41. Gabe
Chapter 41
Gabe
I was honest with Ash; I had told her as much truth as I dared to since coming here. Was it too late for us to run away together and avoid all of this? I had thought about it before Peters came and collected us in Cedar Hill. I had worried they would come and kill her; it put me on edge. I loved her, but I also loved my country. Her blonde locks were like a dull knife continually sawing me in two. I wanted the blondes to be locked away; they deserved it. Maximus’s words remained true. Power is freedom . Unless you were in love with a blonde. Then it wasn’t freedom at all. It was gnashing jaws, slowly eating away at your resolve. Ash and I would never see eye to eye on the issue. She wanted blondes to be free, but I couldn’t let that happen either. I had to keep her, and I had to keep the blondes locked away too. I just didn’t know how to see them both through yet, but I would figure it out .
I’d been thinking about the correspondence that Maximus shared with me the night I left for Antelope Flats. The news devastated me, but I couldn’t share it with the one person I wanted to. Instead, I’d focus on finding Liam. As soon as he was executed for treason, then the rebellion would be squashed. The King had no intention of only talking to him; of that I was sure. The real reason I came to escort the advisor back to Antelope Flats was he had a blonde locked in a cell that he said had some very interesting facts about Liam that I had to hear for myself.
Advisor Newman escorted me to the dungeon under his house, where I found a man behind bars, leaning up against the rock wall.
“Caught him trying to steal guns from the armory,” Newman said.
“Why haven’t you sent him to Hope?” I asked. All captured blondes were to be transported to Hope to find their abilities. The strongest of them stayed in the Pit while the weaker ones were sent to the King’s other mine, near Copper Basin.
“They captured him a week after my departure, and I didn’t want to risk my house, with so many soldiers already escorting me to Hope.”
I nodded and stepped closer, and the blonde stared at me through the bars. “Who are you?” I asked.
“No one,” he sneered.
I turned to Newman. “You’re sure he is blonde?” I eyed the man’s brown hair that was the same dirty brown shade as Ash’s when she dyed it.
“Yes. We tested his blood, and it was reactive.” This test was new to me; it wasn’t around during my time in Hope.
“Do you know of an ability?” I asked Newman .
“No. He hasn’t shown one—yet,” he replied, speaking as if the blonde man wasn’t staring right at me.
I turned back to the man behind the bars. “Where is Liam?” I asked.
“Do you think that I’m going to tell you anything?” he sneered.
“I would suggest you start,” I warned.
The man’s lip curled up, and he said nothing more.
“Very well.” I sighed. They always picked the hard way. It had been so long since I’d been this person—the King’s enforcer. All these years away and I still remembered the pull to see justice in the country.
“Guards,” Newman ordered.
The blonde man’s eyes darted between me and Newman.
“It seems you weren’t the only one who was trying to break into the armory that night,” I said, crossing my arms. On our ride here, Newman had filled me in on what had happened the night the two blondes were caught. The blonde man behind the bars didn’t know they had also captured his companion.
The blonde’s eyes widened in horror as the guards dragged in a boy, who I assumed also had blonde hair. He was much younger and paler than the first man. My eyes raked over his sickly form until I pulled my gun out and aimed it at his head, looking impassively at the man behind the bars.
“Tell me or he dies,” I threatened. I looked at the boy, and suddenly, it was Ash’s face that stared back at me. Her blonde curls hanging around her face as she looked at me with wide blue eyes. I shook my head, relieving me of the vision of Ash before me and bringing me back to the present, where the younger man with hazel eyes stared at me in horror. I tightened my grip on the gun. It must be done. If I was to protect Ash, this was the cost.
The man in the cage went berserk, pounding at the bars and trying with all his might to bend them and get the boy, but they held fast.
“You’re a sick son of a bitch,” he roared, fisting the bars with white knuckles.
“Where is Liam?” I gripped the gun tighter, my chest constricting. Why was I feeling this way?
“Stop,” the man behind bars said, defeated. “He’s in Hope. He went to get his daughter back.”
I cursed internally and breathed a heavy sigh of relief, but didn’t let my face show anything. The man behind the bars reached for the boy, who I assumed was related to him in some way. The boy looked back with a matching sorrowful expression.
“I’m sorry, Seth. I didn’t mean to get caught,” the boy said.
The man named Seth winced and closed his eyes. “It’s okay,” he murmured.
“What’s going to happen to us?” The boy asked. “Are you going to take us to the mines and use us like pincushions too?”
What? What was he talking about? Pincushions?
“We are going to go back to Hope and see what else Seth knows about Liam and the rebellion,” I said before turning for the exit, but his words stuck in my mind. Was there something happening at the Pit that I didn’t know about? I left them, with Seth yelling obscenities behind me about going to Hope and the boy pleading for freedom, but I didn’t particularly care. They had information I needed, and I’d do what was necessary to get it.