Chapter Thirty-Three Nina
The wails grew louder near the river and the graves of Trent’s dead. It swallowed the sound of the door crashing against the factory wall as Patrick ran out of it, his face drawn, eyes wild. They grew relieved when they saw me climbing the bank, using my hands for leverage in the slip of snow.
The factory was a chaos of movement. The orderlies loading shotguns with shaking, unpracticed fingers, moving heavy machines together to barricade the doors and windows.
John was boarding them with planks of wood that moved at the will of his mind, pounding nails into them with loud grunts at shocking speed.
“The army?” I asked, Patrick shunting me into Polly’s office. Theo was already inside, his hands tearing at his own hair. Polly had the Stewards’ book clutched tightly to her chest.
“Can’t be anyone else,” Patrick said, and without warning, he stalked toward Polly until she backed herself into a wooden cabinet, the doors clattering. He took the gun from his pocket.
“I didn’t send for them!” Polly exasperated, her lips trembling. “I swear it, Pat!”
“Three to one says you did,” he told her, the barrel poised beneath her chin.
Theo started forward. “Let her go, Pat.”
“Patrick, please. It wasn’t me—”
Patrick gritted his jaw and shook his head. “Odds ain’t in your favor, Pol.” He cocked the hammer. “Not another Scribbler in sight.”
“Perhaps there is,” came the voice of Edith. She stood in the doorway, her hand clutched around the knob. “Did you clear that fuckin’ tradin’ post before you burned it down?”
Patrick’s face paled. He didn’t take his eyes off Polly.
“They leave a Scribbler in every town, Colson. Surely you thought o’ that?”
“You said there were only coppers left,” Patrick reiterated. “I asked, and you said three.”
“Three coppers,” Edith nodded, “and a Scribbler. My bet is the swank was in his bed on the second story, with enough time to send a call for help to the House before he ran off or died in the smoke.”
“Fuck,” Patrick growled, his gun lowering. He paced madly, pinching the bridge of his nose. He spoke to himself with the air of someone completing immense equations.
“We need to leave,” Theodore said. “Now!”
“No,” Patrick said, his eyes closed. “They’ll burn this place down lookin’ for us.”
John came up behind Edith, sweat glistening down his neck and sinking into his collar, beyond him, the last survivors of Trent in flux. “They’re comin’ in from the west,” he said. “The hearths’ve been smothered. But it ain’t gonna take ’em long to sniff us out.”
As though on cue, the lanterns in the factory were snuffed, the candles extinguished. Darkness descended.
The only remaining light came from a match suddenly lighting in Patrick’s fingers.
“I’m sorry” came Edith’s voice, her face only just visible. A collection of disconnected features.
There was the glint of a knife in her hand, and she snatched my arm.
Right as Patrick lifted the gun once more.
Right as the first horses respired down the thoroughfare.
I felt a body slide behind mine, the tip of the blade rest between ribs. “I can’t let you leave,” said Edith, her breath in my ear. “And I won’t be lettin’ ’em burn us down, neither.”
“Whoa, now,” John said from behind me. I heard the click of his hammer, another gun leveled Edith’s way. “Let’s be smart.”
“You’re the reason they’ve come back!” Edith said, shaking now, her voice too loud. “So you’ll be the reason they turn round and leave. You’ll walk yourselves out there and give yourselves up to ’em.”
Patrick shook his head, dread forming in his eyes. “They’ll kill you all anyway,” he growled. “They’ll smoke you out for sport.”
“Then we’re dead either way,” Edith said, a strange laugh bubbling up from her throat.
I held my breath in terror, knowing the blade would sink in at any moment. “Patrick,” I pleaded, though for what I couldn’t say.
His eyes met mine. A beat of silence, then his expression shuttered. “We’ll go,” he said.
“Pat,” John started warily. “She’s got two guns pointed at her. She ain’t in a position to make any demands.”
“If we walk out there, they’ll take us captive,” Theo said, his voice strained.
“They ain’t takin’ us captive, Teddy,” Patrick said, his eyes pinned to Edith. “We’re fightin’.”
I felt the knife at my side shift, slide over a rung of bone.
“Let her go,” Patrick said to Edith. “And we’ll walk out those doors now.”
“And do what?” Theo blustered. “You plan on shooting every last one of them?”
“Me?” Patrick said. His gun lowered. Outside, the wind battered against the walls. Loading rifles clacked and it was impossible to discern whether it was in my mind or in the street. “No, Teddy,” Patrick said. “I plan on havin’ you drown ’em.”
Edith’s blade lifted away. “Go,” she said. “Please.”
Patrick looked at Edith one last time, his thoughts inscrutable, the tangled remnants of duty still warring along his jaw, down his throat.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” he said, pulling me behind him, leading me out the door.
“Make sure I don’t see you again, miss. Or that’ll be your last moment on this earth. ”
“And don’t call on Kenton,” John added. “There’ll be no help comin’ down the tunnels.”
We left Edith standing alone, the knife sliding from her limp fingers, her face buckling.