Chapter 45 #2
“Gods, Rylan,” I moan, but he swallows it with another searing kiss.
I feel myself arching into his touch. I should be embarrassed at just how much I react to him, but I can’t bring myself to be anything but exhilarated.
One of my hands falls to the grass beside me, and my hand closes around the stems of flowers, ones that weren’t there before. Ones that either I or Rylan have brought to bloom as we lay here together.
“You are extraordinary,” he breathes. He has said that to me before.
Just when I open my eyes to look at him, as a tight feeling coils at my core, I hear the sound of horses approaching.
Rylan hears it too, because his eyes widen and he’s quickly lifting himself off of me and pulling my skirts down.
I look past him to see Silas riding towards us, but flanking him are Captain Barton and a few other shields, including Reed Edwards.
“What in the world do you think you’re doing?” Silas says atop Chester’s back.
I can’t decipher if the question is directed at myself or Rylan, but I stumble over my words as I push up onto my hands, unsure what he is doing here, and with shields, nonetheless. “Silas,” I breathe, pushing my hair back from my face and trying to slow my racing heart.
“What are you doing here?” Barton asks, his eyes scrutinizing what remains of my childhood home.
“It is the house she grew up in,” Silas answers.
A frown pulls at my features. “It is where you grew up too,” I say. Silas doesn’t meet my gaze.
“What is in there?” Barton asks, his hardened gaze penetrating the strong facade I intend to wear.
“Nothing.” But my voice shakes. Now Silas looks at me.
“She’s lying.” It feels as though he picked up my dagger and ran it through my stomach. The blade sinking deeper than it should. What is he doing?
Barton shifts in his saddle, his mouth picking up in a vile smirk. “Either tell us what is in there, or we will simply burn it to the ground.”
Silas’s gaze jumps to Barton, his eyes wide like the threat surprised him, yet he stands with them—the shields. Why?
He tips his head as he looks over at me, and I can read it in the set of his shoulders—he doesn’t want to see this place go up in flames. “Just tell them what’s in there, Evie.”
“Don’t call her that,” Rylan spits.
Silas’s nostrils flare as he drags his gaze to where Rylan sits close to me, but he looks as though he is ready to fight at any given moment.
“Do you know who you are letting under your skirts, Everleigh?” Silas asks, not taking his eyes off of Rylan. Rage is written all over his face, stitched in the lines between his brows, and the flat line of his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I say. I don’t know why, but it simply slips out. “I—”
“Oh,” he scoffs, a sour smile pulling at his lips. “I am not the one who needs an apology.”
The shields around him sit with their shoulders down and their chins up, confident in whatever situation is unfolding in front of them. All except Reed, whose eyes are flooded with dread. It’s as if everyone here knows what is about to happen—everyone but me.
“Everleigh.” Rylan takes my head in his hands. His eyes filled with a similar look. “Everything I have ever said to you is true, I swear it,” he says. I almost swear I can feel the colour draining from my face. Why is he saying this to me?
“Did he tell you who he is?” Silas says, his tone entirely too pleased.
I move to look at him, but Rylan holds me in place. “You know me, the true me,” he says into my mind, his eyes pleading with me. “I promise you.”
My heart is thundering in my chest.
“Did he tell you who his father is? Or perhaps what he is doing when he is not fitting horseshoes or mending gates?”
I pull Rylan’s hand from my face, but don’t let him go, wanting to hold on to him for as long as I can. He’s told me about the things the mayor has wanted him to do—the jails, the prison wagon. He’s not kept those things from me, yet his face reads as if he has.
But his father?
“You seem so close, I can only assume that he’s told you of the weapons he’s been creating. The ones used to torture the witches, people like Hazel, all for his father.”
I meet Silas’s gaze as my heart sinks, and the look in his eyes is nothing but satisfaction. “That contraption they put on Hazel’s face when we saw her, wielded by the very hands that were just climbing up your skirts.”
I pull my hand from Rylan’s. “Rosie,” he pleads, not letting me go, but I rip my hand free.
“Is that—is that true?”
He shakes his head, a troubled look in his gaze, but he doesn’t dispute it. “Rosie, please believe me. I—”
“I suppose, who else would Mayor Hawthorne get to do all of his dirty work if not his own son?”
Son.
The word rings through my mind, everything else fading away.
I remember the day that I asked Rylan about his father. He’s no one worth knowing.
I think of how he rarely appeared in the same room as the mayor, about how he only ever appeared in the forest, away from the town square, and his father’s men.
About how he managed to distract the shields for so long that day.
He was probably talking to them casually. It’s how he knew where the mayor lived.
All of it. It’s how he knew all of it. And I told him everything.
My vision goes blurry as tears fill my eyes. He told me everything he’d said to me is true, and that might be so, yet he’s been lying to me this entire time.
Through the tears, I make out Barton dismounting his horse and making his way towards us. I instinctively scramble back until I find myself pressed up against a tree.
Rylan stands, putting himself between where I sit and Barton’s approaching form. Barton doesn’t hesitate before throwing his fist into Rylan’s face, sending him hurtling to the ground.
My heart doesn’t jump. I feel nothing as I press further into the tree while Barton comes straight towards me.
Rylan raises his head, spitting blood onto the grass. “What have you done?” he yells, Silas’s head whipping to face him. “What could you ever trade for her life?!”
My mind is like wildfire, everything ablaze in front of me. But the one thing I can see is the cloth in Barton’s hand as he walks up to me.
“No,” I mutter, pressing myself further into the tree, hoping it can swallow me up and hide me in its trunk. “No.”
I shake my head, but he doesn’t stop. He’s kneeling in front of me, leaning towards me with the cloth in his grasp. I kick my foot up, landing right between his legs.
He doubles over, and I try to crawl out of his reach, but within a second, his hand wraps around my ankle, yanking me back towards him.
I scream as he drags me back through the grass, the daisies that bloomed only minutes ago flattening beneath me. Fear spears through me like an arrow straight to my heart, consuming every single morsel of my soul.
“You’re not getting away, you little bitch,” Barton spits as he rolls me over, climbing over my body, and pinning me beneath him.
I use my hands, clawing at his face as I let out a scream. He jerks his head back, but I reach up and wrap my hands around his neck, squeezing as hard as I can.
Barton’s face turns red as he stares down at me, but he brings his elbow down like a hammer on my forearm. I scream as pain splits down my arm, my hands slipping from his neck.
“Time for you to shut up, for good,” he says before forcing a cloth over my mouth.
I try to kick, try to scream, but my mind grows hazy almost instantly. I try to fight it, try to stay awake, but my fight doesn’t last very long before I know nothing but darkness.