Chapter 20
KENNA
I snuck out of her room before she woke.
It was easy to find who I was looking for. He was sitting with the other boys in the mess hall. His dark clothing was spotted with dust, as if he’d been crawling in a loft or down in the wine cellar. When he saw me approach, he didn’t look happy.
I walked up to him with little fanfare. “Laney’s sick.”
Blood drained from his face. “How so?”
“Mentally,” I said, but stumbled. Her personality switched on me last night. I couldn’t deny that it was hot, her in control, on top of me. It defied everything that I had ever done, but I couldn’t stop analysing her behaviours as if it were precursor to a psychotic break. Not to mention the migraine that followed, as if the mental strain had manifested into a corporeal ache. “And physically too. She gets migraines and…”
“Fainting?” Neenan finished for me.
“Yes.”
“Find Richard Ravencroft.” He said, sternly. My double step didn’t elicit confidence. “Now.”
It wasn’t fear that made me hesitant, but I can’t admit to Richard that I can’t solve this issue. Doubt was already behind his eyes every time that he saw me. If harm befell his daughter, his finger would point toward me faster than lightning and strike me through the heart as a result. I deserve more than dying on a man’s stake.
Thankfully, Neenan wasn’t addressing those words to me, but a man beside me. One I’d never seen before. Strange. I’d thought the high heat in the room was just my emotions, but looking around, it was crowded. They were expecting someone.
I had so little time.
Fine strands wrapped around my fingers as they took yet another stroke through my hair. The men strode toward the door, and I followed behind him.
When we got to Laney’s bedroom door, she wasn’t there.
Neenan looked at me as if I had made it up. A distraction. Just the thought that Laney was some kind of joke hurt.
“No–” I started speaking when a door down the hall opened. Dylan’s brother stepped out of Sir Ravencroft’s office, in handcuffs, Laney appearing a moment after.
My eyes grazed her body up and down. Unharmed. But gaunt and pale.
She looked at me with deep sorrow and it was as if a curtain had descended between us, but I didn’t see who had pulled the string. Neenan went to them, but I was barred.
“Miss Whether.” Richard held a hand up for me to stop my approach. “Find your station. Away from my daughter and away from us. You make her worse. Don’t come near her until she is well.”
“Kenna.” A deep baritone voice said in my ear, too close. “This way, please.”
I stepped backward, away from her, watching her father drop a soft kiss to her head. An intimate act I envied. I turned around and walked behind Forrester’s surly stature as he imprinted heavy step after heavy step into the maroon carpet of the house.
What’s happening right now?
He led me outside on the pavement beside the barracks. As we turned a corner, Grant barrelled into me. Briefly, out of sight from the cameras and onlooking cadets, he gripped my arm tight, leaned in close and whispered. “Don’t fight, go limp.”
“Now, Traitor.” Forrester’s voice boomed from in front of me.
I furrowed my eyebrows, but he was already out of sight before I could respond.
Running to catch up with Forrester, I found him standing at the back of the barracks, on the tarmac at the furthest point from the estate, just before the treeline. It was quiet.
When I reached his side, he pushed me down, the pavement scuffing the skin right off my knees on impact. I whipped my head up to him, about to argue, but that was the moment I saw the metal glint of a gun in his hand.
“No,” I said, eyes wide. “You don’t want to do this.”
All he said was, “Stay.” Like a dog.
I pushed up on my foot, but a hand touched my shoulder . Turning my head from side to side, I searched for a way out.
The shuffle of boots distracted me from the gun in his hand and the crowd forming. Some look surprised, but most look hungry, as if they were salivating to see violence. To see me marked by that violence.
An old brick wall was behind me. This was old-school strategy.
“Today, we witness the death of a cadet charged with conspiracy to murder Richard Ravencroft.” I was starting to think that I may have been a topic of conversation in Richard’s office—not only Dylan’s brother. They found out. They found out.
They know.
Oh god, was he going to be dragged to this spot? Right where my blood will barely be cold, puddled beneath me.
Four feet in front of me, Forrester stood, legs shoulder length apart, slowly raising his arm.
I was staring down the barrel of a gun. My dad taught me not to cower in death, that pleading for your life would ruin your image. Accept the consequences and stay confident in death. I pushed back my shoulders and pinned him with a meaningful look.
Go limp , Grant said. Those are not words spoken if you were about to murder someone. They were words of mercy. Why would he save me?
Eyes on the barrel, I saw the twitch of his finger on the trigger and restrained a flinch. I was going to lose everything.
When the bullet discharged, I fell forward. Faithful to a man I always thought hated me, I disengaged from all my muscles and closed my eyes. I hit the ground in a puddle of my own limbs.
No bullet penetrated my body.
A muted cheer passed through the crowd, but before it would progress to outright celebration, Grant’s voice silenced them.
“Back to work. Now!”
Footsteps approached me before a hand gripped my arm. It would surely bruise. Another hand grabbed my other arm and dragged me across the pavement. My head flopped between my shoulders with a rough tug.
My hips hit the stoop as my body was transported into the building. This room was cold, bright through the skin of my eyelids and clinical smelling.
Suddenly, my body left the floor, and after a brief moment of being suspended in the cold air, I was placed on a metal table.
“Look at her,” Forrester said and poked my side. “Not so strong now. Bitch. ”
I felt his eyes on me. The shallow breaths I’d been practising threatened to develop into a cough. How long was I going to have to play dead?
“Go inform the rest,” Grant spoke, and I could hear the shuffle of boots and then a resounding bang.
My eyes shot open.
Forrester’s body had crumpled onto the floor, blood gushing from a hole in the back of his head. He hadn’t even reached the door.
I looked toward Grant, whose eyes were stuck on Forrester. A smile played on his lips. “Not so strong now, huh?” He taunted and rolled his eyes before looking back at me. “Bastard.”
Too many words sprung to my mind, and none formed sentences as my mouth hung open. Grant didn’t offer an answer, either. He just looked at me. Eventually, I settled on a simple “What?”
He raised his eyebrows as if I should already know what was happening here.
“Grant.”
“Norman.” Huh? “That’s my real name, Kilina.”
“What!” He couldn’t be…could he? “You’re…you’re from the—”
“Yes.” He interjected before I could get out my family name. “They think you’re a traitor, but they have yet to find out who you work for.” He looked down at Forrester again, “Kinda dumb to skip straight to killing you than answering a simple question. Richard is a boy pretending to be a man, I swear.”
I managed a chuckle. He certainly wasn’t the ruthless leader he imagined himself to be. How could they possibly know? “I didn’t even do anything yet.”
“I know. They are sensing the discontent among the ranks, and they found the easiest person to blame. You were the one who reported Dylan, for all they know you blamed him to protect yourself.”
“I would never kill a girl. Pointing fingers isn’t going to do anything, they need proof.”
“The fact that you are evading death right now is their proof. They don’t think you did it alone.” He leaned in closer. “Look, there’s security tape of you disappearing into the woods. You found Dylan; you found the girl. I am going to try to explain to them that the bullet missed all vital organs, and you made a spectacular fucking recovery but, in the meantime, you need to be out of sight. Don’t be seen, don’t be heard.”
“Yes, Sir.” I nodded, a grave expression on my face. “How many of us are there?”
“Including us?”
I nodded.
“Four. There used to be more, but Dylan got a bit too excited too early, so we had to withdraw some troops.” A deep sigh left my lungs. I feared that number was much higher. “You’ve met his brother. Sorren. Or at least he told me so.”
Sorren. I needed to memorise that name, but stay far, far away from him. That bastard. “Did he tell on me?”
“No.” I was relieved at that answer but somehow knew it wasn’t the whole of it. “But he did inform on your relationship with his daughter.”
“Why was he in handcuffs then? Richard would praise him for that admission, no doubt.”
“He was digging into unauthorised files. Security tapes from when his brother died.”
“He’s a security guard, isn’t that his entire job?”
“Not these files. A soldier of his rank didn’t have permission to access the extended surveillance footage he was attempting to get at. I’ve been trying to hack into it too, but whatever is in there is too valuable to be held on normal hard drives. They store it in The Cove. Laney built it.” Of course, she did. Smart cookie. It also explained why she was in that meeting with Sorren and her father.
More importantly, the only thing on my mind after I almost lost my life to the Ravencrofts. “Did Laney know?”
I shut my eyes while I waited for him to respond. The timing was too perfect, and there was no universe where her father wasn't the one to orchestrate this whole thing.
“No. Not about you.”
My entire body stilled. There was nothing I was more confident of. “Keep it that way.”
Norman sighed and agreed. “Yes, and that,” He pointed toward Forrester on the floor. “Stays between us.”
“Absolutely.” I nodded, distracted by the pooling blood beside his head. It made me shiver.
★
I watched her sleep for too long. Her light snores soothing my maniac heartbeat. It was welcome after the day I’ve had. Dear God, I just wanted to wrap my arms around her and fall into a deep sleep. But I knew there was a guard at the door.
It was the first night in a week that I had spent alone. There was something so wrong about it, so foreign, that I came here instead, simply staring. I was content to stay for a couple more minutes. Maybe I’d fall asleep in the chair. I just had to stay as per her request and as per my heart.
A light humming sound came from her laptop that I hadn’t noticed before. It was still on. It laid on top of a pile of paper, the header of which said: Edward Archibald Ravencroft’s Will.
I neared the bed to reach for it and turn it off, but a hand shot out from under the covers and slammed the laptop shut again.
“You came?” A soft voice spoke beside me. I hadn’t noticed it, but her eyes were wide as if she had been watching for a while.
The corners of my mouth lifted. “I did.”
All the instincts in my body wanted me to confess everything to her, tell her the truth, and have her stay and not hate me.
“I need you,” her breaths come out haggard. I rested a hand on her forehead. It was hot.
“We shouldn’t. You’re not well.”
“I’m fine,” she asserted as she swung her legs out the side of the bed. “I want to. Do you?”
“I do, but I should go, princess. I’m not willing to get you in trouble.”
I tucked a hair behind her ear and pulled her closer to place a firm kiss on her head. She flinched before relaxing back into my arms.
“You told me to stay with you, so why do you flinch when I’m near?”
It took a few minutes for her to respond.
“Could I just…” She fingered a hole in my button-down shirt.
I grabbed her wrist and planted a kiss on the inside of her wrist before letting go. “No, princess.”
She needed sleep and a clear mind. I needed sleep and her.
“Please, baby, just quickly…” Her hand dug a heavy trail down my body, skimming across my pubic bone downward. My body came alight at her touch, and I tried my hardest to step on the coals to put it out.
“Laney,” I drew out her name.
“ Just once more, ” she whimpered under her breath.
Conscience that a man stood on guard at the door, I lowered my voice and pressed a finger to her lips. “We’ve gotta be quiet.”
She nodded and grabbed my jeans.
“No, no, no,” I said. “You’ll have me, but not now. I’m yours.”
Even in the dim light, she looked cute when she pouted.
I laid down beside her, me the big spoon and Laney the little one.
“What happened today?” I asked, kissing her behind the ear and drawing her closer to place a hand under her pyjama top.
She sighed, and I saw her eyes flutter shut as if she were in pain.
“That bad, huh?” My thumb caressed her stomach, coaxing.
No words tumbled out of her mouth. It was a rare moment when Laney was without them. Only a grave revelation would do that.
“I think you’re a Karstein.” She whispered and turned toward me in my arms, placing her hands on either side of my face as she examined my features. “The dark hair. Tall build. Penchant for automatic weapons. I didn’t want to admit it, but I somehow always knew you were too good to be true.”
My hands paused their caressing. “Is that right?”
“At first, I denied it. My teenage fantasy is my enemy, I couldn’t, no, wouldn’t believe it. You’d told me things, things that didn’t make sense as a Karstein.” The look in her eyes was cold, a mirror image of her father and her hands constricted. “But then, I thought back on all the things you didn’t say. And suddenly, the picture was whole.”
She grabbed my chin roughly and turned my head to look at the painting we’d hung over her fireplace— my grandmother.
My jaw locked at her force as she lent all her weight on that hand, pushing my face into the bed and using her grip to climb on top of me into a straddle, knives in hand.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t slice your throat right this second.” She turned my face back to face her and trailed the blade’s edge along my jawline, gazing intently at my features as if committing it to memory and never meeting my eye.
“You wouldn’t.”
The blade pinched my skin at her added pressure. “And why ever not?”
I cocked my head to the side. I needed her eyes on me. “You like me too much.” My hand went to her hip, stroking the skin under her shirt. “Even love,” I whispered.
Her face slackened.
It startled her enough that I could get her under me in one swift move. However, the pull on the bed sheets also pulled Laney’s laptop from her bedside table, bringing it crashing to the floor with a loud thump.
A voice screamed her name outside her door, but she kept quiet while maintaining direct eye contact. My heart thrummed. Merciless bitch.
The door swung open, and I lifted my hands in defeat. “Step away from her right fucking now. You shouldn’t be in here!”
I concealed the little knives in my sleeves and let myself be dragged from her body and out the door before I yanked on the guard’s grip and slit his wrists with the knives to set me free. Something I hoped to be akin to a papercut. Minor but devastating.
As I felt now.