Snow
“NO!” I shout as I watch Gladrell walk through the crowd, trailing after the men that slapped handcuffs on Richard.
“Snow!” Lucien cries out, grabbing me by the hand before I dash into the crowd. Swear to God, if he hadn’t stopped me right now, I’d chase after Gladrell and give him the beating of a lifetime. Forget about all his henchmen — I’d rip them all apart just to get to Richard.
“We have to do something!” I plead, looking from Lucien to Derek. They just stare at me in completely silence, their lips a straight line. They’re pale, their eyes downcast, and I know there’s nothing we can do right now. “We have to do something...” I repeat, weakly this time, but I’ve already resigned to the fact that our hands are tied behind our backs. If we try to help Richard now, we’ll just end up arrested as well.
“Fuck,” Lucien mutters, running one hand through his hair. “Fuck, fuck!”
“We gotta get out there,” Derek tells him, throwing the van’s keys toward Lucien. Grabbing them mid-air, he then starts heading toward the van and we trail after him, the angry chorus of the mob behind us slowly fading away into a distant whisper.
“I can’t believe Gladrell did this...” I hiss as Lucien revs up the engine. He drives us through secondary roads, always circling back to make sure we’re not being followed.
“That motherfucker will pay,” Lucien tells me, gripping the steering wheel so tightly his knuckles have turned white.
“We’ll make him pay, don’t worry about that,” Derek assures me, resting one hand on my shoulder. “Gladrell just topped my blacklist right now.”
“Here,” Lucien says, stopping the van in front of the safehouse we’re currently in. “I’ll circle back to make sure there isn’t anything suspicious around here, but you guys head right up.”
“Got it,” Derek nods, opening the side door of the van and leading me outside. We cross the sidewalk in an hurried step and, after entering the building, we go up the stairs as silently as we can. Malcolm’s already waiting for us at the door, and he nods at us anxiously.
“So? How did it go?” He asks, looking from me to Derek.
“They got Richard,” Derek simply says as we step inside the safehouse, bolting the door behind us.
“Jesus...”
“And Gladrell was the one coordinating the arrest,” Derek continues, taking his gun off and placing it on the table. He sits down on the couch, the palm of his hand on his forehead, and throws his head back. “Fuck,” he sighs heavily, vacantly staring at the ceiling.
“Turn the volume up!” I cry out suddenly, racing toward Derek’s side. My eyes are glued to the TV screen, where a video of Richard being dragged out of the main square is showing.
“Holy shit,” Malcolm whispers, grabbing the remote and turning the volume up.
“...the traitor has been rushed out for judgement, and now we’re awaiting to hear his sentence,” a reporter says, clearly distressed. She’s a young woman, one I used to see presenting the morning news, and she looks like she never expected to be covering a story like this. Right now, she’s standing on the steps of the capital’s courthouse, where a crowd of confused journalists and onlookers has already started to gather. “Queen Moira has signed off on new legislative measures, ones that are intended to speed up justice when it comes to high-treason. This man, of whom we still know almost nothing, has been arrested on charges of treason and conspiring to bring down the government, so we can expect this to be a quick ruling, according to the Queen’s new legislative package.”
“They gotta be kidding...They’ve already hauled him into a court?” Derek says, balling both his hands into fists. He’s burying his fingernails so deep into the palm of his hands that I expect to see blood any second now.
“And there’s someone leaving the courthouse,” the journalist suddenly cries out, and the three of us just sit on the couch, taking in each of her words. In the screen, a balding man in a suit is walking down the stairs, carrying a briefcase under his arm and heading toward the crowding journalists.
“My name is Andrew Laurence, and I’m representing Queen Moira’s government in this trial,” he announces, a smugness to the way he’s looking down at the journalists. One of the Queen’s men, that much is for sure. “The court has ruled that Richard Remington is guilty of espionage and, as such, he has been sentenced to death. He’ll be executed tomorrow morning in the Main Square. That’s all,” he finishes off, walking off as if he had just read the weather forecast for tomorrow.
“This is fucking bullshit!” Malcolm suddenly stands up, gripping the remote so tightly that I hear the plastic snapping under his fingers.
Feeling dazed, I slowly go up to my feet and, without a word to either Derek or Malcolm, I simply amble down to my room. There, I close the door behind me and, with my back against it, I slide down onto the floor.
Richard is going to be executed tomorrow.
I know that what we’re doing is dangerous, but the thought of losing just one of them...No, no. This can’t be happening. “Please, God, no,” I mutter, feeling a sob climb up my throat. Tears stream down from my eyes, and I bury my face into my hands.
This hurts too much. And I have no idea on how to deal with this kind of pain.
I can’t lose one of the men I love. I simply can’t. And that’s right — I love them, I really do. I never knew how to put it into words, but there’s no doubt in mind about what I’m feeling — it’s love.
“Snow?” I hear Malcolm’s voice as he raps his knuckles against my door; taking a deep breath, I rise up from the floor. I wipe away my tears with the back of my hand, and then open up the door and let him and Derek in.
“You okay, Snow?” Derek asks me, cupping my face with one hand.
“No, not at all,” I reply, the words stabbing at my lips on the way out.
“That’s okay,” he continues, looking straight into my eyes. “There’s no way in hell we’re going to let that bitch get away with this. We’ve made you a promise — the seven of us will never leave your side...And that’s a promise we intend to keep. No one’s going to lay a finger on Richard.”
Nodding, I purse my lips and try to hold back the tears. Derek’s right — this isn’t the time for tears.
“Then we need a plan.”