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, off the Point of Rocks. As times that should not touch came together, the war would rage on mere feet away, and I would have to be right there in the midst of it all.
The prospect frightened me. With August in prison, I didn’t know how I was going to survive being caught in cannon and gunfire, let alone wrestle Gabriel away and force him into the loop.
“You look glum. I take it your petition to have August released was denied?”
Sitting up straight, I stared at Charlotte. She stood in the doorway, a cup of something warm in her hands, hair pulled away from her face and a shawl around her shoulders. When a shot landed nearby, shaking dust from the ceiling, she didn’t even flinch, merely covering the top of her mug and then taking a slow sip.
Being here, alone with her, for the past couple weeks had been unsettling. While she’d never said or done anything outright to make me think she didn’t like me, I couldn’t help but feel we were at odds for some reason.
“Worse,” I mumbled. “I’ve received no reply.”
At the start of the siege, I’d regularly gone and waited outside the British headquarters to ask for August to be paroled to a safer location until after the fighting was finished. Everyone was so busy with war, I’d been pushed to the wayside until someone finally took down my request.
That had been two weeks ago. There’d been no reply, no chance for me to travel the streets among the firing, and August was rotting in a jail somewhere, possibly buried beneath a heap of blown up stones.
“Oh, stop moping,” Charlotte snapped all the sudden, setting her cup down forcefully. “So your man got caught. Who cares? You don’t need him to get your shit taken care of. Buck up!”
Shocked, I stared at her with my mouth agape. “Excuse me?”
“You’ve been sitting in this room for days, doing nothing,” she continued. “Either have your cry and get it over with or go do something about it!” Sighing, she shook her head and folded her arms. “Don’t let your emotions rule you! Shove your delicate femin
inity to the side and show everyone you mean business.”
Glaring at her, I shoved to my feet, brushing my skirt off and pointing a finger at her. “Our best shot at beating Gabriel is behind bars, and you’re worried that I'm too feminine?” Laughing, I gestured to my body. “In case you haven’t noticed, I am a woman! I am proud of my femininity! Feeling emotions does not make me any less than you, the robot who doesn’t give a care about anything! And I haven’t been sitting in here doing nothing.”
She snorted, an eyebrow raising. “What have you been doing then?”
Blushing, I glanced at the partial drawing of August on the bed. It was next to my sketched-out map of the city, as well as the bluffs and redoubts outside it. I’d marked where scuttled ships sat in the bay, best pathways to take to get out quick, and every possible route to Point of Rocks from those trails. Hidden among the pictures was one of Gabriel, the way I remembered him as he doctored August at Germantown.
Charlotte stepped forward, lifting the image of her brother and staring at it with an impassive face.
“How can you not care?” I asked quietly, watching her. “How can you stand there and belittle me for caring, yet you came to this time with the sole intention of murdering your brother? How can you imagine we will be able to do it on our own? Gabriel is a trained, military hero in this time. The thought that two women—both smaller and less experienced—could take him down is almost laughable to me.” Shrugging, I sat on the floor, pulling the map toward me. “That’s why I’ve been in here. Drawing this map, these portraits, is my way of thinking. I have no idea what to do, especially when we finally face Gabriel and you realize you can’t kill your own family.”
Swallowing hard, I shook my head. “I knew I could do it with August. He’s helped me with so many things, and it is so important to him that we set the timeline straight. Together, we had a chance to do it. Without him . . . I’m not so stupid as to assume I can fight Gabriel on my own. I know nothing about combat, or how to fire a gun in this time. I’m smaller, slower, weaker, and he is as determined as I am to see his plans through. The last time I got in his way, he stabbed me.” The memory caused a twinge around the scar on my stomach, and I placed a hand over it. “And if it happens again, I will have no August to save me.”
Charlotte sat on the floor beside me, staring at the likeness I’d created of her brother. “Sometimes you have to run through the fire and learn how to save yourself,” she muttered.
She set the drawing down, sucking in a sharp breath as she rubbed her face. “You see,” she started casually, “Gabriel wasn’t always like this. We used to travel together, observing and recording. It wasn’t until after our parents got divorced that we went our separate ways.”
“What happened?” I asked, prodding her gently as I laid the map down.
She shook her head. “It’s not important. But . . .” Her gaze seemed far away as she looked at the wall, another cannonball shaking dust from the ceiling. “I do care,” she admitted quietly. Then, staring at me, she swallowed, pursing her lips. “He’s sick. The vanadium required for traveling can cause a lot more issues than internal bleeding. Mental illness, among other things. Our bodies aren’t meant to have more than the barest amounts of it, yet we’ve chalked our systems full of the stuff, without a care of what it might mean in the long run.”
Laughing without humor, she reached for her mug, sipping as she settled beside me. “The Gabriel I knew never would have changed the timeline. Once Louis got his hands on him and sent him on trip after trip, training him for his own twisted purposes, that was when I noticed the change. Things that were important before weren’t that special to Gabriel. It was as if he weren’t the same person.”
“What did you do?” Frowning, I resisted the urge to put a comforting hand on her, guessing she wouldn’t take kindly to the contact.
Staring steadily at me, her face remained impassive. “Nothing. I did nothing.”
Leaning back, I frowned. “You did nothing to help him, and now your only plan is to kill him for something that’s not his fault? Mental illness is a scary thing, Charlotte. If he got the help he needed—if Gabriel stopped taking the supplements—he might revert to the way he was.”
Her expression remained unchanged. “Even if that were the case . . . It’s too late for him. Too late for all of us.” Standing, she went to the dirty window, staring out at the chaotic streets. “There will be no more traveling after this trip. No more learners walking through the loops. I’ve made sure of it.” Smiling, she looked at me. “Only the natural born, like you and August.”
Surprised, I stood as well. “Charlotte, what did you do?”
Her grin grew. “Everything. Anything I could do to make sure my parents never send someone through time again, including themselves.” Facing the window, she took another sip. “I am a woman of no action no longer.” Suddenly, she turned around, setting her cup down decisively. “And neither are you.”
Grabbing my hand, she towed me out of the bedroom and into the sitting area. After rummaging through her bag for a beat, she revealed a modern pistol, gleaming in the light and giving off a dangerous air.
“What on earth did you bring that for?” I asked in alarm.
“Emergencies,” she responded in an off-hand manner. “You know how to use it?”
“In theory,” I started hesitantly. “But why—”
“Good.” A matching gun joined the first, passed along to me. “Tuck it in your skirts, but make sure the safety is on first.”
Going to the door, she cracked it open, peering into the dust and smoke filled streets outside. The setting sun washed everything in orange, making it feel like the world was ending in a fiery rage.
“What are you doing?” I asked in alarm.
Glancing at me, she grinned. “I may not feel like we need August to win, but you do. If the Bloody Backs won’t set him free, then we’ll have to go and get him ourselves.”
Under cover of darkness, Charlotte and I slipped through the streets, pausing in doorways and taking cover whenever needed from the battery assaults. The guns Charlotte had brought along were securely tucked in our pockets.
The weight of mine made me more nervous than confident. The safety was on, but I kept imagining I was about to accidentally shoot a toe off.
Following Charlotte, I remained quiet, trying to steel my nerves for what we were about to do. I’d never broken someone out of jail. Then again, I’d never run through a city under fire by cannon and occupied by the British before, either. The hospital is where I’d chosen to stay during previous battles.
“Which way?” Charlotte’s voice hissed through the racket, her form drawing near as we took cover under a corner stoop.
“What do you mean?” Her expression made me think we were in danger, and I glanced around in a panic, fumbling to get my hand through my skirts and to my pocket bag.
She grabbed my hand, stilling it and nodded to the right, down the road that led to the jailhouse. “Look. There are soldiers in the street down there.”
Squinting, I searched for what she was seeing, only catching a brief glimpse of lamplight bobbing in the night.
“You drew the map,” she continued. “Marked the escape routes, studied the entire layout of the battlefield. Our current path is blocked by soldiers. So which way do we go?”
Blinking, I nodded. When I’d started sketching the city, it had been something to fill the time, not a study or tool to be used for our gain. Charlotte was right, though. I’d collected all the information and knew it well.
Taking a steadying breath, I pointed behind us. “There’s an alleyway we can slip through a few blocks back. If we take it, circle around past the wharf, and then take the street up the bluffs just before where the British units are placed, we should be able to slip into the jail through the rear.” Sighing, I shrugged my shoulders. “Assuming we don’t get caught by anyone first.”
Charlotte smiled. “They’ll be too busy to notice two women sca
mpering around in the hills. Let’s go.”
In reality, our path was a little more complicated than I expected. We had to double back twice to avoid platoons or buried roads, as well as often stopping for cover as we neared the edge of the city. Finally, when we came down beside the water, I felt as if I could breathe, the shore far enough away to be safe from fire right then. It smelled horrendous, due to the dead horses scattered everywhere, but I pushed that truth from my mind and continued onward, leading Charlotte toward the jailhouse with hope and fear in my heart.
As we slipped into the city, darting around Hessian and British units, the roof of the building finally came into view, and I felt as if I might collapse from relief to see it still standing. A dim light came from the windows, the door left unguarded, but closed.
Charlotte, grabbing my arm, pulled me into another abandoned doorway, whispering quickly as she reached into her pocket. “Let me go first. I’m a bit more experienced in this kind of thing than you might think.” She smiled, amusement dancing across her features, and then took off, darting across the street and then motioning for me to follow.
To my surprise, she led me to the jail straight on, running as a spray of ammunition from the American forces began to fall around us.
“Help!” she screamed, banging on the door when she found it locked. “Let us in, please!”
The door opened immediately, a man in a white waistcoat and pants ushering us in and pushing us to the ground as one of the windows broke beside us.
Charlotte continued to scream, playing the part of a terrified and helpless woman with ease.
I, on the other hand, did not have to pretend to be scared. Shouting, I covered my head, rolling into a ball as a loud boom shook the ground. Terror gripped my every cell, tripling in size as one corner of the roof was suddenly gone, broken off and taking the crumbling wall with it.
Through the din, I heard more shouting, felt hands on me as I cowered on the ground. A gun fired nearby, and a body fell beside me.
Abandoning Anarchy (The Lost in Time Duet #2) Page 17