Kingdom Come (20 page)

“I’m not supposed to be here, and I don’t need to get caught. Us guards, we’re not supposed to talk to you, all right?”

“Says who?”

He pressed his lips into a thin line. “Who do you think?” For the first time since meeting him, there was regret in his eyes. Pain. “That’s all I came to say. Now please, let me go.”

Averting my gaze, I stepped to the side, allowing him to open the door. What choice did I have? I couldn’t hold him hostage. He paused in the doorway, his hand gripping the frame. “I’m so sorry,” he said over his shoulder. “For just . . . everything.”

“Then do something about it,” I whispered.

He shook his head and shoved off the frame, disappearing into the quiet hallway. Heaving a sigh, I pushed the door closed, only to have a huge boot stop me. I yelped just as Danny slipped into the room.

“You lost your damn mind?” he hissed. “What part of ‘secret mission’ don’t you understand?”

I pushed him against the wall. “You nearly gave me a heart attack. You’re lucky I didn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m lucky you didn’t kill me. You ready to go or not?”

My heartbeat faltered. It couldn’t be. “I . . . I can see him?”

“Not if you keep standing there like a freakin’ robot.” He straightened the jacket of his uniform, which I’d crumpled. “We probably only have half an hour by now, since Your Royal Douchebag kept me late. It’ll take at least ten minutes to get to the cells.”

All I could do was nod. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into the hallway, and I closed the door as quietly as possible. “How’d you do it?”

He scanned the corridor, and then gestured to his uniform. “Still on duty. I’m in charge of prisoner watch tonight. Now move, and I’ll explain.” I followed him down the hall as he continued. “I was late getting here because your charming brother wanted to evaluate my progress. Asked a bunch of questions, made sure I knew all the policies, all that sort of shit before turning me loose on my own tonight.”

Danny stopped at the end of the hall, then turned left. I was still baffled about how everyone seemed to just glide through the place. I’d been there for days and didn’t even know how to get to the dining room on my own.

“When we get down there, you stay where I tell you and don’t say a damn word. Everything echoes like crazy, and I’m relieving Joseph. The last thing we need is to tip him off. You keep your mouth shut until I signal for you, understand?”

I nodded, growing winded with our pace. We were practically running. We reached the balcony that overlooked the foyer, and when we approached the staircase on one side, Danny held a finger to his lips. I nodded again, and he proceeded to take each step carefully. I tip-toed behind him, wincing at each
creak
that sounded with our steps, grateful I’d left my shoes in the room. Once at the bottom, he grabbed my hand again and led me across the back half of the foyer, and through the massive wooden door he and Nate had disappeared through just two days before.

I expected a dungeon, a torture chamber, or something to that effect. Instead, a row of cells—like, actual jail cells—lined the corridor before us. And though they were all empty, sadness permeated the air. Grief. Death. “Dan—”

Danny made a slicing motion across his neck, and my mouth snapped closed. He was right, just the sound of our breathing bounced off the metal surrounding us. He nodded to the cell on my right, and though my eyes widened, he took me by the shoulders and urged me inside. “Calm down,” he mouthed. Claustrophobia settled over me in the tiny space; it couldn’t have been more than a few feet wide. A narrow metal bench, which I guessed was a bed, was the only thing the cell had to offer.

He guided me to sit on the bench, and its coldness immediately seeped through my jeans.
This
was where Ethan slept? Guilt over my bed upstairs returned full-force.

Danny knelt until he was eye level with me. “Not. A. Word,” he whispered. “When it’s safe, I’ll whistle once.
Once
. Got it?”

I nodded because I’d do anything he asked, anything he told me, as long as I could see Ethan for myself. Touch him.

I just had to not be stupid. I could do that.

Danny stared at me for another moment before stepping back into the walkway, his heavy boots clunking against the floor. My pulse thudded in my ears and I squeezed my eyes closed, willing my heart to slow down and give me some sort of mercy, but it refused. Danny greeted someone just a few feet away, and I recognized Joseph’s voice. Seconds later, footsteps retreated in the opposite direction.

One . . . two . . . thr—

A low whistle sounded through the bars, and I jumped to my feet.  I peeked out of the cell and saw Danny at the very end of the corridor, jerking his head toward the last cell.
It’s now or never
. With one final glance at the wooden door, I hurried to Danny, only to slow when I registered the rifle in his hands. 

“It’s procedure,” he explained. “Don’t freak out. I’d never use it.” His eyes darted to the side, and I noticed the hallway branching off in that direction. It probably led to the guards’ quarters. “You wanna see your boy or what?”

My feet moved of their own accord, and I ran the rest of the way until I slid to a stop right in front of the cell. Ethan lay on the metal bench, curled into a ball with a shabby burlap blanket on top of him. Dressed in nothing more than a t-shirt and the jeans he’d been wearing since leaving Sunrise, he had to be freezing. I looked down at my brand-new sweater and pants in disgust.

“Clock’s tickin’,” Danny said. “I figured he’d want to wake up to your pretty face instead of mine. Dude tried to punch me the first time we were alone in here before I had a chance to explain.” He snorted. “‘Bout like you did the other night.”

I reached out and squeezed his arm. “Thank you,” I whispered, a tear slipping down my cheek.

He smiled, and I turned into the cell, padding over to where Ethan snored softly. His body trembled beneath the tattered blanket, and more tears spilled down my cheeks. Though his face was slightly hidden, the bruises weren’t. The entire left side of his face was swollen and purple, with a fresh cut across his cheek. I knelt to the floor, holding a hand to my nose so my sniffles wouldn’t echo. Carefully, I placed that same hand to his shoulder, giving it the gentlest of shakes.

He jerked and popped up, panting and looking around frantically.

“Shh, shh.” I slid onto the edge of the metal bed and grabbed his shoulders, forcing his attention to me. “Ethan, it’s me. It’s me.”

My heart screamed at me to hold him, to kiss him, to whisper the three little words that’d been swirling in my head for the previous two days. He cupped my cheek, confusion filling his features. I grabbed his hand and held it there as his eyes searched mine. The battered right side of his face matched the left, but I fought back the sob in my throat because he was
here
and that was all that mattered. He was alive and here and finally,
finally
, we were together, even if for only a few precious minutes.

“Kerri,” he whispered, and then his lips were on mine. Warmth filled me, consumed me, and I looped my arms around his neck, holding him as close as humanly possible. His skin was freezing, which only made me hold him tighter.

He pulled away just enough to rest his forehead against mine as he caught his breath. His eyes, just as warm and beautiful as they’d been in my dreams, bore into me with such intensity that they took my breath away more than the kiss.

“Danny told me you were okay,” he rasped.

 More tears streaked my cheeks. When was the last time he’d eaten? Had something to drink? His voice sounded as terrible as his wounds looked.

“He told me, but I . . . I was so fucking scared . . .”

“Me too,” I whispered.

He straightened until he stared at me full-on, smiling. And I knew then that somehow, we’d be okay. He nodded to my bracelet. “Still there.”

My gaze never wavered as I said, “I never take it off.” I sniffled. “The thing’s just as strong as you are.”

Using the pad of his thumb, he wiped the wetness from my cheek. “Strong as
you
are.”

“Guys,” Danny drawled. The alarm in his voice spiked my blood. “We’re about to get company.” His eyes were trained on the hallway leading to the guards’ quarters, and once I focused, I heard the footsteps heading straight in our direction.

Ethan and I jumped up as Danny whirled around with panic all over his face. “K, you’re gonna have to go. Can you get back alone?”

Ethan’s arm circled around my waist as I shook my head rapidly. “No. I don’t know my way around here.”

“Daaaamn it,” Danny groaned. “Well, you have to try, and fast. And right the fuck
now
.”

Ethan pulled me to him, and I held him with all my heart, all my soul, all my strength. Every memory of his kisses, of his hugs, of his very
presence
forced to the front of my mind, and I prayed to all that was holy that I’d get another moment like this before I died.

He pressed a kiss to the top of my head and released me just as a door clamored open in the distance. My lips parted with those three words on the edge of my tongue. “Ethan, I . . . I lo—”

He shook his head. “Me too,” he whispered. “Now get the hell out of here.”

With a shattered heart, I did the only thing I could do: I ran like hell. And hoped to God Ethan would live another day, so I could tell him what I now knew to be true.

I loved him.

Chapter 19

From the time I was a preschooler, not a day went by without a vision of some sort. I’d always considered them to be a curse. A nuisance. They intruded on my thoughts, on my
life
, and at the worst of times, it seemed. Sometimes, they were no big deal at all—they could be as simple as what I’d be having for lunch the next day. But they could also be as gruesome as a super-gory slasher movie. That said, my visions were part of me. I expected them.

Since arriving at the estate, however, my mind had become silent. Still. Lonely. For the first time in my life, I had the normalcy I’d always craved. And that silence frightened me more than the most horrid of visions.

My calendar read January 1st, a day that my sister and I used to spend lounging around in our PJs. We’d watch movies, load up on popcorn and chocolate-covered raisins, and sit down with our parents for a huge dinner that evening. It was tradition, a tradition that hurt to even think about. But as I stood on the balcony of my room, staring out at the rolling hills beyond the estate, I caught myself doing just that. I missed all of them more than words could describe. Without a second thought, my parents had taken in a little girl who’d been labeled as “troubled.” Now, that same troubled girl was part of the reason they were dead. Fate was a sadistic bastard.

Then again, so was my brother.

The frigid breeze tore at my tear-stained cheeks, and I wiped away the wetness. I needed to go back inside, but I wanted to feel the clean, crisp air for just a little longer. If things didn’t go right today, it could very well be the last time I had the chance to enjoy it. Because today was
the
day—the day Danny and I had deemed D-Day. And I still wasn’t one-hundred percent sure of our “plan.”

I’d been by Bennett’s side for six and a half days, and after seeing Ethan, I was even more determined to make it work. I learned how to play by the rules. I did my best to portray the picture perfect sister and New World co-leader; at least, that’s how I was seen by the guardsmen. My instincts told me otherwise, though. One look into Bennett’s cold eyes told me everything I needed to know. He had no intention of allowing me to rule with him. People like him didn’t share power. I was simply a means to an end. And today was likely the beginning of that end. The end of the world as we knew it, the end of democracy . . . the end of me.

I would probably die soon. In a strange sort of way, I’d accepted that.

But that was just it. I
could
die. As paranoid as I was about our plan going awry, as scared as I was for what was to come, that was one thing Bennett didn’t understand about me. I’d survived far too much to lose this fight. I’d nearly met my death a dozen times over the previous weeks, and I’d conquered it. If anything, at this point,
I
was the master of death. And I refused to roll over and let Bennett have the control he so desperately craved. He didn’t deserve a happy ending. Not after everything he’d done.

For the millionth time, I ran over the plan Danny and I came up with. It really wasn’t even a plan, but more of “this is what has to happen, and however it happens, so be it.”
Danny leads the group to the foyer for the ceremony. At some point in there, Danny pulls his firearm and shoots Bennett.
It obviously wouldn’t be that simple. It couldn’t be—not with the legion that followed Bennett everywhere. And even if Danny managed to get his shot off, he’d probably be killed before he dropped his arm.

I knew I’d likely meet the same fate. But for the sake of everyone else in this God-forsaken world, it had to be done. If I did die, at least it would be on my own terms.

Without Bennett, the scroll couldn’t be opened, and the previous three weeks would be for naught. We would have suffered for no reason. But, there would be no more suffering to come for the rest of the world. Not at the hands of Bennett. It was the best possible solution. The only solution. 

A knock at the door ripped me from my thoughts, and I rushed off the balcony and crossed the room to let my partner-in-crime inside. Despite everything that was to come, he managed a small smile once he saw me. “You look nice. Where’s the party?”

I rolled my eyes and looked down at the sleeveless blue dress I’d selected for the day. Bennett told me to dress as if I were attending a wedding. “It’s the beginning of the rest of our lives,” he’d said.
Disgusting
.

“Well, I won’t even mention that you’ve been wearing the same uniform for six days now,” I said. I tried to smile, but tears burned my eyes as I looked at Danny’s freshly pressed clothes. With his cap and uniform, he looked more like a soldier than the seventeen-year-old tough guy I’d met just a few weeks earlier. That seemed like a different lifetime. “You okay?”