26. Dove
twenty-six
Dove
R age and panic twist together in my gut, dancing with each other to the tune of my misery.
I knew this day would come, when the EFW would come and get him after the deal they struck, but it wasn’t supposed to be until after the wedding. Until after we were back home, pretending all was fine, and that the rest of our life together was about to start. Neither Cam nor I expected them coming to retrieve him sooner. The only thing I pray for now is that he’s still alive. That’s all I want.
Cam and I ride together in one of the Secret Service cars, the driver using the bus lane to get ahead. Cole and Maddox are close behind—they didn’t know about our involvement, but they were quick to figure it out. We didn’t want them to know, thinking they’d tell Rowan and betray us. But in reality, it turns out they didn’t know the true lengths of his plan either. We’ve all been lied to so he could sacrifice himself for all of us. For the country. For… me.
“How much longer?” I grip the seat in front of me, my wedding dress getting in my way of moving freely. I take the veil from my hair and let it fall to our feet. Rowan’s phone’s GPS location flashes on the screen positioned on the car’s dashboard—we’ve been tracking him with the help of the Secret Service for a few days now, listening to his phone conversations, and full-on following every move he made. He had no idea we were on to him. It has stopped moving, so we know exactly where he is. It looks so far away that I worry we might not make it in time.
In time to get him back alive, a petrified voice says in my mind.
“Come on, come on, Henry,” Cam urges the driver.
The minutes stretch into an agonizing eternity, where all I do is bite the inside tissue of my lip and fume through my flared nostrils as we finally stop a few feet away from a large warehouse, hidden in the cemetery next to it.
Cam’s hand comes on top of mine, squeezing my fingers. “Take this,” she says, slipping the grip of a gun beneath them. “Just like I showed you.”
I look into her eyes, placing my other hand on top of hers and on the gun.
“Like you showed me,” I nod.
Then Henry, the driver, gets out and bombs the warehouse a few feet in front of us—real explosives outside and nothing but smoke bombs into the building, since we didn’t want Rowan to be harmed. It’s a diversion, and the signal we need to get out of the car. My hands are shaking, and I’m in over my head, but I start moving. One step in front of the other.
“ Camelia! ” the president’s voice shouts angrily behind us. Cam didn’t give him one chance to stop her from coming here with me, from being the one who gets to kill her father by putting a bullet in his head. Car doors get slammed, and the president keeps shouting, “Turn. The fuck . Around!”
“Dove,” she says to me, grabbing my shoulders. “If this were a movie… now would be the part where we run.”
And we fucking run .
Toward the warehouse, toward danger, because it’s the only way. And I’d do anything to save the bastard who just broke my heart.
A few men stumble into the street, coughing through the thick smoke. They pull their guns out, and so do we, but bullets are already flying from behind us—the Secret Service are doing their part. My brother passes us, slamming his shoulder into the metal door of the building to see inside.
“Stay close,” he tells me. I nod frantically, following him.
I peer through the thick smoke, struggling to make out the figures moving around. Pure adrenaline courses through my veins as gunfire echoes from all around me, the deafening sound reverberating against the walls.
A silhouette emerges from the chaos, the red robe wrapped loosely around his otherwise normal attire telling enough. He charges toward us, wielding a knife. Without hesitation, Cole points the gun at him and shoots him in the head.
My gun feels heavy in my hand, and another dam of anxiety breaks free in my gut. I’ve never used one before. Cam showed me how through a video call, and I’ve practically got zero practice. Still, I point it forward and walk by him, maneuvering it as best I can.
“Get him out of here. Get him out!” a voice cries out.
More people emerge from the smoke, running toward us.
And then… I see him.
Rowan lies on the cold, hard floor in a puddle of blood. His clothes are wet and sticking to his body as his hands are restrained behind his back. And there’s something… something wrapped around his neck. It looks so tight. So painful. I bring a hand to my mouth, fingers shaking uncontrollably.
“R-Rowan. Rowan!” I call out.
He’s not moving. Not immediately.
I almost start sobbing when I hear him begging me to run back. He stirs and struggles to get up on his knees. I rush toward him, aching to feel him in my arms. But someone grabs him from behind, and Rowan thrashes, the fight in him almost gone.
With no time to think, I lift the gun, pointing it at the man’s head. I breathe in, and with my exhale, the bullet goes out. The man stops for a second, seeing me, realizing I’m targeting him. Showing me I missed.
Fuck.
I hiss and take more steps forward, gripping the gun firmly with both hands.
Bang.
Bang.
Rowan collapses on top of him as they both fall down. The well of despair inside me is infinite—it feels as though it gobbles everything it its path.
“Oh my God,” I whisper. “Rowan. Rowan !”
I run to him, falling to my knees. I set the gun down and take his face in my trembling hands. He winces in pain, somehow unlocking his hand from behind his back. When he brings it above mine, it looks broken. Dislocated. Tears swell in my eyes at the sight of him—bloodied and beaten up like I’ve never seen him before.
“Angel…” He forces the word out. “What did you do?”
“You bastard. You goddamn bastard,” I cry, softly placing my palms against his chest.
Cole crouches next to me, inspecting him. “God fucking dammit, Rowan.”
He coughs and coughs, and shivers from what seems to be nothing but unbearable pain through the lengths of his body. Around us, the smoke has dispersed. Dead bodies form a sinister carpet on the concrete—I don’t recognize anyone. But there, right up against the farthest wall, I recognize the eyes that keep haunting me in my nightmares. Cam holds a gun to Salister’s face, while Maddox and the Secret Service surround the scene, ready to strike at any moment.
“Camelia,” Salister—her father —says tenderly. “We’ve missed you in Velum. You were always such a character.”
She shakes her head slowly, her eyes piercing as they lock into his. “I grew up at The Hive. You know that. You sent me there… to whore myself out.”
Behind her, Maddox stiffens, barely containing himself. He wants him dead. In fact, not a single soul in this room wants this man to still be alive.
“I sent you…” he says, extending a hand forward to brush her cheek with his knuckles. She dodges it, and there’s no hurt on his face at the gesture, as if he expects it. “So you could be strong. So you could make something of yourself. And look at you now.” He smiles. “First Lady of the United States of America. You should thank me, really. If you had been just a little bit loyal to our cause, you would’ve inherited everything. Quite frankly, my dear, you would’ve had the world at your fingertips.”
She lets out a bitter laugh, and the gun sways in her grasp.
“ Thank you?” She flinches as if the memories are hitting her like physical blows. “Thank you for torturing my friends? For tormenting us? Thank you for letting my mother die, and for corrupting the country with dangerous ideologies that make people afraid to speak their minds?” Her voice rises, trembling as her chest heaves with the effort of swallowing back tears. “What exactly should I be thanking you for, Father?”
“For making you into the woman you are.”
The gun’s hammer is pulled back with a click. I tighten my hand around Rowan’s arm.
“It’s okay, angel,” he murmurs. “This isn’t your fight.”
But it became my fight the moment this monster faked my brother’s death. The moment he pulled me away from Rowan, then lured him in here to kill him like a stray dog. It became my fight when Sterling’s mom died of cancer, and he had the cure to himself all along. When my mom was ambushed on the street and fell into a coma. When I found out about Cam’s tragic past.
“You’ll die today. And when you do, you won’t be seeing my mother’s eyes. Because she’s up there.” Cam motions to the sky with tears in her eyes. “And you’re going straight to fucking hell for everything you’ve done.”
Salister’s eyes close, as if he’s voiding his mind of the entire notion that they’re related at all.
“Even if you kill me, Camelia, the EFW will live on. So it has been for centuries, and so it will be for many more. A new ruler was appointed before I was even placed into the role.”
“No,” I say, getting up to my feet and picking the gun back up. “It won’t.”
Rowan’s painful grunt reaches my ears, but he doesn’t object to anything I’m doing otherwise. Everyone turns to look at me, including those eyes that have been haunting me in my nightmares. I walk toward them, forcing myself to smile.
“I would’ve assumed a man like you in your position ought to watch the news all the time,” I say. His eyes narrow on mine. I want to look away—desperately want to look away. But I hold his stare, refusing to feel the fear gnawing at me.
“What did you do, little Dove?” He smiles back, as if the situation doesn’t bother him at all.
Cam’s laugh fills the air—crisp and focused, all her tears now gone. “She did what we should’ve done years ago. Exposed you to the world for exactly who you are.”
“There is no evidence of anything malicious that the EFW have ever done.”
She cocks her head. “Isn’t there?”
I inch closer to them, and Maddox nods to the Secret Service to let me walk next to Cam.
“ Defense Contract Fraud: Billions Funneled to Shadowy Network .” I recite the news article title published half an hour ago on all major blogs. “ Mass Surveillance Program Exposed: Secret Society Monitoring Citizens .” Another one. “ Insider Claims Secret Group Funded Domestic Terror Attack in the Sylvestrian Ridge. ” And another one. “They’re all over the news.”
“And thanks to the man you so willingly took under your wing for five long years,” Cam says, gesturing toward my brother, “the rebellion he started has likely turned most of your men against your cause by now. Not to mention your allies—the corrupt presidents you lured into your sorry-ass plan. What will they think when they see your entire agenda plastered everywhere the eye can see? They’ll back off. No one’s going to risk being by your side when you fall.”
“How did you—” He frowns. “It doesn’t even matter. None of this matters. The kinds of roots our organization has—”
Bang.
His leg bends under the pressure of my bullet, his scream bouncing against the warehouse walls. He curses, stooping to touch his bleeding wound as he moves all his weight on the other side. Cam turns her face to me, shock reading on her features before it turns to pure delight.
“That was for killing Magnus,” I say, my voice trembling. “The only man who dared to help me when I didn’t see a way out of your town. For taking my husband away from me on my wedding day. For taking my brother. For running my mother over with a car, and for killing Sterling’s mom.”
Bang.
“For killing my mother,” Cam whispers after shooting him in his other leg. “For leaving me without the person I loved most in this world when I was only five.” Her whole body trembles, and the sight hits me like a slap—I’ve never seen her like this. I worry about her, and so does Maddox, who approaches her from behind.
“Cam…” he murmurs, gently bringing her chin toward him.
“I have to do this, Maddox. Please… it has to be me.”
He holds her stare, his eyes soft and understanding before his jaw clenches under the weight of not knowing how this will affect her later. But he presses his lips to the top of her head and steps away, allowing her the freedom to choose what she wants to do.
I turn back to Rowan, my job here done. He watches me approach, a plea already in his eyes—for my forgiveness, no doubt. But I have no space in my broken heart to give him what he wants, not this time. The sight of him broken sends a jolt of anger surging through me— anger , for what he’s done, not pain. A lump forms in my throat, making it difficult to swallow, but I don’t yield. And every step I take feels heavy, as if I'm dragging the weight of my shattered heart along with me.
“You okay?” my brother asks.
I nod, not having the strength to say anything more. And maybe because he’s equally as upset about his friend as I am, he lets me be and hauls Rowan’s arm around his neck to pull him up. I walk with them to the car outside, my movements numb and mechanical, as the last bullet flies out in the warehouse behind.