Chapter 21 #2
I burst through the door without knocking.
My mother, who’d been sewing something in the living room just inside the door, startled.
My eyes darted to every corner of every room I paced through.
My mother rose and followed me. I vaguely registered her asking what was going on, what was wrong, before I found Warren hunched over a project of some sort.
Shutters from the outside facade of the house that he’d brought in for repair.
He looked up, just as concerned as our mother.
“Adrian?” he asked, brow knitted. “What’s wrong?”
“Dahlia,” I spat, and the change in his expression was instantaneous.
He set his tools down and fully turned to face me. Warren gripped my shoulders and peered into my eyes. “What happened?”
“She killed him,” I said. “Cyrus. She killed him.”
My mother gasped.
Warren’s jaw clenched, but he simply strode past me and headed for the door. “Let’s go.”
I nodded and led the way back onto the street.
I told him where I’d already checked, where I had been, as we rushed down the stairs to the Third Ring, pushing through the crowded streets.
The door at the bottom of the apartment building was open.
Warren and I exchanged a glance as we sprinted through it and up the stairs.
My apartment was open as well. We skidded to a halt just inside the threshold.
Dahlia stood in the center of the room, eyes glazed over as they passed from one piece of furniture to the next, observing. Sorrow had invaded her expression as she took it all in again, as she remembered all the times she’d come to visit her brother.
Harrison stood in front of her, arms outstretched, placating.
“See? There she is,” he spoke calmly, though his eyes were wide. Blood covered Dahlia’s arms, hands, and torso. She still held the knife in her hands, dripping blood onto my carpet. “I told you she wasn’t here before, but she is now, okay, Dahlia? Can you put the knife down now? Can you—”
“Adrian,” Dahlia breathed, her gaze flicking from me to Warren and back. “I did it. Like I told you. He begged me too. He couldn’t live like that anymore. Adrian, please, they don’t understand.”
“Dahlia Reed!” A booming male voice shouted from the stairwell below. “We know you’re in there. By order of the Fellowship, we urge you to surrender.”
“Give me the knife, Dahlia.” My voice cracked.
“Warren,” she breathed.
“It’s okay,” he assured her, gaze flicking to her shaking hands. “It’s okay, Dahlia. It’s okay.”
She dropped the knife to the floor. Lowering her head, Dahlia let out a shaky breath just as officers swarmed my apartment.
They hauled her off her feet and dragged her back as one of them knelt to retrieve the knife.
She looked up at us as we stood on the threshold, her expression stoic.
She locked eyes with me, and there was more meaning in that gaze than I cared to decipher.
“Let her go,” I shouted at the guards as they dragged her toward the door.
“She’s a killer. She will be dealt with by the Tribunal.”
“You don’t understand.”
“Adrian,” Dahlia’s voice had taken on a strange kind of serenity.
And when I looked at her, she smiled. There was something peaceful in her expression.
Even as they pulled her away, she closed her eyes and let out a relieved sigh.
I remained frozen in place as they took her away, the horrifying realization setting in.
She’d ended Cyrus’s suffering, which in turn had severed her own connection to his pain. What she felt now was the sweet bliss of freedom, like one who cuts off a diseased limb to save the body from rot.
A wave of nausea passed through me, and I bent over, hands on my knees, and gave a shuddering gasp.
“Let’s go,” Warren said, a hand on my back.
Without a word of explanation to Harrison, Warren and I hastened after the guards. We followed them down the stairs of the eastern gate to the lower deck, then all the way around to that cursed twelfth tunnel.
A crowd was beginning to form as we descended the stairs.
There was an awe in their expressions that spoke more of the fact that we hadn’t seen a criminal brought to justice for years than anything else.
Warren and I joined them, forbidden from going any farther as the guards dragged Dahlia to the opening of the tunnel and dropped her unceremoniously on the stone ground.
She stared up at the twelfth tunnel, a faint smile on her lips as if she were pleased that all of this was happening here, where Darius had last stood. A shiver shook through me, and I looked away.
Whispers rose up within the crowd itself, guesses at what she might have done, how she’d been caught, who was bringing charges against her.
Dahlia herself just lowered her gaze from the archway and sat slumped on her knees, shoulders drawn in and eyes on the stone in front of her.
At first glance, it appeared as if she hadn’t noticed the crowd surrounding her, but when a curious boy from the Third Ring got a little too close, she flinched.
It was the only indication that she was aware of anything.
Half an hour passed before the first head of a major House arrived.
It was the man who led House Lynx, Raghnall.
He stepped forward out of the growing crowd and a hush fell over those gathered.
He moved swiftly to the guards and exchanged words with them in a low murmur while we all strained to hear what was being said.
Heads turned, and Warren and I joined them.
The matriarch of House Avus, Milo’s grandmother who I knew was named Nascha, descended the steps with one arm wrapped comfortingly around Cyrus’s sniveling mother.
His father followed close behind them, his eyes devoid of emotion.
Once the other leaders were in place, a familiar shade of green descended to the Deck.
Without much apology, I pushed my way through the crowd until I reached Cosmo’s side.
“Have mercy,” I begged as the crowd closed in around me and pushed me farther from him. He didn’t turn to look at me. Though Dante, dutifully following after his grandfather, frowned in my direction. “Cosmo!”
He finally turned, his gaze meeting my own.
“Please.”
He watched me for a moment, then looked away and continued on his journey to the front.
I stepped up onto a few steps to get a better look over the Deck as the three Heads of Houses, referred to in these cases of criminal trial as the Tribunal, gathered together and took their places in front of the accused; Dahlia.
“What is it that’s happened?” the patriarch of House Lynx’s voice boomed out among the rest of us.
“She killed my son!” Cyrus’s mother cried.
A flurry of shocked murmurs went up through the crowd. I craned my neck to see over them.
“Do you deny it?” the woman from House Avus asked.
All eyes went to Dahlia. She was still kneeling precisely where she had been thrown. The crowd held their breath waiting for an answer, but she remained silent. Dahlia merely looked up at the archway of the twelfth tunnel once more and gave a slight, almost imperceptible, shake of her head.
My heart dropped to my stomach.
Whispers rose up all around me. Warren shouted her name, but Dahlia didn’t lift her head.
“In that case, we have no choice but to—”
“Humbling,” Cosmo interrupted the patriarch of House Lynx. He stepped forward to even more murmurs of surprise.
To my shock, the other house leaders seemed to acquiesce, nodding their approval.
“Dahlia of the Third Ring,” he announced, taking on the measured, professional tone of the justice of Sanctuary.
“As you have confessed to the crime of murder, your punishment is to be humbled. You are hereby stripped of all titles and rank. You will live out the remainder of your days here, on the Deck. You will receive no rations that you have not worked for, and you will be given no home to call your own.”
A cry rang out at the sentence, and I looked over to see Dionne had collapsed into her husband’s arms. Rage welled up within me, and I took a step forward, pushing through the crowd.
But before I could go far, someone held me firmly by the arm.
Even with my enhanced strength, the grip didn’t relent. I whirled around. It was Dante.
“Adrian, Please, listen to me.”
“Let me go,” I growled, yanking my arm free.
“You can’t help her,” he called after me as I pushed through the crowd again. “She made her choice. She must face the consequences.”
Even if they aren’t fair, he finished in my mind.
I paused and glanced back through the crowed at him. Fair? Your grandfather passed the sentence.
They would have killed her if he hadn’t proposed humbling.
They may as well have. Alone on the Deck with no home and no rations?
Adrian, please. Listen—
I shoved someone out of my way, then another and another.
I could hardly see them through the tears burning my eyes.
But my time was running out. They were dragging Dahlia away again.
I pushed through, using my strength to send anyone who wouldn’t move sliding easily out of my way.
Soon enough, people started shuffling out of my way before I reached them.
Dahlia was just up ahead, guards on either side of her as Warren spoke something softly to her.
She nodded, tears gathered in her eyes. I let out a roar of frustration, hate for Cosmo, desperation at the unfairness of it all, and the crowd scattered.
Adrian, stop. You’re going to hurt someone.
I shoved him out of my head and stomped forward, pushing another man out of my way. He went skidding along the stone like a spinning top.
Adrian, stop.
I’d almost reached her. Dahlia finally looked up, and when our eyes met, the sorrow in her gaze was almost more than I could take.
“Dahlia—”
Something sharp slammed into the back of my head.