The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  I slipped far away after many hours had passed, after I lost the strength to keep crying his name and begging him to come back. Tears continued to stream down my cheeks, and my eyes continued to look between his dead eyes, the wound on his face, and the wound in the back of his head. I remained sick to my stomach, though I could not vomit, as much as I wanted to. At first, I had been unable to hide my soft, breathy sobs, but then, they had grown steadily quieter until the only evidence of my grief was the relentless stream of tears falling from my eyes. I did not make a sound. Even after my sobs had stopped, though, that sick feeling in my stomach stayed, and my chest ached with my grief for him, but after hours, or days (I was told that it was days), I slipped away into my memories of him, and into my projections of what our life together would have been like. I pictured us remaining as we were, but I pictured Penny growing up, going off to school, choosing her path in life, choosing a partner, getting married… God, he would have walked her down the aisle. If Violet had chosen to marry Nick, which I assumed (and hoped) that she would have, he would have walked her down the aisle, as well… Whenever my thoughts would go from some happy thought of what life would have been to a reminder that they would never be that way, I could not stop myself from letting out a sob.

  Whenever they forced water down my throat, I threw it up, and I liked to think that my body was as dedicated to protesting their despicable cruelty as my mind was. Eventually, though, they hydrated me intravenously. Twice, I jerked so that the tube would rip out, and twice, one of Tyre’s bodyguards held me arm while the other stabbed it with the needle with all of his might.

  But one night, or day, I could not be sure, I realized that I was alone. I could not feel them in the room with me. And it was that lack of other humans in the room that awoke some fighting animal within me. I recognized that animal, because it had been in me before our world had gone to hell, but I had lost that raging beast after I had lost James. My wrists started tugging against the cuffs again, and my legs started to kick and pull backwards against the chain keeping them held firmly to the bedrail. I pulled and fought and kicked and writhed, choking myself a few times but not giving up, until my wrists were slick with my blood, and I could feel them sliding out of the cuffs just a little bit. Then, I pulled as hard as I could, tearing into my wrists a little more until I felt the first one slip out. With that hand, I began to unfasten the belts over my neck and head, and then, when I could sit up, I pulled my other wrist out, and began to tug at the chains around my ankles.

  They would not budge even in the slightest, no matter how hard I pulled on them. Still, I was besieged by some instinctual need, by some Knowing that only my power could afford. He was not lost to me. Even after all this time, he was still in there, looking for his way back to me. It hurt terribly, because my body was so stiff and broken from the many fights I had faced, but I pulled my way over to him, held my breath, and wrapped my arms around him. His body was still stiff, though that would not last for much longer, and he was beginning to smell like he was rotting. Once again, I wretched and dry-heaved, just at the thought of him rotting away, at the thought of me never being able to see his handsome face again.

  “James,” I whispered, when I held him again, “Baby, I’m right here. Come to my voice, James. Come to me.”

  My breathing slowed, as did my heart. I closed my eyes and threw myself into that dark space.

  Where is she? Where is she? Where is she?

  I could hear him whispering it to himself, so I called his name, even though I could feel the presence of the shadow in the darkness stalking us both. Outside of that realm, I could still move my body, and I could still think separately from the thoughts I was having in that space, and I remembered Adam’s words to me:

  “Your gift is the most powerful because it determines what is possible. Our minds determine what can and cannot be, and your mind is stronger than the limits of possibility.”

  My instincts were guiding me now. Or maybe it was my power, telling me what to do. My eyes were already closed, because I was in that dark limbo searching for him, but I squeezed them shut a little harder when I reached up and placed my hand directly on the wound in the back of his head. All the while, my mind held back the thoughts of what Adam had told me about raising the dead. The Dionysians brought back shells, but I would bring him back whole. I would heal his injury, pull his spirit back, and raise him. I just had to tell myself that I could.

  My eyes were still closed as I tried to remember what I had read about the growing of skin and the nourishing of blood. If I was going to heal him, I had to know how those biological functions worked. Getting the science right was everything, or else I would botch it, and though he would return, he would return to me a shell. I pictured the inside of his body, and I imagined it ground to a complete halt and beginning to melt away.

  He had bled out through his skull, and I had to reverse the process. Obviously, his blood would not flow back into his head from the pillow behind it, or from the floor of the compound we were in, or from the forest outside. But I could trigger his body to make more. I remembered that bone marrow produces white and red blood cells and platelets, and I remembered that plasma was the fourth ingredient. Plasma was made from both our intestines and our liver, and I knew that neither of his had been damaged. I pictured all of those parts pulling together, kicking into overdrive, and re-filling his body with blood; when I concentrated, I could see his hollow veins suddenly running through with dark liquid.

  It would soon run over my hand, this new blood of my creation. I had to close his wound and repair the damage to his brain. What did I remember about growing skin? What did I remember about healing traumatic brain injuries? In regards to the former, I knew that, with his blood flowing freely now, his skin cells would begin to multiply as they were restored to health, and his skin would pull back together as new cells were made and joined. In regards to the latter, I knew that it was shaky; the brain is the most complex organ, and though I knew much about it, it was well known that no man or woman could know all of its secrets. James had been shot through the back of the head, in the cerebellum region, and the bullet had traveled out through the front of his cheek, breaking his teeth and jaw in the process. Now, I had to rely on imagery; I had to see all those wounds healing in my mind and pray that I did it right. I pictured the pieces of his brain reassembling, I watched in my mind’s eye as new teeth sprang up to replace the ones he had lost, as his jaw snapped back into place and healed. His cheek resealed, and I could see a small pockmark the bullet had left, a tiny scar, a reminder of his death that was almost ridiculous in its lack of severity. Underneath my fingers, his skin pulled together from each side of the gaping wound, feeling like thin worms slithering back to their other ends after they had been severed in half.

  So, I healed his body, but I had to find his soul quickly, or else it all would have been for naught. If there was no soul to occupy the space, then I had simply made a very handsome corpse. So, in that dark space, I called out his name.

  “Brynn?” He asked, “They’re hurting you, baby. I can see them hurting you. Where are you? What are you doing here? What did they do to you?”

  His voice was shaking, and his breaths were ragged. He had been running, searching for me, for all the days I had been imprisoned, which, for him, felt like centuries. All the while, he felt that creature of darkness all around him, allowing him to remain in that limbo until he resolved to give up. But that creature did not know my James. The eyes of his empty body were open, and to me, they looked dead, but he could still see me. He could see what they were doing to me, and he could feel my fear, his fear, and the rage that we shared.

  “Come on, baby. I am right here. Just come to me.” I told him, and I had to run, too, because that creature had heard my voice and was swooping down upon me. It smelled like death, like centuries of bodies piled up and left to rot in the sun. It smelled like sadness and regret and rage and fear, all that we fee
l when we are stuck in between the realms. Once I ran, I thought I had escaped the worst of it, but I was wrong. Something grabbed my ankle, and I crashed to the ground.

  His face was unrecognizable (because I had made him that way), but his hand, wearing his solid gold wedding band, was painfully recognizable to me. My father was pulling himself along on his stomach, his gruesomely destroyed head held up, looking right at me even though his eyes were gone. When he grasped my ankle, I could hear him shouting, though the words flew in and out of focus like they were being carried away by the wind. I kicked him, but my foot went right through. How could he grab me, but I could not kick him?

  The dead have some power here. More power than the living, but less than him.

  I turned around when I heard her voice, and though I had expected to see her contorted and still, as she had been when her heart had stopped, Rachel (my Rachel from Earth) was whole.

  AWAY! She shouted at my dad, and his grip on me released. She pulled me onto my feet, and because my heart was thumping so hard that it hurt, and because I was shaking so viciously, I threw my arms around her, fearing the moment they went right through her. Only they didn’t. She was solid, and when I was enclosed in her embrace and had pressed my ear to her chest, I almost thought that I would hear her heart beating, but I did not.

  “Come on.” She said softly, “Let’s find him, sweetheart.”

  “Rachel, what are you doing here? You’ve been gone for so long.”

  “Shh… It doesn’t matter. I am alright.”

  “Here? You don’t mind that you’re here?”

  “I come here when you need me, baby.”

  “And where do you go otherwise?”

  She smiled and squeezed my hand a little tighter.

  “Still so curious… I always loved that about you, how you always wanted to know everything there was to know.”

  “Can’t you come back?”

  “My body is gone.”

  “We’ll find you a new one. You’ll just look different, but it will be you, and I could do it…”

  “I know you could. That is why it is so dangerous for you to be here, Brynna. That is why it is looking for you. It knows that you can steal people back.”

  “I don’t like it, Rachel. It’s all around us.”

  “I know. But you are safe with me, sweetheart.”

  “Daniel is here now.”

  “I know.”

  “Have you seen him?”

  “I just did, baby.”

  “He killed you…”

  “Yes, and you killed him. It’s settled.”

  “Is my mother in the place that you go when you’re not here?”

  “Let’s not talk about her now, baby. It is too much for you right now. Let’s find James, and then before you go, I’ll tell you. Call out to him. He is close.”

  “James!” I called, and to my left, I felt him. “James, I’m right here. I’m so close.”

  “Brynn!”

  “Alright, now when he takes your hand, you two are going to leave here.”

  “Come with us.”

  “I can’t, sweetheart. But you know that I poke my head in when you need to hear what I have to say.”

  “I know. What about my mother? I hear her, too.”

  “Of course you do. She carried you. You’ll always hear her, whether you want to or not. When they let her, she can speak to you.”

  “‘They?’ She’s still alive?”

  She pulled me to her and held me for just one second as James got nearer.

  “She’s not here.”

  “But she’s alive.”

  “She’s not here. Or in the After.”

  “Rachel, is she alive or not?”

  “Find her, Brynna. She can’t find you, but you can find her. You need her.”

  “I don’t, but…”

  “You do. Now, go home, baby. I’m right here when you need me.”

  His arms were around me, and I was holding him, and together, we drew in a deep gasp and returned to our bodies. I was holding him so tightly that he could barely draw breath into his lungs that were gloriously functioning once again, and he was holding me just as tightly and sobbing into my chest.

  “You’re home, baby. You’re back.” I told him soothingly in his ear as I held him, “You’re back here with me. I’m right here.”

  Tears began to fall from my eyes, but I was laughing softly. Never before had I been so happy. I knew that I had done it. My instincts told me that I had not botched his revival in any way. The soul in that repaired body was his, and every part of his reparation had been done flawlessly. It had taken simple knowledge and very complex imagining, but I had healed him and brought him back from that limbo.

  He was still crying, his entire body shaking as he held me, but now, his lips were kissing me wherever they could reach. My cheek, my lips, my nose, my forehead, my neck, my shoulders, my chest, the tops of my breasts… Wherever they could find a new place to kiss me, his lips kissed me.

  “I love you so much…” He managed to say after a while, “Oh, my God, I love you so much, baby. I love you. I love you. I love you.”

  “I love you, too. Look at me.”

  I needed to see the light in his eyes. I needed to see that warmth in his gaze that I always saw, and when he laid his head back down, and I wiped his tears away, I looked into his eyes to see that the light was restored, the warmth was rekindled, and he was as alive as me. My soft laughter grew slightly more hysterical as the tears poured more rapidly from my eyes. I kissed him hard, as hard as I could, and when his lips parted, my tongue found his eagerly. He spun me sideways, flipping us so that I was lying beneath him now, and my hands ran down his strong chest, enclosed lightly over his hard biceps, up onto his firm, chiseled shoulders, and down his rocky abs. His skin was so warm, and his heart was beating, and his lungs were breathing in and out.

  As my hands felt every part of him, his felt every part of me. Like a typical male, he spent much of his time with his hands on my breasts, first over my tank top but then underneath. He sighed heavily and came down to kiss me hard again, and all the while his hands stayed firmly attached to both of my breasts, and I was laughing, because it was so funny, and yet I understood. He was totally breathless, totally consumed with his lust and love for me.

  “Oh, I am going to lay it on you like it’s the end of time…” He said breathlessly, and I laughed again, threw my arms up, and pulled him to me. Together, we worked my jeans and underwear down my legs, and he threw them aside at almost the same time that he shed his own jeans. I reached between his legs and sighed when my hands wrapped around him. With both hands, I pulled, slowly at first, and then faster and faster until he was so hard that any more time, and he would be unable to hold out.

  “Just do it.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m ready.”

  As hard as he was, he reached down and slowly slid one finger into me to make sure that I really was ready.

  “Okay…” He said, and we both laughed. “You’re ready.”

  “I’m ready. So do it.”

  And he would have, if the door had not opened. His head jerked up, and mine jerked backwards at the same time to look.

  “Jesus!” The bodyguard exclaimed as he fell backwards over his feet and crashed onto the floor. James stood up, pulling his boxers and pants back on but throwing his shirt to me. I pulled it on and buttoned it up before grabbing my underwear and pants off of the floor.

  By the time I turned back around, James had grabbed the bodyguard’s throat and lifted him with one hand into the air.

  “Oh, my stars…” I murmured in surprise as James pushed him back against the wall, still holding him with one hand and still hold him so that the guard’s feet were at least two feet off of the ground. The guard’s face was beginning to turn from red to blue just as I slunk up behind James.

  “I saw what you did to her.” He spat, “I was watching, you motherfucker!” br />
  “Come on.” I said softly, as I wrapped my arms around him and ran my hands down his middle. “Bring him down here so we can kill him and go, baby.”

  He released his throat, and the bodyguard crashed to the ground, and after that, we lost ourselves in the killing frenzy and only resurfaced when there were no more appendages to rip, skin to shred, or veins to tear through. Blood had splattered onto the walls and run outwards across the floor to the farthest reaches of the room, and it was covering both of us from head to toe. James looked up at me, and his white eyes dissolved back into their usual, perfect warm brown, and my white eyes turned back to blue, but it was a brighter and more radiant blue than they had ever been. Gently, James moved my hair away from my face with one hand and used his thumb to wipe the blood from my forehead so that it didn’t get into my eyes. He smiled, and it was the slight, content smile I often saw on his face when he was looking at me from across a room or any other time when he thought I wasn’t looking. I smiled, and it was my full, ecstatic beam that made my cheeks flush red and set my heart off pounding at the sight of his warm eyes and warm smile.

  I rose onto my knees and closed the space between us so I could kiss him.

  “I love you so much.” I said after I had pulled away from him.

  He kissed me now, caressing my lips gently with his.

  “I love you, too, baby. Now, let’s go, because as soon as we’re safe…”

  “You’re going to lay it on me like it’s the end of time. I know, and if you say it in your sultry baritones, you’re going to make me come for twenty minutes, and we don’t have that kind of time. So let’s go.”

  “Oh, say that again.” He said as I pulled him onto his feet, “Say it, and I’ll be the one coming for twenty minutes. Except I’d be dead by the end of the twenty minutes, because I’m pretty sure that…”

  I turned around, stopping our walk out of my cell midstride.

  “Don’t.” I said, and I was suddenly very serious. “Don’t even joke about you… about you…being… about you leaving me, and…” I could not even say it, because even thinking it made the tears rush into my eyes, and made my throat lock, and he had to stop, and hold me, and apologize.

  “Don’t apologize, either.” I said, and he kissed my cheek, and then he kissed my closed, tearing eyes, down my nose, to my lips. As he kissed me, my tears slowed, and his thumbs wiped the last of them away as his forehead rested against mine.

  “I’m right here, sweetheart, and I’m never going to leave you again. Do you hear me?” He asked me softly, and I could hear the threat of tears in his voice. I nodded. “Good.” He kissed my forehead, “Good.”

  With my hand in his, he led us through the dark corridors, past the other cells, which he would not let me look into, because he said once we got ourselves patched up, and we got some of our strength back, we would come back, but until then, we didn’t have the time to stop. Until we would be able to protect our people who were locked away, we couldn’t free them. Already, I was beginning to slow down, because the signs of my imprisonment were beginning to rear their ugly heads at me. My head was spinning as my heart was forced to beat too fast, and my lungs were rasping with each breath I tried to take. I felt like a rattling collection of bones that was seconds away from collapsing, and I would have, had I forced my body to keep pushing forward. But without a word, James scooped me up into his arms with such ease, because his newer, unbelievable strength, coupled with my substantial weight loss, made it even easier for him to carry me.

  “Just hold on to me, baby. I’ve got you.” He whispered, and I closed my eyes, burrowed my face into his neck, and stayed there, suddenly so tired. “I’ve got you, sweetheart.”

  He ran up a long set of metal stairs, holding me with one arm, and kicked open the door at the end. I heard several exclamations of surprise, and then a shout that Maxwell and Olivier were escaping, and then the sound of the railing on the stairs behind us breaking in half as James was inexplicably able to rip it off. Still holding me with one hand, he expertly swung and stabbed the heavy, jagged piece of metal as each man rushed us.

  “Let me down. I can help.” I told him softly.

  “Nope.” He said, and he held me a little tighter to stop me from rolling out of his grasp. I did not even try, because I knew that with my malnourishment and lack of sleep, and after being totally drained by the act of bringing him back to life, I would hinder him in the fight. He would have to watch me and watch himself, so I just closed my eyes and held on while he handled them. When they were all dead, he quickly reached into their pockets, looking for weapons, and found two knives and one small metal object that was obviously some very small explosive. He tucked one of the knives into my pocket and kissed my forehead.

  “Happy Birthday.”

  “Is it my birthday?”

  “I don’t know. But maybe.”

  “Do you know when my birthday was?”

  “February 8th.”

  “Very good. Did I tell you that, or did you learn that when you were cyber-stalking me?”

  He paused.

  “You told me, of course.”

  I laughed rather hard at that, knowing that he was lying.

  “It wasn’t cyber-stalking if I had no malicious intent. And besides, I’m carrying you right now, and that’s pretty chivalrous, so shouldn’t that cancel out what you deem creepy cyber-stalking but what was actually just me trying to figure out if you were the same Brynna Olivier I had seen in my dream? Shouldn’t I be forgiven since I am being chivalrous right now?”

  “Never.”

  “Should I drop you?”

  “If you want to get punched in the face.”

  He chuckled and kissed my forehead.

  “I’m going to make you six of my famous stuffed cheeseburgers, and you’re going to eat every one, Brynna Olivier. Your spine is stabbing into my forearm, and your beautiful eyes are beginning to sink in. Not to mention, you know, I feel like I’m carrying a loaf of bread.”

  “Am I a loaf of bread? Why can’t I be something fancy? Like croissants or English muffins?”

  “English muffins are fancy?” He asked with a laugh as he opened another door and continued to charge up the hallway.

  “Yes! Especially the whole-grain ones. They were like, twenty bucks the last time I went to a grocery store on Earth.”

  “They were expensive. Still, you are going to eat six of my famous stuffed cheeseburgers, and six handfuls of my famous fries.”

  “All of your food is famous.”

  “Yes! It is. And you will eat all my famous food until you’re back to normal.”

  “Oh, gee, it will be torture, eating your amazing stuffed cheeseburgers and amazing fries. Let me have a good cry about it right now as I simultaneously have a foodgasm.”

  He laughed at that, and it was one of his raucous, hysterical laughs reserved only for me, and my arms wrapped around his neck and squeezed even more tightly.

  “Oh, I would have missed that ridiculous laugh.”

  “You’ll never have to miss it.”

  “I know.”

  “Alright, baby… Brace yourself.” He threw open the door, and we expected to stumble back as the sunlight blinded us, but it was not the light of the sun that was blinding us. Instead, it was the lights on the end of at least twenty guns that were being pointed in our faces. James reacted immediately, putting me down and throwing me behind him. He had to reach back and hold me there with both hands because I was struggling to get around him. I tried to keep the sound of my cries quiet, but I couldn’t stand that they were pointing their guns at him, that he could be shot again, and that this time, I would be unable to bring him back.

  “Drop it! Drop the weapon!” One of them said, and he made a great show of reaching his hand out, opening it up, and dropping the piece of railing.

  “Don’t shoot.” I said from behind him. “We won’t fight. Just don’t shoot.”

  “Baby, shh…” He said gently.
br />   “Mr. Maxwell,” Tyre’s voice said, and the lights parted as he walked through the center of the men holding their guns. “It appears that I was right; the One God still has plans for you. And Brynna… My, my, Ms. Olivier… Your powers are far beyond what even Adam thought possible. You will be of such use to me.”

  “I will do nothing for you.” I spat at him, as I looked at him with my red eyes over James’s shoulder.

  “Oh, you will. As soon as we settle this little issue…” He gestured between James and me, “…you will do whatever I say, or you will be remanded from my custody, if you will.”

  “I won’t. And you’re not going to touch him!” Now, I was struggling not to yell, “You’re not going to touch him, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you, my darling. You say that I will not touch him, but may I tell you something? Neither will you. Take them to the Dark Rooms. We are going to end this fixation once and for all.”

  Quinn

  There was nothing in that dark space when I first arrived. But once Alice began calling out to me, her voice echoing upwards, downwards, and all around me, fading in and fading out, I knew that there was something there. Or maybe it was someone. I couldn’t know, but whatever or whoever it was, I knew to stay away. Every time I felt it getting closer, my legs carried me instinctually in the opposite direction. I ran in what I thought was the direction from which I had heard Alice’s voice coming, but I couldn’t find her.

  “Quinn?” An unrecognizable voice said, “Quinn?”

  Was it that thing in the darkness? Or was someone outside of that place calling me back? I couldn’t leave without Alice. She was still lost in that endless void. Before I was pulled from it, I had to find her. Frantically, I ran, but every time I thought I had found her, her voice echoed towards me from far away. I ran, but there was no end to that darkness. There was no end to that place, and all the while, that thing was stalking me, trying to ensure that they could not pull me back.

  “Quinn? Wake up now.”

  There was a bitter smell suddenly, something foreign and disembodied that didn’t belong where I was. In that separate place, I could only smell the rot of every dead soul who had ever crossed through or been forced to stay. But the new smell was something of our world.

  “Go back.” A voice said, and I recognized and took comfort in that voice; I had heard it so many times. Brynna.

  “Quinn, she’ll find her way.” She told me, “Go back.”

  “Where are you, Brynna? Why are you here?”

  “Go, Quinn.”

  I woke up abruptly and found two huge eyes, surrounded by crow’s feet, staring down at me. They were comically large, and the same shade of blue as a robin’s egg, and I could have laughed, if I hadn’t been so afraid of that place I had been in and so worried about Alice.

  “Don.” I said. “What are you doing here? I thought that you would have gotten stuck in the village.”

  It was well-known that the leadership was supposed to stay behind until all the civilians had been evacuated. I don’t know why I was surprised that Don had chosen to neglect his duties as our leader in order to save his own skin, and I also don’t know why I wasn’t sufficiently outraged. Maybe it was the fear that was keeping me from experiencing the full rage and disgust that I would have felt otherwise. I only had so much of a tolerance for strong, unpleasant emotions.

  “Where’s Alice?” I asked, before he could lie and say that either Adam or Brynna had told him to run.

  “She’s here.”

  “Is she alright? What about Violet, Penny, and Nick?”

  “They said that I shouldn’t talk to you about all this right now. You fared better than they did. I probably shouldn’t have said that.” He stopped, and I threw myself into a sitting position. We were locked inside a cell made of three cold concrete walls and one wall comprised of iron bars. If it weren’t for the torches outside of the cell, we would have been in total darkness, and my heart plunged at the memory of that place I had been in while I was unconscious; I feared that Alice was still in that place, calling out to me, running from that thing…

  “God, I am an awful leader. I am the worst leader in history.”

  “Shut up.” I snapped at him, “I need to think.”

  I stood up and began to pace, and what I needed wasn’t so much to think as it was to worry. If I knew the Old Spirits (and I did by then), then I knew that there was no way out of the cell. We were at their mercy, so I would not be seeing Alice, Violet, Penny, or Nick until they said that I could. I could fight and try to escape, but then they would hurt Alice or one of my friends. I had not been awake for more than ten minutes, and already, I knew the situation was hopeless.

  “You really are a shitty leader. I have to agree with you. In both Earth history, which I know pretty well, and Pangaean history, which I don’t know at all.” I snapped at him, “You might not be stupid, but you’re evil and you’re a coward!”

  “I know, I know. I ran away. I flouted that stupid law about governors remaining behind with their burning villages. But you would have done it, too. Anyone would have done it. Everyone would have done it.”

  “Really? So that’s why Adam, Janna, and Brynna aren’t here? God, she’s twenty-four years old, and she’s a better leader than you!”

  “She is stupid and reckless with both her life and the lives of our people. Look at what she did! Look at what she brought down on us! We were fine until she made that deal with Paul.”

  “They would have invaded us either way. We should have hunted them down and killed them, but we took too long arguing about how to do it. That wasn’t her fault. There was someone buried in our camp, and that person or those people took their sweet old time, but they got word out to the Old Spirits, and they found their way to us. Paul would have found his way to us, and he would have led them back to us if he could. Where are we? Are we in the cells under the prison? Did they bring us back?”

  “No. We’re in the bunkers, miles underground. Hope you’re not claustrophobic.”

  I was, slightly. But right then, I just didn’t care. There were too many other things to worry about.

  “Quinn Wesley.”

  I turned around to find a familiar and very unwelcome face standing on the other side of the bars. Caspar Elohimson was looking in at me, smiling snidely the way he always seemed to be smiling. Brynna had kept her discussions with him secret, but she had alluded to him and Adam having a strained relationship. Now, it seemed, he had changed his allegiance. He had abandoned his father’s camp.

  “Yes, yes. It is all very shocking.” He said, “I have abandoned the glorious reign of the undefeatable King Adam, whom I heard was terribly defeated.”

  “What about Brynna and James? Where are they?”

  “Brynna is alive. James is dead.”

  My heart plummeted again. For a second, I was so dizzy that I thought I would have to lean forward, holding my stomach and closing my eyes until the swell of emotion had subsided. I couldn’t imagine it. I couldn’t fathom that he was gone. And Brynna… She was all alone, and I couldn’t imagine her grief. I didn’t want to imagine it. If I did, I would picture myself without Alice, and I couldn’t afford to lose it. Even though I did not want to see it, I pictured Brynna locked away somewhere, alone with her grief and longing for him. She loved him so much. Plus, James was one of the best guys I knew. We had all grown to love him like a much older brother or like a dad. We all looked up to him, and whined to him about our problems, and in mine and Alice’s case, worked with him every day. And he was gone.

  “Don’t worry, Quinn. The great and powerful Brynna Olivier will find a way to resurrect him. I have no doubt that she will find a way if she is given half a chance. I have no doubt that she will succeed in bringing back something. Normally, resurrection is left to us Dionysians, but she will try. Though if we have not been able to master the art of bringing back a person whole, then I doubt that she will be able to do so.”

  “She??
?s smarter than you. She’s better than you. As a person, she is better, so she’ll be able to do it.”

  “If they allow her near him. They know that she is brilliant and could bring him back. They will not allow her to try. Well, maybe Tyre will allow her. He is so invested in his little project, after all.”

  “Yeah. His project isn’t so much a project as it is an obsession. He’s obsessed with her.”

  “I do not argue that fact, but is she the project to which I am referring? Hmm…” He said thoughtfully.

  He was trying to screw with my mind, and I would not let him. I could not afford to lose my footing in the conversation, not when there was so much I needed to learn from him. So, instead of taking the bait, I asked a different question.

  “Why would they kill him? And how? How did they do it?”

  He seemed slightly put out that I hadn’t pushed the issue, so he asked rather sulkily:

  “What does it matter?”

  “It matters to me!”

  “There was an uprising of sorts.” He explained, “Rich Bachum and a few of his loyal followers took my father, mother, James, and Brynna out into the woods to execute them, but Tyre arrived just in time to stop that from happening. Regrettably, he arrived a little too late for James.”

  “They shot him.”

  “He died quickly. That is more than he deserves.”

  “He was a good man.”

  “Was he? I just do not know. I think he was a man of many secrets, and Tyre knows that he was. And as for Brynna’s opinion on whether or not he was a good man, I must ask: For how many months did she keep him away after he had sex with my mother? My mother, who is a married woman, when he was, for all intents and purposes, a married man?”

  “Your mother seduced him while he was mad at Brynna, and yeah, he shouldn’t have given in, but guess what? James screwed her and threw her aside like she was nothing. He spent months waiting for Brynna, and after she took him back, they were happy.” Those words hit me like a bomb, and yet I said them again, “They were happy.”

  “Were.” Never before had using the past-tense hurt so badly. I stopped talking and turned away from him. If we talked about James and Brynna anymore, I would lose it, and if there was one thing that they had taught me, it was that I could never afford to be seen as weak.

  “Where is Alice?”

  “Right down the hallway, asking for you.”

  “I want to see her.”

  “Yes, and she wants to see you. But right now is not the time.”

  “Take me to her. Now.”

  “They will bring her to you when they are finished with her.”

  “Finished with her?” My stomach turned over. They couldn’t be… They wouldn’t… Not to her. Not when she had never…

  “Oh, don’t worry, Quinn. Alice’s virtue is well-known, and it will be protected. A pious young girl like her is eligible for a high-standing marriage.”

  “Fuck you!” I slammed my hand into the bars, “No one is going to touch her! Take me to her right now!”

  “Quinn…” Don stood up and placed a hand on my shoulder, “Not now. They’ll bring her to you soon, just not now. I saw her, and she’s fine. Just relax.”

  “I’m surprised you guys haven’t shot him.”

  “Mr. Abba has been more than forthcoming with some crucial information. As we knew he would be.”

  “And what about me?”

  “You will be an upstanding member of our society, too, Quinn. You think that the ridiculous military training to which we subjected you and Alice will keep you from submitting to us, but you will submit. The one lesson they didn’t teach you was how not to give in when a loved one is threatened. If I were to say that Alice will be killed if you don’t submit…”

  “…I would say that she is apparently eligible for a high-standing marriage, which means killing her would rob a high-standing man of a wife, so you’re full of shit.”

  “Believe me, she is of no more use to them in a high-standing marriage than she is to them dead. So do not fool yourself into believing that that will save her. No, you will give in. They ask you what your secret is, when they train you. Do you remember what yours was?”

  “I didn’t have one. Maybe that was why I was able to withstand it.”

  “No. Your secret is that you’ll give in if she is threatened. You’ll give in if they threaten to take her from you. Do you know what her secret is? She has never said, but I know, the way that I know these things: She would not give in for you. She will withstand all their terrible torments out of pride and dedication not to him…” He pointed at Don, “but to Brynna Olivier and James Maxwell. If they threatened your life, she still would not give in.”

  “You think that offends me? That she’s stronger than me? I’ve always known that.”

  “Well, good. Then you know that she will more than likely survive this, and you will not.”

  “Caspar…” I said, “I am counting on that.”

  Violet

  “Now just reach out and touch her, James. Put your hand on her knee.”

  “I won’t.”

  I watched as a hand flipped a switch on a small machine, and as an electric blue substance traveled from the machine through some thin tubes that were stuck into her back at the top of her spine. Brynna’s body lurched upwards, convulsing violently, and I watched her eyes roll back and then close as she fell forward. He watched her, his eyes red only when he looked away; they remained light brown when they were rested on her. When the convulsions subsided, Brynna’s body stayed hunched over, and behind the chair she was sitting in, her hands twisted weakly against the thick ropes around her wrists.

  “I am going to destroy all of you.” James snarled, “I swear to God, I will fucking kill you!”

  “No. You are going to reach out and put your hand on her knee.”

  “James…” She managed to whisper.

  “I know, baby.” He whispered back, “I know it hurts. But you’re so strong. You are so strong, sweetheart.”

  They threw the switch again, and this time, she convulsed even more violently and cried out, though she had been biting her lip to stop herself from making a sound. In my sleep, tears began to rush from underneath of my closed eyelids. I wanted to rush to her, to save her, to make them stop hurting her… She was in so much pain, and she was so afraid, that her mind was casting itself out wildly, looking for a place to go, for someone to find who could comfort her. Her mind found me, though I know she never would have found me by choice; she never would have wanted me to see her that way.

  “You love touching her, James. So touch her.”

  He scowled at them, his eyes darker than blood, but he reached out his hand that he was trying to keep steady, and rested it on her knee. She whimpered softly, and he whispered that he was so sorry, he was so sorry, he loved her, he was so sorry… And they threw the switch again. The liquid flowed through, finding the place where his hand was rested and lighting up blue beneath her skin. Her whole body convulsed, but the place where his hand touched shook worse than the rest of her. That time, she bit through her lip as she tried to stifle her scream. They did it countless more times, making him place his hands on her in different places: her face, her neck, her breasts, and worst of all, between her legs. When they sent the substance to meet his touch there, she screamed so loud that one of the guards in the back of the room covered his ears, and James could not help but let the tears fall as he just whispered how much he loved her and how sorry he was.

  “Please make them stop, James.” She cried. “It hurts, James.”

  “I know it hurts.” He whispered back, and he strained against the ropes so he could kiss her.

  “It ends any time you want it to end, my sweet child.” Tyre told her gently, “All you must do to make it stop is tell him that you will not see him anymore. Tell me.”

  She looked up at him, her blue eyes tearing still, and James was looking at her, his heart dreading the moment she said the
words, though he would not blame her when she did. Her blue eyes dissolved into red so dark they were almost black, though, and when she spoke, she said, “I will never say that.” Her eyes fell on James, and they dissolved back to blue, “Do you hear me?” She said to him, “I will never say those words, James Maxwell, and you know it.”

  Again, he strained against the ropes, and when he kissed her, she kissed him back hard. The jolt they delivered to both of them made their joined lips light up blue, and sent their bodies flying backwards, away from each other, out of reflex.

  “Gotta say, that was new.” He told her, “It’s never felt like that when you’ve kissed me before.”

  She laughed, beyond hysterically, her entire body shaking, and he did, too. Another jolt, though, a worse one, and their grins turned to grimaces, their laughs to stifled grunts of pain.

  “It’s over. It’s over. Just let her go.” James was saying later, and he was speaking quickly and desperately as she stayed slumped over in her chair. Her body was still trembling, her lips were still blue, but now her face was terribly bloodied. “She’s exhausted, and she’s cold, and she’s so sick. She needs a doctor. Just take her away.”

  “No.” Tyre said, and he gently pushed Brynna back so she was sitting up. Her head fell backwards, then rolled sideways and slumped forward. “Give her more Wake. Just enough to fight off the sleep, not enough to paralyze her. We need her to move, James. It’s your turn.”

  Her eyes were wide with the wakefulness the drug of the same name inflicted on its victims. The alertness was a bandage to be placed over the gaping wound of exhaustion, and under her sunken eyes were dark rings that were almost black. The blood was a dark contrast against her glowing white skin, and her ribs and chest, which I could see because she was wearing only her bra and jeans, were protruding disturbingly.

  James was hooked up, too, and Tyre was telling Brynna softly to reach out and touch his face. She shook her head and murmured something, and Tyre whispered fiercely in her ear that she was trying his patience.

  “Brynna.” James said firmly, “Do it.”

  She looked up at him and shook her head, whispering that she loved him.

  “Brynna!” James barked at her as Tyre lowered his hand from her chin to her throat and squeezed hard. With his other hand, he twisted her wrist, and if she had been able to draw in a breath, she would have screamed, but his grip on her throat was too strong. He placed her hand on James’s face, and they threw his switch. Tyre held her face so she could watch him convulse, and the tears poured silently from her eyes. Tyre moved her hand all over him, holding her face still so that she was forced to watch, and in between each turn of the switch, he somehow found the strength to whisper to her that it was alright. They were so similar, I realized. They both were too proud to cry outwardly, so they only had those silent tears streaming from their eyes. Neither one would give up on the other; they would not give in to their tormentors. Both looked on those tormentors with the rage provoked by the need to protect the other. They would not break, no matter what. Even if that torture killed them, they would not break.

  Minutes of pain accumulated into hours of pain, and the hours turned to days. During that time, it was relentless. Finally, when Brynna reached her hand out to touch him at Tyre’s command, he cried out for her to stop. He begged her not to touch him. Her eyes looked at him, and I could see how wounded she was.

  “James…” She whispered, and the heartbreak I could hear in her voice broke my heart, too. The tears fell more quickly in my sleep.

  “Don’t touch me.” He whispered, “Please, please, don’t touch me.”

  “Touch her, James.”

  “Stop.” He said, so softly that they couldn’t hear him, “Stop. Please. I’ll never touch her again. I’ll never speak to her again. I’ll never look at her again. Just please stop.”

  “James!” She exclaimed through her tears.

  “You are so stubborn!” He spat at her, and furious tears were pouring from his eyes. He found the strength somewhere in him to bellow, “You are so stupid! You’re dying! You stupid fucking bitch! They are killing us, and you won’t give in! I don’t want you! Do you hear me?! I don’t want you anymore! And I don’t want your kid! I don’t want your family!”

  “This is the desired outcome.” Tyre told her, “This is what we want when we do this, and this is what always happens. He will never touch you again, Brynna. He will never look on you warmly again. You have caused him days upon days of agony, and he will never look on you warmly after this. I am sorry that this had to be our course of action at all, but I am most sorry that it was not you who broke. I can feel your heart. I can feel how it is utterly ruined.” His hand came around and rested on her chest, “It would have been so much easier for you if you had just let go of him first.”

  “James!” She cried out again, “James, I love you.”

  “Take her away.” James ordered them, “Take her out of here.”

  “Please, just let me stay with him. I want to stay with him! JAMES!”

  “Take her away.” He continued to say, looking away from her as she reached out to him, “I don’t want you anymore! I don’t want you! Don’t you fucking look at me! Take her out of here! I don’t want to see her!”

  Tyre tried to carry her from the room, but she broke free of his grasp, collapsed to the ground, and crawled towards him on her stomach. She used his legs to pull herself up, and he exclaimed as the pain rocketed through him. Her touch alone was able to provoke him to feel that pain; they did not even have to use the drug anymore. Every time her hands landed in a new place on him, he cried out and convulsed, and when his hands, out of reflex, out of desperate need to stop the pain, grabbed the tops of her arms, her body collapsed into him as she screamed out in agony. He was trying to push her away, but she was trying to embrace him, to beg him to come back to her in between the screams she let out each time his hands came into contact with her, until finally, to get her away, his hand came back, and he hit her so hard that her grip on him released, and she crashed to the ground, her eyes rolling back for another second.

  “TAKE HER AWAY!” James bellowed, and his knuckles were bloodied from where he had hit her. “TAKE HER OUT OF HERE!”

  I awoke with a start, and sat upright in bed before my eyes had even fully opened. I was lying in a bed in a small windowless room, but there were no iron bars keeping me locked inside, only a large metal door. I looked around frantically, trying to discern my surroundings.

  “Nick!” I called out, because I needed him more in that moment than I had ever needed him. “Alice! Quinn!”

  The last thing I remembered was the bright light that had scared away the trebestia. I had not known if we were being rescued by our allies or our enemies, but my heart was telling me in that moment that I was in the presence of the latter. Every instinct within me knew that I was captured.

  “NICK!” I screamed, and I tried to stand. My legs collapsed instantaneously, and like Brynna had done, I forced myself to crawl across the ground on my stomach, “NICK!”

  The lock in the door clicked, and the door swung open, nearly nailing me in the face.

  “Caspar!” I breathed, as he knelt down beside me and helped me into a sitting position.

  “Oh, my darling Violet…” He whispered as he held me tightly, “Are you alright? How do you feel?”

  “They have Brynna and James. They’re torturing them! We have to go! We have to find them, before it’s too late.”

  “No. That is not possible, Violet.”

  “We’ll figure a way out of this. We will, Caspar! We always do! Where is Nick?”

  “Violet…”

  “We have to get him and Alice and Quinn, and then we have to go…”

  “Violet.”

  “I think I can stand. It doesn’t matter. I’ll force myself. We just have to go find her. Nick knows these parts of the forest like the back of his hand, he’s so good at navigating, and Quinn…”

/>   “Violet.” He grasped my face gently and raised my head so I was looking at him. “I want you to hear this from me and no one else, alright? They will tell you this only in a way that will cause you the most pain, because not only did you nearly destroy them when you were in the North, but since you are her sister, you are just as ‘depraved’ as she is. Violet…” He grasped my cheek now.

  “Don’t tell me…” I started to say. My heart was beating so fast, and my breaths were quickening. Maybe I already knew. How could I not have known, after how he had led into it… How could I not know that he was… He was…

  “Nick is gone, my love.” He told me as gently as he could.

  “No…” I moaned.

  “We could not revive him. He succumbed to his injuries last night.”

  “No. No, Caspar… He didn’t… He didn’t…”

  “I am so sorry. My darling Violet, I am so sorry. We did all we could. Truly, we did.”

  “We?”

  “They forced Miletus to work on him, and she did everything in her power, but it was not enough. Just give me the word, and I will kill her for you. I will kill her for failing him, for failing in her duties. For failing you.” His hand came up to rest on my cheek as he said it, and his eyes were alight with the glow of earnestness, of a chivalrous need to avenge me. Or what he thought was a chivalrous need.

  “No!” I shouted at him, as the tears began to pour down my cheeks, “Leave her alone! And what do you mean ‘we?!’ What are you talking about?”

  “I am one of them now, Violet.”

  “GET OUT!” I shouted, “No! Take me to Nick! Take me to him right now!”

  I reached up and slapped him, wanting to hit him until there was nothing left of that deceitfully handsome face, until he was dead, too. Maybe if he died, I could have Nick back. Maybe Caspar’s life could be used as a means of trade to get Nick’s back, an evil life for the life of someone so good and so pure… If the One God was as benevolent as Adam claimed he was, He would allow the trade… If I could just see Nick, maybe I could bring him back. But then, if Dr. Miletus could not revive him, and she was the head Medice on all of Pangaea… But I had to believe that there was something I could do. He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t be. There was no way that God could be so cruel as to take him away. I loved him so much, and I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

  “Move.” A male voice said, and the door opened to reveal Paul, who apparently had stayed behind to oversee the overthrow. He had Dr. Miletus by the upper arm, and he threw her into the room with me. When I went to rush to her, because I just needed someone familiar to me to hold me and maybe comfort me, Paul held up his hand and said, “Ah-ah…” to stop me, like I was a child.

  “Do you know how we deal with doctors up north who fail as miserably as this one has?” Paul asked me, and Brynna had not been lying when she had said that when he spoke, he sounded like the host of a children’s show, with his random rises in inflection and his persistent jolliness. Dr. Miletus’s hair had fallen out of her usual tight bun, and her eyes were ringed by dark circles. There was a cut on her lip and a large bruise and cut on her cheek—I saw flecks of blood on Paul’s ring and assumed that he was the culprit behind her injury.

  “We ask the family of the loved ones what we should do.” He continued, “Now, this is not with everyone. Only when the fix was easy and the physician still finds some way to fail do we ask the grieving family how the physician should be punished.”

  “I am so sorry, Violet.” She whispered to me, “I tried. I did everything I could for him, but I…”

  “She passed out mid-surgery. Sucked out too much venom, I suppose.” Caspar explained, and just because he was so cruel, he placed his foot on her back and pushed down hard so that she collapsed onto the ground.

  “Stop it!” I shouted at him, “Leave her alone!”

  I crawled the rest of the way to her and helped her sit up. As I wrapped my arms around her neck, she wrapped her arms around my middle.

  “I am so sorry. I am so sorry, Violet. He was an angel. He was such a good boy, and I am so sorry for your loss of him.”

  I didn’t respond. My grip on her just tightened a little more, and my sobs intensified suddenly.

  “I take it that you do not want her to suffer a punishment.”

  “No! Of course I don’t!” I snapped, “Go away!”

  “Leave the women alone to grieve, Caspar.” Paul said, and though he did not sound disappointed at all when he spoke, nor did he look it, Caspar looked murderous enough in his disappointment for the two of them. “Let’s go.”

  Paul took him from the room before Caspar could speak another word. Once the door was closed and locked, Dr. Miletus helped me stand and took me back to the bed. She sat down beside me after propping me up against the pillow and took my hands in both of hers.

  “He was so strong, darling. He held on for so long. He resurfaced three times, and the second time, I told him that I had to take his leg, and he did not hesitate. He nodded, and told me to do it. And God, you were all he asked about.”

  “Oh, God… Oh, God…” I cried, and the sobs were so intense and violent that my stomach was beginning to cramp.

  “Alright. Come now, sweetheart. Lie down.” She helped me get under the covers and then she laid down behind me. “You still need to rest, Violet. Close your eyes, sweetheart.”

  “I can’t… Oh, my God… Oh, God… Oh, God… Nick… He can’t… He can’t leave me…”

  I couldn’t stop picturing his face. I couldn’t stop remembering every moment, both significant and mundane, that we had shared over our two years together. I couldn’t accept it. I couldn’t fathom it. He couldn’t be gone. He just couldn’t. He was so good, and so kind. God couldn’t take him away. God couldn’t take away his chance for an immortal life, not when he so deserved one. The world needed him. It needed his goodness and his kindness, but he was gone.

  “Go to sleep, sweetheart.” Dr. Miletus said again, and my eyes closed, “Go to sleep.”

  It took many hours of her holding me tightly and stroking my hair gently, and I don’t know how many tears I must have shed, but eventually, my need to escape the reality of his death drained the last of my strength that I was using to keep myself awake.

  The only way I was able to drift off was by convincing myself that it was all just a dream, and he would be beside me when I awoke, and Brynna and James would be making breakfast in the kitchen, and the whole world would be alright again. I knew it would hurt just as badly to face reality once again when I awoke, but as I drifted off, I was at peace, and I knew it would be the last peace that I would have for a very, very long time.

  Brynna

  They dropped me onto Adam’s floor unceremoniously and ordered him to stand with his hand on the wall until they left, but you had better believe that the second the door was closed and locked, he was beside me, turning me over as delicately as his rough hands would allow. My body was so broken, sick, and exhausted that any movement, even the slightest, left the part of me I had tried to move shaking and limp.

  “Adam…” I cried, “Adam…”

  “What have they done to you, my love?” He whispered as he took one of my arms and placed it around his neck. His other arm slid under my legs, and even though I had lost a significant amount of weight, he still struggled ever so slightly to lift me. He, too, was broken, sick, and exhausted.

  “I have been so worried. It has been so many days, and I feared the worst.”

  He laid me down on a bed that was surprisingly comfortable and started to walk away from me. A sound escaped my throat, something between a moan of horror, a sob, and a gasp as my hands wrapped around one of his. His other hand came up to stroke my hair, and even though I had told him that our relationship was over because I would be trying to patch things with James, he kissed me. Very gently, his lips caressed mine, and though it was only for a second, it left my insides feeling warmer than they had felt in ho
wever long we had been imprisoned. It was so simple a gesture, so delicate, and so unexpected, and yet he fulfilled it with such love, concern, and passion that it was able to make me feel something other than the residual pain in my body. It was able to make me feel good for just one second.

  “I am not going far, my beauty.” He told me, and the gentleness of his voice helped the warmth left by his kiss spread outwards a little further. His lips kissed my nose and then my forehead. “I am going to run you a bath. We must get these injuries cleaned and bandaged before you can sleep, sweetheart.”

  “I am so tired.” I cried, and my voice was high-pitched like a little girl’s, totally overtaken by the tears that were streaming down my eyes. His green eyes looked utterly pained as his thumbs wiped those tears away. He took me in his arms, holding me to his sturdy body and helping me move my arms up so I could hold him.

  “I know, my darling. Rest here while I get everything ready, alright?”

  I nodded and closed my eyes, allowing a light sleep to wash over me. Like that warmth that had kindled inside of me when he had kissed me and spoken so gently to me, the sleep cradled me, allowing my thoroughly exhausted body and mind to relax. I knew that for the time being, I was safe with him, and as I dozed, I could feel him there in the room with me. It took very little energy to cast my eyes out into the room I was in, so I watched as he tested the water that was rushing from the golden spigot into the large tub with his hand. He turned the nozzle to make the water hotter, until I could see the steam rising from the tub. Perhaps I had mentioned it to him, but I more than likely had not, and still, he seemed to know that I liked my baths to be so hot that it took at least ten minutes to get acclimated.

  He came to me, and his steady hands began to undress me. I opened my eyes, though I didn’t care if he saw me. He had seen me when we had made glorious, passionate, rebellious love in the prison, and I remembered how his eyes had glazed over with hunger and longing as he had observed my body. Now, I knew, he would not look at me in the same way while I was so obviously sick and so terribly injured, but I did not feel the need to cover myself in shame, either. My pants and underwear slid down my legs, and he left them in a pile at the end of the bed. I lifted my torso up as far as I could, and though it had barely come two inches off of the mattress, he slid his hands behind me and unhooked my bra. I let him pull it off, and then, he lifted me into his strong arms again, and took me into the bathroom.

  From behind me, he placed one hand on my abdomen to keep me steady, and with the other, he held my hand as I took one step into the steaming, hot water. It burned perfectly, and when I nodded, he helped me lower myself into the bath. A sigh escaped me, and he chuckled softly. In response to that sound I knew and loved so much, I placed both of my hands on his face and pulled him to me so I could kiss his lips. I thought that he would try to break away, but he did not, and I did not, either. As long kisses go, it was a rather chaste one, and in the back of my mind, I remembered the feeling of his tongue in my mouth, pushing hard against mine, of his hands holding me to him tightly as I rubbed against his groin, feeling him stiffening for me…

  It had been easy to watch him as he moved about the room while I was dozing. It was supremely difficult to keep my passionate thoughts concerning him to myself. He broke from me, lowered his head so he could press his forehead to mine, and whispered, “You do not want to do this, sweetheart. He has only just died.” Then, he reached out to grasp the new bar of soap in the soap dish. At the mention of “him,” the memories of those days came back; I remembered how we had spent them imprisoned, in pain, being tortured brutally. I remembered the way those days had ended, with him declaring me the enemy, saying he would never touch me or even look at me again… The tears started silently, but when I reminded myself that I was safe with him, I released the breathy sobs that had been held firmly in my chest. It sounds so very cliché to say, but once I began to cry out loud, and those sobs had been dislodged from my chest, I felt lighter. When I began to tell him all that had happened, that weight lessened even more. For some reason, I could tell Adam things that I could tell no other, and I always felt lighter after I did.

  “You brought him back? You healed him and brought his soul back? He is whole?”

  I nodded as I brought my hands up to quickly massage the shampoo into my scalp. Then I laid back against his arm so he could rinse the shampoo out of my hair. He knew that I was not ready to leave the warmth of the tub, so he continued to hold me there in the hot water.

  “How did you do it?”

  “I just thought my way through it.”

  “By the One God…” He murmured, and his eyes rose to meet mine, “By the One God, Brynna Olivier…”

  “Is that a good appeal to the One God?” I asked, and my voice was so weak that I was surprised he had heard. He chuckled softly and gently stroked my face.

  “Absolutely. I am in awe of you once again. So after you brought him back, they tortured you both for days, until he gave in and said he would never see you again.”

  I nodded, and the tears began anew. I expected him to feel some sliver of snide self-actualization because he had been right about James all along. I did not know if I truly believed that; I was unsure if I was even entitled to the sense of betrayal I felt, because they had been submitting us to such unthinkable agony relentlessly. But as I questioned my entitlement to my feelings on the matter, I reminded myself that they been torturing both of us, and I had not broken. I did not want to gloat. I did not want to declare that I was stronger than he was. I did not want to think him weak in any sense, because the pain had been unbearable and relentless, and we both truly thought that we were going to die. But still, I had not given in, and he had. He had done exactly what we had sworn we would never do: He had allowed our enemies to separate us, to steal our love of one another away. He had said that I was the love of his life, and he was mine, and we had suffered the same intense, unending pain. But he had broken, and I had not.

  “It’s not his fault.” I whispered, in that new, defeated, broken tone that sounded so pathetically like a child’s voice. I wished he would slap me and tell me to stop being so weak, but he never would. If I could have created a separate entity to do it, I would have. As I thought about this new weakness, this new grief, this new terror, I grew angry, so angry that my fists began to clench and I began to feel my heart beating faster. I loathed every Old Spirit who wanted to cause harm to people like me just because we were different, because we didn’t believe in the same warped bullshit in which they believed.

  “Brynna…” He whispered soothingly, “No. Not now. Not while you are so exhausted. Not after the hell you have endured. You have every right to be angry, my love, but you are too exhausted right now.”

  “Why are they doing this? What does it matter to them, Adam? What did it matter if he and I were in love? Why is this happening? Why is…”

  I stopped when I felt my heart skipping several beats. My rage had caused a sudden spike in my blood pressure and body temperature, and it was causing my heart to palpitate.

  “Shh…” He whispered, “Not now, sweetheart. Come, let us get your wounds bandaged so that you may rest.”

  He helped me stand so he could wrap me in a towel, and then he carried me back into the bedroom. For the first time, I looked around to observe his prison cell, only to find that it barely looked like a prison cell at all. The floor was covered by a soft burgundy carpet, on which was spread an intricately sewn red and gold rug; the bed was a king-sized (ha) mahogany four-poster covered in a thick, hand-sewn golden comforter that he pulled back so I could cool off on the impossibly soft sheets.

  “Not those clothes again.” I whispered as he used the towel to dab the last of the moisture from my skin. I was sitting up, my back propped up perfectly by three plush pillows, and I was very delicately brushing the knots out of my hair that had grown far too long.

  “I would not dream of it, though I have no clothes to give you. They have n
ot yet supplied me with items to fill up that armoire.”

  “So, oh no, I will have to sleep naked, when you know that as I try to sleep, I will become stricken with the grief I feel over losing James, and will need you to hold me…”

  “I am not a sexual deviant, woman.” He said lightheartedly as he unbuttoned his shirt, “Do you honestly think that I would take advantage of you after what you have survived these past several days?”

  “I don’t know, Adam. Didn’t you miss your wife?”

  “Of course I did, but my wife is in no state to be seduced and bedded.”

  “I hate that word. ‘Bedded.’”

  “My wife is in no state to be seduced, laid down on these soft sheets, and made passionate love to.” He helped me into his button-up shirt, and I was reminded of James until Adam’s intoxicating scent filled my nose. I pulled the shirt up to my face and inhaled deeply.

  “How do you always smell so good? What kind of cologne do you wear? It’s like Jesus rolled around in cinnamon and honey and then took a bath in pure pheromones…”

  “Ah, it is just that. I wear no cologne, Brynna, though I do shower daily. You are welcome.”

  I could not help it. I laughed.

  “You know as well as I do that we are primal beings. We are animals as well as sentient human-like creatures. As sentient, human-like creatures, we underestimate the power of scent in determining where we direct our human lusts. What you smell attracts you to me, and if it is as strong as you say, then you have supremely bolstered my ego, which I know you hate doing. Still, I thank you.”

  “You are not welcome, because I do hate bolstering your ego!”

  How he did it, I do not know, but my smile was glowing at its full radiance, and he was smiling, too, as he looked at me. Somehow, Adam always made me forget all the terrible things. Maybe it was his charm. Maybe it was his easy and often dry sense of humor. For those moments, my broken heart was held together with tape, and though I knew it would unstick and fall apart again, I let Adam’s charm and humor entertain and cradle me. My willingness to allow it was the result of my knowledge that it surely would not last, and I would have sufficient time to torment myself over the dissolution of mine and James’s two-year relationship that had survived unthinkable odds time and time again but had finally failed…

  “No, no…” Adam said, “Not yet. We still have some time before your body stops allowing you to fight sleep, and you then must lie down and focus on all that has happened. Let us enjoy this levity for a few moments longer.”

  “They’re hurting Janna.” I said, and that killed the levity. “The next time they come here, you need to tell them to bring her to you. They’re hurting her, Adam.”

  “What are they doing?” He asked, and I could see that his jaw was clenched. There was no mistaking the rage he felt as an indication that he had forgotten his vast disliking of her, but she had been his wife; he had loved her once, made two children with her, and he did not want to see her harmed.

  “I don’t know, because I haven’t looked too closely. But Tyre talked about her briefly. So, you need to order them to bring her to you, or to bring you to her.”

  He stood up abruptly and banged the door several times. I forced myself onto my feet because after the hundredth or so hard bang, I could see a stain of blood on the door that was growing darker and larger with every hit. I know that we both expected one of Tyre’s minions and were equally shocked when it was none other than the leader of the unfree people of Pangaea, himself, who appeared in the doorway. His bodyguards were close by, of course, standing against the wall outside the cell, but he entered the room alone.

  “Already you are beginning to look your usual radiant self, Brynna. Your husband has taken care of you beautifully.”

  “I could snap you in half, do you know that?” Adam snarled, “I could rip your back open and snap your spine with one hand, and you know that I could, Tyre! You bring her to me so ill and bloodied that she cannot move, and you think that I will not force you to endure the same agony? You take her great love from her in the most brutal way imaginable, and…”

  “Yes. You must be devastated that Maxwell has been removed from the picture. After how you have pined so long for her. Now, what could have been so urgent that you bloodied your fist in order to get our attention?”

  “Where is my former wife?”

  Tyre looked genuinely surprised.

  “Is the new Mrs. Elohimson not enough for you?”

  I had never thought of my married name. In all of my thoughts of Adam, I had never imagined my first name put before his last. I had imagined myself as “Brynna Maxwell” a thousand times, but never as “Brynna Elohimson.” I wish I could say that I would have kept my name, but after all I had suffered at my father’s hand, why would I keep his name? After all my mother had done, why would I live under the stigma of the name “Olivier?” “Maxwell” or “Elohimson,” at least I would sever the last tie—the bond of nomenclature, if you will—to my family.

  “The new Mrs. Elohimson is more than enough, but I want the former as well.”

  “Adam, you think that I will allow the three of you to live together when you two are bound by marriage, and she is bound by marriage to Maxwell?”

  “You will release her from wherever you are keeping her into my care until Maxwell can claim her.”

  “Oh, you told him.” Tyre said, “And he feels badly for her. For all the world I thought you cared nothing for her, but I admire your desire to keep her safe from us until she can be properly claimed by her husband. Mrs. Elohimson, you will come with me to retrieve her.”

  “No.” Adam said.

  “Adam.” I touched his face, “I will be fine. She would not want you to see her this way. In truth, she would not want me to see her this way, either. But regardless, it is better me than you.”