Undone: The Complete Duology, page 28
“We would have forgiven her,” Lara continued, “but this was about your brother.”
I didn’t appreciate her choice of words. Referring to Robert as my brother instead of by his name just served their purpose to drive the betrayal home.
They understood exactly what they were doing.
“We couldn’t let her get away talking about him like that. He was a good boy, always so quiet, always able to make anyone laugh. All she had to do—”
“Was apologize.” The words slipped out before I considered them, drifting in a sea of churning unpleasant thoughts.
Gracie had done a thing or two since I’d arrived in Thorn Tree. She’d desecrated a grave, with my help, and killed Amelia, in self-defense, all on her own. It wasn’t like she couldn’t have ever double crossed my brother, but to what end? Just to get out of punishment over something I still didn’t understand?
That hadn’t worked in her favor. She understood Thorn Tree well enough to know her stance would be met with severe discipline. Much worse than whatever the original problem had been.
The entire story still fell apart.
“All she had to do was apologize to my brother?” I asked, trying to make sense of everything I knew.
“To the town,” Lara said.
Dread draped over me. Back to their hivemind, cultish behavior.
Typical of abusive, manipulative shitheads, they were simply giving me verifiable points A and Z, but ignoring the alphabet in between those that spelled out an entirely different story.
I wished Gracie had told me the full truth, but now I understood better why she had refused: my brother factored prominently in why she was now the subject of the town’s loathing.
What had happened between them would have to be determined another time. For now, I needed to get the hell out of here, get back to Gracie. We needed to remain united in this war.
And this was, in fact, a war.
I leveled my gaze at Arthur. “Maybe she had nothing to be sorry about.”
He leaned into the punch, right in the face. Stars danced in the darkness in my vision as pain ricocheted around my skull. I drooped forward as blood touched my tongue.
“Maybe she should reconsider,” he said.
My vision cleared as I righted myself on the couch, breathing heavily.
The lights flickered, and it took a moment to be sure it was from the storm and not residual from the punch. Arthur was just one more reason I couldn’t bring myself to feel bad about Gracie’s intention to sink this town. Whatever had gone wrong here needed to be ended.
The power flickered again, twice. Then the room fell dark.
“I’ve got this,” Lara said softly.
I remained seated in my spot, tense, ready to make a run for it—except my ankles were still bound together.
Lara’s silhouette rummaged around the room before lighting a candle and then another on a side table. The glow barely permeated the room, but it was enough to give all of us an eerie look.
Just what this night needed.
From down the hall outside the door, the girl yelled.
Lara looked to Arthur, and he nodded. She slipped out of the room.
Arthur, shotgun still at his side, closed the short space between us and gripped the front of my shirt, pulling me up off the couch so we were face to face. He leaned down, his hulking form blocking most of the light.
“There is only one side in this town. Dissenters have no place here.”
“Then let her go.”
He shoved me back into the couch. Without another word, he strode from the room. The door clicked locked behind him.
I slumped in my seat, but my brain spun through possible, half-formed solutions about how to get out of here. No sharp objects were located within reach, and it wasn’t like I could move around much the way I was bound. The restraints were simple but effective enough.
I twisted my wrists around, trying to loosen the ropes. Since they were nylon, they didn’t chafe much, but they didn’t budge either. With a little more dexterity than usually required, I nudged off my shoe from the foot with the swollen ankle using the toe of my other foot. When the shoe was off, I created tension on the rope, pulling down with one foot while pulling up with the other. Little by little, the rope slid down the bandage, removing the top layer. The other ankle strained with the effort. Then the rope slid free and it slid right over my foot with the slack from the thick bandage.
With one foot free, I worked my shoe back on then heaved myself off the couch. I stumbled forward a step, caught my balance, and mindful of creaky old floorboards, hurried over to the candles. Turning my back to them, I grazed my fingers over the flames until I centered the knot of nylon rope.
This wasn’t going to work. The knot would take forever to burn through. I needed to hit the thinner areas that looped around my wrists.
Gritting my teeth, I shoved my non-dominant hand over the flame. The burning grew deeper and hotter. My brain began sending off little alerts to move, growing in intensity. My arms twitched with barely suppressed urges to pull away. The flinching developed into a low, deep hum in my throat as my skin welted and blistered. Smoke trickled towards my face, and I could identify both the stench of rope and skin. The humming developed into a scream that I caught in my mouth. Sickness washed over me.
They’re not going to win. They’re not going to win. Fuck it all, they are not going to win.
I understood Gracie, even if I didn’t know the full story. She had been burning the ropes on her wrists for years.
My hand jerked to the side, free of the restraint. I took a shuddering breath as I brought my arms to the front and tugged at the rope around the other wrist. Like the one on my ankle, it wasn’t going to remove so easily. No matter. My limbs were free of each other. The rest I could sort out later.
I refused to look at my burned hand that shot hot pain down to my nerves with every breath I took.
Cradling my injured hand, I limped to the window and peered out. The storm had eased, though snow still swirled in the air. The panes did not open, and the grilles would make breaking out the glass too slow. The moment they heard shattering, Arthur and Lara would come running.
My only way out would be through the double doors, but they were locked. They also led me right back into the house.
This wasn’t promising.
“What would Gracie do?” I whispered, then laughed to myself.
Gracie would need either a shovel or a lighter. If she were here, trapped in this room, she would light this place up like a Fourth of July show.
I swiveled around to face the candles still flickering away on the end table.
This might have been the stupidest choice I’d ever made, but we were down to all or nothing. I grabbed one of the candlesticks and hunched by the door, tipping the flame to the wood. The flame lapped at the door but didn’t light. When it became apparent this tactic wasn’t going to work, I hobbled over to the drapes and grazed the flame over the first panel. The fabric caught. The flames had already chewed a hole by the time I lit the next panel, and then started on the neighboring set.
Smoke curled through the air, coalescing and forming a cloud that burned my lungs. I tried to breathe under the smoke, but as the flames grew, so did the cloud.
I needed Arthur to notice the flames sooner rather than later. My eyes burned as I limped over to the fireplace and grabbed the poker. Coughing, I approached one of the dark windows and rammed the poker straight through the first pane, then the next.
Footsteps thudded down the hallway. I took a stance in front of the door, braced with the poker out like I was a swashbuckler.
One of the doors swung open as Arthur charged into the room, shotgun over his shoulder. I jutted the poker at his chest. He swiveled out of the way, and the poker jabbed into his arm, breaking skin. Blood trickled down his arm as I wrenched the poker free. He lifted the shotgun. I ducked and swung up, slamming the side of the poker against his face. His head snapped to the side. He spun the shotgun in his hands and rammed the butt into my chest. My lungs seized. I stumbled back, struggling for air.
Around us, the flames roared larger, spreading with life of their own. Smoke hung over the room, twisting and churning.
Choking on the smoke, Arthur swung the shotgun at my head. I dropped to the ground and brandished the poker. The shotgun parried against the poker. On the floor, I skittered backwards towards the door as we dueled.
Arthur pulled back and then swung the shotgun like an ax at my skull. I dropped to my back and rolled. The butt of the shotgun slammed into the floor where my head had been.
I tightened my hold on the poker handle as I shoved to my feet. Fiery pain shot through my burned hand.
Around us, fire danced across the room. I tried to angle for the door, but Arthur had more than a foot on me and closed the path in two strides.
I feigned a swing at his chest, then fell into a crouch, catching him in the side of the knee. As he reared back, I rammed the end of the poker into his knee cap. He grimaced but remained otherwise stoic as he swiveled the shotgun around, pointing the barrel at me.
I froze with the bloody poker in hand as he ignored his oozing wounds.
This guy was a tank. Short of catching a lucky target, I wasn’t going to be able to beat him into submission with the poker.
He had a much more violent weapon at his disposal. With a twitch of his finger, he could end me.
Except he wasn’t going to. Thorn Tree needed me, didn’t they? Wasn’t I the big plan to lure Gracie back into their clutches?
I prayed to the god that had abandoned this town that I was right. If I wasn’t, my end was going to come swiftly.
I dropped the poker and bolted for the door. My ankle flared every few steps, but it wasn’t enough to slow me down. My arm throbbed far more deeply, but I shoved aside the agony as I curled my injured hand against my stomach. The dark hallways appeared a labyrinth. I took turns left and right, gunning for the foyer I couldn’t find.
Arthur charged behind me, the shotgun in his grasp though he seemed to have determined the same conclusion I had. He couldn’t shoot me, but he could do everything just short of.
A shot took out the darkened wall lamp straight ahead of me. Glass shards exploded in every direction. I jerked to the side and took a different hallway, Arthur right on my tail. A decorative hallway table shattered as I passed. Another bullet lodged into the wall to my right.
I swayed and bolted around a corner, bracing my good hand to catch my fall as I stumbled onward.
Doors lined either side of me. Maybe I could barricade myself into a room and bust out a window.
As if reading my thoughts, Arthur shot a bullet into one of the doors. The hole went straight through.
Duly noted.
Stairs joined with the hallway. I grabbed the banister and swung up the first few steps then hunched and barreled my way towards the landing. A shot glanced off the railing.
He was either an amazing marksman or a terrible one.
I suspected the former.
As I turned into the upstairs hallway, a bedroom door opened. The girl who had answered my knock when I first arrived peered out. I charged towards her. She screamed as I slammed into her, knocking her into the room, yanking the door shut.
“What the fuck!” She scrambled back from me and grabbed a pillow off her bed like it could defend her.
Ignoring her, I yanked the desk from the near wall and shoved it in front of the door. Papers and books on top of the desk tumbled to the floor. The girl shrieked. My burned hand flared with agony, but I tugged the desk a few more inches until it was securely in place.
I turned towards the window behind the girl.
She plucked up a stuffed panda from her bed and chucked it at me. I waved my hand as it struck me in the chest and dropped to the floor.
“I know karate!” she said.
“I’m sure you do,” I muttered as I shoved past her.
She scurried out of my way then scrambled up on top of the desk in front of the door.
I pulled back the curtains over a tall thin window. Dropping out of a second story window had not been in my plans tonight but between Kung Fu Panda over there and Butch Cassidy out in the hall, I didn’t have many options.
The girl grabbed a heavy figure off a bookshelf and launched it at me. I ducked out of the way just as it slammed into the wall with a solid thud that would have been my head.
This family was ruthless.
Banging erupted on the outside of the door.
I grabbed the statue off the floor. “Buddha? Really?”
The girl shrugged.
I hauled back the statue, aiming for the windowpane.
“The window opens,” the girl said with a huff.
I pulled back just before making contact with the glass. “Oh. The downstairs ones—”
“They don’t open. These do.”
She was right. I hadn’t noticed in the rush.
“Fair enough.” I placed the statue on the floor and then grabbed the lower pane. The hammering on the door continued as I wiggled open the bottom pane.
Cold wind rushed into the room. The girl wrapped her arms around her middle and hunched against the onslaught of the residual storm.
Gritting my teeth, I ducked out the window and stepped out on the icy ledge, one foot at a time. I gripped the sill behind me as I dared to shuffle to the side.
My sole went out from under me. I was airborne, cold wind rushing around me. My back slammed into the ground. I gasped out a cold puff of air, but panic flared through me.
Move, move, move!
In the snow, I rolled to my side and scrambled to find my footing.
“He went out the window, Daddy!” The girl’s voice filled the street from the open pane.
Fuckin’ traitor.
I veered towards the side of the property, avoiding the front gate. Arthur might expect me to go that way. Even if it was the only way out of here, I had to take my chances and try to ditch him.
Wind laden with snow buffeted me as I made my way through the night towards an even darker perimeter. Just as the front door of the house swung open, I reached a rocky drop into a shallow gulch. Lowering to the ground, I half-climbed, half-slid over the boulders and tree roots until my soles touched the snow and ice at the bottom. Ducking low, I hurried along the corridor, concealed by shadows.
Arthur’s furious roar filled the night. He was more beast than man.
My soles slipped and slid, but the narrow path kept my upright. When the fiery pain in my singed hand became overwhelming, I paused long enough to shove my hand into the snow.
The pain only worsened.
Shuddering and on the brink of passing out, I continued down the corridor until it sloped upwards, long past Arthur the Headmaster’s property. Seemed the front fence with the elaborate gate was just for show.
Then again, everything was in Thorn Tree.
My heart skipped a beat. Where was my map? Had I managed to keep it through all of this?
I couldn’t feel most of my body anymore. With a numb hand, I patted at the waistband under the back of my shirt and then let out a cold, relieved sigh as my fingers brushed paper.
The map hadn’t made a drop of sense to me. Somehow, for such a simplistic design, the directions had been strangely difficult to interpret. None of the markings matched anything I recognized in Thorn Tree.
Had my father concealed the intentions on purpose, just in case someone other than Robert found the map? Did my brother know how to read it?
Not that he could help me. I wasn’t sure where he was, or if he was even still alive.
I could only hope Gracie could decipher the map. Otherwise, she had yet to show she knew how we would escape the aftermath of her spell. Without this map, there was no way out.
We would be taken down with Thorn Tree when she destroyed the town.
10
GRACE
The wind thudded against the sides of the tent like a monster beating its way inside. I crouched in the middle of the tent, but both my heart and mind sped with wild fear. I could not make sense of the heat in the cavern or how I had never noticed such a thing before.
Had anyone else? Did they know the origins? It wasn’t like I could ask the other townspeople. If I hadn’t already been outcast before, I certainly was now since murdering Amelia with witnesses.
It was only time before the town took their revenge.
Shadows dropped and swayed over the tent in a terrifying kaleidoscope. The storm howled, threatening to rip apart the world. I dug my fingers against the bottom of the tent, pushing into the earth, like I could ground myself. My breath came in ragged gasps that filled my head just under the roar of the storm.
With a distinct snap, one of the beams of the tent broke. The ceiling collapsed over me. Branches cracked and thudded to the ground around me. Something slammed into my back, and I tensed, bracing for further impact.
If Mac was out in this, he was as good as dead.
I might be too.
Inside the tent, I lowered to the ground, squeezing my eyes shut as the world caved to the mercy of the storm. The wind charged over me in an endless train that whistled through my head.
On the wind carried a sweet tune, one that defied the storm. I turned my attention towards it, seeking with my mind the only one besides me that knew that melody.
She appeared in front of me, her dress like the twilight and the strands of her hair woven from the storm itself. Her eyes burned with the eternal fire of indignation.
When she reached out a hand, it occurred to me she had no skin tone: she was neither fair nor dark, human nor alien. She just existed, and it was as if I could not fully set my eyes on her but peered at her through my peripheral.
I knew not to take her hand. That would be my death.
A vision appeared in front of my eyes and panned back and forth, giving me a full view of a raised bed of stone. On either side, matching short pillars adorned with lit candles that flickered despite the storm. Around the bed, the trees had been marked with runes in red.
