Chapter Forty-One
Forty-one
It began with a low growl beneath the floor.
Within seconds, the roar was deafening.
A sudden, sharp lurch rippled through the house. Skye’s legs buckled, slamming her against the oven. She hit the tiles hard. Across the room, her mother’s eyes locked with hers, wide with terror.
The walls groaned. The picture Joy had given her fell with a crash, splinters of glass shooting in all directions. Tea splashed, crockery burst, shards skittered like bullets.
Skye grabbed her mother’s arm and dragged her beneath the table, their knees knocking as they crouched together in the small space.
Her heart pounded against her ribs.
There was no sign of Martyn.
The ground shifted again, and the windows rattled violently in their frames.
A loud crack split the air like a gunshot. Skye whimpered and pressed her palms to the floor. She tried to count, to focus, but the numbers slid away. A chair toppled, a vase shattered, and metal clattered as the knives and forks jumped in their pot.
Then came a low, guttural moan, unmistakably male, followed by a crash from upstairs so thunderous that it shook the walls.
The house was going to fall in on them.
Skye bit back a sob as her mum shuffled closer.
“It’ll be OK,” Cassandra said. “It’s only an earthquake. It won’t go on much longer.”
Even as she spoke, the rocking slowed, softened, stopped. Silence came, eerie and still. Not peace but the breath before a scream.
“Are you all right?” Skye whispered.
“I’m fine,” her mother replied, though her skin was pale and had taken on a waxy sheen.
“I need to find Martyn,” Skye said. She crawled out from under the table, her knee finding the broken glass.
Swearing, she staggered upright and saw a pair of feet through the open kitchen doorway. Martyn. He had fallen and was not moving.
Skye reached him just as the front door flew open. Andreas staggered in, chest heaving and eyes wild, scanning the room as if scared of what he’d find.
Skye said his name, and he found her, relief turning quickly to confusion as his gaze shifted to the still figure on the floor.
“éla, who is—”
Martyn groaned. He brought a hand up to his head, wincing as his fingers made contact.
“Don’t move,” Skye said, kneeling beside him. “You might’ve hurt your neck.”
“My ankle,” he said weakly. He attempted to raise his chin, only to cry out in pain.
Andreas came closer and stood for a moment before crouching by Martyn’s feet.
“I am not a doctor,” he said, “but the ankle appears to be broken.”
Martyn set his jaw. Despite all the bullying and the threats and the coercive control, Skye experienced a pang of sympathy. Nobody deserved to be in pain, not even him.
“What’s happened?” Her mother stepped unsteadily into the room. “Dear God. Martyn, are you all right?”
The shift in Andreas’s expression was slight. To anyone else, it might have gone unnoticed. Skye looked at his strong hands. No rings. No sign at all that promises had been made, vows exchanged.
He was not going to ask her.
She would have to tell him.
“Andreas, this is my mum, Cassandra.”
He nodded once, unsmiling.
“And this is Mar—.”
“Her husband,” Martyn interrupted. “And you’re the bloke from the newspaper.”
Skye stilled him as he attempted to sit.
“Are you OK?” she asked Andreas. “Not injured or—”
“óchi,” he said shortly. “There’s nothing wrong with me. I was talking outside with Joy when we received the alert. Did you not get it?”
The message on the phone, the one she’d ignored. Before she could say as much, Martyn let out another moan.
“We need to call an ambulance,” her mother urged. She fetched one of Skye’s beautiful cushions from the seating area and eased it beneath Martyn’s head.
“If we can move him to my truck, it will be better,” Andreas said. “There is a medical center in Chora. I will drive him there.”
“I’m sorry,” her mother interrupted. “What was it you said you did?”
“I am a builder,” Andreas said. He certainly looked the part in his splattered coveralls.
“He did all the work on this house,” Skye told her. “I’d have been lost without him.”
Andreas glanced at her, his expression unreadable. Was it hope? Forgiveness? Or just confusion? Skye couldn’t tell. But then again, did she really know him at all?
Martyn shuffled up on his elbows only to howl in pain. There was blood on the cushion, more congealing in a sticky patch on the back of her husband’s head.
“He might be concussed,” she said. “We shouldn’t wait any longer. Mum, can you go and grab a towel from upstairs? You’ll know where—there’s only one bathroom.”
“You are shaking,” Andreas said.
Skye tensed, her breath catching as he gathered her hands and squeezed them.
“I’m just in shock,” she said. “The earthquake. I’ve never— It was scary. Thank God for your steel supports.”
A smile tugged, the corners of Andreas’s mouth twitching.
“All the houses here are OK,” he said. “All but one.”
“Some help here,” Martyn barked.
Skye jumped and pulled her hands away.
“Sorry,” she said automatically. Obedience born from habit, sustained by self-preservation. Somewhat reluctantly, Andreas got to his feet. They each took one of Martyn’s arms, slowly hoisting him upright. His skin had taken on a gray tinge and felt clammy to the touch.
“Do not put any weight on the foot,” Andreas warned as Cassandra appeared on the stairs.
“It’s a bit of a mess up there,” she said, handing over a towel. “A section of your wall has fallen through along the landing. It looks to me as if there was already a gap there. The bricks appear to be missing behind the plaster.”
Skye looked at Andreas and saw the same question waiting in his eyes.
“Can we get on with it?” Martyn hissed. “I’m rather in need of some pain relief.”
They headed outside, Martyn hobbling between them.
“Perímene,” Andreas said when they reached the boundary wall. He fished his keys from his coveralls pocket and ran to fetch his truck.
“You two seem cozy,” Martyn grunted. “Did he even know you’re married, or have you been lying to your new community about that as well?”
Skye ignored him, though she couldn’t disregard the sickness that washed over her.
She had lied, outrightly and by omission, and even though she’d had a valid reason for doing so, it still didn’t feel right, had never sat right with her.
When her friends learned the truth, would they ever trust her again? Would Andreas?
“I asked you a question,” Martyn persisted.
The mask was beginning to slip.
He was angry and getting angrier.
Skye started to reply, but her mother cut across her.
“You’re in no fit state to be having his kind of conversation, Martyn,” she said briskly. “Let’s get you patched up first, shall we? Then we can all sit down and talk properly later.”
The truck pulled up. Andreas got out and helped Skye ease Martyn into the back seat. Victoria and Adam had come out into their front yard. Both looked shell-shocked but were otherwise unscathed.
“This is my mum,” Skye told them. “Can she stay with you while I go to the medical center?”
“Of course,” Victoria said. “The electricity is still functioning, thank God. I’ll make us a pot of green tea.”
“Before you go,” her mother said, hurrying toward the passenger side of the truck, “I found this upstairs, near where the wall collapsed. I know it’s not yours—or I presume it isn’t. Anyway,” she said, pressing something cool and hard into Skye’s palm, “best you take it. Maybe hide it somewhere?”
“Hide it?” Skye asked. “Why would I need to do that?”
Andreas put the truck in gear and they began to move away.
Skye glanced down at her hand. The object was a medal. Silver, with rounded edges. One side bore the motif of an eagle, talons curled around a wreath of leaves, while the other showed a three-columned building.
Above it, carved deeply into the metal, was a symbol that turned her blood to ice.
A swastika.