Chapter 13
Rosabel La Rouge
Present day
If you’re ever alone or in need of something, anything at all, go to the blue house behind the hill. I’ll find you there eventually.
The clock mounted on the wall said it was a quarter after midnight. I had to wait for what felt like hours but were mere minutes until no more voices came from the hallway, and the door across from me closed. I must have blacked out a couple of times because I would wake up with my chin pressed to my chest, and each time, my mind was darker. Each time my body was heavier. Each time I felt like a whole day had passed, but the clock insisted that it had only been three minutes.
At least my leg didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore because I’d found a bottle of antiseptic and clean bandages in one of the drawers by the beds, and I’d wrapped it up as well as I could. No painkillers anywhere, though, so the pain remained, but I wasn’t complaining. As long as I managed to get to the end of this corridor, there was a set of stairs that connected the operating halls to the ground floor of Headquarters, if I wasn’t mistaken. And since nobody really used that place, it shouldn’t even be guarded, at least not yet. It had been fifteen minutes since Jim and Jam froze time in that room to give me a chance to escape. As much as I wanted to lie down on one of those beds and close my eyes, I had maybe a few more minutes before they came looking for me in here. People had seen me, and there were cameras everywhere. They’d find me as soon as they realized I wasn’t in the interrogation room.
So, I hopped out the door and I made my way to the end of the corridor, which was longer than it had looked at first. But at least nobody came out of the rooms. My stars must’ve aligned because my badge opened the sliding doors to the operating halls and then I was dragging myself across to the other side, going through doors that said Staff Only, until I finally found the emergency stairs. The place was deserted, and thank Iris that it was because I couldn’t have moved silently if I tried. The adrenaline, the fear, the panic were the only things keeping me upright, and they didn’t much care about not making too much noise.
Then cold night air filled my lungs.
A miracle I managed to keep from screaming when I practically fell against the door at the top of the stairs, and it led me outside. I must have been somewhere behind the building because I didn’t recognize my surroundings, but it was okay. Perfectly fine as long as it was dark and there were no guards around me. I could climb the fence and jump to the other side and I’d be gone, disappear from the face of the earth by dawn .
Stained. Stained.
STAINED— that word…
But there was no time to think now. No time to plan. No time to analyze any of those words— stained; inject antibiotics; what good is she to anyone now?! Thank Iris, no time to try to understand the meaning of any of them because I had to focus on trying not to collapse, on carrying my weight on my good leg only, and trying to climb the fence.
Impossible— another awful word, but undeniable.
It just wasn’t going to happen. The fence was at least eight feet tall with barbwire all around the top, and I was not going to be able to climb it in the condition I was in. But I still had my bike in the garage, and so far, that was my best bet.
Off I went, trying to determine exactly in which part of the building I was, and which side was going to get me to the garage faster. When I did, I stuck to the wall, stuck to the darkness, and I was hopeful that I’d get to the front of the building within minutes, then get on my bike and go.
How I’d drive said bike was still to be determined, but I’d make it. I’d find it. I’d sneak out.
Or I would have if there’d been no guards sprawled out everywhere around the yard, with guns and anchors and enough magic in them to kill me with ease considering I couldn’t even run.
I turned back, heart heavy, hope slipping through my fingers, when a hand closed around my mouth and a steel arm wrapped around my shoulders, pulling me back hard.
My good leg let go of me while my instincts fired up, but my body was unable to act on them. Even my magic was too exhausted to explode out of me.
Once again, I saw my life flashing right in front of my mind’s eye .
Madeline’s face was first, the way she’d been frozen in that infirmary room, her eyes and her earrings and her red suit. Maybe I should have taken that second to put a bullet through her head—though I had no weapons on me. Maybe I should have taken that second she was frozen to slit her fucking throat and be done with it. I’d wanted to do it so many times, so many nights when I lay awake in bed and she slept.
Then I wished I’d had the fucking balls to at least talk back to her every once in a while because everything was already as good as over.
But the image of my grandmother’s sour smile faded quicker than I thought, to leave way for a dark-haired boy with dimples on his cheeks and a perfect heart for a Cupid’s bow. He was everywhere all at once, followed by so much pain and guilt and shame?—
“Don’t make a single sound.”
My eyes popped open, and my body was suddenly working again because I knew that voice.
Fuck me, I knew that voice, and it wasn’t a guard.
It was Cassie.
Tears in my eyes, though I’m not sure if they spilled. Cassie dragged me back where we came from until we were far enough away from those guards and deep into the shadows cast by the building.
Only then did she let go of me, spun me around, and held me up by the shoulders.
“For fuck’s sake, Rora,” she said, then slammed me to her chest and hugged me.
Funny, I just now realized I hadn’t been hugged by anyone in almost two years.
Somehow, I managed to hug her back. Whether I was crying or not didn’t matter .
“Help me.” Two words I’d said so rarely, only because to ask for help was to show vulnerability. To ask for help was to admit you were not good enough.
But it was okay, though, because right now I was vulnerable. Right now I was not good enough.
And I wasn’t sure I’d ever be again.
“I will. I’ll get you out of here, don’t you worry. Your twin teammates told me everything. I came to find you in the infirmary, but you were gone. I was worried sick,” Cassie said, then moved away from me, and I almost fell without her support.
“A spell,” I choked. “Just…just do a healing spell.” My leg was a mess, and it was the reason why I was in this position in the first place. Blood loss, infection, lack of energy to control my magic.
Cassie flinched. “I can’t do that, Rora. I need to get you out of here first, but I can’t take you far. The best I can do is take you out of the building.”
Out of the building sounded like heaven to me now.
“Please. Just take me out.”
Goddess, she looked awful, and I hated that it was because of me.
“You have a place to go?”
My lips opened. I do.
They closed again. I don’t.
“Just take me out and put me in an Uber. Is that doable?” I said, my words slurred together, but only because I was trying to lock down those stupid tears.
Cassie nodded. “Yes, I think so. But, Rora, you have to do exactly as I say, or we’re both dead. Understood?”
She didn’t even need to remind me of the fact that I had no choice. I nodded, and when she led the way back behind the building, I followed in silence, hopping as fast as I could. She supported half my weight, and it was different, faster, less messy. I didn’t think about anything at all, didn’t allow myself to even wonder if I would get caught. I just followed her lead and stopped when she said so and walked when she pulled.
I actually made it out of the IDD Headquarters alive.
Staying awake was impossible, though I tried. Cassie put me in the trunk of a car, and the last thing I remembered was the engine roaring to life. Unconsciousness took me despite how panicked I was to know if the guards would sense me, see me, if they’d stop Cassie before she drove me outside of those gates. I was too exhausted.
Then someone slapped me on the face—hard.
“Wake up!”
Cassie was right there, hovering over me, and when my eyes opened just a slit, she grabbed me by my shirt and pulled me out of the trunk.
“Focus!” she was telling me, along with something else I didn’t catch, but I was trying. I was blinking my eyes fast and trying to make out my surroundings, but it took me a little while to understand what was happening.
“That’s better. Here, drink this,” Cassie said, bringing the rim of a bottle to my lips. The water gave me a surge of energy as it slid down my throat, and I was instantly more aware—of the car I was leaning against, the trunk still open. Of the road and the hills at its side, completely deserted save for a white car a few feet ahead of Cassie’s. Of the moon burning silver in the sky.
No IDD Headquarters anywhere.
“I need you to listen to me, Rora,” Cassie said, grabbing my face in her hands. “I can’t take you farther than this. The Uber is right there. You just need to give them an address, and they’ll take you, okay? I’ve put money in your pocket. Use it.”
Her eyes, though. Her eyes were wide and full of tears and concern and sorry . So much sorry it made me sick.
Why are you so sorry for me? I made it out of Headquarters, Cassie. You took me out!
Except I didn’t really have the balls to say it because I suspected I already knew the answer.
“Okay,” I said instead, and my voice came out so breathless. And the more of my body I felt, the more I realized that the pain was still there, and my leg felt about ready to fall off me. So, so weak.
“You remember where you’re going right?” Ouch, that hurt even more than my leg. “Give the driver your address and he’ll take you, okay? Just lay low. Hide for a little while.”
She was so stressed she was shaking.
“Just help me…help me get to the car,” I managed to choke out, and Cassie eagerly did. Putting my arm around her shoulders, she supported my weight easily and pulled me all the way to the Uber without a word.
And I got it. No hard feelings. If anybody found out that she’d snuck me out of Headquarters in the trunk of her car, it would be bad. She could lose her job—or even end up in prison. That she’d gotten me all the way here was more than enough. I would forever be thankful.
“Rora,” Cassie said when she sat me down on the backseat of the Uber, her cold hands on my face again.
“Yeah?” I looked up at her, about to tell her that I had the address and I would be okay. I’d be just fine for however long it took me to get to wherever I was going, even if I didn’t really know where that was yet.
But then a single tear slipped from Cassie’s eye—and it fell straight into the pieces of my heart.
“I’m sorry, Rora.”
It was so final. The word, her voice, the look in her eyes, that tear—so fucking final. Like she knew she would never see me again. Like she knew that it was over for me, that I was as good as dead.
“I know,” was the best I could manage.
Everything was a blur—when she helped me get my leg into the car, closed the door, and the driver took us forward.
“Where to?” he said—a young man, possibly just in his twenties, looking at me through his rearview mirror, pretending not to be afraid, but he was terrified. I guess I’d have been, too, if I had to pick someone up in the middle of nowhere, and they were bleeding and sweaty and dirty—visually a mess to behold.
My lips opened and closed like a fish out of water, and I kept trying to turn to look out the back window, to look at Cassie. At everything she represented—my old life. Everything I knew. Everything I was.
Everything I am not anymore.
I couldn’t—my body refused to cooperate.
“Where to, lady?” the driver insisted, louder this time. Like he wanted to prove to himself that he was not afraid of me, regardless of the strangeness of this situation.
My eyes closed and I was thrown back into the past as if by magic.
If you’re ever alone or in need of something, anything at all, go to the blue house behind the hill. I’ll find you there eventually.
It was the first place I should have gone when I received that text. I shouldn’t have fucking bothered when I knew my end was here.
But if I was going to die tonight, it would not be at the hands of the IDD.
Might as well look the man I loved in the eyes as he took the life from me. In the beginning the idea had terrified me, but now, after almost dying at the hands of Iridians, catfairies, my grandmother—I decided that was the best way to go.
“ And where is the blue house behind the hill? ” I’d asked then, running my fingers through his short hair, satin smooth and messy at the same time.
“ In a small town called Darville, just outside east Baltimore. It’ll be easy to find, I promise.”
I had thought about Darville a lot in the past two years, though I never had the balls to go see if it was even real. I thought about the hill and the blue house and the boy who lived there every day.
If that place even existed, I doubted he’d be there now, anyway, but he did promise me that he would find me eventually if I went and waited for him.
That’s the address I gave to the Uber driver.