Ashlyn had always sighed over those stories, had tucked them deep in her heart to remember when she was alone. She had always secretly wanted a prince to gallop into the Institute and sweep her onto his white steed, riding off into the sunset to a land untainted by old voices. He never had. And that had been for the best, because she'd learned to rely on herself.
"Well?"
"Fairy tales teach determination, perseverance and sacrifice. Well, I'm determined, I'll persevere, but what do I sacrifice?" A shudder racked her. Would she be asked to sacrifice her relationship with Maddox? He was everything to her. To save him, though… anything. Even—her stomach clenched, churned—that. "I'm not a princess, and my life is hardly a fairy tale."
A chuckle. "Well, don'tcha want it to be?" A pause. "Ah, shit. Your enemy approaches. Think about what I said and we'll powwow later."
"But you didn't really say anything!"
A second passed and the air seemed to deaden, all sense of life vanishing.
"Better now?" McIntosh suddenly asked.
Ashlyn's eyelids popped open. When had she closed them? McIntosh stood behind the bars. He coughed, this one so strong it doubled him over. He only managed to stay upright by gripping the metal. He looked sicker, paler than when she'd last seen him.
"Better," she said softly. Had she just imagined that entire encounter with the kind-of-invisible goddess?
He unlocked the bars and stumbled inside. Coughing, he pocketed the key. He didn't make it to the stool but collapsed on the dirt behind it. One minute passed, two. He didn't move, didn't make a sound.
"McIntosh? Are you okay?"
Finally, movement. He shook his head, as though he needed to dislodge a thick fog. "Picked up a little cold," he said. "Most of the men did." He rolled to his back and eased to a sitting position, wincing all the while.
She frowned. "How long have we been away from the fortress?"
"The better part of the day."
A day? So sick, so quickly? "None of you appeared sick before."
"Weren't." He coughed yet again and this time blood trickled from the side of his mouth. "Some are sicker than others. Damn winter germs. Pennington actually died, poor bastard. Well, maybe lucky." He scooted back until he rested against the bars.
Died? From a common cold?
"You need a doctor."
Anger flashed in his dark eyes and he made a visible effort to pull himself together. "What I need is that box. Those men are evil, Ashlyn. With their presence alone they spread lies and pain, doubt and misery. They're the reason for war and famine and death." Coughing again, he reached into his pants pocket and weakly tossed several photos in her lap. "We've fought these bastards for as long as I can remember. Their evil does not stop."
She looked automatically. And gagged. Decapitated bodies, a hand attached to nothing, blood flowing like rivers.
"The men you keep defending did this."
Not Maddox, she thought, tearing her gaze away. He wouldn't have done that. He couldn't. "The men I met aren't the source of the world's evil." She gentled her tone. "They could have hurt me, but didn't. They could have raped or killed the other women, but didn't. They could have stormed Budapest and slaughtered its' people, but they didn't do that, either."
His head lolled to the side and for a moment she thought he'd fallen asleep—or died. This was no cold. Couldn't be. Before her eyes, red pockmarks were appearing on his face. "McIntosh?"
He jerked awake. "Sorry. Dizzy."
"Unlock me. Let me help you." Let me escape.
"No. Questions first," he said weakly. "Don't trust you anymore."
"Unlock me, and I'll tell you anything you want to know."
"Told you. Don't trust you. You've been with those monsters. They've corrupted you."
"No, they didn't. They helped me."
"I helped you. I made sure you were protected from harm. I gave you a life even your parents would have denied you."
"Yes, you did help me." Just not the way she'd needed. He'd helped her because it benefited him. "Now unlock the cuffs and let me help you."
A soft sigh escaped him, but ended on a cough. When the fit subsided, he gasped out, "You should have gone home like I told you. But you defied me and your guards failed to report in. By the time I checked your location, it was too late. Wish I had gotten to you sooner, but couldn't just knock on the door. Had to plan."
"Checked my location? What plan?"
"The explosion. Distract the creatures to get you back. GPS. In your arm."
Oh God. They had detonated that bomb because of her. Guilty tears stung her eyes. My fault. They all could have died because of her. "I don't understand about the GPS." She could barely get the words past the hard lump in her throat.
"Not birth control like we told you. Chip. We've always been able to track you."
Her mouth fell open as another hot flood of betrayal washed through her. Betrayal and hurt and fury, all blending with her guilt. How dare they! Never had she felt more violated. She wanted to cry; she wanted to scream. For once in her life, she wanted to kill.
Guess I was bait after all, she thought almost hysterically. However unintentionally, she'd led the hunters straight to Maddox's doorstep.
"We let one of our guys be captured yesterday," he said, his eyes glazed and far away. "He led the demons to a club. We left them there when we could have taken them. For you." He gave a weak smile before hunching over from another round of coughing. When he quieted, she saw that red branched from his eyes like molten rivers of poison.
"Unlock me, Dr. McIntosh. Please. I've aided you all these years. Don't leave me here to die."
He didn't respond for several seconds. Then, surprising her, he lumbered to his feet. He hobbled to her and knelt behind her. Grip weak, he undid the cuffs. The metal fell to the ground with a thump, and she was free.
She moved from the chair and crouched beside him. He was breathing heavily, struggling for every shallow intake of air. He didn't look like he'd survive the hour. Despite her anger, despite all he'd done, she felt pity rise up inside her. "Where are the other women?" she asked gently, choosing information over escape.
A pause. A wheezing exhalation. "Should be on a plane to New York."
"Where in New York?"
He closed his eyes, seeming to drift.
"McIntosh! Stay awake and talk to me."
His eyelids flickered open and closed, his body growing more and more pliant. "They'll be… traded for box. You'll see one day," he whispered. "Better place without them." He opened his eyes again and focused on her. "Pretty thing. Father would be proud." His sentences were no longer coherent, just disjointed pieces of thought flowing from his mind in no particular order. His eyes closed again, and this time they stayed closed. "What's wrong with me?"
"I don't know." Her voice trembled. "You need a hospital."
"Yes." But he died a heartbeat later, head falling to the side, body going completely limp.
Ashlyn covered her mouth with her hand. McIntosh was dead. He had betrayed her, yes, and a part of her hated him for that. But the little girl inside her still craved his approval.
Trembling, tears again burning her eyes, she pushed to her feet. She didn't take the key from his now-open hand because she didn't need it. She planned to use the same escape route the prisoner had used.
But first… Go on. It'll hurt, but you have to do it. Hand shaky, she picked up the stool McIntosh had been sitting on earlier and slammed it into the metal bars until one of the legs snapped off. She used the jagged edge to scratch desperately at her arm. She winced, nearly cried out. Blood flowed, and she whimpered at the pain. Finally she reached the GPS chip. She dug it out and tossed it on the floor, hiding it in the dirt.
Hurry, Darrow. Hurry. She couldn't risk running into any more of the Institute's employees up top. Most were probably sick, like McIntosh had said, but that didn't mean the ones who were well would let her waltz out. Bringing the prisoner's voice to her mind, she stumbl
ed to the cell's only toilet and twisted the bolts that fastened it to the wall. Some didn't want to budge and she had to force them, nearly breaking her fingers as she did so. When the last fell onto the dirt, she kicked the toilet aside.
A man-made hole stared up at her, a hole someone had dug straight to the outside world. She didn't want to crawl through the tight, black space, but with only one backward glance at McIntosh's prone body, she entered the opening. Total darkness surrounded her.
"Don't panic," she said, the prisoner's voice echoing hers in her mind. Her exhalations ricocheted from the muddy walls. A rat scampered past her fingers.
She hissed in a breath.
Forever she crawled, her legs burning from exertion. Wouldn't have been so bad, but it was an uphill climb. Chunks of dirt fell on her, even filled her mouth, coated her tongue. Keep going. Just keep going.
She felt like the princess in Maid Maleen just then, fighting her way free. The thought brought her mind back to that strange conversation she'd had with the goddess. Or hallucination. Ashlyn would never again wish to be inside a fairy tale.
A light appeared at the end of the tunnel, small but visible. Relief flooded her, and she quickened her movements. A second later, she found a small opening. Even a child couldn't fit through. "No. No!" She clawed and clawed and clawed.
After an eternity, she caught a glimpse of moonlit sky.
Arms nearly sagging in relief and fatigue, she pulled herself up onto the cold, hard ground. She stood, her knees knocking. Snowcapped trees towered all around her. She shivered, Maddox's baggy clothes doing little to keep her warm.
A man screamed, a tortured sound.
She stiffened. Maddox. Maddox! Midnight must have arrived. She looked around, spotting the fortress on the horizon, but the scream hadn't come from that direction. When she heard him again, she kicked into gear despite her exhaustion, following the sound. Another scream. A roar.
"I'm coming. I'm coming."
As she ran, Ashlyn began to cough.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When Maddox awakened, terror was already gripping him. Ashlyn needed him.
He was… not in the forest, he realized. No, he was in his own bed, his own bedroom, staring up at the vaulted ceiling as he did every morning. But he was not chained.
How? Why?
Sunlight streamed through the window, warming him. He'd failed to find Ashlyn and the time for his death had arrived, preventing him from searching further. Reyes, he thought then. Reyes must have dragged him home.
Maddox bounced out of bed, determined to renew his search. He would find her today, no matter what. We'll destroy the world piece by piece until she's recovered.
There would be no resting until—
A woman's cough stopped him midstep. He had been about to hit the hallway running, but now spun around. Ashlyn lay on his bed. Shock slammed into him with the force of a sword through the gut.
He scrubbed a hand over his face, afraid to believe. Still the vision remained. Relief swamped him, overshadowing the shock, and he ran back to the bed. A wide grin stretched his face as he fell to his knees, thanking the gods, reaching out to gather his woman in his arms.
She coughed again.
He froze, realization setting in. His grin disappeared. No! Not Ashlyn. But he studied her more closely. She was pale, too pale, and there were dark circles under her eyes. Little pink splotches marred her pretty skin.
He could have torn out his own heart.
He had suspected… he had feared… and now his worst fear had come true. The Hunters had exposed her to disease. They had probably died, one by one, allowing her to escape and find him.
Allowing her to come home to die.
"No!" he roared. He wouldn't let her; she was his life. An eternity roasting in hell was preferable to a single minute on this earth without her.
Reyes stomped into the room, as if he had been waiting for some sign of life. He was grim and angry as a storm cloud, ready to erupt. "Has she woken yet?" He had so many cuts on his arms it was hard to tell where one began and another ended.
"No," Maddox replied brokenly.
The warrior looked her over. "I stayed nearby. She coughed all night. I'm sorry." Then, in a comforting tone, he added, "Most die within hours of becoming infected, but she's managed to stay alive. Perhaps she'll survive."
Perhaps wasn't good enough. Maddox laid a hand over her too-hot brow. Commands began to spill from him. "Get me cool rags. And more of those pills, if we still have Danika's purse. Water, too."
Reyes rushed to obey, returning shortly with everything Maddox had wanted. Ashlyn refused to awaken, so he crushed the pills and dumped the powder into her mouth. Next he poured the water down her throat.
She coughed and gagged, but did eventually swallow. Finally her eyelids flickered open and she squinted against the light. "Home," she said when she spied him, her voice hoarse. "Hurt. Worse than before."
"I know, beauty." Softly he kissed her temple. While he could be infected by Torin, he could not be infected by a human. Not that it mattered. He would have touched and held her anyway. "You're going to get better this time, too."
"Boss… Hunter. Dead."
He nodded in acknowledgment, not wanting to speak what he was feeling about the man's death. Satisfaction.
"What of Danika?" Reyes asked, stepping forward. "I followed the hole you came through and found the prison and the dead Hunters, but Danika was not inside."
"Might be… on her way to… New York," Ashlyn said haltingly.
Reyes paled, the color draining from his face as though it were being sucked out by the vacuum Aeron always grumbled about using. "They told you nothing else?"
"I'm sorry." She coughed.
Maddox winced at the terrible, rattling sound. He laid one of the cool, wet rags on her brow. She sighed, closed her eyes. Reyes tangled a hand in his hair, clearly frustrated, needing to pace, needing pain.
"Go," Maddox told him. "Find her."
The warrior glanced at Ashlyn, then Maddox, then nodded. He left without another word.
Maddox remained with Ashlyn for hours, mopping her brow, forcing her to sip the water. He recalled seeing Torin do this all those years ago, after he'd touched the human woman and the plague had taken root.
For a time, Maddox thought Ashlyn's will to live was stronger than the disease, for she had not died like the others. That, or perhaps something—someone—was helping her.
But then her cough had become bloody, her body too weak to sit up. Her throat became so swollen she was no longer able to swallow. How much longer could she last?
Not knowing what else to do, Maddox bundled her up and cradled her in his arms. He did not speak to his friends as he carried her out of the fortress. They did not ask his intentions, probably too afraid he would become violent. He would have. The spirit churned inside of him, worried for her, too, wanting to destroy, to maim, to kill. This time in helplessness and frustration, not fury.
Down the hill and into the city he raced, the moonlight a mocking reminder of his failure to help her yesterday, too. Save her, have to save her. She never made a sound, too weak now even to cough. The streets were barren, no one outside. Whatever it takes, save her.
He carried her straight to the hospital, a place he had found yesterday in his fruitless search for her. The building was filled, nearly bursting from its seams, hundreds of humans inside, coughing. Dying. He did not want to leave her, was afraid to trust them with her life. But he did not know what else to do.
In a crowded, white hallway, he found a gloved and masked man issuing orders. "Help me," he said, cutting into the man's speech. "Help her. Please."
Distracted, the white-coated man glanced at Ashlyn and gave a weary sigh. "Everyone needs help, sir. You'll just have to wait your turn."
Maddox pinned him with a fierce stare and knew Violence flashed over his face. Knew his eyes burned bright red.
"You're—you're—one of them. From the hill." The m
an gulped. "Lay her there." He pointed to a bed with wheels at the end of the hall. "I'll care for her myself:"
Maddox did as instructed, then kissed Ashlyn's soft lips. Still no response. "Save her," he commanded.
"I'll—I'll do my best."
Please let her survive. He wanted to stay with her, guard her, watch over her. Take care of her. More than anything, he wanted her with him. But he walked away from her then, and into the night. Midnight approached.
In the morning, he would return. Woe to the world—woe to the gods—if she was not here, alive and well.
Reyes cursed as he searched the airport, nearby hotels. Medical clinics. He'd seen more of the city in two days than in all his centuries living here. He felt like a caged animal, seething with a need to act but ultimately powerless. Danika was still out there. Maybe sick, like Ashlyn. Maybe dying. And he could not find a single sign of her.
Night had fallen once again, and he was surprised to realize he'd raced to the same alleyway he and Maddox had discovered last night. He could see where Maddox had punched the wall in rage. The stone was cracked and dented.
Reyes was close to hopping on a plane to New York, but knew he could not stray very far from Maddox's side. When the gods had cursed Maddox to die every night, they had cursed him, as well, tethering him to the warrior as surely as if they'd used iron chains. Why him, rather than Aeron, he did not know. All he knew was that, at midnight, he would be forced to return to the fortress. Always he would return.
He'd taken off several times before, testing his boundaries, testing the gods' reaction, but always he was pulled to Maddox at midnight.
"Damn this!" He unsheathed one of his daggers and slashed the tip across his thigh. Fabric tore and blood leaked from the wound. What was he going to do? There was a need inside him, a deep need he'd never experienced before, to save, to rescue. To protect. But only Danika. Only to look into those angel eyes again and feel another flicker of pleasure.
The Darkest Night lotu-2 Page 28
