The Last Sanctuary Omnibus

by Kyla Stone

  Her mother pulled up a chair and sat hunched next to the bed, Amelia’s limp hand clutched between her gloved ones. “How is the pain?”

  Everything hurt. Everything burned. Her eyes felt like they were being pierced with needles. A war raged inside her body, a war she appeared to be losing. She drifted in and out of consciousness, carried on a river of molten lava. “How long have I been here?” she croaked.

  “Three days.”

  Her mother could have said weeks or months, and Amelia would have believed it. Pain had a way of stretching time. Each ticking second was agony.

  Her mother pursed her lips. “I’ve wanted to talk to you for a long time, sweetheart . . . I thought if I gave you your space, you’d come around. I thought you needed time.”

  Amelia turned toward the wall and coughed. “I guess we’ve run out of time.”

  “Don’t say that,” her mother said fiercely. “Please.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t have to talk. Will you listen to me?”

  “Doesn’t look like I have much of a choice, does it?” She was being difficult, like Silas. Even in her delirium, she recognized that. It made her feel guilty.

  Her mother shook her head. “I know you’re angry with me. You have every right to be. But there are things I didn’t get to tell you before. I’m going to tell you now. I want to tell you how I met your fa—Declan.”

  “I know.” She’d heard the story a hundred times: how they just happened to meet at the hotel where he’d presented his findings on an experiment with epilepsy patients, how fate brought them together, Declan Black whisking her mother off her feet, how he’d saved them both.

  “You don’t.” Her mother wiped a cool cloth across her forehead and checked the IV fluids dripping into Amelia’s right arm. “I came from a poor family. My parents died young when the cholera epidemic hit twenty-five years ago. My grandma claimed she couldn’t afford to raise me, but she just didn’t want the burden of a child. I bounced around the foster system until one day, I decided to run. The streets are a vicious, dangerous place for a girl, especially if you have something men want—like beauty.”

  She paused, biting her lower lip. “But I found a way. I’m not proud of some of the things I did, but I survived.”

  Amelia could do nothing but stare at her mother, stunned. For a moment, the burning fever seemed to fade for a moment. She never imagined her graceful, intelligent, beautiful mother as anything but a noble, aristocratic elite, a queen of society. She’d never said a word differently.

  “Then one day, I realized I was pregnant,” her mother continued. “I was twenty. I had no family, no one to call my own. I was all alone in a harsh world—until I felt you growing inside me.”

  She paused again, her face contorting. “It would have been easier to end things, but I knew. I knew you belonged with me. But I couldn’t keep sleeping in tent cities and scavenging for my next meal. When I was four months pregnant, I fled New York City. I went back to my grandmother and begged her to take me in. Because I was pregnant, she agreed. She wasn’t a good woman, Amelia. She was selfish and didn’t know the first thing about love. But I felt I had no choice. You were more important.”

  Amelia half-wondered if she was still delirious and this was some bizarre dream. She forced her arm to move—it was so heavy, so exhausting to tell her brain to make her muscles stretch and contract—and reached inside her shirt for her charm bracelet. The platinum metal was warm from her own smoldering skin.

  She pushed the point of the violin into the tip of her finger, keeping her focused, keeping her present. If this was real, she wanted to drink up every word. Her mother was finally speaking the truth.

  “You transformed my life.” Her hand fluttered to the hollow of her throat. “I never knew love like the love I had for you.”

  “Mom—” She started, but she didn’t know what else to say. Black spots flickered in front of her eyes.

  Her mother brushed a damp tendril of hair back from her face. “I need you to hear this, Amelia. I know I was wrong not to tell you before. So please, let me tell you now.”

  Amelia fell silent. She nodded.

  “You were six weeks old when you had your first seizure. I rushed you to the hospital and they diagnosed you with a mutation of Dravet’s Syndrome, the deadliest form of epilepsy. I was devastated. I couldn’t lose the one good, perfect thing in my life. I couldn’t believe there wasn’t a cure, not in this day and age. I started reading science journals, scouring the net for anything remotely related to researching epilepsy.

  “That’s when I stumbled on an article Declan wrote about his research, studying the effects of utilizing nanoparticles on medications crossing the blood-brain barrier in epilepsy patients. I found a conference where he was presenting. I stole my grandmother’s savings and spent it on the finest dress and haircut I could afford. I went to that hotel and waited for him.”

  Her hand lifted to the hollow of her throat. “I told him about you to pique his interest, and then I did what I had to do to make him fall in love with me.”

  Amelia’s eyes widened. “You—seduced him?”

  “Use whatever words you prefer. I did whatever I needed to do to save you.”

  “So . . .” Amelia tried to get her sluggish brain to work, to fit the facts together like puzzle pieces. But they still didn’t fit. She dug the tip of the violin against her fingertip. “You never loved him.”

  “Love for him never factored into my decision,” her mother said, an edge of iron in her voice. “He saved you with the medication he created. I convinced him to use it on you, even though the FDA wouldn’t approve it. I knew it would work. And it did.”

  “He terrorized all of us!” She thought of Declan’s hard, unflinching gaze, his lip curled in contempt, wielding his words as a weapon as she cowered before him, weak and terrified. That same familiar fear she’d suffered her entire life knifed through her. She shuddered.

  Her mother squeezed her hand. Her gloved fingers were cold and rubbery. “I had to make a choice, Amelia. Stay with a hard, brutal man and have my precious daughter alive and well, or flee and cut out my own beating heart. You needed that medication, and I could only get it from Declan. You’d be severely mentally impaired or brain-dead without it.”

  Or dead, Amelia thought blearily. “You could have stockpiled the medication, stolen the formula—”

  “Declan Black is many things, but he isn’t stupid. He kept the formula and the medication in a highly secured location. He doled it out month by month, only three auto-injectors at a time. It was all I could do to get the extra bottle to keep in my purse.” She leaned over the bed and wiped a strand of hair from Amelia’s sweating face.

  Darkness swirled at the corners of her mind. It was too much to take in, too fast. Her foundation shifted beneath her, things she believed her whole life suddenly disintegrating to nothing but dust between her fingers. “Mom—”

  “It was the hardest decision of my life to stay with a man like Declan Black, to watch helplessly as he hurt me and my children over and over, day after day. Little by little, year after year, the abuse wore me down, too, until I didn’t even recognize myself. I—I nearly lost myself. But I endured. Do you understand? I endured.”

  All this time, Amelia blamed her mother for the pain she endured. She believed her mother was a coward, too weak to defend herself, let alone her children. Amelia’s own fear had blinded her from seeing clearly. Even with the fever roaring through her, she could see clearly now. Amelia tried to speak, but her throat was thick with emotion.

  “You once asked me how I could stay with a monster. I hope you can understand now. Everything I’ve ever done, I did for you.”

  Use what you have, her mother told her once. It helped Amelia survive Kane. It helped her mother survive a cruel marriage. Her mother had only herself—and she’d willingly sacrificed herself to keep Amelia alive. Tears squeezed between her eyelids.

  Her mother wiped them away.
She leaned in close, her hands on either side of Amelia’s face. “But I’m not sorry,” she whispered. “I will never, not for one second, be sorry.”

  “I’m the one—that’s sorry,” she whispered.

  Her mother shook her head. “No. Don’t be sorry, darling. Be strong.”

  28

  Micah

  Micah took the night shift at Amelia’s bedside. The tent walls billowed silently around them like a cocoon. The PPE suit he wore was hot, bulky, and uncomfortable. But Amelia’s suffering was worse. It was the least he could do to make sure she was never alone.

  This was their sixth evening at Sweet Creek Farms, the eleventh day since the infected man coughed blood in Amelia’s face. He couldn’t believe how little time had passed. Every day seemed like a month.

  It was the beginning of November, only two months since the Grand Voyager’s departure from the Manhattan terminal that fateful day in September. Only sixty days for the world to be irrevocably shattered.

  Amelia groaned, trapped in another restless dream. Her face was chalk-white, sweat filming her forehead. Tendrils of damp hair stuck to her neck and cheeks. She stank of sickness, the fever-heat emanating off her in waves.

  She twisted, moaning and flailing, almost yanking out her IV. “No, no, no!” she whimpered, her eyes rolling frantically beneath her lids.

  “Amelia!” Micah squeezed her hand, steadying her arm to protect the IV.

  She woke with a gasp. Her eyes were red and wild when they focused on him. She jerked her hand out of his grasp. “Don’t touch me!”

  He pulled his hands back, lifting them in a gesture of surrender. “It’s okay. You’re okay. You’re safe.”

  She was trembling like a bird. Micah longed to wrap her in his arms. He started, shoving the thought out of his mind. He couldn’t think those things. Amelia wasn’t his, and she never would be. He knew that, accepted it. Still, he cared for her, more than he wanted to admit.

  He’d felt something when he first heard her play the violin in the Oasis dining room, her bow sweeping over the strings, her fingers coaxing out each sweet, vibrant note as the haunting song thrummed through his bones, filling him with awe. When he looked at her, he saw beauty, not just in her face, but in her soul.

  Gabriel would tease him for that, he thought ruefully, before remembering afresh that he’d never get to share such feelings with his brother again.

  Sweat rolled down the sides of Amelia’s pale, stricken face. She sucked in a ragged breath and shook her head. “I’m sorry.”

  “Was it him?” he asked softly.

  She didn’t answer. She didn’t need to.

  He knew who haunted her. “He can’t hurt you anymore. He’s dead, remember?”

  She closed her eyes. “Not in my head. Not in my dreams.”

  Micah’s gut twisted. Kane was still inside her like a poison. Anger rose in him, so white-hot it was nearly hatred—for Kane, who was dead and beyond vengeance; for Gabriel, for turning her over to that monster; and for himself, for trusting Gabriel with her safety in the first place. His belief in his brother had almost gotten her killed.

  “You’re safe now.” The absolute irony of those words did not escape him. She was the furthest from safe she could possibly be.

  She didn’t answer, only stared up at the tent ceiling, panting, her eyes glassy. She squeezed something in her right hand. Someone—probably Elise—had taken the charm bracelet from the leather thong around her neck and given it to her to hold.

  “Do you want water? More pain meds?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He watched her face carefully. “Everyone sends you their love. Even Horne and Celeste.”

  “Ha,” she said. “I doubt it.”

  “Finn wanted to come in, but you know . . .”

  The corner of her mouth twitched. “He couldn’t fit inside the suit.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Silas.” It wasn’t a question. He could tell by the tension in her expression that she hadn’t expected him to come, but it hurt her anyway.

  Micah scrambled for something, anything, to say to take that pain away. “Silas, ah, had a project he was finishing—he said he’s planning to come—”

  “You’re a terrible liar, Micah.”

  He shifted uncomfortably, biting back another flash of anger. Silas had disappeared after the FEMA fiasco. Micah hardly saw him for meals, and even then, he sulked alone at a table in the corner. He didn’t doubt that Silas was suffering, grieving in his own way. But Silas couldn’t abandon Amelia just because he couldn’t deal with it. She needed him. “I’m sorry. But he should be here.”

  She gave a resigned sigh. She knew her brother better than anyone, after all. “Tell him I’m not angry, okay? He’ll need to hear that.”

  He wanted to argue with her, but how could he? “I’ll tell him. I promise.”

  “Tell me something beautiful,” she said after a moment.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got all those books filling your head. Books I always wanted to read, but it was my music that filled me.” Her fingers clutched the violin charm. “But I can’t hear it now. It’s like the notes are fading. So give me something else.”

  “Okay,” he said, thinking. “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is . . .” He hesitated on the last line, but said it anyway. “Even if we’re apart . . . I’ll always be with you.”

  She gave him a tiny smile. “That’s brilliant. What literary giant said that?”

  “It’s from Winnie the Pooh.”

  She snorted, then managed a strangled laugh. “Why am I not surprised?”

  He resisted the urge to grab her hand. “You can talk to me, you know.” He wanted to do something to let her know he was there for her. But she wouldn’t let him, even now, even as sick as she was. Even as she was dying. As much as it hurt him, he had to accept that. “I’m your friend. You can trust me.”

  She remained silent for a long moment. “Do you still believe in forgiveness?”

  “Yes,” he said slowly, considering. Once upon a time, he would’ve said yes immediately. Not anymore. “Though it depends on the context, the person, and their motivation.”

  “Leave it to you to complicate everything,” she mumbled.

  Micah forced a smile. “I try.”

  “Well, you give great deathbed advice.”

  His eyes burned. “Amelia, don’t—"

  She waved her hand weakly. “It was a joke. A pretty lame one, I guess.”

  “Seriously lame.”

  “I was never very good at funny . . .”

  “I’m pretty sure that’s not a requirement of friendship.”

  Her gaze met his, her brow wrinkled in pain. Her eyes were so bloodshot they were almost crimson. “What about Gabriel?”

  He flinched. “I don’t know. It’s different. With him, there are . . . extenuating circumstances.”

  “I think he’s the definition of extenuating circumstances.” She turned her head and coughed into a white hand towel.

  “Are you okay?”

  She ignored his question. “Will you ever forgive him?”

  “I . . .” His heart twisted. His thoughts and feelings about his brother were too dark, tangled, and confusing. Just us. Always. He didn’t want to think about that now. “I don’t know.”

  She coughed again, a deep, wet, rattling sound that raised the hairs on the back of Micah’s neck. When she drew the towel back from her lips, it was splattered with blood.

  “Amelia—”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” She folded the towel and laid it on her chest. If she saw the blood, she ignored it. “I think I’d do a lot of things differently . . . if I had the chance.”

  “Me, too.”

  “But not everything . . .” She closed her eyes, exhaustion lining her face. She rubbed her charm bracelet. “I wish I could play the violin again. I want to hea
r it—” she placed her hand over her heart, “—here.”

  “I know.” It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. He watched a single bloody tear track down her cheek. The hemorrhaging had started. The beginning of the end.

  Helplessness washed over him. He wished he could promise her something—that he could protect her, could take away the pain. Everything he wanted to say would sound stupid or ridiculous. So much was meaningless in the face of true suffering. “I’m gonna sit here, okay? I’m not going anywhere. I won’t leave.”

  Time passed. He couldn’t keep track of the minutes ticking away, marking the last hours of Amelia’s life. The thought made his heart constrict. She was too young. Too talented and brave and beautiful.

  It was a long time before he saw her wrinkled brow relax, the tension in her face finally melting to unconsciousness.

  After a while, Elise came in and sat next to him. Even through her protective helmet, he could see her pain and exhaustion. “You’re a good boy,” she said quietly.

  He didn’t know what to say to that that didn’t involve tearful blubbering, so he said nothing. He stared at the white walls until his vision blurred, praying for Amelia long into the night.

  It seemed like his prayers bounced off the tent ceiling and fell back into his lap, just as useless as he felt. But there was nothing else he could do, so he prayed anyway.

  Micah woke to shouting. He leapt to his feet, adrenaline flushing through his veins. For a frantic moment, he didn’t know where or when he was.

  His glasses half-fell off his face, and he shoved them back on. He glimpsed white fabric walls, the plastic-covered floor, and Amelia, silent and motionless in her bed.

  The nurse leaned over the bed, trying to roll her onto her side. Elise stood on her other side, yanking the auto-injector from Amelia’s pouch on the bedside table. Amelia was unnaturally stiff, her face blue-tinged and masklike, eyes closed, her tongue lolling out of her mouth.

  “How do I help?” Micah cried.

  Elise grabbed the auto-injector and plunged it into Amelia’s neck. Amelia’s body went rigid.