The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  “Tell me what happened, my love.” Adam said to me gently a few nights later.

  “You saw what happened.”

  “No. Before he brought me into the room, what did he say to make you so angry?”

  I did not want to think about it. Obviously, I did not regret my show of rage, though I did worry that I had, as Tyre had said, “shown my hand.” It was true that my devotion to James made them target him. Those I loved would always be a weak spot in my armor. They would always be targeted, but I was, very surprisingly, incapable of not loving them. So, when Adam asked me to tell him the details of mine and Tyre’s confrontation, I could barely get the words out, for they reminded me of his threat against Adam’s life.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Adam. I am sorry, but I do not want to talk about it.”

  He sat down beside me on his bed, where I was lying in my shorts and tank top. We had not immediately had sex as we normally did, because he could tell that I was not in the mood, and honestly, I knew that he was not, either. We were both still grief-stricken over what had happened, and sex was, weirdly enough, the farthest thing from our minds. I say “weirdly enough” because we had suffered many things and still found the urge and energy to have sex, but this new suffering was in a class of its own. It was in a class that left us both feeling tired, listless, and thoroughly sad.

  “I suppose I should apologize for the whole sad ordeal.” I told him softly.

  “No. You did not make him shoot you. Tyre, it seems, still has his awful temper, and I do not know why I am surprised; he is famous for it. I suppose it should not surprise any of us, what with the obviously false air of calm and rationality he struggles to maintain every day. Of course there would be cracks in the façade. Of course there would be outbursts of violence and rage. That is who he is, when the façade is dropped. An angry, bitter, vengeful spirit, serving an angry, bitter, vengeful God.” He stopped, allowed his eyes to change from the red that had taken them back to the green that calmed me. “I know what he must have told you, Brynna, though you have never told me.”

  “What did he tell me?”

  “He told you that he will never see you harmed in the worst way, because you suffered such things as a child.”

  “Is he lying when he says that?”

  I could not help but feel a sickening worry deep in the pit of my stomach when I thought that Tyre was only saying that to pacify me, or to lull me into a false sense of security, or something along those lines.

  “No. He will not allow his men to harm you that way. He cannot speak for what happens in here.”

  Whether or not what happened with the Warden was in the same class as what had happened to me as a child was debatable (except it wasn’t.) I consented, and sometimes, I held the power (believe me, sometimes he wanted me to hold the power), but if I had my choice… It was never as violent as what Grace perceived, but it was never nice, either, and it was never truly consented upon, because if I had had my choice, he never would have touched me. If he had not said that I could not see Penny, or that he would harm Adam, Janna, Illa, Rachel, Tony, Tom…

  It was in the same class as what had happened to me as a child, but if I saw it that way then, it would have destroyed me. And if Adam knew, he would tear the walls of that ship down until he found the Warden, and they would fight, and maybe the Warden would die (which would make me angry because I had vowed that he was mine to kill), but more than likely, Adam would die. The Warden would kill him, because he was an ace fighter and a brutal warrior. One does not get deemed “the Lord of War” by the Old Spirits easily, and even my husband was no match for him.

  “Believe me,” Adam continued, “A part of him does pity you for what happened when you were small. He does not want you to suffer it again. But if he truly cared, he would allow no harm to befall you at all. Which is why he was still able to put a bullet through you while you were carrying our baby.”

  “Isn’t murder a sin? Or an Offense? Whatever it is that he calls ‘sins?’” I asked him, “He killed our baby, Adam. Or so he thinks.”

  “I know. And yes, it is an Offense. It is a sin. But sweetheart, when has his creed ever stopped him from doing what he wants to do? From acting brutally upon his rage?”

  “Rarely. Though, his creed does seem to allow quite a bit of depraved amusement. For the men, at least.”

  “Yes. It does.” He reached out and gently rested his hand on my stomach, “He threatened me. Didn’t he?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I told him, a little irritably. “I don’t want to think about what he said, Adam!”

  “You do want to talk about it. You want me to tell you that I will not allow him to take me from you. That I will fight for my life, and I will, Brynna. For you, I will fight, and for my son. And for me. I will always fight to stay alive.”

  Tears fell from my eyes, and I threw myself into his arms so abruptly that I startled him.

  “When did he say he would do it?” He asked me softly, gently, because he knew that I was too shaken to speak about mine and Tyre’s conversation easily.

  “After the baby was born.” I whispered, and my voice was trembling, “That is why after he shot me, he said that I could keep you for a little longer, and I might be able to keep you forever, because I am so damaged down there now that you will not be able to ‘plant another seed,’ as he said.”

  “He wanted you to believe that you chose me over our child. You did not, Brynna.”

  “I did.” I cried, “Not knowingly. I didn’t think of it that way at the time, but I did, Adam. I didn’t have to fight him. We could have figured something out in the months of the pregnancy to stop him from killing you. I could have talked him down, maybe. I could have convinced him that we needed you, because that is true, and that is in my heart, and he would see it. He would see how much I love and need you, how much our baby would have needed you. I did not have to attack him, but I got so angry, when he told me that he was going to kill you, and kill you publicly, in front of me…”

  My voice broke, and the tears I had been holding for what felt like hundreds of years fell in a warm, rapid stream from both of my eyes. I turned away from him, and instantly, he came up behind me, grasped my shoulders gently, and began to rub them.

  After kissing my head, he whispered, “You could not have convinced him. He thinks that he loves you, but he does not love you enough to spare my life. Forget that I was meant to be a punishment for you. Mine and Tyre’s violent history is long, and it is tangled through with battles between our armies and fights between us, bloody fights and countless near-fatal wounds, and one of us must kill the other, because that is the only way that this war will end. He wants to kill me publicly, so that I will die with no dignity, so my people and his people will see me die with no dignity, so you will see me die with no dignity. But I will not allow that to happen, my love.”

  “I cannot lose you, Adam.” I told him, “I could not lose her, either, and I did not, because she is safe now. But God, I wish she were still inside me. I wish that I could hold her right after she is born, that you could hold your daughter. I just lost control, and that made Tyre lose control…”

  “No. You cannot allow his violence to be pardoned by blaming your own actions. He provoked you, and even after you attacked him, he did not have to shoot you. It was not a matter of you choosing my life over our child’s.” He turned me around, placed his finger under my chin, and gently raised my head so I was looking at him. “He gave you no choice when he fired that gun. That bullet gave you no choice. He came there with the intention of taunting you. Why else would he have brought me to the office?”

  “I couldn’t stand it, Adam. I couldn’t stand picturing them killing you, because he said he would make me watch. Oh, God. Oh, my God…” I cried a little harder then, “He said they’d make me watch.”

  “Shh… My beauty.” He kissed my forehead, “I will not let that happen. You will never be forced to
see such a thing, because I will not leave you. He will never take me from you, nor you from me. I promise you, my love. I promise.”

  I nodded, stood on my tiptoes to kiss him, and then laid my head back underneath of his. One of my arms was wrapped around his back, and the other was up, rested on his firm, bare chest just in front of my face. My tears ran down his skin as he held me and rocked me gently, and even after I began to doze, he held me.

  There was something so comforting in it. He was able to calm me so easily. Though I was hiccupping and sobbing, he remained firm and unyielding in his calmness, in his determination to bring me back down to his level. He knew that I loved him, and that I feared for his life, and when the thoughts of losing him stomped across my mind, shrieking, he whispered that he was right there, and everything was going to be alright. I don’t know how long he held me, but when he laid me down on my side of the bed and then laid down beside me, I curled up against him under the covers, and draped his arms over me.

  “I am going to get us off of this ship, Brynna.” He whispered to me, “And then you, Penny, Idan, James, Janna, Illa, Tony, and I are going to disappear. I am going to take us far away, where they cannot find us, and we are going to build a life. I will have my people scour the cities and plains, deserts and oceans and forests until we find Violet, Quinn, Alice, Rachel, and Tom, and then, maybe we will fight, or maybe we will simply live out the rest of our lives. I leave that up to you, my love. I leave it in your hands.”

  “As long as I have you, I don’t care what we do, honey.” I replied, “Fight or don’t fight, I don’t care.”

  He kissed my forehead, and when I looked up at him, my eyes heavy with sleep, he kissed my lips before saying:

  “I do not care, either.”