23. Scarlett
SCARLETT
IF IT QUACKS LIKE A DUCK, IT’S PROBABLY A DUCK
“You’re doing okay, aren’t you, Scar?”
Lincoln’s voice plays through my ear, his comforting tone a stark contrast to the voices I’ve heard inside this house.
From Sebastion’s crass remarks, to Arabella’s pure contempt.
Paul’s commanding ‘sit down’, and now the orders being barked in the yard about fifty feet from my perch in Sebastion’s bedroom window.
It’s mid-morning, the sun is up, glittering snow settles on the ground and acts as a mirror to reflect the sunlight back at anyone with a pair of eyes, and soldiers, dozens and dozens of them, stand in lines of ten, rows of ten.
Every time Sebastion orders it, they drop to their bellies, their hands glowing red from the cold, their clothes soaked through from melted snow, and still, sweat dribbles from their brows.
Each time Sebastion nods, they do a pushup, pop to their feet, and reach for the sky.
Then they repeat.
They’ve been going for an hour already.
“Scarlett?”
“Yeah.” I draw a shuddering breath and drag my knees higher so I can wrap my arm around the peaks.
“I’m alive. Unharmed. I even slept.” Beside the man who orders a hundred others outside to run on the spot.
If they hesitate, or stumble, or so much as grunt in any way that could be mistaken for defiance or exhaustion, they’re ordered to climb a hanging rope that extends more than thirty feet into the sky.
With no safety harness. No soft landing. And absolutely no mercy.
Can’t have lazy soldiers guarding Mommy Dearest, after all.
“Please tell me you’ve figured out who left those notes, Linc.” I exhale again and wipe my hand beneath my nose. “Tell me I can come home soon.”
“Not yet,” he groans. “And I’m starting to think he’s left the city.”
“You believe he’s at the house?”
He scratches his face so the crackle of his stubble plays along the line. “I dunno. Maybe. I’ve got eyes on Jones, just in case, but I don’t think he’s our guy, and I’ve been talking to Mills, too, but he caught a case and it’s keeping him busy.”
“I mean…” I pull my feet in close to my butt and lay my head on my knees. “Do you think I’m a high-maintenance bitch for expecting him to dedicate all his time to this? Because I feel like a bitch, but…”
“No.” He chuckles. “I don’t think you’re a high-maintenance bitch.”
“I understand he needs to work.” I stare out into the yard of soldiers and wonder where they all sleep.
Does Arabella house them year-round? Does she pay them a salary for their time?
Has she ever actually needed them for war, or is she just that friggin’ obsessed with a hypothetical future that’ll never eventuate, especially now that Richard is dead?
“It would be crazy for me to expect Mills to blow his real work off for this, right? But it’s—”
“I get it,” Linc croons, his gentle voice the closest thing to a hug I’ve had in… too long. Excluding that one from yesterday. “I just need you to hold on a little longer, okay? This won’t go on forever. I promise.”
“Okay.” I hate that my voice wobbles. That my eyes sting with unshed tears. “I’m holding on.”
“What’s it like there? What’s Arabella like?”
“A bitch.” I exhale my words on a grunt. “She lost her ever-loving shit when we arrived. Screeched about how Sebastion needed to take me away again.”
“He texted me earlier. Said how he covered your face on the way in so you wouldn’t know where the house is.” He turns silent for a beat. Considering. Then, “He was gentle, right? He was careful?”
No. He added another nightmare to the already extensive catalogue I wish I could forget. “He did his best to ensure the secret would remain a secret. He needed to, so he could assure his mother my presence wasn’t a risk to their privacy.”
“Right,” he huffs. “Exactly. She didn’t listen?”
I shrug. “I admitted to his father a few hours ago that although he covered my face, I could still count the turns. The hills. The slowing down and speeding up.”
“Scarlett! Jesus. You don’t admit that shit to Arabella Aster’s fucking husband! Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Maybe. I’m not entirely sure anymore. “He asked. I answered. He didn’t kill me though, so there’s that. And now I’m right here in my prison, watching everyone else exist outside.”
“Your prison?” His breathing stops completely for a moment. “Have they locked you up, Scarlett? In a cell or something?”
“No. I’m in my room.” Sebastion’s room. “But it feels like a prison.”
Tension settles like a blanket across our call. Anger. Confusion. “Are you locked in that room? Can you leave?”
I sniffle and loathe the way emotion makes my throat itch. “No, I’m not locked in. Yes, I can leave.”
“Then you’re not in a prison!” he exhales on an explosive breath. “Fuck, Scar. You scared me!”
Sorry. Didn’t mean to.
“Have you eaten today?”
“No.” But my stomach rumbles now that breakfast time long ago passed. “They have a rolling timetable for meals here. I missed the last one.”
“And they… what?” he bites out. “Have nothing else to offer you? Not even a fucking muesli bar from the pantry?”
Dunno. Maybe.
“You need to go to the kitchen and ask, Scarlett! You need to use your damn voice.”
“But—”
“Stop worrying about how much they don’t like you, or how mean Arabella is. Stop obsessing over the rejection you felt when she told Tank to take you away again, and stop rotting inside your pity party.”
“Linc—”
“If you’re hungry, eat. If you wanna leave your room, leave it. If you wanna sit in there and cry in the corner, then do it, but stop being so fucking sad about it all.”
“Why are you being such a jerk?” I glare out the window and watch as, seventy feet from where I sit, Sebastion walks a lap around his troops and barks out his orders.
He wears cargo pants, just like the rest of them.
Weapons on his thigh. Another on his hip.
He carries an automatic fucking rifle across his chest, like he thinks we’re going to war today, and a hat pulled low over his eyes.
But his eyes… they’re on me. They hold me captive, they steal my breath, and then they make me jump as he barks out another booming “Go” for his men.
They drop to their bellies.
“I’m not trying to be a jerk,” Linc draws me back to our conversation.
“I’m trying to knock a little perspective into you.
Your life sucks right now, I get it. Bad shit happens to you, and we both know you don’t deserve it.
But you have people out here who give a shit about you, Scar, and we’re working as hard as we can.
You know I’m not inclined to side with Tank, like…
ever,” he grunts. “But the dude risked everything by taking you there. He defied his mother’s orders and brought a stranger to the place no one else gets to go.
You might not like it, but his actions were still for you, and they still matter. ”
What are you? His best freakin’ friend?
“Eat something. Go for a walk. See the sunlight and enjoy the fact that, even though someone is out here in the real world trying to screw you over, wherever you are right now, whatever state, after however many turns and hills and fucking traffic lights you passed through, you’re so well hidden, not even I know where you are.
And trust me, I don’t like having this blindfold on, but he made the right choice.
You’re safe. Even if his mom is mean to you, and even if he’s a dick sometimes. ”
“I miss my regular life,” I whisper tearfully. “I’m not trying to be a bitch, Linc. I’m not even trying to be mopey and annoying. I just want to go back to my life, to my apartment, my job, my friends. I want to feel normal for once, and not like someone is breathing on the back of my neck.”
“Which is why I’m out here doing what I can. It’s why Nova’s chatting up assholes in a bar, since sending her in to get information from a horny prick is easier and draws less attention than me asking him questions.”
“Wait.” I straighten my spine and think of our sweet Nova working a quasi-undercover op for my brother. “You’re sending her in to speak to these dudes?”
“When it’s safe,” he grits out. “When it’s controlled. And when she presents a good enough case for why her plan is better than mine.”
He hates it.
“Just sit still a little longer,” he groans. “Be patient. Don’t approach Arabella alone. And for the love of God, eat something, you dummy. Food gives us strength, remember? We need strength to outrun the bullshit.”