Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Fergus MacDonnell had laughed in the face of death countless times, but if he lived to be a hundred, he would never forget the sight of his chieftain bearing his bride’s broken body into the courtyard. A pall of silence hung over the clan, disturbed only by a muffled cry of anguish and a child’s steady sniffling.

Their young mistress’s neck hung limp, her dark hair streaming in a lank curtain over Morgan’s arm. The ashen pallor of her face led many of them to believe she was already dead. Keening softly beneath her breath, Alwyn turned her face into Fergus’s shoulder. He pressed her close, wanting to shield her from the even more terrible specter of Morgan’s face.

His rugged features might have been hewn from rock. Their total absence of emotion was chilling. Nothing but the grimy tear tracks staining his cheeks even marked him as human.

Held in thrall by the grim spectacle, the MacDonnells hardly noticed the Cameron men who filed in after Morgan, some leading their horses, others limping, the fine wool of their garments torn and stained. Fergus gaped as their ranks parted to reveal Ranald stumbling between them, his hands bound by a frayed length of rope, fresh blood soaking the shoulder of his plaid. A questioning murmur rose.

Enid burst from the crowd only to find her frantic path blocked by Alexander Cameron. “Ranald!” she cried, jumping up and down to see over Alex’s shoulder. “What happened? What in God’s name have you done?”

Ranald stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard her, his lips set in a grim line. Only after the doors closed on the grim procession and the massive bolt dropped, barring the clan from their own castle, did the whispers and rumors begin to fly.

Morgan refused to let anyone touch her. While the other men who loved Sabrina kept their own tortured vigil, he cut away her tattered gown, gently arranged her flaccid limbs, and bathed the numerous scrapes and gashes marring her smooth flesh. He wrapped her in clean sheets and brushed her tangled hair from her face. She lay as still as death beneath his tender ministrations.

Brian, the best rider among them, had been sent to fetch Dougal’s physician from Cameron. Unwilling to risk his wife’s life on the same road that had almost taken his daughter’s, Dougal had given his son strict instructions to tell Elizabeth only that the physician was needed to tend a sick child. Dougal stared over Morgan’s shoulder at his daughter’s face, fighting sick despair. Their child.

His burning eyes raked the chamber. What sort of life had she shared with Morgan? Had it been one of love and laughter or bitterness and blame? Should he have come sooner, he wondered, or would his arrival only have hastened this tragedy? None of the clues fit. They’d arrived to find the chamber a charming portrait of welcome, marred only by a splintered chair. A merry fire had crackled on the grate. So why in God’s name had Sabrina been charging barefoot down that icy road in little more than a nightdress?

Dougal’s hands clenched into fists. He wanted to shake Morgan, to demand answers to the questions that tormented him. But as he watched Morgan draw a damp cloth across Sabrina’s brow, something stopped him. He would have never believed hands so big and powerful could be so gentle, so fraught with the unspoken desire to cause no pain.

Alex appeared in the doorway, his bleak gaze avoiding the bed. Relieved by the distraction, Dougal listened to what his son had to say, then laid a hand on Morgan’s shoulder. Morgan’s eyes never left Sabrina’s face; his hands continued their soothing motions.

Dougal withdrew his hand. “Two of the men who ambushed us are dead. Three others have scattered. Your cousin was wounded during the fracas. They’ve put him in the dungeon for now. He’ll need attention.”

Morgan’s tone was low and vicious. “Let the bastard rot.”

Tempted to agree with Morgan, Dougal shook his head at Alex, knowing Morgan might relent when the stench of betrayal wasn’t so fresh in his nostrils.

The afternoon shadows deepened to twilight, then to full dark. The endless hours of the winter night ticked by, measured by the shallow rise and fall of Sabrina’s chest. Morgan stroked his fingertips across the silk of her lashes, praying that she would open her eyes, longing to search their depths for some sign that she would not sleep forever.

But when she began to stir and thrash, Morgan had reason to regret his wish. Her eyes shot open, fixed sightlessly on horrors he could only imagine. A scream of agony tore from her throat, followed by another and another until Dougal buried his face in his hands and Alex rocked back and forth on the hearth, his palms clamped over his ears. Outside the chamber, Pugsley set up a mournful howling.

Sabrina’s teeth tore at her lips until they beaded with blood. When Morgan tried to dribble whisky down her raw throat, she choked, and he was forced to abandon his efforts for fear his mercy might kill her.

As he threw his weight across her to keep her from harming herself in her violent struggles against the pain, he wondered savagely if he might have done her a greater kindness by planting the pistol ball in her brain instead of Pookah’s.

Only when the pale light of dawn crept across the chamber did Sabrina collapse in a sweat-drenched heap against the tangled sheets. It was not relief but exhaustion that finally muffled her cries to whimpers.

A cheery footstep sounded outside the door. Dougal and Alex started to their feet.

A jovial British voice boomed out. “Don’t you fret, Brian. I’ll have her back on her feet in no time. Hearty as a heifer, the chit always was. Do you remember the time she got her fat little hand stuck in that beehive? And the morning she took that nasty tumble off the—”

Before the door could swing open, Morgan was there. He slammed Dr. Samuel Montjoy against the wall, pinning him by the lapels of his frock coat. The physician’s steel-framed spectacles slid askew. His bewhiskered jowls quivered.

Befuddled to find himself the victim of such an attack, he could do no more than stammer an incoherent greeting. “G-g-good day, sir. I presume you are the—”

Morgan’s words hammered the air. “Stop the pain. Do you understand? I don’t care what it takes. Just don’t let her hurt anymore. If you do, I’ll kill you myself.”

Morgan unclenched his fists. The doctor slid into a limp puddle, held on his feet only by Brian’s bracing hand at his elbow. “Yes, yes, I dare say you will,” he muttered, drawing off his spectacles with shaking hands to polish them on his ruffled stock. “Can’t say I blame you.”

As Morgan stormed from the chamber, Dougal followed, doubling his pace to keep up with Morgan’s long strides. “Damn you, Morgan MacDonnell, don’t you dare go storming off! You owe me some answers! Brian almost killed you, you know. When he saw you drop and fire, he thought you’d shot Sabrina. If Alex hadn’t realized you were going to fling yourself after her, I’d have shot you myself. As it was, I barely got there in time to stop you from throwing yourself over that cliff.”

Morgan didn’t slow his determined pace. “Don’t do me any favors next time, Cameron.”

“Dammit all, man! What happened? What in the bloody hell happened here yesterday?”

Morgan swung around. Dougal forced himself not to recoil from the murderous wrath in his narrowed green eyes. “I’m about to find out.”

As Morgan vanished down the shadowed corridor, a wave of helpless exhaustion washed over Dougal. He sank against the wall, not knowing whether to pray for the hapless man in the dungeon or for his son-in-law’s immortal soul. But when he closed his eyes, he found his mumbled pleas to God were all for Sabrina.

Ranald shielded his eyes against the blaze of torchlight. He looks like a rat, Morgan thought viciously, a scrawny rat caught in a trap of his own making.

His cousin huddled against the wall, his knees drawn up, his pale hand gripping his wounded shoulder. Noting that his plaid had been knotted in a clumsy bandage, Morgan felt a grim smile touch his lips. He was gratified to know that self-preservation was still the most consistent MacDonnell trait.

Ranald quailed before his mirthless grin. As Morgan dropped the torch into a rusted sconce, Ranald’s feet scrambled at the floor as if he could somehow make himself part of the featureless stone. Shadows wavered across his handsome features.

His voice was raw. “Ye’ve always been more than just a cousin to me, Morgan. Ye’ve been a brother.”

“As Abel was to Cain?” Morgan folded his arms over his chest. His smile spread a dangerous degree. “With kin such as you, who needs the Camerons for enemies?”

From somewhere within the depths of his fear Ranald summoned up enough pride to push himself up the wall to stand and face him.

Morgan ruthlessly squelched a flare of admiration. “What did they promise you, cousin? Gold? A fresh mutton pie? The chieftainship after I was dead?”

“No! It was nothin’ like that. I swear it. Ye know I’d never do anythin’ to hurt ye. She said—” Ranald plunged into silence, fingering the bloodstains on his plaid.

“Who said?” Morgan’s tone was ominous.

Ranald kept his silence.

The final thread of Morgan’s control snapped. Ignoring his cousin’s cry of pain, he caught him by the nape and gave him a savage shake. “The truth, Ranald,” he roared. “Or do I have to beat it out of you?” He drew back his fist.

Their harsh breathing mingled, both of them knowing that if Morgan laid a fist on him, if he unleashed the terrible violence he’d restrained for most of his life, he wouldn’t stop until it was done. But even more damning was the hopeful sheen in Ranald’s eyes, willing Morgan’s fist to fall, willing him to end his guilt with the punishment he deserved.

Shaken to the core, Morgan lowered his fist. Tears tumbled from Ranald’s dark eyes. “It weren’t my idea. I swear it weren’t. Ye know I ain’t ne’er been smart like ye. Eve said the Camerons were comin’ to kill us all in our beds. That their visit was nothin’ but a trick. That we had to get them before they got us. Yer lady was kind to me. I dinna mean to hurt her. I swear I dinna.”

Taking care not to jar Ranald’s wounded shoulder, Morgan wrapped an arm around his cousin and drew him into a fierce embrace, his own eyes dry and bleak. “I know, lad,” he whispered. “Neither did I. God help me, neither did I.”

···

On the third day after the accident, Ranald appeared among his clansmen at Morgan’s side, wearing a sheepish expression and a clean white sling. While the Camerons cast him contemptuous glances, the MacDonnells shunned him. Only Enid dared to approach him, her placid face alive with the fear that the terrible stories she had heard might be true. When Ranald kept walking, his eyes downcast, she turned away, smothering a broken cry into her handkerchief.

As the short winter days and interminable nights passed, the web of Eve’s deceit untangled, the rumors slowly sifted through a skein of truth.

Eve had disappeared. Two of the renegade MacDonnells had been killed by the Cameron men who had closed ranks around their laird when the first pistol was fired. The other three had fled to the harsh northern mountains to escape Morgan’s wrath.

The Cameron men passed among the MacDonnells unmolested, enmity forgotten as the two clans united their hopes and prayers for the woman who lay in a laudanum-induced stupor in the bed above them. Even the worldly Fergus was overheard mumbling a rusty prayer.

One morning near dawn Morgan sat at Sabrina’s bedside, stroking her fevered brow and whispering Gaelic endearments only he could understand. Dr. Montjoy snored from his bench by the fire. Pugsley kept his own vigil at the foot of the bed, his brown eyes sorrowful. Dougal sprawled in a chair, an untouched book lying open across his lap. He and Morgan’s eyes met in bitter accord across the splinted length of Sabrina’s legs.

Ranald’s confession had failed to answer the question that haunted them both. Why? Why had Sabrina plunged down that icy road on a horse that terrified her? Morgan had spent hours searching her lax features for the answer. He could not forget that elusive instant when she had pulled back on Pookah’s mane. Had she been struggling to veer toward the meadow, or was it only a desperate attempt to slow the horse’s wild flight? Had she sought to warn him of Eve’s treachery or to save her family from a betrayal she believed to be his own?

Looking into Dougal’s eyes chilled him. It was like looking into a mirror of his own emotions. He saw shock, rage, guilt, and a bitter accusation that made it even more imperative that he hear the truth from Sabrina’s own lips.

She stirred against his hand, her delicate brow puckered in a twinge of pain. For now it would have to be enough that she lived. Stroking his finger across the downy curve of her cheek, Morgan began to sing softly, a child’s lullaby from a memory he’d never realized he had.

Someone was singing.

A man’s voice, rich and sonorous, endearingly off key, more compelling than the siren song that had lured Odysseus’s ship toward the deadly rocks. Sabrina could make no sense of the words, but their tenderness was irresistible. She tried to turn her head to seek their source only to find herself, like Odysseus, bound against the temptation of surrender.

Dread heightened her struggle. She knew from harsh experience that after the voices would come the jagged edges of the pain. But worse than the pain were the gentle hands that would follow, familiar hands that smelled of camphor and peppermint, hands from her childhood pouring the thick poison, bitter and sickly sweet, down her unresisting throat. It made her want to gag, but she was robbed of even that feeble rebellion by the inevitable spiral into oblivion.

A callused palm cupped her jaw. The song faded to a weary mumble, its hoarse timbre striking a note of recognition. Morgan’s voice. Morgan’s touch. Morgan’s hands on her. Her urgency escalated to panic. Dark slashes of memory battered her. Hoofbeats pounding down a twisting road. Glimpsing Morgan in the meadow through her streaming hair. Hauling back on Pookah’s mane until the coarse strands cut like threads of steel into her palms. She must reach Morgan. Warn him about Eve. Assure him that her faith in him had never faltered.

She struggled against the shards of pain, fought the seductive whisper of unconsciousness. Clawing her way to the surface, she opened her eyes a slit to find herself dazzled by the firelight shining through the brilliant skein of Morgan’s hair. After the infernal darkness, it was like a beacon, bathing the chiseled planes of his face in gilt. She lifted her hand, aching to touch him. A fierce joy seized her. She had succeeded! Morgan was alive! Tears of gratitude welled in her eyes as she struggled to form the words.

“Doctor. She’s gettin’ restless. You’d best come.” Morgan’s voice, harsh and implacable.

There was a frantic scrabbling as if of a large, nervous animal as someone else rushed toward the bed. Even as she screamed a silent denial, the first bitter draft hit her lips, burning like acid down her raw throat.

As she sank back into the sea of oblivion, a despairing moan escaped her, for she had failed to make them understand that feeling pain was better than feeling nothing at all.

Two days later Sabrina opened her eyes. Both puzzled and amazed at the ease of it, she squinted. The chamber was fuzzy, but not impossible. A narrow band of sunlight crept across the quilts, announcing the winter morning with simple grace.

Two men were silhouetted against the window, their unkempt hair haloed by the light. Their voices bumped and slurred to her unpracticed ears, finally separating into tones she could recognize: her papa’s gentle Highland lilt; the other man’s familiar rasp forever linked with childhood hurts and peppermint comfits pressed into her chubby hands. Dr. Montjoy’s presence baffled her. She could not remember being ill or even having the sniffles.

So steeped was she in those confusing memories of childhood that her father’s aged profile startled her. Haggard lines had been carved around his expressive mouth. The silver at his temples had cast its net over the rest of his dark hair. A wave of shock and pity washed over her, tempered by a thread of thanksgiving as she realized that Eve’s ambush had failed.

“Papa?” Her lips formed the word, but no sound came forth. Her tongue was thick from disuse.

Her father rubbed a weary hand over his untrimmed beard. “We’ve waited long enough. He must be told.”

Dr. Montjoy gave the door a furtive glance. “Would you be so kind? I don’t think he cares for me. If he took it in his head that I were somehow to blame…” He trailed off on an ominous note.

“There’s no hope at all?”

The physician shook his head sadly. “Her legs…”

His words slurred back into incoherence as icy fear paralyzed Sabrina’s rediscovered senses. At that moment her legs seemed the most substantial thing about her, weighted with a dull ache. But even she knew there was only one commonly accepted cure for a badly broken leg. And hadn’t she heard of soldiers who had lost their limbs on the battlefield and lived to complain of pain or even itching? Swallowing hard, she summoned up the strength to lift the quilt a furtive inch. A sigh escaped her to find her legs still there, splinted but intact. She couldn’t quite swallow a rusty shadow of a grin.

Dr. Montjoy went on. “… The ledge broke her fall, but the horse’s weight crushed the bones in her lower legs. Since her husband wouldn’t let me amputate…”

Thank you, Morgan , Sabrina whispered silently. Thank you, God .

“… Splints are being tried in London by the more reputable bone-setters, but no one knows if they’re truly of any benefit. It’s my opinion that the girl will live, but I’m afraid she’ll not walk again.”

Sabrina’s grin faded.

The men were moving away from the window, turning to face her. There was no time to act, no time to think. She slammed her eyes shut, buying herself the only thing within her power—time.

Sabrina held herself motionless as Morgan stormed past the bed, pacing the confines of the chamber like a caged lion. “Shouldn’t she be awake now, Doctor? You quit givin’ her the laudanum three bloody days ago.”

As her husband’s steps retreated, Sabrina sneaked one eye open. Morgan’s plaid flared around his broad shoulders. He had entered the musty sickroom in a jarring blast of juniper and winter sunshine. His very vitality hurt her eyes.

Exchanging a nervous glance with her father, the doctor shook his head. “I’ve seen cases like this before, son. The body simply shuts down, saving all its energies for healing. She’ll come around when she’s ready.”

Sabrina slammed her eyes shut as Morgan approached the bed. She could almost feel the waves of suspicion rolling off him.

“I wonder…” he murmured. She heard his pause, the whisper of pages being turned. “I would have sworn this book was at the foot of the bed this mornin’.”

Her pillow gave beneath the exacting pressure of Morgan’s palms on each side of her head. The heat of his scrutiny scorched her. She was afraid to move, afraid even to breathe. His hair tickled her nose and she swallowed a tormenting urge to sneeze.

Her father bought her a reprieve, his calm, rational tone brooking no arguments. “Enid was in earlier for a visit. Perhaps she read to Sabrina.”

Morgan snorted. “Aye. Or perhaps Pugsley was readin’ to while away the hours.”

Still shaking his head, he strode from the chamber, his absence more keenly felt than his presence. The other men trailed after him, Dr. Montjoy murmuring platitudes, her father strangely silent.

After they were gone, Sabrina propped her head up on the pillows, crossed her arms, and glared at her legs.

Hateful, useless things .

Morgan’s own voice came back to damn her. The MacDonnells won’t stomach any show of weakness. They’ve no tolerance for cripples .

Sabrina had learned from eavesdropping on her father and Alex that Eve had beat a coward’s retreat. Yet it seemed the vindictive woman had won after all. ’Twas a pity she hadn’t lingered to enjoy her handiwork. Wouldn’t she have savored the irony of it all?

She heard Fergus’s voice, thick with contempt. Why, I’d as soon bugger lame old Eve than bed a Cameron ! Now she was both, Sabrina thought, lame and a Cameron.

She scooped up the book and hurled it at the far wall. It slid down to land in the floor, its pages rifled. Let Morgan figure out how it got there if he dared.

Her eyes burned hot and dry. Her legs throbbed dully. She welcomed the physical manifestation of her pain, all the while knowing it wasn’t keen enough to distract her from the turmoil in her heart.

She’d had ample time to think in the past two days. Too much time. Time enough to know that from this moment on she would be nothing but a millstone around her husband’s neck. He deserved a woman with two strong legs who could work for his clan. A woman who could give him the son he desired. Her hand fluttered over her stomach, refusing to give name to the one hope she still clung to.

Just by honoring their vows, Morgan risked losing the respect of his clan. She had borne the MacDonnells’ enmity as her birthright, but their pity would kill her soul. Far worse would be the pity she would see in Morgan’s eyes each time he looked at her, each time he touched her. The pity he might show a sparrow with a broken wing or a child who had fallen and skinned its knee. Her hands clenched the quilt. The MacDonnells weren’t the only ones with pride.

She pressed her eyes shut, assailed by a memory of their last night together in the bed that had since become her prison. She could still see Morgan’s magnificent body sprawled beneath her, burnished by the extravagant spilling of light from the tapers he insisted upon whenever they made love. She saw his beautiful face strained with pleasure as she surrendered her inhibitions, giving herself over with fierce abandon and knowing a surge of triumph in that instant when Morgan roared his own exultation, losing the very control he so prided himself on.

She opened her eyes, knowing what she must do.

When Dougal and the doctor returned, she was propped against the pillows, her hands folded in her lap.

“Princess, you’re awake!” Her father rushed to her side, kneeling to clasp her hands. His hands felt almost feverish against the chill passivity of her own.

A joyous smile wreathed Dr. Montjoy’s face. “Praise the good Lord! I knew he’d see us through. Stay with her, Dougal, and I’ll go fetch the lad.” A giddy laugh escaped him. “’Twill be welcome indeed to have some good news to share with him.” He trotted toward the door, rubbing his pudgy hands in anticipation.

Sabrina stopped him with a single word. “Don’t.” Dougal frowned. Even hoarse with disuse, Sabrina’s voice dripped ice. “I do not wish to see my husband at present.”

The doctor’s smile faded. “But, girl, if you could only have seen him in the past fortnight. He’s had near supernatural powers. I’ve never seen any man go so long without food or sleep.”

“I do not wish to see him,” she repeated. “If he protests, remind him that he owes me that much.”

“But, lass—” Dougal started, aghast at her callous words.

“Tell him.”

The doctor turned away, his jowls drooping like a disconsolate hound’s. Sabrina gazed down at her father’s hands. They still rested lightly over her frozen fingers. Eyes that knew her too well searched her stony face.

“Shall we talk about it, lass?” he asked softly, lifting his hand to cup her cheek.

Unable to bear his solace, she turned her face to the pillow. “No, Papa. I’m weary. I wish only to sleep.”

As his hand withdrew in wounded silence, the throb of Sabrina’s shattered legs was nothing compared to the agony in her heart.

Gulping the brisk air, Morgan clenched his hands on the crude stone of the battlement. He could not shake the terrible niggling suspicion that Sabrina was awake. He would have sworn she’d been watching him as he’d napped beside her bed the previous night. But when he had jerked his head around, her curly lashes had rested flush on her cheeks as innocent as a lamb’s.

But what of the petulant quirk of her lips? he wondered. It hadn’t been there before, had it? He had wrestled with the most absurd desire to cup her face in his hands and kiss it away. Perhaps guilt and lack of sleep were making him mad.

The wind stung his eyes and tossed his hair, bracing him with its icy purity. Surely nothing could be more healing than this breath of heaven blown down from the mountainside. As soon as she was well enough, he would wrap Sabrina in his plaid and carry her to this tower for a taste of it. He would carry her many places from now on. For the rest of his life, she would be the one burden he would gladly bear.

He had managed to sit calmly, Dr. Montjoy hovering in the background, while Dougal explained that Sabrina would never walk again. Would never dance down the stairs in those ridiculous little slippers of hers. Would never stomp out a Highland fling at Fergus’s urging. Would never chase him across a meadow ripe with summer until he allowed himself to be caught and tumbled into a fragrant patch of heather and bluebells.

Would never run to greet him at the end of the day, a child on each hand and another clinging to her skirts.

It was the hardest blow Morgan had ever taken. But he hadn’t allowed himself so much as a flinch. He hadn’t sworn or roared or destroyed anything. He hadn’t fixed his fingers around the hapless doctor’s throat as he had longed to do. He’d simply thanked Dougal for his candor and excused himself, climbing the crumbling stairs to this tower, where he could endlessly relive the moment of Sabrina’s destruction.

If only he had run faster, flung himself from the drift a second sooner, thought to sacrifice Pookah a dozen hoofbeats before he reached the cliff. If only he had failed to heed Ranald and let the damn sheep drown. If only he had seen the bitterness and twisted ambition in Eve’s crystalline eyes.

Because of him, Sabrina was broken and couldn’t be fixed. He couldn’t splint her wing as he had the golden eagle that had once blundered through the tower window. He couldn’t drip milk down her throat as he had the baby bird that had tumbled out of its nest at his feet. He couldn’t tuck her beneath his plaid and warm her with his body heat as he had the half-frozen shrew he had found buried in the ice.

His despairing eyes searched the unforgiving vista of snow and rock. He should never have brought her to this place. Better to have left her in Dougal’s plush demesne and adored her from afar.

A footstep sounded behind him. Morgan turned, wondering who would have braved the crumbling steps. Dr. Montjoy stood there, still huffing from the steep climb, an expression of abject misery on his face.

Morgan’s mind spiraled crazily. Had Sabrina taken an unexpected turn for the worse? Died?

He took a step toward the man without realizing it.

Blowing out a nervous puff of steam, Montjoy held up his hand. “I’ve good news, lad. Sabrina has regained full consciousness. She’s awake.”

Morgan started for the stairs, unable to curb the joy pulsing through him. It recklessly shoved aside both guilt and grief.

With more courage than Morgan would have suspected, the doctor stepped into his path. He blinked up at him through his fogging spectacles. “I’m sorry, but your wife doesn’t want to see you right now.” He averted his eyes. “She said to remind you that you owe her that much.”

Dougal’s blunt honesty about his daughter’s future had been no more than a reproving slap compared to the wallop Sabrina packed. Her dainty fist staggered him. It took all of Morgan’s control to keep from reeling beneath its force.

He swung around to the parapet. The aged mortar crumbled beneath the strength of his grip. “Thank you, Doctor,” he heard himself say, even adding on a rare note of grace. “For all you’ve done. I’ll not forget it.”

As the physician’s despondent steps retreated, Morgan stared blindly over the merciless peaks.

You owe me that much .

He owed her everything. A lifetime of penance for a crime he could never atone for.

Somewhere in the forest below, a branch succumbed to the weight of the ice. Morgan flinched at the brittle crack, bracing himself against the inevitable sound of anguish that would follow in his mind. Sabrina’s scream. His mother’s scream as she surrendered her life for his own. It echoed a sound that would haunt him all the grim days and lonely nights to come—Sabrina’s delicate bones snapping just like the stem of the Belmont Rose in his clumsy hands.