Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69909 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 350(@200wpm)___ 280(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The woman I saw earlier suddenly vanishes and a deep, guttural sob escapes her that sounds like it was years in the making. She crosses to him and doesn’t take his offered hand but instead presses her body to his, melting against him, her face buried against his chest, her arms tucked between them.
She looks like a child. Like a wounded child.
Antoine appears stunned. What was he expecting, I wonder? It takes him a full minute to wrap his arms around her. I step away. I don’t belong here. He’s careful with her, gentle when he lays his hand at the bare skin of her back, the lashes of earlier bright, angry welts crisscrossing her skin, blood dried in places where skin broke.
It feels wrong to watch them, but I can’t drag my gaze away as the two stand in their strange embrace, her sobbing, the sounds she’s making coming from somewhere so deep inside her that they wrack her body and steal her breath.
Antoine has closed his eyes and the expression on his face is serene. It’s like the man of a few minutes ago, the one in that video, has vanished. This one, he’s something else, standing here, holding this woman. His beloved.
Another disturbance at the door interrupts the reunited lovers. Antoine opens his eyes and pulls her possessively to his side. She’s so small beside him and I think about all those years she lived at the mercy of the Councilor, he too twice her size. What’s become of her sanity over the last twenty-five years.
Antoine glares at the man entering but bends to speak to Ines, only Ines. His whole demeaner is different with her. Gone is the predator. In its place is a fierce protector.
I don’t know what she says to him, but he nods and straightens. I notice she keeps her back to the man at the door.
Antoine shifts his gaze to me, looking me over. “This won’t do. Ines, you have something more appropriate? Red, of course.”
Ines glances at me. “I’m sure I can find something,” she says, her tone elegant, like the Society lady she is, even with her smeared makeup, her tear-stained eyes.
“Good. Blue, you’ll go with Ines. She will prepare you.”
“Prepare me for what?” I ask, although I know.
“The ceremony, of course.” He shakes his head. “It’s like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
“I want my phone.”
“It’s rude to make demands. Polite to ask.”
“Fine. Can I have my phone please?”
“Not yet.”
I open my mouth to protest but he gestures to a soldier and four of them step toward Ines and me.
Ines moves ahead of the men toward one of the vehicles. I watch how the soldiers in this war camp part to make way for her. I know they’ll make me if I don’t go, and I know I’m not getting my phone back for whatever reason. It’s not like I’m going to call in for backup. For someone to come help me escape. The best I can do right now is go along with Ines. Pissing Antoine off won’t get me anywhere but maybe a place at the chopping block.
I follow the men and, on my way, I pass someone I recognize from the charity dinner at IVI what feels like an eternity ago. He’s not a soldier, though.
“Councilor Hildebrand,” Antoine says to the man. “I was hoping you’d come.” A nudge from a soldier urges me toward the waiting van. “I assume it is to bless this occasion,” Antoine continues. “You’ll have a front row seat, of course.”
27
EZEKIEL
A line of immaculately clean black vans with darkly tinted windows lines the side of the road leading to the Councilor’s house. I note the nearly matching license plates, each just one digit off the last.
The gates of the estate are swinging closed when I hit the gas and propel the car forward, the screeching of metal against metal grating. But a new paint job is hardly my concern right now.
“Christ, take it easy,” Jericho says, one hand on the dash.
“I can’t fucking count the number of soldiers. It’s a fucking army,” I say.
A dozen men leap out of the way as we veer off the drive, which is blocked by parked vans, my SUV jumping onto the grass. I bypass the main house and don’t slow down as we near the guest house.
“They all have codas inked on their necks and the backs of their hands,” Jericho says.
Two of the vans ahead of us lurch forward to block our path. I scrape one as I swerve to go around them but then there are two more as well as soldiers with weapons drawn aiming at us. I hit the brakes, the SUV coming to a stop inches from a soldier pointing his gun at my head, a soldier who doesn’t jump out of the way or show any fear.