Chapter 53 #2
“Seriously, you two, leave me. I don’t want to leave this room,” I beg. “I have nothing now. These people, whoever they are, have ruined me so fucking thoroughly there’s no point in living.”
“ Everly’s the point,” Vick snarls.
I roll my eyes. “Everly deserves better than this. You go save her. I have nothing to give her except nightmares.”
Vick lets go of me as the sleeves loosen. Braum peels the jacket off, grabs my hands, and attempts to help me to my feet. I try to pull my hands away, but I’m dizzy, and weak, and the motion isn’t as strong as I’d like.
“Cut it out, Rowan!” Braum snaps. “Vick’s right.
Focus on Everly then decide what you want to do, alright?
But hear me when I say this,” he bends down to get to my eye level and scowls.
“ I need you. I know you think I was abandoning you earlier, but telling you what was going on was dangerous, as you can now see. I was trying to protect you. You’re my best fucking friend.
I’ll always have your back even when it doesn’t feel like it, okay?
I’ll have it here and outside these walls if you choose to follow us. ”
Guilt twists my stomach up.
Braum’s right. He had tried to protect me. If I hadn’t learned about the Children of the White Stag, if I hadn’t followed these guys down that damned spiral staircase in the chapel, I never would’ve discovered the evil that lurked beneath Serenity Falls—or have fallen victim to it.
“What if we fail and they catch us again?” I ask him.
Braum shakes his head with a scowl. “Then what more can they do to us than they’ve already promised to? I’d rather risk it than just accept my fate as is.”
I groan as I realize he’s right. Accepting the hell they’ve promised me sounds like an awful idea. And an even worse one? Allowing whatever devious fate they have planned to befall Everly. It’s the thought of her suffering that stirs up enough resolve for me to get moving.
“Fine,” I grumble. “Help me up.”
Braum does, taking me by the arm and helping me to my feet. The room sways for a moment and I nearly lose my footing, but at the last minute, I brace myself.
“You good?” Braum asks.
At my nod, he lets me go and hurries over to the door.
“What are you doing?” Vick asks, following him.
I follow last, careful of each footstep as I assess how dizzy I am. The blood loss is really fucking with me. Not enough, though, to distract me from exploring the mess the doctors left behind.
With a shaking hand, I reach up to gingerly touch my face.
A choked cry slips past my lips. My fingers touch bulging skin where they've pulled too much together before they stitched it. They slide over gaping holes where they’d gone an inch or two without adding a stitch at all.
My nose is sliced in two different directions, the cartilage cut so deep I can feel blood dripping into my nasal cavities.
Tears well up as I gingerly inspect each and every mark.
“When Dad knocked to be released from this room, it was with a specific pattern,” Braum answers. “If I’m right and this works, brace yourself—there are going to be people on the other side of this door expecting doctors, not us.”
Braum knocks eight times at different places along the door.
I let out a dry, weak laugh. “A magic knock? That’s your great idea?—”
The door opens and clean air hits me right in the face. Before I can take a second to drink it in, Vick roars and lunges just as Braum steps aside. Before blood can be shed, a woman’s voice says sharply, “If you want to save the girl, you won’t lay your hands on me.”
Vick stumbles, his outstretched arms dropping as he comes to a stop.
“Who are you?” Braum asks, stepping around Vick.
I move closer to the door. Reaching out, I grab the frame when the dizzy spell grows more intense.
“If you wish to save Everly, you’ll need to hurry,” the woman on the other side of the two guys in front of me says, ignoring his question.
“Go down this hallway to the left, go up the half flight of stairs, and it’ll be the first door on your right.
That is, if you’re not too late. She might be in the process of being taken to the surgical room.
Her lobotomy was scheduled before Braum’s. ”
Vick takes a step as if to leave in the direction the woman had given us, but he pauses as Braum grabs his arm to still him.
“How do we know this isn’t a trick?” Braum inquires coldly.
“You don’t, you’ll just have to trust me,” our savior replies. “Now go.”
Vick attempts to yank his arm free from Braum’s grip. “You heard her, let’s get moving.”
“Wait,” Braum insists, frowning as he grips Vick’s arm tighter. “Why are you helping us?”
The nurse shrugs. “There’s some in-fighting going on. A little chaos is exactly what a few of us need to shift the tides in a new direction.”
With a snarl, Vick manages to pull out of Braum’s grasp.
The minute he’s free, he takes off. With Vick out of the way, I can see the woman that’s spoken.
She’s dressed in an old-school white nurse's dress with white stockings and white shoes.
Her arms are covered with white sleeves from a shirt she wears beneath the dress, and her hands are covered in white gloves.
What really takes me off guard is the weird white mask that covers her entire head.
She tilts her head to regard me closely, and I shrink back.
“Eh, it could’ve been worse,” she muses, then has the audacity to giggle.
Braum glares at her. “At least he isn’t hiding his face. Your mask is atrocious.”
“If you think this one is bad, you should see the one I wear on a daily basis,” she replies with another laugh. “I think I prefer this one though. The antlers on the other always get in the way.”
Braum flinches back as if he’s been electrocuted. “Wait, you’re one of the seven?—”
“You’re wasting time, Braum. The clock is ticking,” she urges, cutting him off. “Tick tock.”
“She’s right, we have to catch up with Vick,” I grumble when he simply stands there and stares. “He’s leaving us behind, and if he gets to her before we do, he’ll leave us in the dust and escape with her.”
I try to push off the doorframe but end up stumbling as the hallway spins. Braum notices and immediately steps up beside me.
“Give me your arm,” he orders.
I do and Braum throws it over his shoulder. When it’s secure there, he wraps his arm around my waist.
“Good luck!” the nurse calls as Braum steers us after Vick. “Oh, should you actually escape Serenity Falls, it would be wise to keep your heads down and hidden for the rest of your lives. Or else—” she chuckles, “—we’ll find you, and there won’t be any escaping then.”
With that, she turns and heads in the opposite direction she told us to go.
“Let’s go save our queen,” he mutters into my ear.
My heart squeezes. “I won’t be any good to her, or you, like this.”
“You’re good to me if you’re alive. Everything after that is just a benefit. I’m sure Everly will feel the same way.”
I want to make a wisecrack about him being corny, but the last part of what he says shuts me up.
What if Everly doesn’t feel the same way?