Final Fall

by Heather W. Petty

  Trent never affirmed nor denied whether my guess was true, but I knew I was right when an expression of disgust filtered over his features as he turned me around and marched me back toward the barn. He didn’t say another word until I was in my cage, and even then it was only to tell me to step away from the gate. But I didn’t do as he said. I stayed right next to the bars, staring at him while he secured the lock. And I reached out to grab his hand before he could pull away.

  When he looked up at me, I said, “I’ll find a way.”

  “Find a way to what?” Alice asked, and the very sound of her voice made my whole body tense.

  I hadn’t heard her come into the barn, but I should have known she’d be out to gloat eventually. It was all I could do not to lunge through the bars for her again, but I managed to restrain myself. I withdrew my hand from Trent’s and turned to face her.

  “To escape? Not if you want to see your brothers again.”

  I clenched my jaw to keep from speaking and drew my hands into fists to keep still. I wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of seeing my true turmoil. Trent started to leave, but Alice held up a hand to make him stay.

  “Do you remember when I taught you about priming a mark, Mori? That you give them what they want and then they give you a favor in return?” Alice’s smile was almost predatory. “You just became my mark.”

  I kept myself steady only because I knew she was wrong. What was that she’d said all those weeks ago? When you do it right, the mark never knows he was conned? Well, I knew. And I wasn’t so easily cowed by her.

  “What do you want?”

  “It’s not about what I want. It’s what you want that matters here.” Alice let her fingers trail across the bars as she walked toward us, but I noticed that the nearer she got to me, the farther she retreated from the bars. When she finally faced me, she grinned. “You shouldn’t have come to the house, sweetie. You gave away what you want.”

  My brothers. It wasn’t some great reveal, but she was right. I had shown how much those boys were my weakness. What she obviously didn’t know was that they were also my strength. For them, I could burn this whole place down with her screaming inside and never look back. Just the thought of it brought a smile to my lips.

  “You let me see my brothers and then I do you a favor in return?”

  Alice nodded. “So smart, our Mori.”

  “What’s your favor?”

  “I need a soldier,” she said. “I need someone I can trust to play warrior by my side—to be my sword. Trent here is going to train you to do that.”

  “You think you can trust me?”

  “Of course I can, Mori. Because I have what you want. And if you want to see your brothers, you’ll train to fight for me.”

  “And if I don’t?”

  Alice paused for effect, and I tried very hard not to roll my eyes at her dramatics. “America is a very big place. If we go there without you. . .”

  She’d done it. Somehow Alice had discovered my greatest fear, the one thing that made these bars feel like they were closing in on me. I couldn’t lose my brothers. Not like that. Not to her.

  And I wouldn’t. She wanted to train me to be a soldier? Fine, but she was only crafting the weapon that would destroy her. I’d play along, but I’d be no one’s mark. Not for long, anyway. Let her think she’d won just up until the moment I was strong enough to beat her game. Then we’d walk free from that place, my brothers and me, hopefully while she watched, helpless to stop us.

  My expression must have given away something Alice had wanted to see just then, because she gave me a satisfied smile and turned to leave. “Your training starts tomorrow.”

  Yes, it does, I thought in return.

  Chapter 4

  Four months later. . .

  Margaret Atwood once wrote, “Oh, if revenge did move the stars instead of love, they would not shine.”

  She was wrong about that.

  Then why did you pick that quote for tonight? That’s what Lock would’ve asked, were he in Piddinghoe.

  Because I can see the stars, would be my reply. The stars made me think of the quote. But she’s wrong.

  Is she?

  For months my every thought has been about revenge, and still the stars shine. At least, what I could see of them through the small open hatch in the roof of my horse-stall prison. Not even the pulsing dark images of my father lying dead in a pool of his own blood and Alice kneeling and weeping over her unending ruin could mute their twinkling light.

  And if Lock were in the barn with me, by now he’d be fully entranced in one of his ridiculous experiments, ignoring me completely. Or perhaps lost in a book? His fingers forming the chords of a song on his violin so that the melody played in his mind, even when he never lifted his bow? And if he spoke, if he made any noise at all, it would be some monosyllabic sound meant to make me believe he was listening when it was clear he was not.

  Hmh.

  Even my pretend version of Lock was annoyingly noncommittal.

  You agree that she’s wrong.

  Obviously, though not for the reasons you give.

  Do enlighten.

  My pretend Lock looked at me with a raised brow. Stars move because of gravity. It has nothing at all to do with human emotion.

  Atwood’s was another failed quote, then. I was losing the game.

  “And losing my mind,” I whispered into the darkness, turning my head so that my imaginary Lock would fade away.

  I’d thought the physical constraints of Alice’s prison would be the hardest to survive over the months she’d held me captive in the countryside, but that wasn’t true. The sameness of every day was what clawed at my sanity. The schedule of it. The mind-numbing doldrums of set feedings, visitations, and training sessions, and the endless spaces between those events where I had nothing but my own mind to entertain me—that was what I could barely survive.

  So I’d created all these little games to fill the gaps. And a version of Sherlock Holmes to play them with me. The quote game I mostly played at night. I would rest a hand against the wall so that my thumb could trace the gouges I’d made on my first day there. Perfect little divots that represented all the promises I’d made to myself—one, to escape this cell; two, to make my brothers safe; three, to remove the threat of Alice and my father, and four. . .

  Four didn’t matter.

  But with those marks and my revenge at the forefront of my daily thoughts, I’d stare up at the rough square of sky I could see and let my mind float through all the words I’d read and heard in my schooling, trying to find a quote to fit my day and circumstances. Imaginary Lock always seemed to have something to say about whichever quote I chose. Never anything helpful, though.

  “Gravity,” I said bitterly.

  Recently we’d had three days in a row without rain, which was probably why my mind had settled around quotes about stars that night. Stars that I could barely see—and still I could see more of them than I’d ever seen in London. Not that the night sky would ever be enough to keep me from yearning for home.

  I could envision myself there, walking the streets of my city, surrounded by hundreds of pedestrians, the slow-moving traffic ebbing by. Nighttime in Regent’s Park and the luring scent of cloves emanating from the soft orange glow of Lock sneaking a drag in the shadows of my bandstand. Not a star in the sky. Just the radiant city lights.

  “If revenge did move the stars instead of love,” I said. And then I smiled. Maybe Ms. Atwood was right. London would be the place of my revenge, after all.

  I’d scarcely let visions of me stalking my father through the streets of London settle into my mind when I heard the soft squeak of a board shifting against its nails. And then I couldn’t see any stars at all, which meant it had begun—the test.

  I rolled off my cot just as a giant ball of netting fell down from the crossbeams above, unfurling to capture the now-empty space where I’d just been. I took advantage of the thwump of its fall to take cover in t
he corner by the bathroom that faced the barred gate. The bathroom had a roof now, and a canvas flap instead of a door—both part of Alice’s response to the various escape attempts I’d made whenever she’d kept me from my brothers for longer than I deemed acceptable. But they still hadn’t found my escape route through the alcove, and I wasn’t about to show them during a skills test.

  That left only one way out—through the gate.

  I started running the second I heard the click of the padlock so that by the time the gate slammed open I was crouched down beside it. Tonight’s sparring partner sprang into my cell and stood there like an idiot, legs parted in the stance Lucas always took when he thought he got the jump on me. Ridiculous man. I slid through the opening behind him, pulled the gate closed, and clicked shut the padlock, trapping him inside. Then I turned to glance around for my actual foe. I saw two figures by the door, but neither were Trent. He’d doubled the guard that night, though, which had to mean he knew I had a chance to beat him. That was all I needed, a chance.

  I rolled into the shadows, then used an upright bale of hay and a cast-iron lamp hanger to scurry up one of the barn’s support columns and into the rafters above. From there I could see them all—two of Alice’s men guarding the exit, and Lucas scouring every inch of the cell for me. He hadn’t even noticed he was locked in yet.

  I crawled slowly back into the slant of the roof and waited to find my opening. The wait was the hardest part of this little drill. My muscles were tense, heated from the paces I’d already put them through in my before-bed exercise routine. Adrenaline pumped through me, begging me to do something—anything. And somehow I had to stay still and silent, balanced precariously in the dusty space between the roof and my beam. All I could do was watch.

  I found Trent squeezed between a supply cabinet and wall stud near the main barn door, like he’d expected me to make a blatant run for it, like I hadn’t learned that lesson weeks ago. I was mostly sure I’d only seen him because he’d allowed it. The hideout was so well crafted, I briefly wondered how many times I’d run past it looking for my own place to hide.

  Even though he could have spied me from where he was, he took two steps forward, peering into every space large enough to house my form. His gaze turned upward then, landing first on the rafter where he’d found me the night before. He took a step back to look at the beams where he’d given himself away by hiding my stars. And though I knew his next step would give him a perfect view of me, I shifted my gaze away from him for a second or two, sure that something had moved near his original hideout. But no matter how I willed my vision to pierce the dim, there was nothing. No more movement. Not even the shine of eyes.

  “Well done, lass,” Trent said from almost directly below me. I’d been so focused on chasing ghosts while straining to hear the whispering sounds of his steps on the hay-covered floorboards, his voice sounded like shouting in my ears. I jerked my head toward the sound, and found him staring up at me. He lifted his arm to check his watch while keeping me in his sights. “No record tonight, though. Three minutes? You haven’t given yourself away this quickly in a month.”

  “Seeing me isn’t catching me, old man.”

  And then the chase was on. The bastard was up in the rafters before I could cross halfway to the other side, but I was faster jumping the beams. I lowered myself between two near the corner and landed on a soft pile of hay that had come loose from a bale. But I didn’t have time to rest. I slithered through the shadowed maze of stacked bales, saddle stands, and workbenches until an opening and a stall wall forced me out into the center of the main barn. I backed into a corner, but Trent’s thudding steps in my direction told me all my attempts at stealth had been for naught.

  Weapons. I’d run past tables full of them like an idiot, and the only thing I had in reach now was an old shop broom. Keeping as still as I could, I turned the handle to loosen it from the bristle base. The squeak of the wood as it turned sounded like a scream, alerting everyone of my location, but it didn’t matter. He knew exactly where I was.

  Thankfully, I knew where he was as well and ducked down to yank the handle free just as he threw his first punch. I felt his fist swish by my face and dropped lower to keep his elbow from connecting. I heard Lucas rattle the bars of my cage as I slammed the broom handle into the back of Trent’s left knee, dropping him down to where I was kneeling. Then I jabbed one end toward his face, but I misjudged my space, and the back of the handle slapped against a support column, sending the shock of the impact through my body.

  Trent paused just long enough to make me sure he was indulging in some kind of gloating smile, which was the only reason he didn’t capture me right then and there. I didn’t have another head shot, but I managed to knock his arm away and found my footing again. I hopped up on a workbench and used a loose piece of siding to hoist myself up in the rafters once more before he could recover.

  Lucas had found a way out of my cell by then and stomped around the barn, pushing aside bales of hay and boxes and anything else I might’ve hid behind. His search was crude and ridiculous, but not quite useless. It did well enough to distract me. I lost precious seconds watching him when I should have kept moving, and by the time I caught myself, Trent was only two rafters from where I was balanced.

  Still, if  Trent could use Lucas, so could I.

  I held on to the rafter and lowered myself down just enough to hang there. “Lucas! She’s over here!” I whisper-shouted.

  As expected, he ran toward the sound of my voice. I pulled my feet up until he was right under me, then let go so that I landed on his back. I immediately pushed off, ready to use Lucas as a shield for when Trent inevitably dropped from the rafters somewhere near us, but Trent never showed. Which meant he was definitely up to something.

  Still, that left me Lucas to deal with, and either he was quicker on his game that night or he clobbered me by mistake. But somehow his fist connected with my jaw as he turned, which made me stumble into a stack of hay. My ear started to ring and my jaw ached, but I smiled through the pain, just like Trent had taught me.

  In one of our first lessons, he’d said, “Two keys to winning a fight: stamina and learning to take a hit. If you can smile through the pain and keep standing up, you’ve a better chance to win, even if the other guy’s bigger than you.”

  I’d taken seven punches that day, surprising my new teacher and myself, which made Lucas’s half-assed hit feel almost playful. But his second hit wouldn’t be, so I shook the ringing from my head and licked the blood from my split lip. When Lucas rushed me, I used the bindings on the hay to brace myself, lifted both legs, and kicked him as hard as I could in the chest. He stumbled back a few steps and I ran forward, following up with another kick to the sternum, so that he went down hard, breaking through an old, broken saddle stand in the process.

  I knew he wouldn’t stay down for long, and I was preparing to face him again, when I heard a soft groan over by the main doors. I started to run for a workbench, planning to duck behind it to get my bearings, but Trent appeared on the other side before I reached it. Thankfully, I was right. Lucas didn’t stay down long. Before either of us could make a move, Lucas stumbled between us, his back to me.

  “Where’d she go?” he asked Trent.

  “Thanks, Luc,” I said into the back of the poor man’s head. “I owe you.” And then I swept Lucas’s legs, destroying his already precarious balance, and pushed him into Trent. The two fell in a painful heap on the floor, with Lucas taking the worst of it, but I didn’t stick around to see how he fared. With a soundtrack of growling and grunting as the men disentangled themselves, I ran for where I’d left my broomstick. Which meant I was ready when Trent staggered toward me.

  I could’ve cracked his skull with my stick had I wanted to. But I still needed Trent alive, and besides, I’d come to like the man. So instead of using my weapon to strike him, I jumped aside at the last minute and used it to guide him right into one of the rusted-out toolboxes under the workb
ench. He still might have cracked his skull, I supposed. But I couldn’t worry about that. The important part was that he didn’t move.

  I’d finally won!

  “ ‘These violent delights have violent ends,’ ” I said, smiling down at his crumpled body. I wiped a drop of blood from the corner of my mouth with my thumb. “Shakespeare. His worst play and it’s still a better fit than the Atwood.”

  My satisfied sigh was lost in the sound of a loud conversation outside.

  “What? And you’re only telling me now?!”

  Alice’s shout sent the other guards in the barn into a frenzy, but when the lights came on, everyone froze in place. Trent wasn’t the only prone figure on the dirt floor of the barn. His arm had flopped out in such a way that it appeared to be pointing at another figure, clothed in black like the rest of the guards and lying completely still in the dust.

  No one else moved, so I crept closer, still cognizant of Alice’s shouts just on the other side of the barn door. I rolled the man onto his back, only to find that the whole front of his jacket was wet. When I lifted my hand, I saw blood. When I lifted my gaze, I saw the deep cut along his neck.

  “Grady,” I whispered.

  I didn’t suppose anyone heard me say the name of the dead man over the scolding entrance of Alice Stokes. “Where is Trent? And what the hell is she doing out of her cell?”

  Exactly two seconds later, Alice screamed.

  Chapter 5

  By the time Trent woke up and figured out what had happened, I was in my cell drying my newly washed hands with a towel. Trent crawled over to lean against my bars, though he still held his head, clearly in pain. Everyone else stood around Grady’s body, like they thought that staring at it long enough would somehow help them figure out how the hell it got there. Alice, of course, jumped immediately to the most unreasonable conclusion.