Chapter 27
LANEY
A s the van approached the estate, thick clouds blocked the sunlight, casting a perpetual darkness upon us like that which had fallen on my heart. When our manor house came into view, its aged brick walls covered in a thick layer of winding ivy, I began to feel somewhat at peace. As if I could leave all the trauma at the gates and return home like nothing happened. But that’s not what happened.
Father was shot in the chest. The shock of the impact sent him into cardiac arrest. Dr Borley was at his side now, in this van we all piled into, but the grave expression that marred his face had not shifted in twenty minutes.
I felt in the way. There wasn’t much space at the back of the van, so I tucked myself in the corner away from it all. My anxiety hasn’t come down this entire ride home. But I was thankful I wasn’t crying.
And when we arrived, the situation went from dire to worse. The place was crawling with guards, all in small groups, pacing back and forth. Some groups were led by other guards. This is too many guards. I thought. I was one second away from spiralling.
“Did the Novelli men actually arrive?” I whispered to Neenan in the front seat who was also staring out the window. I knew something wasn’t right when his bewilderment matched mine.
All he did was shake his head, and we exchanged looks of dread. I didn’t understand. It seemed that all the drama was in town, why was there commotion here? For all I knew, we were the first to return.
“Who are these people?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
It was strange. We didn’t hire that many new cadets, did we? The plentiful guards were marching with authority, organised, and I struggled to find a face I recognised amongst them.
“Look, it’s Grant!” I rested my finger on the window pointing to his frame as he traversed the circular driveway like a man on a mission. He stopped in front of a group of our guards, conversing sternly, but calm.
I knocked on the window to try and get his attention. It would be good to have some help transferring my father’s body from this van into the medical room. God knows, Neenan and I couldn’t share the weight between us. We were strong, but not that strong. When the knock didn’t work, I waved my hand. If not a sound, maybe the movement could catch his eye.
Instead, he pulled out two guns from his holster, one in each hand and pointed one to each man’s head. I didn’t hear the shot, just saw their bodies crumple in on themselves.
A wretched noise erupted from my throat.
Out. In. Out. In. Out. Oh my god.
Neenan slapped a hand over my mouth and pushed me down by the shoulders, out of view of the window. “Calm down.”
All it did was make me spiral more.
In. Out. In. Out. Was that even Grant? It can’t be.
“Breathe, Laney.”
“I can’t– he just? Did you not see that?”
“Shhh.” He dropped his hand and moved it to the door handle.
“No!” I shout too loud. “No. You can’t go out there.”
He nodded, tilting his head to the side. “Stay safe, Lane.” And he opened the door and ran.
“Neenan, no! Neenan.” I hissed too late. The tears that dried on my cheeks were washed away by new ones. God, I hate crying. Why am I always crying? It’s so fucking annoying. I wiped my tears away aggressively.
This time I couldn’t just sit here and wait for others to sort out the problems of the family. If this was going to be my legacy, I needed to command it.
Dr Borley was doing chest compressions. I choked back the bile that tickled the back of my throat. I bowed my head, praying, pleading, wishing that I wasn’t so familiar with loss. His hand felt warm enough when I gripped it and leaned down to whisper in Father’s ear. “I’m going to fix this.”
“That’s not a good idea, Miss Ravencroft.” Dr Borley interrupted.
“Was it a question, doctor? Fuck off.”
This wasn’t me, but it was going to be. And with that, I opened the door. Neenan was already out of sight, but Grant spotted me immediately. Running toward me with arms outstretched. He wasn’t going to slow my momentum, though. If he wanted to fight, he would get it. He helped train me after all.
“Laney, run. Get anywhere away from here.”
I pulled the knives from my thigh. “Tell me the truth. Why did you do that?”
“It can’t be stopped, Laney, please. They’ll kill you.”
My eyes squinted and flitted down to his uniform. The raven emblem that usually sat on his arm was replaced by a pomegranate. Karstein.
I looked him in the eye. “Was it you this whole time?” Grant had been with us for longer than I had conscious memory. I thought he trusted me. “My whole life.”
He didn’t respond. I had my answer. “I wish you no harm.” He said, bowing his head, but it didn’t calm me. The guns were still in his hands.
“How many of you are there?”
“The only Ravencrofts left were the ones at the funeral and those that surrendered.” That wasn’t a number. “I can count the living on one hand.”
Christ.
I grabbed the emblem off his arm, the ripped material was scrunched in my hand as I turned on my heel and walked toward the house. The country home that held too many memories.
The door was open, and a pair of men were standing smoking. One of the men had a white substance, powdered on the back of his hand. Obviously, they thought the battle was over. How wrong they were. They looked at me suspiciously before taking another inhale of the powder with a laugh after he saw the material wrapped around my fist.
Too bad he didn’t see the knife held there too. I swiped my arm out and neatly sliced both of their throats.
Funny how a line can be lethal.
Party over.
The artwork that decorated my home, that celebrated my family, and me, was destroyed. Canvases torn, glass shattered and stained from the blood that was sprayed all over the floor. It blended with the maroon of the carpet, the smell no less pervading.
Numerous bodies were laid in different conditions and positions on the floor. Considering the smell, some had been here for hours. We only left for the funeral four hours ago, but it was as if the whole world had tilted on its axis and the Ravencrofts had been pushed off its surface before it was set back upright.
I moved through the house, looking around each corner but finding them empty. Well, empty of breathing bodies.
It’s funny. I didn’t have a major attachment to the house or the people in it but when something so familiar was tarnished, I couldn’t help but feel as if I were out of control. As if a chapter on my life was closed before I could finish reading the last sentence. This was meant to be mine. Not the Karstein’s.
My feet led me to the mess hall. Past the training rooms and the security office that had held some loving memories of Kenna and I, but I guess our chapter ended too. I just hadn’t realised it yet. Our memories now tainted too.
The mess hall was nightmare material. Bodies were piled on top of each other, evident holes in each man that laid there. My feet clinked against the metal of the bullet cases that had fallen.
There could only be one culprit to this crime. The Karsteins traded in weaponry and drugs. Their fingerprints are all over the estate. It was revenge at its finest. Did they not know that Grandfather wanted to keep the union? He mourned that loss just as much as losing it to the arrogance of his son. Father lit the match to end it all. He didn’t represent the Ravencrofts, I thought to myself, but that wasn’t the truth. He was me and I had to face his mistakes. I was his mistake.
I stepped outside to escape the smell. Fear didn’t clamber at my lungs like I thought it might. Instead, an eerie acceptance flowed through me.
I’d already lost everything. Everything else that I had was irreparable now.
Men and women with red bands moved rapidly around the back garden. None of them paid me any attention. It was like I was floating between them. Invisible. It hurt more than I’d thought to be ignored by the enemy. I wanted them to scream at me, to invite me to war, so that I could live with the fact that I deserved the loss and not that I was blindsided by their victory. I wanted to earn our downfall.
Moving toward my mother’s courtyard, I was struck by the sameness of the forest hugging the estate. Untouched. Unaware of the horrors that it witnessed. If nothing else, it was a small comfort to know that some things don’t change.
I sat in the courtyard, the surrounding brush cocooned me into relative quiet.
This was Kenna’s plan. To destroy me. To destroy my entire family’s existence like my father did to hers. It’s only fair, I guess. But why’d she have to do it like that?
Like a strategy.
Seduce and destroy.
I let out a long breath and put my head in my hands.
In the distance, footsteps and conversations could be heard. I flinched at each major sound but kept my head down. Until two voices came near, but not close enough to prompt me to move. I could hear their conversation crystal clear.
“Is that all of them?”
A slap echoed from the walls of the house, presumably a slap on the back. “We got ‘em.” The other guy laughed.
“Wow. Didn’t take much, huh?”
“Ask our sister, she set the ball rolling to cripple them.”
“Pretty neat, yeah.”
“Who’s still alive?”
“We got Richard and the Novelli guy, Aldo. He’s arguing like a bitch. Richard barely breathes, I got him good.” He chuckled.
“Not good enough. He still breathes, brother.”
“Hey!” There was a shift in fabric. “That was Kilina’s job. She can finish it.”
Oh my god, her brothers. A beat of silence passed.
“Nah, I’m just kidding. Can’t let the fucker go easy, they’re taking him to the Ravencroft torture chamber in the dungeon now.”
“Serves him right.” Another slap could be heard. Maybe a high five? It made me sick.
“What about the cute girl?”
“Don’t know. Haven’t seen her. Though secretly I think Kilina has her hidden in the woods or something.”
“No way. We’d have found her before then.”
“You know what she looks like?”
He scoffed. “I know cute when I see it.”
“Sure, you do, Malachi. Grow up.”
It didn’t sound like there was a bounty over my head, guess that’s good. Small mercies.
Another voice entered the mix. A female one. “She’s waking.”
“Coming!” Both men shouted in unison.
The quiet of the surrounding nature comforted me again. They’ve got Father, which means I was right. I lost. Again. Anxiety left my body, and I simmered in the emptiness of it all. What was there to fight for?
I sat with that feeling for a while.
Then, it hit me. No one was looking for me. No one was coming. Might as well see myself out, I thought. It felt silly to stay where I wasn’t wanted. I just needed to collect a couple things from my bedroom.
The house was still as deserted as how I found it. Most of the commotion was centred around the barracks at the back of the estate. The wrong emblem was still in my hand as I passed the rooms that came to feel like mine.
My bedroom was entirely untouched.
I kicked my heels off, landing next to the jacket I was going to wear this morning. Times change quickly. My makeup was scattered just as I’d left it. The bed unmade, how I like it. It still felt mine.
I sat on my bed and looked around to find things that I needed to bring with me. The list wasn’t as long as I once thought it would be. I found a small bag and packed my essentials. As I dug around my nightstand, trying to find my favourite hairbrush and collecting an appropriate number of hairbands, a small box fell to the floor.
The one my Mama gave me.
I stuffed it into my duffel bag from the corner, cushioned by my thick jumpers.
When I looked up, I caught myself in the mirror. My knees stained, my makeup smeared, the dark circles that my makeup couldn’t hide turned me into the image of melancholy. I turned the mirror around. Defeat wasn’t a good look on me.
The jacket was the only redeeming quality of the look. I hugged it to my body before I worked my arms out of the sleeves.
“You can keep it.” A voice told me from the door. “You look hot in it.”
I squeezed my eyes shut on a long exhale. Hadn’t she taken enough? Hadn’t I already known for a long time that I’d lost to her? I shrugged the jacket off anyway and held my arm out for her to take it, not daring to turn around to look.
A moment elapsed before either of us said anything more. When she didn’t take the jacket, I dropped it. My eyes found hers and she looked pale from where she slumped against the door frame, for once, looking weak.
“It wasn’t personal.” She admitted. “I promise. Your life doesn’t have to end with this, we can rebuild stronger together. Fuck our namesake. Bury it. ”
“We’re not gonna be the star-crossed lovers.” My hands shook. “I wouldn’t survive.”
“Please.”
“I can’t stay.”
“Laney,” She looked at my hands before her eyes lifted to mine, so sad I had to look away, the look of pity burned. “I think you should stay.”
“You make me worse, Ken–” My voice broke. “Kilina. You betrayed me! You betrayed all of us, don’t you get it? I can’t trust you.”
“I protected you.”
“By destroying everything that meant something to me?”
“It wasn’t personal.” She repeated to no avail. I would drown in defeat amongst the enemy, my loyalty wasn’t that fickle. Even when Grandfather championed the Union, it was unity, not a hostile takeover. This wasn’t civil.
“You got stuck in the mud on the way to the trophy. I get it. You didn’t mean to like me. But leave it with someone else. It doesn't concern me anymore.”
“You’re not my trophy. You’re my destiny.”
“No, I was Bambi. Fucking naive.” I turned to her. “You know I always thought about you, since secondary school, wondering what it all meant. What you were to me. But the answer to the mystery of you is so much more disappointing than I could ever imagine.”
“Don’t do this, Laney. We’re not going to hurt you.”
“Too late. I’m leaving.”
“Not without protection, princess.”
“And you’re going to be that for me? Protection.” I scoffed. The nerve of this girl. I did everything to not roll my eyes at her.
She breathed out a ‘yes.’
“Did you kill Neenan too?”
“What? No!” She said, adjusting her weight on her legs and stepped close enough to me to push hair off my shoulder. “No, he handed himself over. You didn’t know? We only killed those who fought.”
“Sorry, I didn’t hear, I was kinda busy watching my life fall apart.” I’m fighting now, are you going to kill me too?
“Princess, I freed you.”
“Don’t ‘princess’ me! Don’t pretend to know me. Get Neenan.”
“He’s on our side now.”
“Thought you wanted to protect me? That’s the only way.”
“Laney…I care.”
“Well, I don’t. Not anymore.” It was a lie, it was a lie. “Leave.”
“No! No. You have to be with me, loving me, until the end, or hate me and still be with me, hating me through everything. Indifference isn’t an option for me. Stay. ”
I shut my eyes.
“No.” I said. “Go be with your family.”
She didn’t move.
“I’m leaving.” I affirmed. “When I collect my things from the bathroom, Neenan better be standing here instead of you.” Without another glance, I brushed past her and left her there.
When I returned, she was gone. It still stung. A minute later, Neenan was at my door, looking shaken but okay. Thank God, he was okay.
“Do you want to get out of here?” I asked him, tears brimming.
He swallowed hard and deftly nodded.
When we finally left, our first steps were confident. Defiant.
But a mile away from the house, a cauterising loneliness creeped into me again.