His hand clenches around the pendant, and he leans down to capture my gaze with his. “I will always love you.”
His arms flex, pulling me against his chest, and his lips hover just above mine, our breath mingling in the dazzling morning air.
“I love you,” he whispers and then he kisses me again, his lips rough against mine, his breathing ragged as he devours my fear and makes me long to feel this way forever.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
LOGAN
We don’t push ourselves on the return trip to Baalboden. I tell Rachel it’s to let my rib heal, and I think she believes me. But really, I just want time with her. Time to lie next to her at night, holding her against me while I watch the rotation of the stars. Time to walk beside her during the day and try to draw her into conversation so we can get what has hurt her out into the open, where it can start to heal.
I ache to hear her tell me she loves me, but forcing her to put words to how she feels pushes her further into the silence she seems comfortable calling home now. I tell myself to be patient and understanding, but inside there’s a longing only those words will fill, and it hurts to ignore it.
I’m restless. Hungry for something she keeps just out of my reach. It doesn’t help that Quinn and Willow are traveling with us. As grateful as I am for their assistance, having others within earshot cuts down significantly on the things I’d like to share with Rachel. So, at the end of another day’s journey, when Willow announces she wants meat for dinner and is going hunting, I look Quinn straight in the eye and say, “You should go with her.”
“Logan.” Rachel puts her hand on my arm.
“I don’t need help bringing down a rabbit,” Willow says.
“But there might be highwaymen out there. Or more trackers from Rowansmark. It never hurts to be cautious.” I look at Quinn. “You should go.”
They all stare at me in silence for a second before Willow says, “Why don’t you just come right out and say, ‘Hey, I want private time with Rachel so I can kiss her senseless like I did at the lake’?”
“Willow!” Quinn frowns at her.
“That’s not what he meant,” Rachel says, refusing to look at me.
Willow laughs. “Yes, it is. He’s itching to get his hands on you without an audience.”
“That’s not what he meant,” Rachel says again, pink flushing her cheeks.
“Actually, I meant—” I start to say, but Willow cuts me off.
“What? It’s true. He looks at you like he’d like to dip you in sugar and eat you up.”
“Willow Runningbrook, that’s enough.” Quinn’s eyes flash, and I catch a glimpse of something feral beneath his smooth exterior. It’s gone as soon as I see it, submerged beneath the calm he wears like a second skin.
Willow tosses her hands into the air. “Apparently, honesty is a crime in this group. Look.” She points at Rachel. “You’re all, ‘Revenge is all I want! I’ll figure out my love life later!’ and he”—she points to me—“is afraid revenge will kill you before he has a chance to really touch you—”
“No, he isn’t.”
I step forward. “Willow has a point.”
“Willow needs to learn to share only those observations that others ask her to share.” Quinn steps forward as well.
Willow shrugs and shoulders her bow. “I got tired of tiptoeing around the obvious.” She winks at me. “How much time do you need to kiss her senseless?”
“He’s not going to—”
“At least an hour,” I say, dragging Rachel into my arms and kissing her before she can say another word.
I don’t hear Willow leave or Quinn follow her. I can’t hear anything beyond the wild pounding of my heart and the soft catch of Rachel’s breath as I fist my hands in the back of her tunic and pull her against me like I can’t stand to have a single sliver of air between us.
“Logan.” Her voice is as shaky as the hand she puts on my chest, and I can’t bear it. I can’t bear to hear her tell me to stop. To pull back. I can’t bear to be apart from her when she’s all I have.
“Don’t,” I say, and she tilts her head back to look at me. “Don’t keep me at a distance.”
“Who said anything about keeping you at a distance?” Her smile lingers in her eyes.
But when she leans in to kiss me, I’m the one who pulls back because suddenly just being with her isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
“Logan?”
I close my eyes and reach for the courage to ask her to give me the words I need.
Her lips brush mine, sweet and hesitant, and I open my eyes. She’s all I can see. All I can taste when I breathe in. Her body molds itself to mine like she was made for me, and I want her to feel it too. To acknowledge it.
To hope for it in the middle of so much hopelessness.
“Rachel, I need …” The words won’t come. I don’t know how to say that I need everything she is without making it sound like more than she can give.
Please don’t let it be more than she can give.
“What do you need?” Her face is luminous beneath the golden fingers of the waning sun.
And suddenly the words are there, falling into place like I always knew the way to reach her. “I need to know what you need. What you want. Not from the device, not from the Commander, but from me.”
She stiffens, shoulders lifting toward her jaw as if to protect herself from a blow she has to know I’ll never deliver.
“Please.” I can barely push the word out. “Please, Rachel. Look past the loss, the grief. Look at me.”
She closes her eyes. I feel like I’ve been slashed open inside where no one will ever see me bleed. But then she takes a deep breath, relaxes her shoulders, and looks at me, tears filling her eyes.
“I need you, Logan. Just you.”
I tighten my grip on her tunic. “Why?”
“Because I still love you.” Her voice catches. “I never stopped. I thought I had. I wanted to. But somehow … it’s like part of you lives inside the most important part of me, and I don’t know how to separate the two.” Tears spill over, tracing a glistening path down her cheeks. “I love you, Logan.”
Joy surges through me, brilliant and wild. I cup her face in my hands and wipe away her tears. “I love you too, Rachel. Always.” And then I do my best to use the full hour I’ve been given to kiss her senseless.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
RACHEL
I can’t sleep. My lips are still swollen from Logan’s kisses, and the ache I feel for him wants to spill out of my fragile skin, envelop me, and tempt me to forget everything that lies ahead.
But I can’t. Beneath the ache, the silence lives within me, demanding justice for Dad. For Oliver. For all of us. Willow accused me of wanting nothing but revenge. She was wrong.
I want redemption.
I just don’t think I can get it without exacting revenge first.
After tossing and turning on the soft bed of moss I made for us, I give up trying to sleep. I’m careful not to wake Logan as I get up. He looks peaceful beneath the pale light of the stars. I want to trace the lines of his face and memorize the way his skin feels beneath my fingertips, but I don’t. He needs to rest until it’s time for him to take the night watch shift from Quinn.
I walk a few paces away and sit with my back to a thick, silver-trunked oak. A few yards to my left, Willow sleeps in her tree cradle, her bow in hand. I don’t see Quinn, but it doesn’t matter. I didn’t get up for conversation. Besides, his calm stoicism is unnerving, and I never know what to say to him.
I sit in silence, listening to the distant hooting of an owl and the occasional whisper of a breeze as it tangles itself within the leaves above me. It’s the first time in days that I haven’t had someone talking to me, watching me, or expecting something from me. It doesn’t take long for my thoughts to fill the void with violent images. Oliver’s eyes growing distant as his blood spills onto me. Logan’s mother lying at the Commander’s feet, her back flayed
raw, slipping away from her little boy until there’s nothing left. Dad, risking everything to keep the Commander from gaining a weapon he could use to obliterate any opposition, and then giving his life to save Quinn and Willow and trusting Logan and me to finish his mission.
“Want company?” Quinn asks quietly. I have no idea how long he’s been standing in front of me.
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say no, but I was wrong. I do want conversation. Even with Quinn. Anything to save me from the overwhelming images in my head.
“Sure,” I say, and he sits against the tree across from me, his long legs folded under him, his eyes scanning the area before coming back to rest on me.
“I hate it when people ask me how I’m doing,” he says as if this conversational opener should make sense to me. And strangely, it does. Because the last thing I want to be asked right now is how I’m doing.
“I wasn’t going to ask you that.”
He smiles, a flash of white teeth against his dark skin. “I’ll return the favor.”
We sit in silence for a moment, then he says, “You’re a lot like your dad, you know.”
The words both hurt and heal, and I don’t know how to respond.
“He always seemed so sure of himself, didn’t he?” he asks.
“Because he always knew what to do.”
Quinn smiles again, yet I swear I see sadness on his face. “No one always knows what to do, Rachel. We all just do the best we can with what we’ve got. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it ruins everything.”
He looks away, and the breeze tugs at his black hair.
I say the words before I really think them through. “What did you do that ruined everything?”
“It’s complicated.”
I know the feeling. I’m about to back out of the conversation with the excuse of needing more sleep when he takes a deep breath and looks at me.
“I killed a man too. I thought I had to. I’m still not sure if I was right, but because of my actions, Willow and I were cast out of our village.” His voice is low and steady, but sadness runs beneath it. He sits in silence for a moment, then says, “What’s been done is done. I’ve had to learn how to live with what was left.”
Shock robs me of speech for a moment. I lean closer to study his face, looking for the lie. For proof he’s saying what he thinks I need to hear so he can gain my trust. The only thing I find in his expression is naked truth. I feel like an intruder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry.”
He leans forward and traces patterns into the soil at his feet. “You aren’t prying. You asked because you know how it feels to think you’ve ruined everything. You’re hoping if my story has a happy ending, there’s hope for yours.”
I shift uneasily against the tree trunk. I’m not sure I want to know, but I have to ask, “Does yours have a happy ending?”
His finger pauses, pressing into the dirt as he slowly raises his head to look at me. “I don’t know. I haven’t reached the end.”
“Oh. I guess I thought … you seem so settled. So comfortable with yourself and others. I thought maybe you—”
“Had answers? I might.” He shrugs. “But they’re answers I had to find for myself. I don’t think they’ll work for anyone else.”
I should probably feel awkward, sitting in the dirt across from a boy I barely know talking about the things that haunt us, but instead, I feel a tiny sliver of comfort. Here is someone who understands. Who knows what it feels like to have blood on his hands and not know if the guilt he feels should be his to bear alone. And he isn’t broken. He’s found a measure of peace, with himself and with others.
It gives me hope that someday, after I’m finished with the Commander, I might be able to shatter the silence inside me, grieve for those I’ve lost, and find a way to forgive myself for what I’ve caused. Someday, I might find my own measure of peace.
He leans back, and we sit in companionable silence while the tree branches creak and shiver in the wind and the stars slowly trek across the vast darkness of the sky above us.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
LOGAN
“Absolutely not.” Quinn’s tone discourages any argument.
“But they might need us.” Willow stands, arms crossed over her chest, staring her brother down across the fire at our final camping spot before reaching Baalboden.
I couldn’t care less about their argument. Whether they come with us or move on. I’m too busy running through tomorrow’s plan of action, looking for weaknesses.
“You don’t want to go into Baalboden with them because they might need you,” Quinn says. “You want to go because you want to see if they can take out their leader.”
“That’s definitely a side benefit.”
“Which is why I’m saying no.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re no fun anymore, you know that?”
He freezes and something dark flashes through his eyes. That’s the second time I’ve seen hints that what goes on beneath his surface doesn’t always match the calm he wears on the outside. Which won’t matter if he chooses to move on.
But if he stays in Baalboden once the Commander has been defeated, I’m going to have to keep an eye on him.
Willow slowly uncurls her arms and says, “I didn’t mean to say that.”
“I know.” He turns away and begins gathering what he’ll need to make a tree-cradle bed for her.
“Quinn.” She hurries to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders.
“You think I don’t know you’re paying the price for my actions?” he asks quietly, and the pain in his voice seems to hit Willow hard. “Every moment of every day I carry the burden for causing you to be an outcast with me.”
Definitely more going on beneath his surface than he wants us to know. I wonder what he did that caused the two of them to be punished like this.
Willow’s lips tremble, and she steps in front of him to make him look at her. “I chose you. Do you hear me, Quinn Runningbrook? You’re all the family I need.”
They walk to the edge of our campsite, talking in low tones. I give up speculating about what kind of crime would cause a Tree Village to cast out two of their own, and run through Worst Case Scenarios for tomorrow instead. In a few moments, Willow disappears up a tree, and Quinn returns, his face shadowed.
“We’ll go no further. Our debt to Jared has been paid.” His eyes seek out Rachel’s and linger. “Be safe.”
I slide my arm around her shoulders and pull her closer to me. “We will.”
“Where will you go?” Rachel asks.
He shrugs. “We’ll find another Tree Village to take us in. Somewhere far from our first home.”
“But the next closest Tree Village is a two-week journey east,” she says, and turns to me. “They could live in Baalboden, couldn’t they? Once the Commander is gone?”
I didn’t realize she’d come to care for Quinn and Willow, and I wish she could let them go. I could lie and say it’s because I can hardly guarantee any stability in Baalboden until after we succeed in restructuring the government, but the truth is I don’t like the interest in Quinn’s eyes when he looks at Rachel.
I can’t tell her that, but I look at Quinn and make sure my expression doesn’t match my words as I say, “Of course they can. But they might not feel comfortable living on the ground.”
Quinn smiles. “We’ll camp here for several days. See how it goes in Baalboden. We can decide what to do at the end of the week.” His eyes are still on Rachel.
She smiles back. “Good. Once the Commander is gone, we’ll see about finding you and Willow a place. There are plenty of trees in Baalboden.”
My smile feels stretched thin as I say, “Thank you for helping Rachel and for assisting me. I won’t forget it.” I stand and shake Quinn’s outstretched hand. His eyes flick toward me, and then he looks once more at Rachel, nods, and backs out of the clearing to take the first night watch.
I bank the fire and sit beside Rachel to talk though our plan
one last time. I’ve barely started running scenarios when she interrupts.
“You’re not tall enough to pass as Melkin.”
It’s the same argument she’s been using for hours now.
“I’m tall enough. Plus, only Melkin knew the signal to give.”
“Only Melkin and his wife. Who was next to you in the dungeon. You don’t think the Commander might be expecting you to show up like this?”
She has a point, but since the only other recourse is to let her face the Commander herself, I keep arguing.
“It doesn’t matter what he expects. He wants this”—I point to the device lying on a cloth between us—“too much to stay away. By the time he realizes it’s me, he’ll see I have the device and he’ll start negotiating.”
Her laugh is bitter. “He doesn’t negotiate, Logan. He executes.”
“Which is why I’ll be the one taking the risk. Just in case.”
“I can handle it.”
Of course she can. But I can’t handle it if it all goes wrong, and I have to watch her die.
“I need you to call the Cursed One for me. I need you to stay out of sight and use Melkin’s staff to call the beast before the Commander takes the device from me.”
“Oh, that’s just perfect. We take revenge on the Commander, and all I get to do is shove a stick into the ground? No. I promised Oliver and Dad I would kill him. I’m not going back on that.”
“And I promised I would always protect you. So—”
“So use Melkin’s stick in time to call the Cursed One before—”
“No!”
“I have to kill him. I have to. It’s the only way I’ll have peace.”
She’s shaking. Maybe we both are. My emotions are running so high I can hardly think straight. I can’t allow Rachel to take the risk, but if I don’t, I’m not sure she’ll ever forgive me.
Best Case Scenario: She evades any treachery on the Commander’s part and remembers which combination of finger pads controls the Cursed One so she can turn the beast against him without dying herself.
Defiance Page 27
