Well, that told me quite a lot actually. Dr. Garrett Caldwell was Alliance. All of The Letters had the whip marks, and I didn’t need to be reminded of the scars. I could feel them every time I moved. In fact, even mentioning them had brought the discomfort to the forefront of my mind.
This man was Alliance. He was not to be trusted, but he was my only link to any information. “Are you going to give me back to him? Are you fixing me to put me back?”
He blinked rapidly. “No. I… I could see why you might think that. No, I’m not giving you back to Ben. I am not on Ben’s side of the schism in the Alliance. I’m not sure how much you know. I’ve been given permission to talk to you openly and that’s just weird. My own wife doesn’t know any of the things I’m saying to you.”
Women never did in the Alliance. Most of the spouses didn’t know there was an Alliance. They could be killed for knowing. Women had two purposes—to breed male Alliance members and to be given over for torture when the need arose.
“A… a schism?”
He sighed. “This is too much for you right now. I can’t keep you here. It’s a Sunday, so this was the perfect place to put you. But tomorrow the clinic opens and fifty doctors will be expecting to use all the beds and rooms for their patients. We mostly do orthopedic repair as well as ear, nose, and throat operations here. Occasionally, something gynecological.”
I really didn’t care. “Why am I here with you? I don’t even know who you are.”
“We share a friend. A number of them, actually. And so I said I would treat you here since your abduction from Ben’s caused quite a stir that had to be managed before it drew attention. I’m going to send you home. You’ll have to take your antibiotics orally. If they don’t work as well, you’ll have to find a trustworthy doctor to treat you. I’m afraid this is as far as I can go right now. There were going to be other arrangements, but the Initiate called an audible and took you out twenty-four hours early.”
I rubbed my head. “I’m sorry. I can’t think… I can’t seem to follow your conversation.”
He placed a hand on my arm, and I leapt. Every part of my body ached when I did, but it was like having his hand on my body was the akin to flames covering my skin. I cried out and then covered my mouth.
He lifted his hand. “I’m sorry.”
“I…” I didn’t even know what to say. My body shook. I knew this feeling. I’d been doing it for months. It wouldn’t stop now, not for hours. If at all. This was how I was going to die.
“It’s too soon for you to be touched. I get it. At least by me. A man. I… Shit, I wish this was the first time I was seeing something like this coming out of Ben’s. It’ll be good when he’s dead. I’m going to put something in your IV to help you sleep. Unless you want to eat. You need to eat.”
I wiped my eyes where tears pooled. “Food?”
“Yeah… not yet. Okay. Find a way to survive this, Everly. Beat the odds.”
I was going home. That meant my father. He was the last person I wanted to see, but I’d start there. I’d get stronger and then somehow, somewhere, I’d find something safe. Even if that meant living under ground or in a cave. I couldn’t think rationally, but I’d figure it out when I could. There had to be somewhere on this planet where the Alliance couldn’t touch me. Someplace I could be safe.
“Would you please thank that initiate for getting me out? How did he even arrange any of this?”
Garrett injected something into my IV. “He didn’t. And I can assure you he’s being properly taken care of. He’s earned his place. When the schism is over and the old guard is out, that young man will have a ticket to whatever he wants in the world. All he had to do was choose correctly. As far as I’m concerned, it took him too long.”
The world seemed to float, to soften. The edges blurred.
“Get some sleep. You’re safe now. Ben isn’t going to dare to come near you again. I can promise you that. The war is in full bloom and the people on your side won’t let him breathe the same air you do.”
That was the problem. “I have no people. That’s why I’m so confused. I’m just an ant. What I thought I had, I never really had.”
He might have answered me. I didn’t know.
* * *
I dreamed I was on the back of a motorcycle. I’d had this dream many times since I’d found out my father had killed my mother. I even knew I was dreaming. That didn’t mean I had any power to stop what was going to happen. It wasn’t that lucid of a dream. No, as in all things, I was a bystander to the power play in my life.
Someone I didn’t know drove the motorcycle. Someone other than me picked where we would go. And if they wanted to, a whole lot of someones would pull up next to me in cars and gun me down. No part of my life was in my own control.
It never had been. Ignorance, as it turned out, had been bliss. I hated knowing. I hated what they’d done to me. I turned forward in my seat and waited for whatever inevitably came next. I had no choice.
I never did.
Chapter 2
Light filtered through my lids. I tried to lift them, but they were heavy. After a moment, I gave up trying. Instead, I tried to listen. Where was I? I didn’t have a bag over my head, so right off the bat I had to assume I wasn’t with Ben. He liked me to have my head covered all the time. The bed where I lay was soft, and the blankets pulled up over my chest smelled clean—like they’d been recently laundered. I almost wished I could go back to sleep, drift into pleasant dreams to go with this tender moment.
But I couldn’t let that happen.
I wasn’t safe. I never would be again. I couldn’t lie in an unknown place and let myself be vulnerable.
I wrenched my eyes open and winced as the light hit my eyes. It had been such a long time since I’d seen sunlight. The rays filtering through the drapes on the window wounded me as though they were needles striking at my eyes.
Consciousness banged into my brain, and what I saw made me want to hide under the soft covers and sink into the floor, never to have to raise my head again. I was back in Vermont. I knew this room with its pillar by the window and tastefully decorated furniture that matched the walls. I’d spent way too much time memorizing it the last time I was here.
Not again.
No, this couldn’t be happening. That man, that doctor, he said I was going home. He lied. Why was I surprised? I was an ant. People lied to ants all the time. But I wouldn’t be kept here waiting for the Alliance to give me to someone else or back to Ben to be tortured.
My hand panged, and I stared at it for a second before it dawned on me that I had an IV attached to me. Someone was giving me fluids and maybe something else straight into my veins. Who knew what it was? My head wasn’t clear, that much was for sure. I had to hide. That was all I could do and under the covers wasn’t going to get the job done. At some point they’d have the black helicopters arrive. I’d… I’d get in a box or something.
I just had to get out of this room before it all started again and Ben squashed me.
My teeth chattered, but I didn’t feel cold. Maybe I didn’t feel anything at all. I couldn’t really tell. It was like I saw the whole world through syrup. That was… strange. It would get better if I got out of this room. Out of this bed. If I got the medicine making me sick out of my arm.
I yanked, hard, pulling at the needle in my hand with every bit of energy I had. It came out, a trail of blood wadding up where it had been inserted. I stared at the red substance and shrugged. It was just blood. I’d had lost a lot over the last few months or years—however long my captivity had lasted. Ben liked to see me bleed.
Yeah… I wouldn’t be going back there.
There had to be some place I could be left alone. After I got off this island and away from the people who did this to me.
I stumbled out of bed. I was in my white nightgown, the one I’d purchased when I was sixteen because it was soft and pretty. My father had given me money to go shopping and it was what I’d come home with.
I wiped my hand on it, staining the white with my blood. What did it matter? Things were just things. Everything would be destroyed in the end. We were all just… nothing.
I shivered. It was always cold in this house. What month was it? I didn’t know. Six months, maybe, since I’d last been here and that would make it September. Maybe it was already freezing in Vermont in September. Maybe I’d never be warm again.
I left the room, my legs unsteady but working, and headed for the stairs. I couldn’t go down. The noises from down there were too loud, that meant there were too many people there. Who from The Letters were here? Probably not J even though this was his home. He was on the Alliance council now. He’d be busy. Maybe they had dumped me here for D to kill me. Or T to mess with my mind. W to tell me how screwed I was. K to make me paranoid. Or maybe they were all going to come at me at once before they gave me over for more pain.
I tripped going up the stairs. Was the top floor still empty of people? There would be somewhere to hide until the helicopters came if it was. My teeth made so much racket. Why wouldn’t they stop chattering?
It was quieter at the top of the stairs, and I took a deep breath, but it didn’t help. Why was I winded? I’d hardly done anything. I found the room at the top that I’d been in before. I closed the door behind me and walked in. It was empty. That was good. That was just what I wanted.
The balcony beckoned me, and I walked toward it, throwing open the doors. No, Vermont wasn’t freezing in September. The lake was no longer frozen. It was actually lovely and the temperature might not have been bad if I wasn’t already freezing. I rubbed my arms as goosebumps broke out on them.
I coughed, and my chest threatened to seize in the movement.
I couldn’t stand here like this. I had to decide where to go. I blinked as a fog threatened to take down my vision. Why couldn’t I think? Why couldn’t I feel anything? Well… I could. If I wanted to give in, fear might bring me to my knees. No. Not until I found somewhere to hide. Was there a closet? Could I…
Turning around brought me up short. T stood in the doorway of the room. We stared at each other for a long second. I couldn’t breathe. Was there air? I didn’t know. Seeing him, knowing what he’d done…
I gasped for air. I couldn’t make my lungs work.
He rushed forward, and I must have cried out. Maybe I could breathe. Maybe it just felt like I couldn’t. Maybe nothing made sense.
“Everly.” His voice was low, scratchy, just as I’d remembered it. “What are you doing by the edge?”
By the edge? “What?”
He pointed at me. “By the balcony.”
Did he think I was going to jump? What a ridiculous idea. Why do the job for them? They were going to kill me. I didn’t have to make that easy for them to do. I didn’t want to die. I wanted to be left alone.
“I had to look. To see if there was water.” It was hard to talk with no air in my lungs and my teeth chattering like one of those Halloween toy mouths. Click. Click. Click.
He nodded. “Okay.”
I didn’t expect him to grab me, didn’t anticipate he’d haul me against him, but that was what he did. “You’re bleeding and you’re terrified, and Judson says that the medicine has to be making you feel loopy.”
He spoke in my ear; it was a low, soothing sound, but I wasn’t fooled. “Do you want to throw me off the balcony?”
“What?” He pulled back to look at me. “No, of course not. I just got you back. Why would I throw you off the balcony?”
“You always said you would kill me. I should have believed you. But did it have to be like that?”
He blinked fast. “Everly, I’m confused. I never said I was going to kill you… I think we had that back and forth where I said I would if I had to, but fuck, no. I’m not going to kill you, and I wasn’t going to kill you then either. What do you mean not like that? Are we still talking about the balcony?”
“You’ve got her?” D’s voice echoed in the empty room a second before he was right up against us. “Let me see her. What’s going on?”
“I’m not sure. She’s talking about killing her.” T didn’t let me go, and D tugged on my arm. I cried out. It was too much. There were too many hands on me, and that meant pain.
D dropped his arm. “She’s not okay.”
“Well we knew that when she got here. She is obviously not okay. Go call the others. Tell them I’ve got her. She’s bleeding somewhere. It’s all over her dress. And get that fucking kid up in the hallway. I don’t want him near her, but I want to talk to him. Now.”
He didn’t move right away, but D nodded. “Everly, we’ve got you, everything will be okay.”
“Nothing is okay. Nothing is going to ever be okay.”
“All right.” T swung me around in his arms until he held me like a baby. “Enough of this. Go. I’m taking her back to her bed. Now.”
D ran ahead of us, disappearing from view. “We’re going to sort all of this out. That much I promise you. I can’t fix this. But I will at least understand what you mean by the time we’re done. That much I promise you.”
How was he going to do that when nothing made any sense?
I didn’t remember getting back downstairs. The next thing that registered was the bed dipping as J sat on it. “Look what you did to yourself.” He made a tsk noise before he swabbed my hand, which burned. I blinked. At least I could feel that. “Don’t rip IVs out, Everly. We need this to be in you right now. It’s rehydrating you and giving you some antibiotics you need. If you don’t like the sedative, I can back it off. In fact, I think that’s a good idea. I’d like you a little bit more coherent. Some people get hit really hard, and I’m thinking you’re one of them.”
“That or she’s traumatized.” W spoke from where he stood by the window. I followed his voice until I found him.
“Well, she just tracked you. That’s a good sign. Yes, she’s traumatized. That doesn’t mean she can’t understand what’s happening around her.” J spoke to W, but I was pretty sure it was for my benefit. While I sat there, he bandaged my wound and started to prepare the other hand for what I assumed was going to be another IV.
T was on my other side. He shook his head slowly. “Judson, the things she said to me…”
“We’re not going to worry about right this second.” He shot T a look I couldn’t decipher and didn’t care to figure out.
“Why not just leave it, J? Or is this like fattening up the pig to eat it?”
He pushed the needle into my vein and seemed to staunchly ignore what I said. K walked over and placed a hand on the side of my face. “Can I get you anything, Everly?”
“Send me home.” There, I’d said it. If they really wanted to help me, they could let me go home.
His eyes narrowed a little bit. “You don’t want to go there. Your father is not on the right side of things and the Alliance can easily get you back from him. Trust me, the only safe place is with us.”
“You all wanted to see me?” The voice of the redhead who’d carried me out of Ben’s caught my attention, and I turned to look, which prompted J to put a strong hand on my shoulder. “Don’t move unless you want to bleed again. I’m not a nurse. They’re better at this. I could go get us one, but I’d rather you just let me do this myself. I don’t want that many people around you right now.”
D rounded on the newcomer. “I told you to wait in the fucking hall.”
“I’m sorry. I… I… I misunderstood.” Redhead took two steps back.
This was all too much. “Did you bring me here so they could torture me some more? I thought you were helping me.”
“I did, but I understand why you’d feel that way considering what Ben did and what he told you.”
All of them turned to him at the same time. J must have finished because he let go of the IV bag. It was W who finally spoke. “What do you mean by that, kid?”
If I was on the other end of that conversation, I wouldn’t have liked the way he said kid. It didn�
�t sound… happy.
“Ben told her how you traded her to him for Judson’s seat on the Council.” Redhead looked really confused. He rocked back on his feet and looked between all of them like he wasn’t sure which one of them wasn’t about to eat him. I had news for him, they were all capable of doing that at any moment. The truth was they lulled their victim into submission with moments of kindness and hot sex.
J rounded on me, and I flinched down to avoid what I was sure would be a strike to my face next. Instead, J touched my shoulder. He didn’t hit but that still might be coming. “Is that what you think?”
“Is there another explanation?” I closed my eyes. A headache formed and at least I could feel it. Everything else was just… nothingness.
“You didn’t tell us she was this bad.” It was W who spoke again. “You led us to believe she was okay. She is obviously not. What game are you playing?”
“I… I…” Redhead stuttered and I couldn’t tolerate it anymore.
“You’re terrifying him. If you want an answer, I’d try a different tactic.”
I realized what I said, and I slapped my hand over my mouth. Why did I do things like that? They were going to take away my food or lock me up longer or…
W nodded. “You’re right. All right, everyone out. She needs to rest. Maybe we could bring a television in here so she could have something to relax with. You,” he said, pointing at the redhead. “Back downstairs with everyone else. The helicopters are due soon. Then we’ll have another meeting and see how the day went.”
Dark Truths: Kiss Her Goodbye #2 Page 2
