Chapter 29 #2
I look at him, searching for some sign of his joke. “What do you mean, what’s the plan? You’re the planner here, not me.”
“We have no hope of winning this if the Gifted remain with Lady M. You said yourself, you are the only one who can get through to them, Cate. Do you know what you’re going to say?”
“I think the Gifted from the club are already convinced.” Even if they wouldn’t leave with us, they helped me escape.
They know Lady M has been lying to them, and I don’t think they will stand against us.
“But I don’t know any of the others she has recruited to her sick little army.
I don’t know if I there’s anything I can say to get through to them. ”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something.”
His faith in me bolsters me, but I can’t help but feel it might be more than a little misplaced. Callum is the one with the leadership experience here, not me. Having our fate rest fully in my hands borders on terrifying.
Harold isn’t there waiting for us in the copse of trees, and I try not to linger on the bolt of fear his absence sends through me. Maybe his business at the club took longer than expected. Maybe he’s decided not to come after all.
Or maybe he’s already inside, the Bond between him and Lady M too strong to fully break.
“Should we wait for him?” Callum asks.
I shake my head, not wanting to accept that Harold might have turned against us. “I don’t think so.”
We don’t bother sneaking in a side door this time. We march up to the front entrance and let the guards escort us in. I don’t recognize the two men, but Callum sizes them up quickly and if it comes to a fight, I’m sure he can handle it.
But I don’t think the fight is upon us. At least, not yet.
We’re shown into some kind of dining room, where Lady M is sitting at the end of a long table.
My heart sinks as I take in the women surrounding her.
My sisters. The only one missing from the group is Bianca.
I hope she’s still doing okay, that she hasn’t burned herself out healing Harold and watching over Andra.
I hope we don’t end up needing her Gift here today.
I hope the rest of Lady M’s Gifted stay where they have scurried off to.
Harold’s absence is a small bit of relief. He hasn’t betrayed us. At least not yet.
Callum nudges me forward, letting me take the lead. I raise my hands in surrender, needing them to know we didn’t come for a fight.
We can’t win a fight. Not all of them against the two of us.
I force a smile to my lips as I stare down my mother. “Lady M.”
She stares at me from the end of the table, the distance not enough to dull the coolness in her sharp gaze.
“I’m surprised you came back, Caterine. You’ve stolen your sister from me.
I let your boyfriend walk away from me unharmed.
It would appear you’ve gotten everything you were searching for.
What more could you hope to take from me? ”
“I did not steal my sister. She is a human being, not an object.” I tamp down my rage, knowing it won’t help. “You have no claim over her.”
She arches one sharp eyebrow. “Don’t I?” She leans forward in her seat. “It would seem I very much have a claim over her, the same claim I have over you. I sat back once before, as my babies were stolen from me. I don’t intend to make the same mistake twice.”
“Thank god Diana had the foresight she did, to take us away from you.” My stomach twists at the thought of a lifetime raised by this woman. “You are nothing to us.”
“I am your mother, Caterine. You might not like that fact, but nothing you say can change it.”
A quiet gasp echoes around the room. I’m not sure which of my friends it came from, but clearly Lady M chose not to fill them in on this bit of family history.
“A mother does not use her children for her own personal gain.” My fists clench at my side. “If you ever truly loved us, cared about us, you would end this now.”
Lady M dismisses my request with a wave of her hand. “Why have you come back? Surely you know I don’t plan to let your boyfriend leave here alive a second time. Surely you know I have great plans for you, plans that you don’t seem to want to be a part of.”
“You are right about one thing, I have no desire to be a part of anything you are doing here.”
A sick smile pulls on her lips. “Andra’s vision was correct. I had my doubts about letting you leave, but she assured me you would come back, that both of you would come back.”
I suck in a deep breath, ignoring the implications of what Andra could have Seen, turning my attention to the women gathered around her. Helen and Meri and Rosa and Tes. These women have been in my life for more than a decade. They are the only ones I need to convince.
And if I can’t, then I’ll have to rely on Callum to get us out of here.
I focus on Helen first, her Gift maybe the most useful in this situation.
I open my mind to her, letting her see all the things that have happened to me and to Andra since the day Lady M arrived at La Puissance.
I push the memory of finding Andra unconscious and curled up on the cold stone floor to the forefront of my mind and I know by Helen’s sharp intake of breath that she’s seen it.
I let her see the Gifted choking the life from Dom.
I show her Harold, slumped over and poisoned.
I show her the truth. I don’t know if it’s enough, but the furrows of her face show me she’s at least listening and taking everything in.
Tes cocks her head when our eyes meet. She arches a single eyebrow at me, and I fight not to breathe a sigh of relief.
Just because they are standing at her side doesn’t mean they are standing against me.
I pray they have some kind of plan, and I keep talking, not wanting to let on to Lady M that anything has changed.
“I may have been raised with only one twin, but from the moment Andra and I moved into La Puissance, the four of you have been my sisters. I know that things have been rough, and that times have looked bleak and that having Lady M come in and revamp our home may have seemed like a good thing.”
Lady M pushes out of her chair. “We don’t need to listen to this.”
Rosa glares at her, and Lady M’s mouth clamps shut against her will. Her eyes widen, shocked at this first hint of betrayal.
I pull my shoulders back and continue on.
Just because the other Gifted, the ones I have never met before, aren’t visible doesn’t mean they aren’t listening in.
They deserve to know exactly who they are aligning themselves with.
“The contracts that Lady M forced us to sign require us to meet impossible demands. We would never have been free of them because they have been designed that way.”
“You signed one the same as we did, Cate,” Meri points out, keeping up the ruse that I still stand alone.
I nod. “I know. Because even though I had misgivings from the beginning, I wasn’t ready to give up on my home, and my family.
But the things Lady M has done since we all signed—guards at the doors, forcing Andra to work herself to death, chaining Bianca to a wall—how can you not see that how she is treating us is wrong?
” They don’t interrupt me and so I keep going.
“The whole purpose of the Uprising was to bring us to a place where everyone is treated equally. How can that exist when people like Lady M treat us as expendable tools? Use us for our Gifts and care nothing for the people behind them? She is using us because she thinks we can help her take power. But what about taking power for ourselves? Why should we fight for her, when we have the opportunity to fight for us?”
Tes glares over my shoulder at Callum, hiding her smirk at my triumphant tirade. “So what, you would rather we put our faith in him? A man born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who has never known what it’s like to struggle?”
“Callum may have been born a royal, but that does not mean he hasn’t endured struggles.” I gesture to him, fighting every instinct not to take his hand in mine. “He is a good man, one who will make a fair and just leader.”
Callum steps forward, standing next to me. “I feel certain that if you gave me the chance to explain my positions, listened to what I hope to accomplish, you might change your mind.” He presses his palm to mine, linking our fingers, and a wave of peace washes over me.
“Enough!” Lady M rises from her chair once again, throwing off Rosa’s hold over her.
Rosa stumbles back, her hands flying to her forehead. “What did she just do?”
My hands immediately reach for my dagger. “She can block your Gifts, just like she can amplify them when she wants to use you and drain you, like she did to Andra.”
“And do you know what your sister Saw for me, my darling daughter? She Saw me becoming more than the Scotan candidate. She Saw me becoming Queen. I had no intention of ever harming poor, sweet, malleable Harold until Andra told me what she Saw in my future.” Lady M crosses around the table, her movements slow and deliberate.
“We all know Andra’s visions are never wrong. ”
The shift in the room is immediate, even if Lady M doesn’t seem to notice it.
She stands in the center of the room, Callum and me in front of her, the rest of the La Puissance Gifted behind her.
She thinks they have her back, that they will move on us with a single word from her.
She hasn’t realized she is alone in this fight.
Meri’s eyes narrow on Lady M’s back. “You assured us that Harold was going to be fine.”
“And he is,” Lady M spits. “Your little friends managed to save him, though he won’t be around for long if I have anything to say about it. He was always weak. To think I Bonded with someone so fragile. Once I am free of him, my Gift will be limitless.”
I watch Meri gear up, preparing to throw some kind of illusion over Lady M, something to give us time. And I watch her realize she no longer has access to her Gift, though that doesn’t stop her from trying.
Callum and I exchange a look. Now is our chance to take Lady M out, but whether the rest of the Gifted are on our side or not, it doesn’t much matter. None of us have access to our Gifts. We’ll have to do this the old-fashioned way.
Cal strikes out first, and either he’s still feeling the lingering effects of the events of the past few days, or he underestimates Lady M, because his punch is weak and slow.
Lady M dodges easily, and from that one movement alone, I can tell this isn’t going to be an easy fight.
Callum is the only one of us with any formal training—I learned the basics of defense during the Uprising, but my skills are weak and I’m out of practice—and it appears he and Lady M might be evenly matched.
She knocks him to his knees after just a few minutes of sparring. “Rosa!” she calls as she circles him.
Rosa looks to me, eyes wide.
I shake my head, silently begging her not to oblige.
Rosa crosses the room, standing shoulder to shoulder with me. Her hands immediately fly to her forehead once again as Lady M reinforces the block on her Gift.
“We have to do something,” I whisper fiercely, standing back and watching Callum and Lady M go blow for blow, strike for strike, feeling so utterly helpless.
And then the doors of the dining room fly open.
Before I have the chance to count how many more Gifted are joining the fray, my body is lifted clean off the floor. I fly across the room, colliding with one of the stone walls and landing in a heap.
My lungs seize and I fight to inflate them, wondering if this is the same woman who killed Dom. But I don’t think I’m being strangled, I just had the wind knocked out of me when I hit the wall with such force. I regain my breath, struggling to my feet as I take in what’s happening.
Meri has picked up a chair, using it as a shield as a Gifted throws sparks of lightning at her face.
Tes is on the ground, straddling another woman, delivering punch after punch to her stomach.
Her opponent gets her weight under her, toppling Tes so their positions are switched and now Tes is at the mercy of her fists.
Callum and Lady M are dancing around one another in the center of the room. A gash on his cheek is bleeding profusely, but he’s still standing.
And I’ve been still for too long.
A pair of arms encircles my neck.
I immediately grab at them, but it’s fruitless trying to break the Gifted’s hold.
I dig an elbow into her side, aiming for the ribs.
I connect with enough force to loosen her grip slightly.
Ducking away, I reach for Callum’s dagger, holstered at my thigh.
I shove the woman against the wall, pressing the knife to her neck.
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
She struggles against my grip. “Go ahead and try.”
I dig the knife in a little deeper, enough to draw a line of blood. “How can you not see that she is using you? Lady M is manipulating your Gifts for her own benefit, and you’re letting her.”
“My parents sold me to a brothel when they found out I had a Gift. And not a brothel like La Puissance, Lady Caterine,” she says with a sneer. “The kind where you don’t have a choice. Where you are forced to do things so depraved your head would spin.”
I unconsciously loosen my hold on her. “I’m sorry that happened to you. That’s what the Uprising has been fighting for, a way for us to regain our rights.”
She laughs in my face. “If you believe that, you are even more na?ve than I thought. The Uprising is out for themselves. Everyone is.”
“It doesn’t have to be this way,” I say quietly.
“It’s always been this way.” She pushes my hand away from her throat.
I take a step away. When she lunges at me, I bring the butt of the dagger down on the back of her skull, knocking her out. I don’t stop to see if she’s still breathing because I don’t know if I can handle it if she’s not.