36. Chapter 36

CHAPTER 36

T he explosion happened earlier than she had anticipated.

Five booms, one after another, crashing through the night like the loudest cracks of lightning.

Screaming. Bricks crashing.

The ground shaking under her feet.

Mayhem and chaos loud enough to pull every able guard to the opposite side of the prison.

Izzie waited five heartbeats. Five more.

She peeked around the dark corner of the old stone battlement to where two guards had been stationed at the main entrance to the prison.

Both were gone. Footsteps and shouts retreating into the depths of the interior walkways.

Sylvie had given her a sense of the prison layout, garnered from when she had wormed her way into the prison earlier in the day, claiming she was there to see her father.

Fortitude.

Making herself as small as possible, she ran in through the main entrance, her eyes trained for any movement of guards.

Past empty sleeping quarters, and then a long room with a large wooden table filled with half-eaten plates of food. All of the guards had rushed toward the explosions.

They knew when they were under attack.

Fifteen more steps and there, to the left, just as Sylvie had said. That was the main entrance to the upper cells in this area of the prison.

If Valentino had tossed Thomas into the same cell they had kept him in all those years, then his cell should be close to this entrance, for these were the visiting cells—not the cells below ground where they tossed the men that would never see the light of day again.

Saying a quick prayer to all of the gods that ever existed, Izzie ran along the dank stone corridors, trying to not breathe in the putrid air. She clamped the keys Sylvie had given her in her left hand, not allowing them to jingle. Not that anyone would hear her over the crashing and shouting and gunfire cracking far on the other end of the prison.

She reached the first set of cells, frantic as she looked in one after another on both sides of the corridor. Scraggy men grabbing onto the bars, their bearded faces pressed against the iron, trying to catch a glimpse of what the commotion was. Wondering if this might be their chance of escape. Hooting and jeering at her as she ran past.

Wait.

Her feet skidded to a stop and she jumped three steps backward. She moved toward the iron bars of a cell where there hadn’t been a man looking out.

Her nose next to the middle bar, she looked in. A lump in the corner, she could barely make out a shackle around a leg in the scant light of the torch burning along the corridor.

“Thomas?” she whispered, probably not loud enough to hear with the commotion.

The lump didn’t move, and then she saw that the man’s left ear was up. Thomas’s bad ear.

Yanking out the key ring, she grabbed the key Sylvie thought the guard had used to open up several locks on the gates along the way.

She slid it into the heavy iron lock that secured the door of the cell.

On first turn, the key spun but didn’t release the lock. Twisting fast, she jammed it back in the other direction.

Clink.

Without thought to her own safety in case it wasn’t Thomas in the cell, she jerked open the cell door and ran over to the lump, grabbing his ragged white shirt along the neck and shoving the man over.

Her breath caught in her throat.

Thomas.

Beaten to all hell, his face a puffy mush of blood and pus.

Not moving.

Her chest shredding into thin wisps of terror, she cupped his chin, shaking him slightly, leaning down to his right ear, her voice strong even as she kept it low. “Thomas, Thomas, I know you’re in there and can hear me. You need to wake up, wake up now. Please wake up. Please.”

He didn’t move, didn’t stir.

She set the back of her hand against his nostril.

The slightest wisp of breath.

Well, hell.

She would have to carry him out. Drag him, when she considered the weight difference.

She abandoned his head and went down to the shackle around his ankle, her hand brushing against a swath of metal along his torso. Chains.

Shit. Another shackle around his wrist.

Two damn shackles. The only way out of them with the keys. Her fingers fumbling, she started to grab one key after another, jabbing it into the keyhole by his ankle.

Didn’t fit. Too skinny. Right size, but didn’t turn. Five. Ten. Fifteen keys in and out.

Clink.

Her movements frenzied, she almost didn’t realize the key had turned before she nearly yanked it out.

She froze, then twisted her wrist. The lock popped open.

One more to go.

She grabbed the side of Thomas’s torso, shoving him over to get to the shackle on his wrist. Ribs shifted oddly under her hands. Hell. Ribs that were floating, not attached as they should have been.

A grunt expelled from his mouth as he landed on his back. Good. Maybe starting to wake.

The clanking of steel blades got louder. The fight making its way closer. Callum and his crew, guards, or escaped prisoners fighting, she didn’t want to find out. They’d unleashed mayhem on the prison, and now she just needed to get Thomas out of there before that mayhem reached them.

An unnatural calm came over her, and her hands steadied, key after key slipping into the lock of the shackle on his wrist. Clink. Open.

She exhaled a breath, looking up as three men in tattered clothes ran past the cell, then two men with swords and a pistol raised, chasing them.

Crack.

The sharp blast of a pistol shot exploded into her ears, the echo of it vibrating off the stones around her.

Not the way out.

Backup plan.

Digging into the leather pouch around her waist, she pulled free three fist-sized round metal ball bombs filled with gunpowder, praying it would be enough to create a hole in the outer wall. Her movements swift, she ran to the opposite side of the cell where there was a rectangular hole low in the outer stone wall to sweep refuse from the cell out into the ditch around the prison. Shoving the explosives deep into the hole, she ducked out into the corridor to grab a torch.

Setting herself onto her knees in front of Thomas, she tossed the torch toward the explosives in the hole and turned, ducking her head under her hands as she covered Thomas’s head and torso with her body.

For one second that seemed to last a lifetime, nothing.

Suddenly, a sizzle, and then one explosion—two, three—shaking her to her bones. Stones shattered and sprayed across her back, the force of them hot spikes slicing through her cloak and dress, sinking into her skin.

Her ears ringing, she lost her equilibrium, the world spinning around her as she forced herself up, her hands under Thomas’s armpits.

Dragging him upright, she caught sight of his face, and he was awake, saying something that she couldn’t hear, for the explosion still thundered deep in her ears, taking away all sound.

But he seemed to know it was her. Seemed to be pushing up on his own two legs. Helping her.

Pulling Thomas’s weight with her, she stumbled over to the hole in the wall she’d blown through. A small hole, but it would do.

Kicking rubble out of the way, she propped him onto the mound of stone that had spilled into the cell, went through the hole, then reached back in, grabbing him around the chest. Wedging her knees, then feet, on the outside wall for leverage, she dragged him out through the opening.

Pulling. Pulling. Pulling.

Rain soaking the back of her head, she pulled harder, her muscles straining. They were so close.

His feet suddenly kicking, helping, Thomas cleared the hole in the wall, landing splayed out on his stomach atop the mound of broken stones.

But he was out. Out of the prison. Out of the horror of it.

All she’d wanted since the moment she’d seen him on the ship. Free of her brother’s beastly demons.

Her feet stumbling over the rubble, she found stable ground and started to pull Thomas upright. They had to get out of here—fast.

Halfway up, on one foot and one knee, his look caught hers in the flickering light from the lanterns lighting the exterior walls of the prison.

His eyes looked cold, vicious as they set on her.

He shoved her away from him.

All her worst fears manifesting in that one moment.

He hated her.

Hated her for who she was. What her family did to him. How she’d betrayed him.

Things she could never explain away.

She stumbled backward with his shove, then immediately rushed forward to help him.

Hate her as he must, but she was getting him the hell out of here.

“Just where exactly do you think you’re taking KotRatte, Izzie?”

Ice slipped down her spine.

Her brother’s voice. That damn tone in his voice that always made her freeze, dumbstruck in fear.

She couldn’t turn around. Couldn’t face him. Her muscles frozen in terror, like they always had with him. Unable to defend herself, much less Thomas.

In the shadows, she found Thomas’s face. His eyes. Eyes that no longer looked cold and vicious. Eyes that had slipped into defeat. Into acceptance of never getting out of this hell.

She wasn’t going to let it happen. Not this time.

Her hand moving slowly to the center of her cloak, she wrapped her fingers around the hilt of her sword.

Without preamble, she pulled free the sword and spun with it in a high arc, hoping for first strike.

Blade sank into flesh. But not into her bastard brother’s neck. He shifted at the last second and the steel sank deep into his upper arm.

He jabbed a step backward, looking down at his arm and then glaring at her as he pulled free his short sword. “You stupid little bitch. I don’t care what condition I deliver you to Petrovuo now.”

He charged her, his sword swinging in fast at her arm. She flung up her blade at the last second to block the blow and spun to the side out of his reach, but still positioning herself as a human wall between her brother and Thomas.

“Delivering her as a bloody stump will do just fine for the little slut.” A new voice off to her left. A gravelly voice that sank even more terror into her.

Her father.

Fucking hell.

She glanced to her left, all feeling draining away in her body. A fear so visceral spreading within her she couldn’t fight it. Her limbs turned into lead. Not able to move. Not able to save herself, much less Thomas.

At her right, Valentino sneered, chuckling, the sound straight from the bowels of hell.

She didn’t even realize he lunged until a sharp pierce cut into her side.

She glanced down.

Valentino’s blade stuck into her side, burning a fiery pain into the right side of her waist.

Everything falling apart around her. Everything forfeit. Everything dying.

A roar to her left and it took her a lifetime to look up to the sound.

Thomas on her father’s back, his right arm clamped around her father’s neck, his left hand gripping his wrist to make the lock unbreakable.

Her father struggling, stumbling about, trying to dislodge Thomas.

Unfreeze. Move. Move.

Fight.

Fight.

Thomas’s attack spurred her into action and she pulled away from Valentino’s blade stuck in her.

Searing pain almost sent her to her knees, but she held to her feet, striking before her brother could react.

Swinging her sword at him with her right hand, she yanked free the dagger at her waist with her left. He deflected her sword, but it never entered his mind she would have another weapon on her.

That she was smart.

That she would act so quickly.

Without mercy.

With his look centered on blocking her sword, she sank the dagger into the side of his neck. She tore it out crooked, the flesh ripping from the force, leaving a gaping wound.

His look swung to her. Shock. Disbelief.

Then the blood started to flow.

He dropped his sword, both of his hands clamping to his neck, trying to stop the spurting blood.

She took three steps back, out of his reach, yanking free her cloak and letting it drop behind her so she could move freely, ready to continue this battle.

Valentino dropped to his knees in front of her, his eyes frantic even as his movements slowed. Leaning to the side. Falling.

It was all she needed to know, and she spun around to find her father and Thomas both on the ground, her father rolling away from Thomas.

Thomas had saved her from the evil bastard that had tormented her entire childhood.

She would finish this.

For Thomas.

For herself.

She stepped over to her father, and his hand lifted to her, shaking, so confident she would help him.

She kicked his outstretched hand aside and bent over him, sinking the tip of her blade straight into the center of his throat, then yanked it out.

Heartless and more than her father deserved.

She paused above him for a long breath, taking in the sight of his last, futile breath, then stumbled backward, her feet slipping on the slick ground.

Stopping, she blinked the rain out of her lashes and found Thomas on his knees, his hands on his thighs propping him up. The rain slashing down on him, sending his dark hair thick onto his forehead. His head slowly lifted, his eyes finding her in the dark. Eyes that held no mercy, no forgiveness.

Her heart shriveling on itself, she stood in dark rain, soaked to the bone, blood dripping from both of her blades at her sides. The light from the high lanterns flickering shadows in and out of her eyes.

Heartbroken as she looked at Thomas. Vulnerable. Searching for redemption in the form of blood. Giving him what he needed, for she couldn’t give him what he wanted.

He wanted her honest—she could never be that. There had been too many lies. Too many half-truths. The rest of her life would be lies she could never escape. A past she could never escape.

This, her family’s blood—this was the best she could do. The best she could give.

An erasure…no, a correction of the past. Vengeance served for all he’d suffered.

Her mouth opened, her tongue dry, even in the downpour. “There is no forgiveness for someone like me. I know that. But I give you this, their blood, because that is the only thing I can do.” Her soul bleeding out with every word, pain like she never knew it making her shudder.

She loved him.

Loved him like he was the air and the sun and the very key to her heart beating.

But there was nothing for it. Her betrayal had been so complete, there would never be forgiveness. She couldn’t even ask for it.

Before her legs crumpled, she turned, walking out into the dark of the street that led away from the prison.

Into the rain that would never clean her of her sins.

He didn’t stop her. Didn’t call out to her.

She left behind the clanking of metal, of shots. Callum and his crew securing the area. Securing Thomas’s safety. Callum would do it. She had faith in the Guardians.

She didn’t need to stay.

With her father and brother’s deaths, the threat to Thomas would soon be over. She’d left their bodies in place, and any man under them would see their corpses and leave the prison, no longer under their tyranny. The only ones still fighting just didn’t know that it was over.

The night wouldn’t even be over before all her father and brother’s men would be fighting amongst themselves for their spot of power under Petrovuo.

Her feet slowed. Every step more effort than the last.

She made it halfway along the peninsula, close to the center of town before stumbling, falling to the left into the muck of an alleyway.

What in the hell?

Her hand ran down her side, and…shit. Warmth. Wet warmth at her waist. She’d forgotten about that.

Everything draining away from her.

She lifted her hand in front of her face. Blood.

Blood thick and dripping.

Well…hell…