Quinn isn’t going to win.
I fall to my knees and struggle to breathe as Ian slams his fist into the wound on Quinn’s head, and Quinn’s arms go slack. It’s just for a second, but a second is all Ian needs. Raising his knife into the air, he drives it into Quinn’s chest.
“No!” I scream and scream until I have no breath. Tears blur the world into soft silhouettes, and I don’t want blink them away. I don’t want to see Quinn fall to the ground beside me. I don’t want to see blood pouring over the bright green moss.
But Quinn deserves to have a witness to his courage. And I want the last face he sees to be someone who loves him. So I blink the tears away and crawl toward him as he lies on his back, his breath coming in halting, strangled gasps.
His hands grip the knife blade that’s lodged in his chest, and blood seeps slowly through his fingers and onto the forest floor. Somewhere above us, Ian laughs, but I ignore him. Ignore the trackers who are driving a wagon into the clearing. Ignore everything but Quinn lying broken and beautiful beside me.
“Oh, Quinn,” I whisper, and my tears drip from my face onto his.
He moves his lips, and I lean forward until my ear is next to his mouth.
“The knife,” he whispers. “Get it.”
For a moment I think he means he wants me to pull the knife out of his chest, but he isn’t looking at himself. He’s looking at the thick cluster of moss beside my feet. Suddenly, I know the truth, and I can’t bear it.
When he said he was going to do the right thing, he didn’t mean he was going to kill Ian and the trackers. He already knew he was too injured to beat them. He never intended to save us both. He simply wanted to find a way to give me the tools I needed to save myself.
“Rachel, please,” he says, and I can barely hear him.
Grief tears at me with vicious fingers, and I let it take me. Sobbing wildly, I curl toward the forest floor until my hair covers my arms and hands, and my fingers touch the cold metal of a blade. I gather it to me and slide it into my boot, rocking back and forth to cover the motion.
Then I collapse onto Quinn’s shoulder, pressing my palms to his chest, and beg him not to die. Not to leave me, like so many have left me. I beg and cry, and beneath my hands I feel . . . metal.
My fingers curve and scrape as I redouble the volume of my grief while triumph, brilliant and wild, surges through me.
The knife isn’t in Quinn’s chest. It’s lodged in the Dragonskin he wears beneath his tunic. The blood leaking through his fingers isn’t from his heart. He’s gripping the blade tightly, letting his breath become shallow and faint, and hoping no one decides the amount of blood lost isn’t enough to kill him.
I can help with that.
I slide forward until my hair curtains our faces and whisper, “Thank you.”
He smiles.
And then I rip the blade out of his hands, clumsily slash the rope that binds my wrists, and charge Ian. Ian deflects my attack, but I don’t mind. I wasn’t trying to hurt him. That would give the trackers an excuse to take care of matters their own way. I was simply trying to divert everyone’s attention away from Quinn.
Ian laughs as he wrenches the knife from my hands and ignores my pleading to let me stay until Quinn dies. Laughs as he tosses me over his shoulder while I scream and beat at him with my fists and Quinn’s dark eyes close.
Laughs as he tells me he’d promised a lesson in pain, and he’d delivered.
He’s wrong.
The lesson I just learned had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with courage. Sometimes the right thing to do is the thing that costs us the most. For Quinn, that meant putting his life on the line so that the daughter of the man who once saved him could live. For Sylph, it meant loving others without ever asking them to be someone they weren’t. For Logan, it meant setting aside the heartbreak of his childhood to protect the people who once cast him out.
And for me, it means honoring those who’ve loved me and sacrificed for me by choosing to be the kind of warrior who delivers justice even when it threatens to hurt me.
Let Ian laugh. Let him believe pain will ruin me. I know better. I’ve already been ruined once, and I know how to rise from the ashes. I know how to find my broken pieces.
I know how to fight the battles that must be won.
As we move deeper into the Wasteland and the tiny clearing where Quinn lies disappears into shadow, I silently promise myself that I won’t let the sacrifices of those who loved me be in vain. Not while I still have breath in my body.
Ian tosses me to the ground, and I climb to my feet, my chin held high while a single purpose burns fiercely within my heart.
I will do the right thing, no matter what it costs me. I will stop Ian. Tear apart Rowansmark brick by miserable brick until I dismantle the technology they would use to turn the Cursed One against innocent people. And then I will find Logan and help him destroy the Commander. I won’t break. I won’t falter.
I won’t stop until the lives of everyone I’ve lost have been avenged.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, thank you to Jesus for loving me, broken pieces and all.
Another huge thank-you to my amazing husband, Clint, who tirelessly supports and understands me. Thank you for picking up all the slack around deadlines and for deciding that my inability to concentrate on anything other than the worlds inside my head is part of my charm.
Tyler, Jordan, Zach, and Johanna, thank you for putting up with my long work hours and for proudly telling your friends and teachers that your mom wrote a book. I am so blessed to be your mom.
Thank you, Mom and Dad, for understanding when I disappear off the face of the earth for weeks and for being huge fans of mine.
This book is the book that wanted to eat my soul. I can’t count how many times I wanted to just kill the thing with fire and walk away. I didn’t, though, and a lot of the credit is due to a handful of amazing people. Thank you to Kristin Daly Rens for being the kind of editor who pushes me hard and always believes in me. To Jodi Meadows for Gchats and scene reads and for saving me from the under-armor. (Worst. Name. Ever.) To MG Buehrlen for early reads, late reads, plot chats, and generally keeping me sane when nothing else could. (Ermahgerd!) Myra McEntire for reading early and fast, loving the story, and being one of my biggest fans. (Baby, you’re a firework, too.) To Heather Lindahl for beta reading and for colluding with MG to call this book Defiance II: Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself. (The bag of orange Spree was awesome, too. Until you told me it was ten years old. AFTER it had been eaten.) To KB Wagers for being an awesome friend and for making sure my fight scenes are physically possible. (My own personal ninja!) To Julie Daly for being my buffer from the outside world, for managing the details so well, and for being a fan of my work. To Shannon Messenger, Sara McClung, and Beth Revis for supporting my crazy word count on the retreat (and for laughing at me over the Suitcase of Doom event). To Holly Root for remaining my champion through good and bad. To Caroline Sun for being a rock star of a publicist. And to Sara Sargent, the ninja of all things, and the rest of the team at Balzer + Bray for being in my corner and for being totally cupcake-worthy.
Thank you also to YOU, my readers. It’s been amazing to hear your response to Rachel and Logan. I’m so very blessed that my book found a home on your shelf.
And finally, thank you, Donny Miller, for letting me kill you off in book two. I told you so. ☺
About the Author
C. J. Redwine lives in Nashville, Tennessee, with her four beautiful kids, an amazing husband, two fairly crazy cats, and a dog. She has books in every corner of her house, an impressive Harry Potter memorabilia collection, and a bunch of really cool friends she doesn’t get to see nearly as much as she’d like to. She is also the author of Defiance. You can visit C.J. online at www.cjredwine.blogspot.com.
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Also by C. J. Redwine
Defiance
Credits
Cover art © 2013 Craig Shields
Photo of girl © 2013 Howard Huang
Cover design by Alison Klapthor
Copyright
Balzer + Bray is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
Deception
Copyright © 2013 by C. J. Redwine
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ISBN 978-0-06-211720-5 (trade bdg.) — ISBN 978-0-06-229448-7 (international ed.)
EPUB Edition JULY 2013 ISBN 9780062117229
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FIRST EDITION
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Deception d-2 Page 37
