I wouldn’t go as far as to say that silence reigned—the house was still too alive with gunfire, some of it clearly coming from Violet’s side of the house—but, directly below me, it had gone as eerily silent as a cemetery. I kept perfectly still, uncertain as to what was lurking below me. I heard harsh, wrangled breathing from below. The sound of sniffing followed, then heavy, lumbering footsteps heading off in a different direction, avoiding me altogether.
I exhaled the breath I hadn’t been aware I was holding, and used the back of my hand to wipe the sweat from my forehead. I stepped out from behind the corner, going into a quick squat so I could survey more of the lower level, my eyes darting in and out of the shadows in search of… whatever it was that had torn through two armed women. Just as I had convinced myself that it was gone, I heard horrified screaming coming from Violet’s stairwell—screaming that was now familiar to me.
I took a step toward the area, knowing that several layers of rooms stood between us and that I couldn’t abandon my post, and froze, listening. I thought I had heard my name, but it was hard to tell with the echoed sounds of shouting and fighting from the other parts of the house. I frowned, and strained, clasping my gun in now-clammy hands.
I heard it again—a muted, barely audible cry. It was Violet. I knew it with the same certainty that that I had killed three women and stood by while Solomon tore another two apart. I looked back at the staircase with a curse. It wasn’t even a decision on my part. I had already slung my rifle behind my back, clutching the strap to hold it tight, and moved toward her voice.
I pulled my pistol out and started moving faster. I was nearing the end of the hall when I heard the sound of running feet—two sets, to be precise. One of them was light, barely registering on the carpeted floor. The other one was clearly larger, thudding hard and echoing. I pressed my back against the wall and looked toward the next hall to see Violet slip around the corner, ducking in time to avoid getting hit by a table that flew over her head, smashing into pieces as it made impact with the wall.
She continued moving, catching her feet under her, nearly twenty feet away from me. I stepped out, pulling my gun.
Violet saw my intent as she raced toward me and shook her head, her eyes widening. “Viggo! Don’t shoot! It’s Solomon!” she shouted as she raced toward me.
The large man stepped into this hall from the adjoining one. Violet was almost to me now, and he paused, watching her run. I tightened my finger on the trigger, knowing full well I could stop his misery here and now. It might even be merciful.
But I couldn’t do it—this was not his natural state, and that wasn’t his fault. From what Violet had told me about him, Solomon was an exceptionally kind, brave and gentle man, and I owed him for saving not only Violet’s life, but mine. If he hadn’t selflessly volunteered to help retrieve the laser that cured me, he wouldn’t be in this mess. I would kill him if I thought I couldn’t stop him from killing Violet or myself, but that time hadn’t come. Yet.
I whirled and grabbed Violet’s hand, pulling her behind me, back down the hall toward my stairs. She followed, her shorter legs moving faster than mine so she could keep pace.
Behind us, we heard his horrible, bellowing roar—predatory and furious—followed by the deep thuds of his feet pounding on the floor, chasing after us.
I pushed Violet ahead of me, determined to keep her safe, as we rounded the corner that led to my stairwell. She was steps ahead of me, one hand on the railing, using it to keep her feet under her as she rounded the sharp corner and flew down the steps.
I was right behind her when Solomon emerged from the hall. He took one look at me and roared, spittle flying everywhere. He launched himself at me, and I ducked. My eyes widened as he flew completely over me and hit the wall, headfirst, hard enough to make it shudder.
He slid down, and I moved, barely able to get out of his way as he rolled down the steps, his legs and arms flying wildly as he tried to catch himself.
Without thinking, I leapt onto his back, wrapping an arm around his neck. It was a move I’d used often in the fighting ring, one that allowed me to cut off my opponent’s oxygen with a minimal amount of effort. My legs went around his waist like an anaconda as he stirred beneath me. I used my other arm to reinforce the one across his neck, my wrist pressing against my other wrist, leveraging it tighter around his throat.
His neck felt like steel under my arms, and I flashed back to when I had tried this move on a massive silver python that had almost finished me in The Green. That had ended poorly—I couldn’t let it happen again. I summoned up all the knowledge of my martial arts days and held on as Solomon staggered, then backed up into the nearest wall, slamming my back into it.
Then Violet was there, racing back up the stairs to where we struggled on the middle landing. I heard her grunt as she planted a foot in Solomon’s knee, and I managed to keep my grip firm as he tumbled to his knees, giving a wheezing roar. I jacked my arm in tighter, cutting the circulation off, straining with the effort.
I had to keep squeezing, unable to relent, knowing that if I didn’t we would either have to take him out, or this man would kill us all. It became my sole focus—the only thing that mattered. I have to protect us all.
After years in the ring, I could feel the exact moment when the man beneath me began faltering, and then the exact moment when he lost consciousness. I was barely able to unclamp my aching arm before he dropped to the ground, taking me down with him.
I rolled away from his twitching body, staring at the ceiling. The victory didn’t feel good.
Footsteps sounded, coming from the region of the house only our allies should be in. The next thing I knew, Owen was standing at the top of the staircase, his face flushed and his eyes wide. I gazed up at him, my rational mind returning, and became aware of a second thing—the house was silent. All the gunfire had stopped.
“Is it over?” I asked dazedly. If there was a new threat, I needed to be ready for it. Violet looked at me from where she was bent over Solomon, making sure he was all right… or at least not dead. She looked alarmed, and I realized it was because of the look on Owen’s face.
He came down a few steps, and I struggled to turn toward him from where I lay on the floor. “You need to come up here,” he whispered harshly. “Henrik… he…” The younger man’s face fell, and I felt something then, something like concern, cut through the strange head-stuffed and sluggish state I seemed to be in. I pulled myself to my feet, surprised at how tired I felt, but managing to place one foot in front of the other.
Violet was behind me, wordlessly urging me forward, and I moved. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, until I was running, pressed urgently onward by some unknown sense that I was needed now.
I rounded the corner near the back of the house and saw that Ms. Dale had abandoned her post and was crouching over a still form, her hands bloody. The door to her left was standing open, and I noted the standard-issue Matrian boots sticking out of the opening, just a few feet away from where Henrik was bleeding out.
Ms. Dale shouted something at the man, her mouth angry and her eyes terrified. It was the rawest look of human emotion I had ever seen on her face. I watched, stunned, as she continued to press her hands against his chest.
But I sensed that the grim tidings didn’t stop there. The sounds coming from the room concerned me. Wardens shouldn’t have been in this part of the house. I stepped around them, my limbs feeling like lead, almost tripping on Samuel who was standing at the threshold.
Inside, it looked like the aftermath of chaos. A group of people were sobbing softly, some pressed into the corners of the room, their eyes squeezed shut as they clung to each other. It must have been a communal acceptance of their fate—the fate they became intimately acquainted with after watching several of their own men, women, and—God help me—children slaughtered moments before Ms. Dale’s bullet had ended their assailant.
I opened my mouth, trying to find the words to tell them it was over, when several pe
ople cried out in alarm as a door they were pressed against was forced open. Before I could think to reach for my gun, they fell back and King Maxen stepped out, shouting obscenities at anyone who didn’t get out of his way fast enough. He moved toward me, casually stepping over the body of a small boy—his white-blond hair soaked through with blood—to stand before me, mouth turned downward in contempt.
“Your protection is a joke,” the king sneered at me.
I stood frozen. A part of me was roaring in fury, ready to kill this travesty of a leader for his lack of regard for the dead at his feet. But the numbness from earlier had returned to me. All I could do was stare at the small boy right behind him, lying so devastatingly still, as if I had caught him in a moment of waking, and he was surprised by my presence.
This cannot be happening. No; this should not have happened.
So I stared at the king, silently, for a moment longer. Then, without even acknowledging that he had spoken, I moved past him and knelt at the feet of the nearest refugee as she cradled her face in her hands. “Let’s get you all out of here,” I said.
27
Violet
I tossed the bloodied bundle of bandages that the Patrian doctor, who’d been found by one of the refugees, had barked at me to dispose of into a waste bin, and I used the opportunity to slip out of the room. There wasn’t much I could do, and my hands were beginning to shake from exhaustion. Letting Viggo sleep after burying the dead the night before meant that I hadn’t, and though it was only early afternoon, it already felt like this day had gone on forever. This was too much death for a year, to say nothing of a single day.
I didn’t know if I could bear it if another person was added to the list.
Ms. Dale hadn’t left Henrik’s side since Viggo and I had seen her, and my heart was breaking watching her mood swing from optimistic to furious to despairing. This woman had been one of my staunchest supporters since I was young. I’d never seen her so upset, even in The Green, when she, Viggo, and I hadn’t known whether we could trust each other. I’d almost come to believe that she was unflappable. Seeing her in this state felt like the world was really turned upside-down.
And I felt like there was nothing I could do to help. The only thing I had really been doing in the room had been keeping pressure on the wound in Henrik’s chest and hoping that Jeff could get the doctor here quickly.
He was here now, but I wasn’t sure if Henrik was going to make it—he was so pale, even though we had been administering new blood rejuvenation patches every hour, on the hour. He was losing blood faster than we could get him to manufacture it, and if the doctor didn’t manage to stop the bleeding permanently, and soon, he would continue to lose it until his heart literally did not have enough to pump. And then he would die.
We can’t lose Henrik, I thought as I walked down the hall, rubbing my bloodstained hands against my thighs. We’ll lose Ms. Dale too. And then two of the wisest, most capable people around me would have been torn apart, whether physically or mentally, by this war.
When Ms. Dale’s emotions had turned to rage, it had been mostly aimed at herself. Some of the wardens had pressed up her staircase, and she had been forced to fall back. Henrik had heard the gunfire and stepped in to cover her, but caught a bullet instead. Ms. Dale had tried to force them back alone, covering our fallen companion, but one… one had opened fire on the room full of innocent people. Whether it was confusion on her part or just a desire to make our victory hurt all the more, I would never have any idea. All I knew was that there were twelve more bodies to add to the eight from the previous night.
My heart felt like lead in my chest—not just for the dead, but also for the effect it was having on Viggo. I had seen it in his eyes when he’d been digging last night, how he’d retreated from feeling, moving like an emotionless automaton. Today, after the refugees had been killed, I’d seen the same aching hollowness in him. And I could feel, not just sense, his hopelessness and pain, like a swollen, open wound.
It was killing me to see him like this. In some ways, I knew it was taking him back to Miriam—his wife, who had been executed for murder when she’d killed a man in self-defense. Viggo had tried to save her life, but he hadn’t been able to beat the system. I knew he’d always been a protector, and his failure to protect her had left a deep wound in him. He himself had said that wound was only beginning to heal. Now, here he was, surrounded by more people he couldn’t save. Already, the heavy cost of the war was weighing on him.
A part of me felt like I was losing him to it already, like the man I knew and loved would be dead long before this conflict was over. Not actually, physically dead—because I would never let that happen—but dead in a darker, more insidious way. He would keep on moving, keep on leading people, keep on trying to help, because that was what he did. But he would do it the same way he had moved to dig the graves. Robotic, unfeeling.
I spotted him standing near the room where the latest murders had happened, staring at the smears of blood through the doorway, and slowed down. He looked so angry. And so very, very sad.
Viggo turned, giving me a hard look, and I felt the urge to hide my bloodied hand behind my back. I wished there was a way I could offer him something, anything comforting, instead of more proof of violence. His gaze dragged back up to my eyes, and he offered me a maudlin smile that threatened to twist my heart in two.
“Hey,” he said, taking a step closer.
“Hey,” I replied, moving one step closer as well. And then another and another, because I just wanted to throw my arms around him and tell him it was going to be all right.
He spread his arms, catching me as I threw myself into them, burying my head in the space where his shoulder and neck met. We held each other for a few moments, taking comfort in the feel of one another’s vitality. “Hey,” he repeated after a moment, tearing a chuckle from me.
I pulled back slightly and gazed into his wonderful green eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” I said—knowing it for the lie it was, but saying it anyway.
His face fell, and he looked away, wincing slightly. “You can’t know that,” he whispered, and I grabbed a handful of his shirt and shook him slightly, forcing him to look at me.
“You’re right,” I said as soon as his eyes fell on mine. “I can’t. But I will lie and lie and lie if it means that for one moment, you go a little easier on yourself. Y-You’re scaring me. I’m so worried about you.”
His features softened, and I leaned my cheek into his hand as he placed it against my face. “I’m sorry. I just… It’s hard to believe…” He trailed off again, his eyes leaving mine and drifting away, and I could tell his thoughts were leading him back to the dead.
“Stay with me,” I urged, smoothing my hand over his shoulders and down his chest. “Dammit, Viggo, I can’t do this without you. You were the one talking about a future. If you give up hope… If you let it win, I know I won’t be able to go on, either.”
Viggo’s eyes focused on mine. “Violet,” he said, “I’m not giving up. No way in hell am I giving up.” I bit my lower lip, my heart aching for him, as he continued. “But I’m going to have to process this.”
I felt him withdraw—not just physically, but also emotionally. I wanted to weep when his hands left me, but I didn’t. Instead, I bit back the fear and the uncertainty, and nodded.
“We all do,” I replied. “But we can do it together.”
He opened his mouth, intent on saying something.
“Excuse me, Viggo?” came a polite voice behind us. I whirled, and met Jeff’s apologetic gaze.
“It’s not a good time right now,” replied Viggo from just behind me. I felt his hand drop onto my shoulder, and my hope rose a notch.
“What is it?” I asked, casting a curious gaze at the three people standing just behind Jeff, their gazes embarrassed and… something else.
Jeff looked back at them, and then met our gazes again. “These people… they had something they wished to say.” He beckoned the
m forward.
They appeared to be a family, all holding hands, and it was easy to see the relationship between the nervous mother and father and their young child buried among her skirts. The mother, with her long brown hair rolled up in a bun and her fashionable yet modest dress going down to her ankles, gave me an appraising look. I realized how out of place I must seem, with my slacks and button-up shirt. But I wasn’t going to stop being a Matrian—even in the current political climate—so they would have to forgive me these eccentricities.
The man, who was older than Viggo by only a little and dressed in worn jeans and a soot-stained flannel shirt, snatched his hat off his head and clutched it between his hands as he drew closer. “Mr. Croft, Ms. Bates,” he greeted us, a slight tremble in his voice. “I… I just wanted to say thank you. To you… you and your friends, I mean.” His gaze flicked back and forth between us, and he added, “For saving us.”
I kept my face impassive, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Viggo’s face harden, his eyes darkening to a deep forest green. He had heard the thanks, but I knew he didn’t feel like he had earned it.
The man stared for a second, clearly picking up on Viggo’s not-so-subtle anger, and took a half-step back, looking back at his wife. She bit her lip, hesitant for a moment, and then strode forward. “You and your team saved eleven men, fourteen women, and eight children, Mr. Croft. We cannot begin to express how grateful we are. Which is why… we’ve come to enlist.”
I jolted in surprise and gave the woman a closer look. She was pale, and nervous, but under the demure sweep of her bangs there was a fire burning in her eyes. Now that I had seen it, I could feel the determination radiating off of her. “After… after what the king did…” the man offered haltingly, but the woman took over, her spine becoming straighter under our gazes.
“The king ordered us to stand in front of that door,” she spat. “We thought… We knew what he wanted, and we gave it freely. But… when he came out of hiding…” She looked away, her hand tightening on her son’s hand for a moment. “I won’t fight for him,” she declared, ratcheting her chin up a notch. “Not for that bastard—he doesn’t deserve it. But for you? We’d… we’d be honored if you let us join you.”