38. Jet
JET
They’re not expecting us, but they’ll figure out pretty quickly we’ve pirated their vessel when we dock, so before we reach the island, we lower the anchor and climb into two of the life rafts. A few men will remain behind ready to carry us away once we return with Amal.
Cassian has a dozen soldiers with him and the boat was well-stocked with guns, various knives and ammunition. Even Sev is armed.
Our boat launches. Sev steers us toward the pier that will take us to that cave we were led out of.
I study my brother’s back, wondering about him.
Growing up together, he and I have had our share of fist fights, each of us leaving the other bruised and bloodied, but I’ve never seen him be outright violent.
That’s not to say he hasn’t been. I don’t know.
But he’s always been against my having anything to do with the Trevino mafia family.
“Sev,” I call out over the roar of the engine and the storm wreaking havoc on the sea.
He looks over his shoulder at me, eyes squinted against the rain, his hair and face wet. “Thank you.”
“She’s your wife. Family. We protect our family,” he says before returning his attention to the castle.
I nod in gratitude but he doesn’t see it.
“How the fuck are we going to find her in there?” Cassian asks as he takes in the sheer size of the place.
“We’re not,” I say. Cassian turns to me, eyebrows raised.
“Cotton’s going to find her.” I set my hand on Cotton’s head.
She’s standing obediently at my side, her good eye on the castle as if she, too, understands.
I scratch behind her ears like she likes and she turns her cheek into my palm.
Her way of showing her affection and allegiance.
No one is guarding the cave entrance. No need.
Water has risen higher since they marched us out here not too long ago.
Once we reach the rickety old dock, I throw the rope out, lassoing it around a pole.
Sev’s first off and he catches the second rope I toss, securing us as best he can in this storm.
The men file out, me leading the way with Cotton running slightly ahead in a hurry to get to dry land.
Trauma, I think. I don’t know how many hours she survived on that cliff’s edge where she was left to die and have no doubt she felt the same terror any human would feel.
“Good girl,” I tell her. “Good girl.”
Cassian and Sev flank me, soldiers in fatigues follow behind us. We’re soaked to mid-calf, and I wonder how high the water will get. If it’ll fill the cave and make exiting from here impossible. I haven’t thought that far ahead. My only thought has been Amal.
“It’ll be slippery,” I call back.
Cotton gives a bark when we reach the cave entrance and I quiet her. We all take our phones out to use the flashlights.
“No service,” Cassian notes.
“They must have it blocked on the entire island,” Sev says.
The sound of the sea recedes as we climb higher, the stone stairs growing less wet, less slippery. Cotton moves faster than us but keeps doubling back to make sure I’m following. She’s been fiercely loyal from the day I hauled her up from that cliff’s edge. My one-eyed protector.
“We’re getting close,” Sev says as the passage grows slightly less dark.
“Stay, girl,” I tell Cotton and she obediently sits on the step while I pass her.
Up ahead, I see the light around the edges of the door cut into the wall.
Taking the hunting knife in hand, I press my ear to the it but it’s too thick to hear much.
Signaling the others to wait, I push the door open and peer into the corridor.
“What the fu—”
Before he can finish his sentence, I grab the soldier and slice his throat with the edge of my knife, dropping him. It’s a good death. Quicker than any of them deserve.
After confirming the corridor is clear, I signal for the others to follow. Cotton’s first, leaping over the dead body to come to my side, paws leaving little red prints as she walks slightly ahead of me.
The corridor is dimly lit, lights still flickering like they had when those bastards took Amal from me.
Tightening my grip on the knife, I pan the flashlight over the walls.
I need to find the room they took her to although I doubt they kept her there.
But I need to get there so Cotton can pick up her scent.
“What are we looking for?” Cassian asks. He’s watching Sev and I search the walls.
“There’s a secret door. They grabbed Amal here somewhere when the lights went out so if we find it—”
“Something like this?” Cassian asks, cutting me off and dragging the light from his phone over the panel that’s cut into the wall.
As if to give us a clue, the blinking lights go completely out.
Cotton growls. Soldiers grab their guns.
The lights blink back on, resuming their flickering.
I push at the door, trying to find the way to open it, but this one doesn’t give so easily.
I push my shoulder into it, growing desperate but nothing.
“Here,” Sev says. He’s crouched down and I see where he’s pointing. A pedal low to the ground. He straightens.
Cassian takes aim, ready to shoot to kill any man standing behind it. He signals to Sev to go ahead.
Sev presses his foot to the lever and the door slides soundlessly open onto a room with minimal furnishings, two old chairs whose upholstery rotted away long ago, a threadbare Persian carpet on the floor. There are three windows at the wall.
The room is empty. No Amal.
My heartbeats slow and although I’m disappointed, I didn’t really expect to find her so easily, did I? If she were here, they’d have kept guards to watch her.
I cross the room to the window and look out. We’re maybe three, four stories high and down below the black boats bob almost invisible in dark water.
Was she here? Did she watch us go? Did she watch me lift the woman I thought was her onto the boat and beat her fists against these sealed windows desperate to be heard? It would be impossible through these walls and windows, even without the storm, and how cruel to let her watch.
My gut clenches and I turn to face the men. Cassian is crouched where Cotton is lying flat, face between her paws, whining a little as if to say: ‘Here, look here’.
Cassian stands, lifting a piece of red lace. He holds it out to me, and I take it from her. Torn lace. That mask they’d gagged her with.
“It’s hers,” Sev says. “Must be.”
I crouch down to Cotton. “Good girl. You’re the best girl.
” I pet her and she turns her face into the palm of my hand.
“Find her for me. Find Amal.” I let her sniff the lace, hoping she’ll pick up her scent and she does.
She bounds out the door, and we follow her and I’m sure if there are soldiers nearby, they must hear us, hear our boots on this stone floor, the panting run of a dog who somehow understands the urgency.
Music from the quartet in the Great Hall grows louder, the air around us warming. We must be nearing the interior of the castle. But before we do, Cotton takes a turn and a little while later, we hit a closed door. She paws at it, whining.
I open the door that leads out into the stormy night.
“Fuck!” I curse as we step outside and I watch Cotton go a few feet, then stop and turn in another direction, sniffing at the ground, having lost her scent in this storm.
“It can’t be that hard to find them,” Sev says, coming to stand beside me.
“Did you count the cottages on this damn island. Not to mention that?” I ask, pointing to the Tribunal building looming, a foreboding black hole in this already black night.
“Split up,” I say to the men. “She was in red. Maybe she tore her dress. Left clues. Maybe…”
“Here,” Cassin calls out, already doing just that without my instruction.
I look over to where he has wandered off to, watch Cotton run over to him, sniff what’s in his hand. I hurry to Cassian, take the sodden scrap of lace. “She must have caught it on the rock.”
Cotton bounds up the hill.
We follow the dog. If she’d managed to pick up the scent in this storm, and that’s a big if, then she loses it as quickly because she’s back to circling, going a few feet this way then back to go the opposite direction.
I glance back at the castle, see the light of the windows of the Great Hall, their masquerade ball still going on while they tried to murder us. While they hold Amal as a hostage. Or worse.
Rain turns to hail that pelts my face as I push against it, climbing the hill, head down against the wind.
Amal’s eyes haunt me. Her face hidden in that prison of lace. The tears that ran down her cheeks as I held her.
The feel of her pressing herself against me. Into me. Into my arms. The weight of her fear.
Emotion is a tide inside me swelling, swelling. I love her. I love her. It’s always been her since that first day she stumbled into my office four years ago. Always.
Christ, I fucking love her. And I need to find her. To get to her before they hurt her.
Rage wars with despair as we walk minutes that stretch to eternities when I finally catch sight of something red snagged on a stone just a few feet off. I lunge for it. Dropping to my knees, I rip it free from where it’s caught waving like a flag in the wind. Calling me this way!
I hold it up so the others can see then shove it into my pocket, rush onward, a new energy buoying me on. It’s then that in a lull in the storm I hear what I think is the sound of an organ. I stop, listen. But it’s gone. Did I imagine it?
I take two more steps up to crest this hill and there, at the top of the next rise, I see light.
Golden light glowing through narrow windows of an ancient stone chapel.
Soldiers stand outside unmoving as statues in this wind and rain.
My heart slams against my ribs because I know why.
I know that’s where she is.