Throne of Silver (Silver Fae Book 1)

by KB Anne

  The anger in his eyes disappeared replaced by something else. Longing, I think. I maintained eye contact with him and tried to smile, but Christian’s weight pulled me lower and lower to the ground.

  He put the knife back in the sheath. “Here, let me help you.”

  Together, we walked Christian back to the truck giving the buildings a wide berth. The only sound in the darkness was the quiet breathing of Demon who followed behind us. There was no indication from the barracks that anyone had discovered Christian was missing or that I was here. No alarms, no shouting, no lights just darkness and silence. I welcomed darkness and silence. It was a good sign. When we got to the truck, we slid Christian into the passenger seat.

  Jude stepped back when Christian was tucked inside uncertain what to do next.

  “Do you want to come with us?” I didn’t have enough strength or courage to add the “with me.” It took everything in my power not to hop in the truck and drive to the nearest hospital. He studied me, then looked back at the barracks, and then at Christian. I used his indecision to my advantage. “Listen, I’ve told you my side, but I can tell you’re not ready to leave yet.”

  He ran a hand through his short brown hair. “I am learning a lot from the Organization. I’ve finally found my place, but now, I don’t know.”

  I didn’t have the time or the patience to play games with Jude. A picture of a billboard we passed on our way down to the cabin flashed in my mind. “Why don’t you think about everything for a few days? We can meet at the ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Not Museum’ in Gatlinburg, Thursday at noon. Does that work for you?” I squeezed his hand.

  His green eyes lit up. “Yeah, let’s do that.”

  I closed Christian’s door. “I’ll see you Thursday, but Jude, can you promise me you won’t tell anyone you saw me?”

  He hesitated. I made a calculated decision to hug him. I wrapped my arms around him and pulled him close to me. “Thank you,” I whispered in his ear. “Thank you so much!”

  He returned the embrace. I swore he smelled my hair, and I stayed with him longer than I’d like to before breaking away from him. “See you soon,” I whispered before running over to the driver’s side. The dependable truck hummed to life, and I pulled away slowly so I didn’t draw attention to our escape since I’d done such a brilliant job of going unnoticed so far. I glanced in the rear view mirror. Demon and Little Miss were trotting down the road, following the truck. Their loyalty meant everything to me. I wished I could take them with us, but I didn’t even know where we were going, let alone what I’d do with the horses. Farther back, Jude stood by himself watching the truck with a goofy smile plastered across his face. My hug might have gone a step too far, but at least he wasn’t running to the General.

  As soon as we eased onto the main drive, Christian moaned beside me.

  “Hold on, Christian. Hold on,” I whispered as I gunned the truck. It roared to life as if knowing that Christian’s life depended on it.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Christian?”

  I reached for his hand and squeezed it. My fingers tingled from his touch, but his hand hung limp and cold. “Christian? Are you okay?”

  Still no answer.

  “Christian!” I shook his shoulder. He opened his eyes but said nothing.

  “Are you okay?” I asked again.

  “I am now.” He gave me a weak crooked grin. “I guess we’re even now.”

  “Just think of me as your guardian angel,” I said. “You need a hospital. Do you know of any?”

  “Go to Cherokee. You passed through it on your way here. You’ll be safe there,” he whispered.

  “I don’t care about me,” I hissed glancing in the rear view mirror to make sure no one was following us. The horses fell behind, but I couldn’t worry about them. “Is the hospital any good? Will they be able to help you?”

  “If they can’t, no one can,” he whispered before closing his eyes.

  “Christian!”

  “I’m alright. I just need to rest a little.” He squeezed my hand.

  “You better be or there will be hell to pay,” I growled. He squeezed my hand again but didn’t reply.

  With the accelerator nailed to the floor, the truck flew down the narrow gravel roads, but neither the truck nor the roads were built with speed in mind. I took curves too fast, and we fishtailed until I regained control of the steering wheel. I gunned it on straight aways, then eased the brake to make a turn. Gravel kicked up everywhere, but we flew along unscathed. Years of skidding down the icy side streets in Webster prepared me for fast driving.

  The nights in North Carolina were darker than anyplace I’d ever been. There hadn’t be any sign of life since the Lazy L Dude Ranch. There wasn’t a house on the road, or at least one with lights on. The dude ranch was obviously a cover for the Organization because the sign on the road said The Lazy L Dude Ranch, Lodging Available, Horses to Rent, just like the horse trailer.

  Deep in thought, I took a turn too fast. “Oh shit!” I spun the steering wheel back and forth to avoid the ditch. Where was that damn hospital?

  “Is everything alright?” His voice sounded hollow, like there was barely any life left in his body.

  I kept checking the rearview mirror. “Everything’s fine. I just took a corner a little too fast, that’s all. How far away is Cherokee?”

  “A few more miles,” he exhaled. He tried to sit up in the truck but gasped as he clutched his midsection. He whispered, “When you see the sign for the KFC take a left, then take the next left. The hospital is up on the hill, on your right.” He closed his eyes again.

  Christian’s “few” miles felt more like fifty. Finally, I spotted the neon KFC sign in the distance. I’d never been so happy to see the colonel in all my life. Of course, the light at the intersection was red. Tapping the steering wheel, I checked the rear view mirror again to make sure we weren’t being followed. I hadn’t seen a car since the ranch but who knew what type of covert shadiness the Organization had going on. As soon as the light turned green, I cranked the steering wheel and hit the gas. At the next left, I turned and sped up the hill. A small illuminated sign for Cherokee Hospital with unfamiliar writing below it came up on my right. The hospital was about the size of a Burger King, much smaller than the hospitals of Rochester. Christian better be right about this place.

  I hit the brakes in front of the emergency room’s sliding doors and threw the truck into park. “I’ll be right back,” I promised him. A promise I intended to keep. I ran inside and up to the large glass window with a woman sitting behind it.

  “Can I help you?” she said with a smile. Her jet-black hair was tied back in a long ponytail.

  “Ma'am, my friend is hurt. He goes in and out of consciousness.”

  “I’ll get help right away.” She picked up a phone and talked into it.

  Two young men rushed out with a gurney and followed me to the truck.

  “Is his neck or spine hurt?” the taller one with the crew cut asked.

  “I don’t think so,” I replied. “We moved him a bit of a distance.” The short one with a neat black ponytail looked around for the other part of “we.”

  I opened Christian’s door. “It’s just me now.”

  The two guys reached in and gingerly extracted him from the seat. As they lay him out on the gurney, the tall one asked, “He a friend of yours?”

  “Mmhhmm,” was all I could manage. Seeing Christian lying in bed so lifeless pushed me to tears. What did they do to him?

  “We’ll take care of him,” the second one said as they started pushing him inside. I hurried to keep up with them. “What’s his name?”

  “Christian,” I whispered. “Christian Evergood.”

  The one with the ponytails glanced at the first one in alarm. They both stopped and looked down at him. Their reaction concerned me, but Christian told me we’d be safe here. His injuries were far more extensive than anything I could help him with.

  “Wha
t happened to him?” the tall one asked.

  Starr, trust no one.

  “I don’t know. I found him like this.”

  They exchanged glances with each other as they hurried into the hospital.

  “Looks in bad shape,” the ponytail said as we wait for the double doors to the ER to open. My muscles stiffened as I grabbed hold of the gurney. Alarms went off in my head. I needed to be ready for anything. I was also not leaving his side, so they better not even think of asking me to stay in the waiting room.

  When the doors open, a female doctor and several nurses rushed out to meet us. “What happened?” the doctor asked as we continued down the hall and into the nearest room.

  “I don’t know. I found him like this,” I said again.

  “You found him in this condition?” Her eyes disbelieved my words. “Do you know him?”

  “Yes, his name is Christian Evergood. He’s eighteen years old.”

  “Did he take anything? Drugs, alcohol, anything?” She took out a penlight and flashed it in his eyes.

  “Not that I’m aware of, but I don’t know.” I could tell by her expressions that my answers weren’t helping. “I’m sorry, but I really don’t know anything else.”

  She ignored me. “I need a tox screen and some blood work stat.”

  A nurse hurried out of the room. The doctor, along with the remaining medical staff, continued their review of him. I watched as one of the nurses took out a pair of scissors and started cutting his shirt. She gasped. “Doctor, you need to look at this.”

  A morbid curiosity made me to look. What little resolve I had left crashed down. His chest was covered with oozing red welts and bruises ranging in color from black to purple to yellow. Tears streamed down my face. There was no stopping the flood now. “Christian, oh my god, Christian!” I threw myself across his chest. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorry.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I didn’t know what transpired around me during my hysteria, but the next thing I knew, two broad arms circled me and pulled me from the room. I remembered crying and apologizing over and over again.

  When I finally came too, I was lying in a bed, crying and holding myself. I didn’t know how long I’d been there. It could have been ten minutes. It could have been ten hours. I pulled myself together long enough to realize that I wasn’t alone. The tall hospital worker sat in a chair in the corner of the room watching me.

  His attention brought me back to reality. I dug deep and found some self-control. “How is he?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve been with you the whole time,” he said with a bitter smile.

  “Can you go find out?” I begged.

  “They’ll come in and tell us when they know anything,” he snapped. Then his demeanor softened as tears ran down my cheeks again. “It’s a good sign that we haven’t heard anything. It means he’s still alive.”

  I bit my lip. The taste of rust filled my mouth. I didn’t know he was close to death.

  “You know him pretty well?”

  I was in no mood for conversation, but I needed to secure my visitation rights. If this hospital was anything like the ones at home, I wouldn’t be able to see him until he was out of the ICU unless I was a blood relative. “He’s my brother.”

  “Your brother, huh?” He raised an eyebrow at me.

  “Yup,” I replied without blinking an eye.

  A dimple popped up on his right cheek. “I didn’t know Christian had a sister. I would think a cousin would know that.”

  “You’re his cousin?” His cousin. What were the chances that his cousin was working the night I brought Christian into the hospital?

  “Well, his second cousin on his mother’s side.” He cracked his knuckles and glanced around the room in a weak attempt to act casual. The intensity of his gaze told me otherwise. He pointed at my knee. “Let me clean that up for you.”

  I shook my head. “It’s fine.”

  “You can’t do anything for him right now anyway. Let me clean you up, so you don’t get some nasty infection.”

  I hopped up on the examination table. The paper crinkled underneath me. “Fine.”

  He squirted some stuff on some gauze and swabbed my knee. I winced at the pinch but tried not to show it. “So, how long have you known Christian?”

  I thought about his question. I’d known of Christian since the beginning of the school year. I’d only known Christian for little over a week, but in that week, I’d learned more about him than just about anyone on the planet, including his cousin. “A week.”

  His eyes opened wide. “A week?”

  Clearly not the answer he was expecting. Before I could explain myself, the ponytailed guy walked into the room. His eyes met Christian’s cousin, before turning to me. “The doctor would like to see you now.”

  “Just a sec.” He gently dabbed some ointment on the cut. He pulled out a giant bandage. “This should cover it. Ready?”

  The ponytail guy smiled at me, as he held the door for us. I rushed up to the doctor. “Is he okay?”

  She put her arm on my shoulder and briskly lead me down the hall. She stopped in front of another room. The door was closed, but I could still hear the quiet beeping of hospital equipment. “No, he’s not okay. Although he might tell you he is. He doesn’t want me to tell you anything about his injuries, his serious injuries.”

  “He’s conscious?” I felt myself smile.

  “Yes, but his injuries are quite extensive and appear to be caused by blunt force objects. If I had to guess, I’d say he was tortured.”

  My eyes closed as I clenched my fists. I felt like I’d been punched in the gut. When I regained my control, I opened them again. The doctor and Christian’s cousin were evaluating my reaction.

  “Do you know how he sustained his injuries? He refuses to tell us anything.”

  I glanced at the doctor and then the cousin and back to the doctor. Their beautiful large brown eyes were so honest and good. How could I not tell them? Christian said I would be safe here. I doubted I could be safe anywhere, but I had to trust them. I needed to trust them. I took a deep breath. “I found him at a military training camp not far from here. He was tied to a cross.”

  His cousin glared at me. “There are no government training facilities around here. We are surrounded by tribal lands, the national park, and private land.”

  “I don’t think it was government run. I think it’s a private enterprise.” It was only a hunch I had and I probably should have kept that information to myself, but it was too late now.

  “And how did he get there?” The doctor asked.

  “He was kidnapped from his grandfather’s barn.”

  “He was up at the cabin?” his cousin interrupted. The air grew thick with tension.

  “We were at the cabin together, and then he went back down to get more supplies from the barn. That’s when he was picked up. I was still at the cabin.”

  “What would a private militant group want with him?” The doctor asked trying to get to the source of the torture.

  “To get to me,” I whispered. “They were trying to get to me and tortured him to find out.”

  “You?!” his cousin barked in my face. Bits of spit sprayed from his mouth. “You did this to him?”

  I knew it was a rhetorical question, but I felt the need to justify myself. “Christian was helping me. I didn’t ask him to. I didn’t want him to. We had no idea what we were getting…”

  The doctor pushed between us with raised hands. “Enough! Obviously, what happened to Christian is much more complicated than any of us realize. What I do know is that if Starr doesn’t go in there soon, he has threatened to remove all the IVs and come looking for her and that cannot happen. We can get to the bottom of this later. Do you understand?”

  We nodded our heads and whispered, “Yes, ma’am.”

  She straightened herself back up and smoothed her white doctor’s coat. “Now, let’s go see the patient.”

  Chapter Twenty-
Eight

  Images of Christian flashed before me as I walked into the room: Christian hanging from the cross. His clothes soaked with blood and torn to shreds by what? Garden tools? There were hoes, shovels, and rakes all over the field. Christian passed out in the truck. The moment the nurse cut open his shirt and revealed his injuries. Could anything be worse than that final image? I took a deep breath. I was about to find out.

  His eyes were closed when I walked in. His body covered with a blue paisley hospital gown and a white hospital blanket. The machines beeped quietly beside him.

  Tortured. Beaten. Defeated.

  I reached over to touch his hand. “Hey.”

  His eyes flashed open. They were still the same mesmerizing blue they’d always been. A blue that made me forget every checklist in the entire world.

  He smiled, then whispered, “I didn’t tell them anything. Nobody knows what happened.”

  “I don’t know what happened, but Christian, they do know how you got here.” His eyes widened. One of the machines began beeping loudly. His cousin rushed over to check the machine.

  Christian’s eye just about popped out of his head.

  His cousin grinned at him with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. Much different than the severe looks he gave me moments ago. “Bet you’re surprised to see me!”

  “I don’t know if anything could surprise me anymore,” he said smiling at me. My heart broke piece by piece by piece. I caused his pain. It was my fault.

  His cousin slid up next to me. “Well, are you going to introduce me?”

  “Ben, this is Starr. Starr, Ben.”

  We both nodded at each other. Either Ben had decided I was okay or at least he was heeding the doctor’s warning.

  Ben smiled at Christian, but concern ringed his eyes. “You look like hell, man.”

  “I feel like hell,” he replied. As the two bantered back and forth, I took inventory of Christian. He had IVs and other wires hooked up everywhere. His hospital gown covered the damage caused to his body, but the cuts and bruises on his arms and on his face were still visible. And even though, his beautiful blue eyes grew lively talking to his cousin, dark circles shadowed them. He was lying in this hospital bed because of me. It was my fault he was here. I did this to him.