thirty-one
I’ve been sitting on this bed for too long.
After we were brought back to our rooms, I bid the archangel goodnight. He only nodded before retreating into his own room. There were no moments private enough to talk about a plan, to even discuss the events of the evening.
Our conversation plays over in my head: his question of whether my answer to Jeremy would have changed had I known what would happen to him.
The truth cuts me like a knife as it repeats in my mind.
I don’t want to marry him.
Guilt claws at me, latching onto the thought and twisting and turning until it festers. What is wrong with me? I love Jeremy. I do. I want to find him and I want to be with him. He makes me feel…
My mind goes blank.
I try to think, to remember what I feel when I’m around him. Safe?
I think… I think I feel safe around him.
Happy.
I trust him.
I love him.
Something inside my brain squeezes so hard I worry I might have an aneurysm. The rope that’s held me so tightly loosens for only a moment before regaining control.
I can’t sit here any longer. I need to find my things. I need to get out of this room, and I need to find Jeremy.
I pace for a while, wishing I had something less restrictive to change into. I pull the knife from my dress and flip it around my wrist again and again. I tuck it back into my dress before swinging the door open.
When I step into the hallway, the guards at either end turn and frown at me, but I ignore them. I knock on the archangel’s door twice. I’m met with silence. They watch me closely, assessing whether I pose a threat. So I change my posture, I bite my lip, I play with my hair, and I fix my dress as if I’m trying to emphasise my breasts. Then I knock again.
Nothing.
Where could he have gone?
Why didn’t he take me with him?
I smile at the guard to my left, shrugging. “How hard is it to get a booty call these days?”
He blinks at me with wide eyes before looking back at the wall across from him.
I close the door behind me when I step back into my room, looking around for any possible escape routes. The windows are bolted shut.
I search through the chest of drawers across from the bed, hoping that clothes have somehow miraculously appeared while I was gone. The top drawer is empty, nothing but dust and cobwebs. The middle drawer is filled with books, ranging from fiction to history to children’s stories about wildlife.
I can’t remember the last time I read a novel, the last time I sat down and immersed myself in another world. I guess as the past five years took over, I’ve been living the stories I used to read about.
The bottom drawer is empty except for a single photograph gathering dust. I pick up the image and wipe it. It’s a family photo: a dark-haired man and a woman with bright red locks stand behind their children – three of them, who look like tiny copies of their parents.
There’s a date at the top. It was taken five years ago. The day before the war began.
The family smile as they pose in front of their home. This home.
It’s a facade. All of this. Vince didn’t inherit this home from his great-grandparents; he stole it. What did he do with the family he stole it from?
Floorboards creak in the hall and my head whips around quickly. Footsteps. Two sets. I can see their shadows through the gap under the door; they hover there for a moment.
“She won’t wake up, will she?”
a low voice whispers outside.
“No. She’ll be out cold for hours.”
I move over to listen. From what I can hear, there are only two guards. A creak sounds beneath the crack in the door and I stand tall with my back against the wall.
It swings open, nearly hitting me in the face. I inhale a sharp breath.
One guard steps into the room. “Where in the worlds —”
I lunge from behind him, jumping on his back with one arm around his neck and the other holding his head. The guard flails about, hitting my arm aggressively, but I don’t loosen my hold. He slams my back against the wall again and again. I wince at the pain, but I don’t let go. A few more seconds and he should pass out.
The guard falls to his knees and I place my feet on the ground. I don’t let go until he stops moving and I’m sure that he’s out cold.
“Derek, you got her?”
The voice of the other guard echoes down the hall, the same one who escorted us back to our rooms earlier.
I grab the baton that the unconscious guard loosened from his belt, returning to my hiding spot behind the door and not bothering to move the body.
“Derek?”
the guard calls out again as he approaches. “Oh, shit!”
He rushes through the doorway, and with one big swing I drive the baton straight into his head.
He takes a few steps back into the hall, disoriented, but stays standing. I drop the baton and run towards him, my fist meeting his stomach. The guard topples over but recovers quickly and charges at me, slamming me into the wall. Pain shoots through me at the repeated impact.
I swallow against the stinging sensation down my spine and drive my elbow into his back with full force. The guard grunts. I pull his hair, whipping his head back before punching him in the throat.
Men never expect you to go for the hair.
He falls to his knees, clutching his throat and gasping for air. I don’t give him a moment to recover, grabbing his hair yet again and slamming his head into the wall behind him. The guard falls to the floor, unconscious but breathing.
Why were they so sure I would be asleep?
I think about it for a moment, and then it clicks. The food. Vince was so insistent that we eat the food. I thought it was poison, but it must have been a sedative.
I grab the guard’s gun and run into the archangel’s room, not bothering to knock this time.
“Archangel?”
I call in a desperate whisper.
His room is as silent as it is empty.
Shit. Where did he go?
I tell myself that he’ll find me, that his otherworldly talents will lead him to me when the time comes. That he hasn’t left me for dead.
I drag the bodies into the archangel’s room and quietly shut the door as I leave. I hold the gun in front of me with my finger hovering over the trigger, listening for more guards with each step I take.
I search the map that I’ve begun to piece together in my mind. A left, then a right, then take the stairs at the end of the hallway. I stop at the top of the stairwell and peer over the edge for anything lurking in the shadows. Nothing.
I point the gun down and take one step at a time, moving as quickly and quietly as possible. I stand with my back to the wall at the bottom of the staircase, peering through the hallway to find it empty.
It only takes a single step before a hand wraps around my upper arm and pulls me back into the foyer.
Instinct takes over and I whip around, pushing the stranger’s arm downwards before swivelling around them and holding it behind their back. The woman’s long, dark hair is twisted into a braid. She wears a dark tunic now, much like the guards’ nondescript uniforms.
“Rosemary?”
My whisper comes out louder than I’d planned, earning a hushing sound from Rosemary as she struggles against my hold.
“Quiet or you’ll get us both caught.”
Her voice is entirely different without her husband at her side. She sounds confident, demanding, even powerful. I slowly release her arm, and she brushes off her tunic before turning around to face me.
“What are you doing out?”
I ask. I assumed Vince would have her under lock and key, only to wander the halls when he grants permission.
Her voice is low as she scans the shadows behind us. “I’d ask you the same, though I already know you only pretended to eat the food we served you. I saw you dropping it into your lap, though my husband was too arrogant to notice.”
I freeze, scanning her face for signs of danger. “And you didn’t tell him?”
Rosemary scoffs at my question, shooting me a look full of offense. I’m almost startled by the stark contrast of the woman before me compared to the one who sat at Vince’s side and flinched from his touch. “Why would I tell that man anything? I’d have stabbed him through the heart long ago if I’d thought I’d survive it. Or if it were only my life at stake.”
If it were only her life at stake. “What are you talking about?”
She grabs my arm again, pulling me down the hall I’d been ready to run into a moment ago. “There’s no time to explain. The guards will be through here soon. Follow me.”
“Where are we going?”
I whisper as we walk quickly down the hall.
Rosemary doesn’t bother scanning the halls before she makes a turn; she’s certain there won’t be anyone waiting on the other side. “You’re going to make things right, and I’m finally leaving this place.”
Before I can ask another question, she cuts me off with a sigh. “When I saw you dropping food into your lap I knew, I knew, you would be the one to save us. You’re smart, clearly a warrior. That man is too short-sighted to see it. He believes women are only useful for one thing. He underestimates you. He underestimates every woman. I knew, though.”
A heaviness settles over my heart, one I’ve become familiar with since curfew began. I felt the same thing every day when I called families and told them their loved one wouldn’t be coming home. I felt the same thing when I reluctantly promised them that I’d keep looking.
Rosemary stops in front of an arched wooden door, scanning the hallway for the first time. “You’ll find your clothes in there. There will be a single guard on the other side of the door. Once you’ve dressed, return to the garden. Walk past the statues into the darkness where they’ve stopped bothering to paint over the destruction.”
Questions race through my mind, but before they can fight their way out, Rosemary continues.
“Here.”
She takes my free hand and places a key in my palm, folding my fingers over it. “Take this. You’ll know what it’s for. I need to go now, but I will be waiting between the willow trees that hold no green. The only rotted two of the bunch. Tell them to meet me there.”
My brows knit together. “Who?”
Rosemary provides no further explanation. “A guard will be down the hall in seconds. I have to run, and so do you.”
As she turns to leave, she hesitates, speaking over her shoulder. “Promise me one thing? When you kill him…”
She smiles wickedly. “Make it hurt.”
Then she disappears into the darkness.