The truth hit me as I said the words: Benjamin wasn’t gone because he hated me. He was gone because I’d told him to leave. I’d told him to stay away from me, and he, ever noble, was obeying my wishes. Even if he was still being a “pissy little brat,” he probably thought he was helping me by not being here.
Marco kneeled beside me and pulled me up into a hug. “I’ll beat him up later,” he muttered. “They’re not mad at you. I don’t think you’re going to get punished, at least not a whipping. Be strong.”
The three of us kneeled there in the grass, not speaking, not meeting each other’s eyes.
When the elders came back some twenty minutes later, we didn’t move, though Reid watched them approach with hard apprehension.
Elder St. James pinched the bridge of his nose. “In light of this development, we’ve altered our judgment. Reid, you’re going to assume leadership of your team for a trial period of six months. If you perform well, you’ll keep your position. If not, we’ll assign you to another team and send a replacement.”
Reid nodded once. “And Jill? What about her?”
“Jillian will leave service as of today. Henry Dumont—” I looked up at the mention of Matthew’s father’s name, “—approached me last week and said his son is willing to marry her. Since Jillian will be coming back to the camp, I see no reason not to go forward with the marriage. I’m performing Mason and Justine’s marriage tomorrow, so it won’t be any trouble to perform another.”
I didn’t move. I didn’t blink.
Marco’s ludicrous prediction that I’d have to marry Matthew was coming true.
Elder St. James kneeled down and stared into my face. “You’re going to do it right this time, do you hear me?” His soft voice carried a thousand threats. “No trouble, no problems, not a word that you’re anything but a perfect wife. If you don’t, we’ll reverse our judgment and haul Reid right back here. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes,” I whispered.
Elder St. James tweaked my nose. “We were impressed by the reports of your leadership ability. We knew we could count on you.” He got to his feet and nodded at the other two men. “Gentlemen, we’re done here.”
They left us there.
Marco broke away and ran into the woods. Reid threw his arms around me and hugged me, his body shaking. The cold winter wind blew around us, but we didn’t move.
I couldn’t let go of him. I was afraid that if I did, I’d sprint toward the gate and leave him to his punishment.
Reid pressed his lips to my ear. “I can make him disappear. I can kill Matthew and nobody will ever know what happened. Just say the word and I’ll do it.” He kissed my forehead. “Let me help you. Let me spare you this. You’ve been my sister all this time. Let me be a brother to you now.”
I laid my head on his shoulder. “They’ll figure out that it was you or me.”
He didn’t reply.
People began to swarm into the meadow, giving us curious looks as they walked back to their campsites to light fires and cook meals. Children ran around us, laughing and shouting. Mothers and fathers scolded them for this and that. Nobody paid too much attention to the heartbroken superheroes in the middle of the meadow.
Isabel sprinted up to us. “What’s wrong? What happened? Jilly, what did they say?”
I looked up at her, but before I could explain, a rough tug on the back of my collar pulled me away from Reid.
I fell at someone’s feet, and slowly stared up at Matthew Dumont.
He stared down at me, pure revulsion on his face. “Hello, fiancée.”
I swallowed bile. Matthew’s extension of friendship had been fake. Of course it had been fake. Matthew Dumont was the most consummate actor I’d ever met, and I’d believed it because I was the stupidest, most naïve woman alive.
“Matthew, I—”
“Shut up.” He put his hand down the neckline of my shirt and grabbed my necklace. With one sharp tug the clasp broke, and Matthew dangled the beautiful pendant in the air. “I’ll take this, thank you.” He tucked the necklace in his pocket. “And you are going on a walk with me while we talk about how this marriage is going to work.”
He yanked me off the ground and dragged me in the direction of the creek. I looked back to see Reid and Isabel watching helplessly.
The fox from that morning darted out of the tree line and up to both of them, where it whined and pushed at Reid’s legs.
Matthew took me to the edge of the swollen, frothy body of water that flowed through the camp. He stopped on a large, flat rock that jutted out over the water. In the summer, when the water was calmer, kids jumped from the rock into the cool depths.
He shoved the necklace into my hand. “Do it.”
I held out the necklace over the water. Time slowed.
I imagined that it represented all my feelings for Benjamin, all my hopes and dreams that we’d one day marry and have children. I closed my eyes and pictured that future, the whispered words of love, the dark-haired and hazel-eyed sons and daughters, the laughter, the joy of watching our life unfold.
I opened my hand and the necklace fell, twisting gracefully in the air, hitting the water without making a noise. The churning creek swept it away in an instant.
“Here’s how this is going to go,” Matthew said. He pulled me to him. My back was flush against his chest, and his hands gripped my upper arms.
I stared straight ahead while he leaned down to speak into my ear, his hot breath making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
When he described in detail how he was going to make me pay tomorrow night for breaking his hand and humiliating him in front of my team, I thought of Reid and Ember, living happily ever after with beautiful children around them. Reid was so gentle with her. He would never hurt her.
When his hands left my arms and traveled beneath my waistband, I thought of Marco and pictured him holding his firstborn child, and the look on his face when the baby grasped his finger. He’d gaze down in wonder at the tiny hand and vow to the child’s mother, whoever she was, that he’d always guard their baby from harm. He’d be a loving, protective father.
When Matthew turned me around and kissed me while his hands explored underneath my shirt, I reminded myself that even though Benjamin was not part of my life anymore, I’d promised him I wouldn’t try to kill myself.
And finally, when I walked toward the northern edge of the camp as the sun slipped behind the wall, I realized that the elders had never intended to punish Reid.
12
The setting sun was almost below the horizon when I stepped into the woods, the trees partially shielding me from the cold breeze. I’d been assigned to sentinel duty from eighteen hundred to midnight.
The job was simple: walk back and forth over a hundred-yard stretch of wall on the east side of the camp, watching and listening for anything unusual.
I had no intention of going to my post.
I walked with purposeful strides toward Benjamin’s assigned area, on the north side. Branches whipped at my face and scratched me, but I barely felt the sting.
The sun slipped out of sight, plunging the dead forest into darkness all at once. I could see fairly easily, but if anyone was following me, they’d get lost.
As I neared the northern wall I broke into a run, shoving aside branches and bushes. I leaped over fallen logs and stumps, caring little whether I stepped in a hole and twisted my ankle. I’d keep running.
A twisted ankle wouldn’t compare to the pain of the realization I’d had: I’d been railroaded by the elders. Elder St. James’s final comment, that I wouldn’t let them down, had slipped down into the cracks and eaten at me for hours. They’d expected me to fight back like the uncontrollable upstart I was.
Almost uncontrollable. I had strings. They were named Ember, Marco, Reid, and—
“Benjamin!”
Benjamin was walking down a narrow beaten track that paralleled the enormous wall that would cage me for the rest of my life
. He shuffled down the track with his hands in his pockets, feeling around in the dark for roots or depressions in the ground.
I ran up and threw myself on him, clinging to my boyfriend. I wanted to absorb him into my body, make him a part of me forever. The wind at my back, funneled by the wall, pushed us together. The universe itself wanted us to stay pressed together.
“Jill?” He kissed my lips. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m so sorry,” I breathed, leaving a trail of kisses along his jaw. “I’m so, so sorry for yelling at you. Please forgive me.” I’d told myself I wouldn’t cry, but the tears came all the same. “Why weren’t you at the tribunal?”
Benjamin stroked my hair, which had come out of its chignon while I’d run through the woods. “I was angry. I’m sorry. What did the elders decide?”
My relief turned to despair. “They were going to punish Reid, so I asked them to punish me instead.” I began to sob. I could barely get the words out. “I have to marry Matthew.”
Benjamin gasped. “That’s terrible! Don’t they know we’re courting?”
I paused, my stomach rolling.
After a few seconds, I said, “I told Matthew, but he asked to marry me instead. I… I think they were planning this for weeks.”
I remembered the feeling of Matthew’s hands on my skin and shivered violently. I squeezed Benjamin tighter, and he combed his fingers through my hair.
Another sob racked my body. “This whole tribunal was a sham. I think that’s why it was private but Reuben’s was public. They just want to shut me up and make it all go away.” My crying slowed and I stepped back. “But… I think one thing could make me handle being married to Matthew.”
“What is that?”
I peered at Benjamin through my eyelashes, assessing his blank expression. “I can be a good wife to Matthew if I have one sweet memory of a night with you.” I guided Benjamin’s hand to my hip. The feeling of his hand on me made my muscles clench. “One night. I can take a whole lifetime of Matthew if I have one night with you.”
Benjamin glanced behind him, then at me. “Really?”
I wrapped my arms around him and brushed his earlobe with my lips, inhaling the earthy scent from his neck. “When I’m with Matthew tomorrow night, I’ll feel better if I know he’s getting sloppy seconds. I want him to smell you on me.”
Benjamin wrinkled his nose and he pushed me away. “That’s nasty. Sloppy seconds? That’s just nasty.”
I dropped my head. “Fine. I can’t make you sleep with me, so I’ll just go to my own watch post. But before I go, can I just ask you one question?”
He crossed his arms. “Make it fast.”
I slammed Benjamin into a tree by his throat. “Where’s Benjamin, Matthew?”
“Benjamin” gurgled, clawing at my hand.
I released the pressure to allow him just enough breath to speak.
He gasped. “What… you… mean?”
I slammed his head into the tree again. “Where’s Benjamin, Matthew?”
Benjamin’s beautiful face melted away to reveal the shocked, purple visage of my fiancé.
I threw him on the ground, where he tried to scramble to his feet. I stomped on his shin, which broke like a branch under my foot. The sharp snap and tortured scream were music to my ears.
“You broke my leg!”
“Tell me where Benjamin is right now, or that’ll be the first of many breaks tonight.”
“I don’t know where he is!”
He’d said “courting.”
Had Benjamin not taken the time to tease me about our terminology and accent differences on our drive to camp, I might never have noticed. And the scent—Benjamin was spicy and sweet, like gingersnaps, while Matthew was earthier.
I kicked Matthew over onto his stomach. He cried out, but I just kneeled on the small of his back and twisted his right arm up and behind him.
“These disgusting hands,” I hissed.
Six weeks of terror over the tribunal. Six hours dreading my wedding night. It had all been obliterated in six seconds when I smelled Matthew’s scent from Benjamin’s neck. Six seconds were all it took for my fears to mutate and take a new, monstrous form that clawed at my insides.
The desire to cause Matthew pain like he’d never known spread through me, guiding my hands.
“I swear I don’t know!”
I stroked his thumb. “Remember your little speech today? The one at the creek?” I jerked his thumb back, breaking it.
He howled. I smiled.
“Let’s see if I can remember the best parts. I’m going to enjoy causing you more pain than you’ve ever felt. I’m going to take my time. I’m going to—“ I pulled back his index finger until it snapped. “—make you wish you were dead, and I’m not going to give you that.” I wrapped my fingers around his middle finger. “When you beg me to stop, nobody’s going to come and stop me.”
He writhed under me. “Elder St. James told me to pretend to be Mercury!”
I stopped and stared down at the crying man on the ground.
Elder St. James had ordered him to impersonate Benjamin, but why? To what end? And where was Benjamin if he wasn’t at his post?
The surrounding forest loomed over me, large and dangerous. He could be anywhere in it. I couldn’t be sure he was even in the camp anymore.
I doubted Matthew knew the exact details. He was too unimportant to be anything but Elder St. James’s lackey.
Whatever I did after this would be for my own pleasure, not information. The monstrous rage took shape, urging me to draw out the experience. It would feel so good.
“Let me go,” Matthew moaned.
“No.” I grabbed a handful of his hair and leaned down to his ear. “I’m going to break each hand that touched me today. I’m going to enjoy your screams. And then I’m going to—”
The forest’s stillness was broken by the high keen of a siren. Men yelled in the distance for all able-bodied adults to muster in the meadow.
The Westerners were in the camp.
13
I fled toward the meadow, leaving Matthew lying on the ground in the dark. I’d deal with him later.
I sprinted through the woods, and as the trees thinned, I could see men and women rushing around the meadow, calling for their children. Babies cried and clutched their mothers, who looked around wildly for their husbands.
“Jill!” Marco slammed into me. Reid was right behind him. “Where’s Ember? Where’s Benjamin?”
“I don’t know! Is the hunting team still in the woods?”
A massive explosion rocked the meadow, knocking us down. A yellow mushroom of fire and debris blossomed up from the middle of the west forest. Flaming bits of debris rained down on the people in the meadow, eliciting fresh screams of terror.
Just as we’d stood up, a second explosion, closer this time, made us tumble to the ground again.
The forest began to burn, spreading quickly, far more quickly than a normal forest fire. Beneath the smoke was the all-too-familiar stench of gasoline.
The Westerners had never done anything like this before.
A figure clad in dark gray darted into the woods fifteen yards away.
I pointed. “There! Follow me!”
The three of us ran into the woods after the figure. I was the fastest by far, and I quickly caught up to the person, a man in a ski mask. I lunged at him and grabbed his waist, throwing him to the ground, then yanked off his mask.
He was a younger man, maybe in his late teens, and his face was twisted into a scowl. “I’m not telling you anything.”
“Bad news for you, pal. I’ve had a really bad day.” I punched his nose. It crunched on contact with my fist. He yelped as blood spurted out of his ruined face. “What are you here for?” I shouted. “How many are with you?”
“Let me talk to him.” Reid’s low growl came from behind us. He strode up to the man and picked him up by his collar, hoisting him into the air with one arm. “Hello, f
ilth. I’m from Coeur d’Alene. Perhaps you’ve heard of it?”
I leaned against a tree. It wasn’t often I saw Reid’s darker side. This would be memorable.
The man’s eyes widened. “I don’t know anything.”
A needle-sharp spear of rock burst out of the earth like a dart. Reid caught it without looking. “I don’t believe you. I’m going to make this simple. You know what you came here to do. I know all the ways to impale a human being without killing them. Give me the information I want and you’ll never have to find out some of those ways.”
I snickered. Go Reid.
The man eyed the spear. “There are five of us. We came here to get people and set the fire. That’s all I know.”
I straightened. “Get people? What do you mean, ‘get’ people?”
Reid tossed the man on the ground. “Who did you come to take?”
Marco and I watched in silence as Reid advanced on him.
The man scrambled backwards on his elbows. “I never knew their names, I swear. My job was to set the fires.”
Reid’s face relaxed. “I believe you.”
Before the man could respond, Reid thrust the spear into his heart, killing him instantly.
His eyes glowed white as the ground collapsed on itself, forming a grave into which Reid kicked the bleeding corpse. He covered it as quickly as he’d made it, then turned around and faced me.
There was a beat.
I crossed my arms. “Personally, I would’ve kept questioning him. He was our only source of information.”
Another explosion in the distance jerked us back into the moment. Orange and red flared up between us and the meadow, filling the air with clouds of smoke. The crackling of flames grew louder.
“Time to go,” I said, pulling the men with me toward the wall. We ran through the woods, our path illuminated by the omnipresent glow of fire.
The tree line ended abruptly, stopping ten feet from the wall. Reid pointed upwards. “Grab on to me.”
His eyes glowed again as Marco and I wrapped our arms around his torso, and the ground rumbled, a loose circle breaking away under our feet. Reid held on to us while we flew twenty feet into the air, above the dense smoke. I clung tightly to him, unused to the sensation of flight.
Sentinel Page 10
