Defiance (28 page)

I just have to stay one step ahead.

I skirt the safe house, an ivy-covered once-white structure, and search for signs of life before leaving the cover of the trees. I don’t find life, but death is waiting for me near the edge of the property. Two guards lie on the ground, the bones of their faces nearly picked clean by scavengers but the mark of Baalboden still clear on their uniforms. A small puncture wound rests over their hearts.

They were murdered efficiently, and the ramifications chill me to the core. A professional did this. Someone who knew how to kill with neat, deadly precision.

This isn’t Melkin’s handiwork. He’s a tracker, but, as Eloise so desperately pointed out, he isn’t a killer. He wouldn’t know how to drop a man before he had a chance to see death approach.

It isn’t Rachel’s handiwork either. I’m not sure if she’s become a killer yet. But rage fuels her and these kills contain less emotion than the soil on which the men fell.

Someone else is tracking the package. Closing in on Rachel and Melkin. Once he reaches his objective, their lives won’t be worth more than those of the two poor souls lying at my feet.

Panic eats at me when I consider the possibility that the tracker has already found Rachel and Melkin, and their bodies wait somewhere on the forest floor for me to stumble upon as well.

Scrapping my plan to take a few hours of rest, I approach the house and type in the code for the padlock. Just inside the door, recent footsteps mar the dust. I bend to examine them. One of the boot prints is Rachel’s. One is large enough to be Melkin’s. And one, already coated in a thin sheen of dust, is Jared’s. If Jared was here within the last few weeks, it’s possible he’s waiting for Rachel at the second safe house. If so, he’ll protect her from Melkin until I get there.

The possibility is real, but the weight of responsibility refuses to lift from my shoulders. I can’t put any hope in possibilities. I have to contend with reality, and the reality is that even if Melkin doesn’t try to kill Rachel, they have an assassin on their trail, and he won’t hesitate to murder them both once they have the package.

As I leave the footsteps behind and enter the kitchen to restock on fuel and food, fear wraps itself around me, whispering terrible things.

You’re too late.

Rachel can’t beat an assassin. He’ll stab her through the heart and leave her like she’s nothing. Less than nothing.

Unless Melkin kills her first.

You’ve lost all the family you ever had because you’re too late.

Too late.

The kitchen is a mess. Supplies are ripped out of cupboards and strewn across grimy countertops. The remains of a mostly uneaten dinner lie on the kitchen table. Fear sinks into my heart and refuses to let go.

They left in a hurry. They left on the run.

I have to believe they’ve continued to outwit the assassin on their trail. Any other thought threatens to compromise my ability to plan ahead. Forcing the fear into a distant corner of my mind, I rewrap my ribcage and stuff additional supplies in my pack.

I need to rest, but I can’t. Every second I lose is another second Rachel comes closer to death.

Instead, I quickly eat a decent meal, drink my fill of water, and swallow a small pinch of pain medicine. Locking the house behind me, I head south again, looking closely for a sign of someone following Melkin and Rachel.

It takes nearly four hours to find it, but I do. Near a small clearing where they stopped to eat, a man hunched down behind the thick cover of a flowering azalea bush. His boots dug into the dirt in a way that suggests he was leaning forward on his toes. I can’t distinguish enough of the sole to judge his height and weight, but the maker’s mark on the tip of his boot tells me one very important fact.

He’s from Rowansmark.

Once Rachel retrieves the package, she’s dead. If Melkin fails to kill her, this man will.

My body screams for rest. My head feels heavy and off-kilter. I draw in a deep breath, brace myself for the pain, and start running.

Mind over matter.

I can’t afford to let my body rule me now. I have an assassin to kill.

V
oices float above me as I lie on the cold, unyielding ground. I imagine sinking below it. Letting it take me under.

Finding peace.

The piercing pain of loss is a double-edged blade I can’t bear to touch. How can I grieve for him? Cry for him? Bleed for him inside when it won’t change anything?

It won’t change anything.

He’s
gone
.

All the words I never found time to say. All the things we never found time to do. Ripped from me with merciless finality.

Gone.

But I’m not gone. I’m still here—miles from home, surrounded by scorched earth and strangers, facedown on my father’s grave.

Here
.

Somewhere inside me, I hear an anguished wailing—the wordless keening of unbearable grief. I can’t stand to hear it. To feel it. To let it live.

A yawning darkness within me opens wide, whispering promises to take the pain. Swallow the loss. Make it possible to draw a breath without choking on the shattered pieces no one will ever fix.

I dig my fingers into his grave and flinch as the images of Dad and Oliver sear themselves into my brain. I will choke on this grief. Lie here impotent, unable to avenge them. Loss is a gaping hole with jagged teeth, and I can’t
bear
it.

I push the images away, scramble back from the edge of that gaping hole, and let the darkness within me swallow it all. The wail of grief inside me slowly subsides into a well of icy silence—deafening and absolute. The silence rips me in two, cutting me off from everything I can’t stand to face. I don’t try to stop it. If I feel the loss, it will break me.

And I can’t break until the Commander is dead.

Because Dad’s gone. And I’m still here.

And before I follow him, I have a debt to pay.

My fingers clench into fists, my nails breaking as I shove them through hard-packed dirt. Fury is a welcome companion, warming me with something that almost feels like comfort.

It’s the Commander’s fault Dad was ever given the package in the first place. His fault I’ll never see Oliver again. His fault Logan languishes in a dungeon.

His fault Dad is dead.

I owe him for all of it.

I can’t find my grief for Oliver. My fear for Logan. My agony over losing Dad forever. I can’t, and I don’t care.

Feeling nothing but rage and resolve makes me stronger.

One day soon the Commander will realize just how strong he’s made me.

W
hen I stumble for the fourth time in ten minutes, I realize mind over matter isn’t going to cut it. I need rest. If I keep going in my current state of exhaustion, I run the risk of missing a critical piece of information, blundering into highwaymen, or losing Rachel and Melkin’s trail.

Plus, the pain in my side is making it difficult to think straight.

I can think of a hundred Worst Case Scenarios, but the solutions feel vague and prone to failure.

The need to reach Rachel is a constant pressure against my chest. I meant what I said to the Commander. If Melkin attacks Rachel openly, she’ll drop him like a stone.

But Melkin isn’t stupid. He’s been traveling with her for over a week. Any misconceptions he had about her formidability as a foe must have been put to rest by now.

I find a large oak, its thick branches forming a cradle several yards off the ground, and I climb carefully, my rib screaming at me the entire way. Wrapping my cloak around me to better blend in with my surroundings, I settle my head against my knees and admit Melkin isn’t Rachel’s biggest problem.

The tracker will torture her before he kills her.

I shake my head and force that thought away. She won’t die. I won’t allow it. I’ll come up with a plan. I’ll find a way to reach her in time.

I will.

Closing my eyes, I give myself permission to take one hour of sleep before I move again. I conjure up the memory of Rachel’s face and cling to it like a lifeline as I allow my weary eyes to close.

M
y fingers ache with stiffness. I’ve been lying face-first on my father’s grave for hours, clutching fistfuls of dirt as if by touching what covers him now, I can somehow touch him.

At some point, I realize the Tree Boy is sitting quietly beside me as if to let me know I’m not alone.

He’s wrong.

I’ve never been more alone.

I turn my face to look at him and realize darkness is falling, obscuring the tree line and hiding the ugly remains of the safe house. He sits cross-legged, the package resting on his lap, his wide palms braced against his knees. His dark eyes seem to penetrate the emptiness inside me with something that looks like regret.

He can keep his regret. His sympathy. His quiet understanding.

I don’t want it.

I don’t need it.

All I need is the Commander’s blood on my hands.

I’m still staring at him, and he slowly offers me his hand as if afraid I’ll shy away at any sudden movements.

“Willow made dinner,” he says as if this should make sense to me.

I ignore his hand. I’m not hungry.

“Willow’s my sister.” He turns to look over his shoulder. I follow his line of sight and see the Tree Girl bending over a pot on a small fire. Melkin hunches down on the opposite side of the pot, watching me. “She made stew.”

Doesn’t he know I don’t care? I turn my face away, letting the ground scrape against my cheek. The pain feels good. Real. A tiny piece of what I should be feeling but can’t now that the silence inside me has swallowed everything but rage.

“I’m Quinn.”

I can’t make small talk. If I open my mouth now, all the hate and fury bubbling just below the surface will spill out and consume him.

His voice is husky with something that sounds like grief. “Your father was a good man. I’m very sorry.”

I look at my arm. The cuff is still glowing, confident that it’s reached its intended target, and I’m suddenly, illogically, angry at Logan for inventing it in the first place.

For giving me something as cruel as hope.

“You can’t stay here.” The boy is still speaking, though I show no indication of listening. “There are men from Rowansmark moving through the forest to the northwest searching for what’s in this package. Your dad said if anything happened to him, I was to retrieve this from its hiding place and give it to you or to a man named Logan McEntire.” He sounds urgent, and I’m surprised to see genuine grief and worry in his eyes.

I can’t leave. What will be left to me if I walk away from this spot?

He leans forward, his eyes looking so much older than the rest of him. “I’m sorry, Rachel. I wish you had more time, but you don’t. If you get caught, everything Jared did to keep this out of the wrong hands will be in vain.”

His words find their mark. If I’m caught, Dad died for nothing, and I lose my leverage against the man I hold responsible. I sit up slowly, still clutching fistfuls of grave dirt. I can’t bear to let it go.

He looks at my hands, a tiny frown creasing the skin between his eyes, and then digs into the front pocket of the leather vest he wears. “Here.” Stretching out his hand, he offers me a small pouch.

I take it. The dirt slides into the pouch with a whisper of sound, and I pull it closed. The strings are long enough to tie behind my neck. I knot them securely and let the final piece of my father rest over my heart, just below the necklace Logan gave to me.

“Come eat. You’ll need your strength.”

He’s right. I can’t travel back to Baalboden and destroy the Commander on an empty stomach. I stand and follow him to where Willow is now using dirt to smother her cooking fire before the flames alert someone to our presence in the gathering gloom.

My body moves just like it always has. My feet follow one after the other. My nostrils capture the scent of wood smoke and meat, and my ears note the creaking of branches and the crunch of ash-coated debris beneath me. But it’s all meaningless. I’m a stranger beneath my skin. I wear armor on the inside, a metal forged of fury and silence, cutting me off from myself.

I’m no longer a daughter.

No longer a granddaughter.

No longer a girl with dreams. With hope.

I’m a weapon, now.

I embrace my rage. Let it sink into my secret spaces and make me its own as I sit down beside the ruins of the fire, accept a bowl of stew, and begin to plan.

I
overslept.

It’s already dark when I wake, and even while I curse my stupidity, I can tell the sleep helped. My body aches, but the overwhelming fatigue is gone. Best of all, my thoughts are clear again.

I’m two days’ hard travel from the second safe house if I use short cuts and only stop twice more for brief rests. A check of my arm cuff shows the wires glowing steadily, though the light is too dim for her to be close yet. Still, I’m reading the remnants of her signature and it’s getting stronger the further south I go. I’m on the right trail.

But someone else is too.

Taking a few minutes to eat and rewrap my rib, I think through my options.

I can continue with my current trajectory and hope to intercept Rachel near the second safe house before she finds the package and her whole world goes to hell. Or I can pick up the Rowansmark tracker’s trail and try to reach him before he acts against her.

I might be giving a slight advantage to the tracker by alerting him to my presence as I join Rachel, but his advantage is mitigated by my knowledge of his agenda.

And I can’t bear to break the promise I made to Eloise. I might not be able to stop Melkin from following through on the Commander’s orders, but I’m honor-bound to try.

Climbing down the tree starts a fire in my ribcage. I gently shake out my cloak, readjust my weapons, and put a tiny pinch of pain medicine beneath my tongue. Then I take a moment to assess the quality of the silence around me.