Chapter 28

I t’s the strangest feeling tiptoeing through the hallways of my previous home. I lived with these people for years. They were my family and this used to be my safe space. Though perhaps my only true family was Lauren, Keith, and Carlo. We were the closest. Keith was like a father figure to me, maybe even a better father in many ways than my real one. Greta is a different story. She has her own agenda. We all know it. While she’s at the helm of this rebel group, she’s a mystery in many ways, and I need to keep my distance until I can trust her again.

I dart past the living room, careful to avoid the creaking floorboards. Laughter spills from within as grown men curse like sailors. A group of rebels watches a football game on the TV with their socked feet on the coffee table, which is littered with pizza boxes and empty beer bottles.

I recognize some of them by their boisterous voices alone. Antonio, a brute-looking man in his late thirties, sits in one of the two armchairs with his arm behind his head and a beer bottle balanced on his stomach. He was the member who taught me how to drive a stick.

Aria, a short-haired woman in her mid-twenties, with a fierce lion tattoo on her back, sits perched on the armrest, hollering at the TV as loudly as the guys.

She joined the Antichrist after members of the Exodus drove up beside her and her boyfriend in a flashy, top-of-the-range car. They hauled him into the trunk before driving away into the foggy night, leaving her behind, alone and scared, while their fading laughter drifted through the open windows. We all have a story with heartbreak at its center. It’s what bonded us over many moonless nights.

I escape upstairs, my bare feet sinking into the red carpet. Voices drift through one of the closed doors, so I quickly run past, my heart thudding hard as I glance at the surveillance camera in the corner. I didn’t exactly plan this impromptu escape, and it won’t be long until they discover I’m gone. This might be my only chance to find him.

Call it intuition, but as I near the next bedroom in line, my chest tightens, and a strange pull urges me forward. Darian is in there. I know it even before I inch the door open to peek inside. There’s no sign of anyone in the empty room. Why would there be? They’ve left him alone, for god only knows how long, in a wardrobe, just like that night when he listened to his mother’s screams and cries for help.

Once I enter the room and close the door softly behind me, careful not to make a sound, I glance around at the sparse furniture and the potted herbs on the windowsill. As I walk deeper into the room, I almost trip on the curled corner of the plush rug on the floor.

“Shit,” I curse, stumbling forward.

This is the primary bedroom. It used to be Keith’s when he was alive, but I don’t recall ever entering it until now. The walls are painted a dark gray shade, giving the space a modern feel. A large bed with crisp white bedding stands out against the walls, while simple IKEA nightstands on either side hold farmhouse-style bedside lamps.

A muffled sound comes from behind the closed wardrobe doors, and I rush forward to slide them open, gasping at the sight that greets me.

Darian’s bloodshot eyes blink against the light as I enter the small space and fall to my knees before him. Sweat is beading on his brow and upper lip, his skin clammy beneath my touch.

A rush of relief spears through me as I palm his face. “Are you okay, baby? It’s me, Cecilia.”

“Cec—” he croaks, clearing his throat and trying again. “Cecilia?”

“I’m here, baby.” I fuss over him for long, precious minutes we don’t have, then set to work untying the ropes. Darian stares at my face as though I’m an apparition.

“Is it really you?” he asks.

My hands tremble violently, and I have to inhale a few deep breaths to steady the adrenaline rush of seeing him in this vulnerable state. Darian has always been indestructible and larger than life. Nothing could touch him. I’m furious, I realize, as I meet his gaze. Furious that anyone would hurt him like this. Furious that someone tried to keep us apart.

“I’ll get you out of here.”

“Cecilia,” he says, and I stop trying to untie the rope around his ankle to wipe the tears from my eyes. It’s hard to look at him because it makes me want to murder whoever did this to him. “I thought…”

The haunted quality of his voice grips my aching heart in a vise. I raise my gaze, struck by the sincerity in his. He lifts his free hand and cups my cheek, touching me with a reverence I’ve never felt before. “You thought what?” I ask.

“I thought I might never see you again.” His chin wobbles as he strokes his thumb through the salty tears on my cheeks. “I thought…”

“It’s okay. You don’t have to say it.”

He thought they were hurting me while he was tied to a chair and hidden away in a closet, unable to save me.

“I’m okay,” I reassure him as I finish freeing him from the chair, the ropes falling to the floor. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

We exit the wardrobe, and I look back and take his hand. Darian pulls me to a stop and sweeps me up in his arms, his nose buried in my neck. “Are you sure you’re okay?” he asks, breathing me in. “I swear if they hurt you, I will?—”

“No one hurt me.” I dig my fingers into the expanse of his back through his slightly damp shirt, confused for a moment as I ease back. “Why are your clothes wet?”

Before he can respond, my eyes widen as I remember his injury. “Your back… The crossbow… Are you okay?”

He reaches for my hand, and we cross the room. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine,” I say, noting the dried blood on his shirt.

It’s a lot of blood.

He presses a finger to his lips in a silent command to stay quiet and then releases my hand to open the door carefully. I wait patiently while he sticks his head outside, my palms clammy with nerves. Someone will come to check on us soon. I’m surprised no one has sounded the alarm yet, though there’s a football game on the TV. They’re always laxer on game night.

When the coast is clear, we exit the room. Darian is surprisingly light on his feet for such a large man, and I admire his agility as we turn the corner in sync.

We hurry downstairs, descending the staircase as silently as we can. Darian pauses on the second to the last step, listening intently, and then we’re on the move again, running across the hallway.

As we turn another corner, Lauren appears and whacks Darian in the head with a baseball bat. He falls to the floor with a sickening thud, and my heart stalls at seeing him incapacitated.

Lauren sneers down at him, teetering on her heels. “Why do you always get the good parts?” she asks me as she lifts her gaze. “Is it because you’re a precious van der Meer? A runaway princess. Just because you were born into privilege, the rest of us should settle for less? Is that it? Well, I’ve got news for you, princess. The Antichrist wants nothing to do with your kind. You’re the abomination we’re fighting against. Just because you were let into our folds doesn’t mean you’re one of us.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, inching back.

“Sure you don’t. The moment you were conceived, you were destined for grandeur. Isn’t that so? You were meant to lead at the top with the next generation Bishop.” Nostrils flaring, she steps over Darian’s unconscious body. “The future queen.”

“We were friends, you and I,” I say shakily, hating how scared I sound.

“We were never friends.”

One step closer.

I glance down at the bat in her hands, the end smeared with blood, and my throat jumps.

“I am done playing the role of your keeper. It’s time we do this my way.”

“Your way?” I gulp, inching away.

She stalks me, dragging the bat along the wall. “You marrying Darian and having his babies could have been a solid plan in our fight against the Exodus, what with such fine breeding, but you had to go and fall for him like a fucking fool.” She cocks her head to the side. “And now you’re a liability.”

“Let’s talk about this, Lauren.”

She stops and laughs. “Talk?”

“Yes… Please, I’m begging you, whatever is going on inside your head, it’s not true. I’m not your enemy. Nothing has changed.”

Her smile takes on a dark edge. “Nothing has changed?” she asks, spinning around and walking back to the body. “Then you won’t mind me killing him? He’s an enemy of the Antichrist, right?” She raises the bat above her head, about to strike his skull, and looks at me. “I bet he won’t be so pretty when his head is bashed in like a melon.”

“No!” I rush forward before I can think clearly, and a victorious smile twists her mouth.

“No?” she asks, bat poised to strike. “I thought you said nothing had changed. So you’re a liability, after all.”

She sets off after me, and I let out a terrified gasp as I flee down the hallway, but I don’t make it far before Antonio appears out of nowhere and blocks my path. “In a hurry somewhere?”

I glance behind me to see Lauren dragging her bat along the wall, a manic grin contorting her facial features.

“It’s over, princess,” she taunts. “Your precious Greta isn’t here to save you this time.”

Hope flares as Ari walks around the corner and takes in the scene, her short hair swept off her puckering forehead.

“What’s going on?” she asks, glancing from Lauren and the bat to Antonio, who blocks my only escape route.

“It’s a misunderstanding,” I rush out, at the same time Antonio says gruffly, “She escaped the room.”

Ari’s brows shoot up, and she looks genuinely surprised. “Thomas abandoned his post?”

“Who knows,” Antonio replies, his eyes on me. “The boy sprouts an erection at the slightest thing, so it wouldn’t surprise me if our little girl here used that to her advantage.”

His knowing smirk makes me sick to my stomach. I try to escape past him again, but he grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me so hard that I fall to the floor. “Stay down, bitch.”

I scramble away and press myself against the wall. From this angle, he appears even taller and bigger, and I realize I can’t escape past him without a weapon.

Ari studies me. “Is it true that you’re in love with the Elder?”

I look from her to Lauren to Antonio and back to Ari. “Eat horseshit, all of you.”

Antonio bursts out laughing. “Horseshit? I like that. Very original.”

“You think you’re so fucking brave, huh?” Lauren says as her heels click on the floor.

She puts the bat beneath my chin, tilting it up, and I swallow as my heart drums an irregular beat. “You’re ours now, princess, and we don’t have to pretend to like you anymore. You’re nothing but an Exodus slut.”

I feel tears trail down my cheeks as she smiles cruelly, and my gaze flicks to the others, seeing the hatred sparkling in their eyes. For years, I considered them my family. I trusted them. We planned our revenge on the Exodus together. We were fighting for a common cause together. But it’s obvious now that they never cared about me. None of it was real. Did Keith and Carlo hate me, too? Did they pretend to care for me? Was it all a lie? Did the Antichrist use me as a pawn from the very beginning?

“Don’t look like such a kicked puppy. I promise we won’t hurt you and your precious boyfriend— much.” Lauren’s honeyed voice cuts through my warring thoughts.

She raises the bat to swing it at me, but before she gets the chance, Darian appears behind Ari and wraps his arm around her neck.

It all happens so fast. One minute, his eyes meet mine over Ari’s shoulder, and the next, a sickening snap fills the room. He launches himself at Antonio next, and I use the moment of surprise to throw myself at Lauren’s legs. She topples to the floor with a yelp, and we tussle for the bat.

“You fucking bitch,” she says, kneeing me between my legs as I try to secure her wrists. Then she rolls over onto her stomach, reaching for the bat, but I grip her by the hair and slam her face into the floor, breaking her delicate little nose with a loud crunch.

“Fucking gross,” I mutter, launching forward to grab the bat.

Lauren looks up, cupping her bleeding nose, her eyes filled with anger. In a swift move, she takes off her heel and drives it into the back of my bare calf.

I cry out as white-hot pain sears through my leg, leaving me whimpering and breathing heavily.

Lauren laughs as she stands up and collects the bat. “Looks sore,” she says, nodding toward the heel stuck in my leg.

As I look over my shoulder at my calf, a cold sweat breaks out on my forehead. There’s blood everywhere, smeared across the hallway floor like a scene from a horror flick. I roll over, careful with my injury, and yank the heel out.

Fuck, that hurt. I try to breathe through the sharp pain, but it’s so severe that I struggle to focus.

Antonio has gained the upper hand.

He is straddling Darian now and laying into him with his fists.

Lauren swings the bat with a manic look, striking me in the shoulder. A loud crunch fills my ears as I collapse to the floor, writhing in pain.

“That’s enough,” Lauren says to Antonio before she delivers another hard blow to the back of my thigh. “We need him alive?—”

A silenced pop rings out, and Lauren topples to the floor, staring up at the roof with a bullet hole between her manicured brows. Surprised, I look up to see Sinclair haul Antonio off my husband and knee him hard in the face before he aims the gun at his head and shoots him dead with a cold look that sends shivers rushing down my spine.

Frozen to the spot, I’m hauled to my feet by Elijah, who picks me up in his strong arms and carries me out past Darian. My eyes widen when I see his barely recognizable face, and I beat Elijah’s broad chest, ordering him to put me down, which he does reluctantly.

Ignoring the throbbing pain in my leg and my dislocated, possibly broken shoulder, I collapse between Darian’s spread legs and cup his bruised face. Both eyes are almost swollen shut and blood pours from a deep gash on his forehead.

“Darian…” My voice trembles as I swipe my thumbs through the slick crimson on his cheeks. “Please, look at me.”

Sinclair puts his hand on my shoulder, causing me to stiffen. “We need to leave.”

I jerk free. “I’m not leaving him here.”

“Of course, we’re not fucking leaving him here.” With a nod toward Elijah, I’m once again picked up like I weigh nothing more than a feather. I don’t know why I fight. Sinclair is my husband’s friend and possibly his only ally, but my instincts override my common sense. I squirm in Elijah’s arm, beating his chest while demanding that he take me back to Darian, and he grumbles something under his breath about how I’m paying for the dry cleaning.