Chapter 27 #2
I sit bolt upright at the sound of the voice. It’s later—hours later, the sun gone down—and I must have fallen asleep. Lanz did—his arm still around my waist, eyelids fluttering.
“Hello?” comes the voice again. Kai’s. There’s something in it—an urgent edge that I don’t like.
“We’re here,” I call back, throat still thick. “Just…hang on a sec.”
I crawl out of Lanz’s arm as he blinks awake and pushes onto an elbow. “What’s going on?”
I shake my head, pulling my tights back on under my skirt. “Don’t know. But it sounds…important.” I bend for my sweater and wriggle it back on, meeting Lanz’s eyes again as the collar clears my face.
For a moment, I just stare.
His skin has warmth to it. His eyes are clearer. He’s beautiful.
“What?” Lanz frowns.
“Nothing. Sorry. Just...you look better.”
He smiles. But it doesn’t quite meet his eyes. “Well, you have that effect on me.”
“Sometime this century, please?” Kai again.
“Okay!” I yell back.
I barely make it off the bottom step before Kai is at my side.
“Good. Sit.” He points to the living room, where Kingston is pacing in front of the unlit fireplace. “Sit, Gwenna.”
“Jesus. Okay.” I glare at Kai and do as I’m told, taking the corner of the couch that faces the mantel.
Neither of them sits, I notice. A pit forms in my stomach, like I’m about to get some kind of lecture, and I self-consciously pin my wrists between my knees, wondering what could possibly be worse than what I saw at Porter’s this afternoon.
Someone’s dying.
Someone’s dead.
Someone’s—
“We’re leaving,” Kai interrupts my thoughts.
I look up, startled. “What?” I don’t understand what he means. I can’t understand what he means.
“We need to leave Caliburn.” Kingston has stopped pacing, arms folded and face serious. “To go somewhere they can’t find us, where they wouldn’t think to look for us—”
“What?” I say again, my voice cracking on the word. “Stop. Stop. What are you—who’s they?”
“The Consistory,” Kingston says. “They know. They—”
“They sent us the monastic equivalent of a fuckin’ severed finger in the mail, is what they did,” Kai interrupts. He digs in his pocket and pulls something out: long, thin, dangling. A necklace?
No, I realize. A scapular. Just like the one Kai had flung off at the table at Easter.
“They gave them to us all for Lent,” Kai says. “One of their little gifts when they visited for Candlemas. You know, normal weird Catholic shit—wear this uncomfortable thing and think about Christ’s suffering, or whatever. But this one isn’t any of ours. This is—”
“Luther’s.” Kingston finishes for him. “Which he was wearing when…”
The rest of the statement goes unsaid.
Which he was wearing when he died.
A chill sweeps over my skin. “How did they...”
“We don’t know,” Kingston answers. “Maybe they had some way to track them. But if they got this and sent it to us, the message is pretty clear.”
“Yeah.” Kai says. “Watch your ass. Hence, we’re leaving.”
But, I want to say. But. The little word of objection is stuck in my throat, on my tongue.
But what about everyone getting sick?
But what about the dying birds and the dying grass and the sun that didn’t rise for three days?
But what about here? What about the place, the institution, the small piece of academic paradise that is Caliburn University?
Except none of that makes it out of my mouth. Because I know all the answers.
You were supposed to be the one to fix all that, Gwenna.
But you didn’t.
The feeling of it hits like a physical ache, like a pulled muscle from trying so hard and yet getting nowhere, from stretching as far as I can in every direction and never seeming to pick the right one.
So all I can do is nod.
“What’s going on?”
Footsteps down the stairs. Lanz’s voice. I turn as he enters, but Lanz barely looks my way, which stings, for some reason.
“Pack your bags, Pretty Boy,” Kai says, although there’s no humor in his voice. “The jig is up.”
“What?” Now Lanz looks at me, his blue eyes searching.
Again, I swallow. “I…”
I was going to help you, Lanz. I tried. I asked Morgan. I—
“The Consistory knows about what happened,” Kingston answers for me. “That Luther’s…” He doesn’t finish the sentence. “We think they may be coming to Caliburn. We have to go somewhere they can’t find us.”
“Shit,” Lanz whispers.
“Shit is right,” mutters Kai.
Kingston nods at me and Lanz. “You both have your passports, right? Upstairs?”
Passports? I think, desperate. That’s the level we’re operating at? A tiny sob wriggles in my throat, but I swallow it away. Again, I nod.
“Good.” Kingston frowns, glances at the stairs. “Where’s Cal?”
“Chapel,” Lanz says. “I think. He’s…been going a lot lately. Morning and evening mass.”
Kingston nods. “Fill him in when he gets back. Kai and I need to—”
“We’re gonna grab as much as we can from Luther’s office.” Kai’s already back in the foyer, pulling on his jacket. “Financial shit, property shit, whatever. If we’re not stupid we should be able to get far away, fast, and not leave any meaningful paper trail.”
“Away where?” Lanz asks.
“Who cares? Mexico, Uruguay, Tierra del Fuego—”
“We’re still figuring that out,” Kingston interrupts. “But we don’t know what they know, so…time is of the essence.” He follows Kai, who’s now out the door and on the porch. “We wanted to make sure you knew first. And we’ll try to work quickly. But…don’t go anywhere, all right?”
I don’t want to go anywhere, I think. That’s the whole problem. “Wait.” I turn in my seat, half-rising from the couch. “Wait, Kingston, Kai—”
They wait.
And I freeze.
Because what is my alternative? What better plan am I proposing, could I propose? I had my chance. I had my chance to be what I needed to be, what the world needed me to be, and I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it right.
So I just shake my head.
“Nothing,” I whisper. “I just…can I go talk to Morgan first?”
The two of them exchange a quick look, then nod.
“Be quick.”
The door slams after them on a gust of wind.