26 Checkmate #2
“I’ll be back. We’re leaving tonight,” I tell Luca. “I’ll get you out.”
“One way or another?” Luca asks, his eyes red rimmed, and I realize he’s been crying and I hadn’t noticed. “You promised.”
“I won’t let her turn you into a weapon, I promise.” One way, I silently assure myself, imagining my hand in his, somewhere far from here. But not the other. My cold fingers wrapped around his neck until his life slips away. The promise I don’t trust myself to keep.
I throw the collar into the laboratory incinerator. The old magic book too.
I return to our quarters as the lightning starts up and night falls, and all I can feel is grateful that Adele has chosen to vent her anger into the skies. I rush to Zara’s room. She’s cowering in her closet in my absence.
“Come on,” I say, pulling her to her feet, tugging her after me toward Meredith’s room. “We’re leaving. Forever, tonight.”
“But Reggie—”
I cut her off. There isn’t time to waste. “I know you’re scared, but I need you to be brave. You need to listen and do exactly as I say.” I speak rapidly as I turn the corner into Meredith’s room, Zara trailing me.
Meredith isn’t in her bed. I turn to examine the closet, duck to check under the bed, fighting my rising panic as Zara cries silently in the doorway.
“Mom has her. She took Meredith with her.”
I frantically pull the sheets from the bed, upend the toy chest in the closet.
As if I might find Meredith at any moment, misplaced like a stray sock.
Though I know Zara wouldn’t lie to me. My heart sinks, and the dim hope that’s been valiantly struggling to stay alight in my chest for weeks blinks out in an instant.
There’s no reason for Adele to take a three-year-old with her for an all-night experiment. She’s a pawn. Checkmate.
I tuck Zara into my bed with deliberate calm. “I have to go take care of something. Stay here; I’ll be back,” I say. She nods, but I feel her eyes on me as I turn to leave.
Luca is still awake and pacing when I arrive.
“Hurry,” the only greeting I offer as I unlock the door and slip inside the cell.
Luca doesn’t hesitate, stepping out and taking the gray guard’s uniform that I hold out.
This time I made sure I brought boots too.
I turn my back and speak quickly as he changes, all the while uncomfortably and wonderfully aware of his body heat, of how close we finally are.
“Walk behind me. Don’t stop or speak to anyone. I have a bag for you in my room, and there’s an emergency passage out of my mother’s quarters. We only have a few hours. As long as the lightning flashes, she’ll be busy.”
Luca places a hand on my shoulder. “Let’s go,” he says, tense excitement lacing his tone. The half mask I’ve given him is already on his face.
We don’t speak until we reach my room. He immediately pulls off the mask with a shudder. Zara sits up in bed, tears still coursing down her cheeks. She glances from Luca to me in confusion.
“He’s okay. It’s a disguise,” I say to Zara as I pull out the bag I’ve prepared for Luca. “Extra clothes, water, energy bars. I packed light, but it should get you to a town.”
“More than enough.” Luca shrugs off my explanation. “Where’s yours?”
I shake my head.
“Reggie, come on,” Luca hisses, “this isn’t the time for cold feet.”
“Meredith. Adele took Meredith with her tonight,” I say, my voice cracking over the words.
The devastation that crosses his face is, for once, easy for me to read.
He closes his eyes for a moment, swears, then opens his eyes, steady and composed once again.
Luca looks at Zara crying in my bed. “Do you want me to take her?” he asks quietly, with complete sincerity.
“I would take care of her like my own sister until you and Meredith could join us,” he continues without hesitation.
“No,” I say reflexively. I consider changing my mind, but the decision is already made as Luca nods, looking disappointed. It’s selfish, but I can’t bear the thought of both of them leaving. I think I’ll wonder if I’ve made the right decision at this moment for the rest of my life.
Zara watches the entire exchange in wide-eyed silence.
“You saw nothing tonight,” I say to Zara as I leave. She nods, mute.
I lead Luca through the door in the back of Adele’s closet.
An emergency escape hatch I learned about years ago and have kept in my back pocket.
She thinks it only works for her because it is keyed to only her DNA.
But I discovered the loophole: The smallest smear of my blood from me, Adele’s daughter, will unlock it too.
Along the walk, Luca makes me repeat an email address and phone number until he’s sure I have it memorized.
“If I get out, I’ll contact you,” I say. Though I’m afraid it’s an empty promise.
“When you leave, I’ll be waiting,” he promises.
“Luca,” I say, “I’m sorry—”
“Reggie, don’t. I don’t want to hear it; it doesn’t matter. I owe you. Call in that favor anytime.”
We’ve reached the end of the hallway. I swing the door open, and the desert night air flows in, electric with artificial lightning, rain, and wind battering our faces, even in the shelter of the doorway.
I fight the urge to shudder, flinch away from the electricity coursing through the air.
Luca breathes in deeply, closes his eyes, the first taste of freedom he’s had in almost two months.
But he turns back almost immediately, steps close, and reaches for me.
I let him pull me in, one hand searing my waist, the other reaching up, unlatching the mask and gently pulling it from my face.
“You’re kind of beautiful,” he says, a sad smile on his face.
I’m crying as he presses a bruising kiss to my lips, biting down almost hard enough to draw blood before pulling back to look at me one last time.
“Bye, Luca.”
“See you later, sweetheart,” he says, then turns, transforms, and runs into the desert, a massive wolf with fur the color of raven’s feathers disappearing into the night.
Though I want to watch forever, searching the dark, convincing myself I can still see him, I turn away.
Because I can’t fall apart—no time for sentiment.
I dry my eyes, replace my mask on my face.
Inside, I peek at Zara, somehow sound asleep, even with the lightning flashing and the overhead light still on.
No one is in the corridors as I make my way to the farthest open-air exit from our living quarters. I’ll buy Luca as much time as I can.
When I walk out into the desert, the rain is hot, the lightning so close I can feel the static in the air.
But I don’t flinch, because nothing can hurt me more than this.
I almost don’t cling onto Adele tonight.
Let her fall for all I care. But somehow I still do care the tiniest bit.
There’s one thing Adele can’t take from me now.
One person I’ve placed beyond her reach.
I sit in the rain for hours, mud soaking my clothes as I lie down on the desert ground.
As the sun rises, I pull the mask from my face and let the heat dry my tears.
I fight the urge to turn, knowing Luca is running the opposite way, and pretend I’m watching this direction for a reason.
Every minute I buy is another minute for him to run in the other direction.
Every minute costs me dearly, eats away at my resolve to stay.
I lie there in the dirt until Adele’s guards reach me. They strap the mask back on my unresisting face roughly. I force them to half drag, half carry me down to the dungeon. By the time we arrive, my mind is somewhere else entirely, running through the desert with a werewolf.
They throw me in Luca’s old cell. I wear his T-shirt and pants, left discarded there, for the entire week.
They stop smelling like him by day three.
The only way to mark the days are the shift changes of the masked guards, my only visitors.
When I’m finally released, they simply unlock the door, leave the key in the lock.
Zara and Meredith both rush to hug me, despite how I must smell in clothes I’ve worn for a week.
“Stay,” Meredith says.
“You should have let me go,” Zara says.