Lucy

Finney changes the bandaging on my finger…well, the place where my finger used to be. I’m gritting my teeth from the pain when an electric shock of awareness refocuses my attention. Roan is back.

And JT, Cash, Luca, Dante, Melody, and Jolene are with him. My eyes prickle with tears. I can feel the unique color and vibration of each of their energies, and recognize them instantly.

My family all came for the prisoner exchange.

But of course, Kane is never going to give me up, and Cash is never going to give up Jolene, so it’s a rescue mission. Hopefully not a suicide mission.

I need to get out of this cave and up to the surface. Make myself easier to rescue.

Finney concentrates on my hand, placing the last pieces of tape, and I grab his wrist. His eyes flick up to hold my gaze as I plead with him. “You have to help me. You’re not like those other men.”

He shakes his head, but I can feel him agreeing with me. “Listen to me.” My voice is harsh, my grip on his wrist tightening. “You’re a good man, I can tell.”

His eyes, the same gray-blue as the sky at dusk, film with tears. Guilt and regret churn inside of him.

“We all make mistakes,” I tell him. Like leaving Roan alone at that cabin and walking into the woods, then forgetting my stupid rifle at that tree stump. Being totally absorbed with my own emotions and getting captured. Putting the life of so many of the people that I love at risk. “We always have a chance for redemption.”

No sin is so great that it can’t be forgiven, with love.

“The things I’ve done…” Finney’s voice is barely a whisper.

“Our futures are not written in stone. You can change. If you help me escape, I promise that you can live with my family at the Haven. You can stay with us and have a different future.”

Hope is filling him, even as his guilt and fear try to quench it.

“The past doesn’t matter.” My voice rises as desperation tightens my throat. “The only thing that matters is what we do now. And if you help me escape, we can get out of here together.” I squeeze his wrist harder. He nods, a small motion, but I sense his willingness. “We have to go right now.”

I feel the tension above us as a battle begins. Fortunately, no sound reaches us, or it might spook Finney into leaving me locked up. The kid takes my good hand and we walk out of my cell, turning left, heading back the way I was brought in.

Roan is pure instinct molded into white-hot anger. Is there room for anything else in him? Yes, I feel a beating heart of love deep inside him, the source of his strength.

I need to get out to where he can find me.

Sensing the men around us, above us, and in the different passages, I can almost make out the layout of the place. There are men descending through the rock in our direction. I see them as colors, feel them as tangled balls of emotions.

“We have to hurry.” Finney breaks into a jog as we head toward the stairs, but I stop him.

“Men are coming. Where can we hide while they pass?” Finney eyes me, his brows up, questioning. “There isn’t time.” My voice is urgent and desperate.

Finney pulls me into a side tunnel and closes a wooden barrier. It’s pitch-black in the small space, the smell of wet rock overwhelming.

I feel Kane’s death as an explosion, an ending that leaves nothing behind in that disembodied darkness. I’m dizzy with the impact of it, and steady myself on the wall.

Roan is infused with deep satisfaction. And triumph suffuses my brothers—along with renewed hope.

Heavy footfalls rushing by bring me back to my body. I’m not free yet!

Finney and I wait a few moments and then step back into the hall.

Roan is inside now, far above us. I can feel him moving closer.

“We need to get to the entrance,” I say.

“There are too many men. There’s another way out,” Finney says. “If we take the stairs down and go out that way, we’ll have a better chance of escape.”

If we go deeper into the mine, and my family fights their way in only to find my cell empty, they won’t know I went out a different way. I need to get to my family and Roan, no matter what.

“No. I need to go up.”

Finney doesn’t question me. He just takes my hand again and we race towards the crude stone stairs.

I was dragged down here with a hood over my head, but the cold narrow steepness of the stairwell reminds me of the fear that raced through my veins. Finney takes the steps two at a time. He is scared too—we are so vulnerable here.

There are men approaching again. “We need to hide.”

Finney ducks off at the next floor and pulls me down the hall. There are doors on either side, and he tries to open them but they are all locked. Footsteps echo from the staircase. The men are getting closer.

Maybe they will just run right by?

I will them to run right by. Maybe I can do that, maybe that’s part of my power.

The first man goes down the steps, concentrating on the steps beneath him. But the second, a giant of a man wearing a shirt of tattoos and a leather vest, spots us. He stops and turns his head, frowning.

I guess I can’t make people do anything, only sense them.

The light catches a teardrop tattoo under the man’s left eye. “What the hell is going on here?”

Finney opens his mouth, but nothing comes out. His hand is trembling in mine.

Teardrop walks towards us, his shoulders almost as broad as the hallway. His friend follows, smaller and rat-faced.

“Dwight wanted me to move her. Hide her. In case something went wrong with the exchange.” Finney’s voice trembles.

Teardrop glares at him, then his gaze flicks over my body. A smile curls his lips. “You wanted to have some fun, huh, kid? Don’t blame you a bit.”

I cut Finney off, knowing that he doesn’t have the skills for this lie. “That’s right,” I answer. “He wanted a piece of me. You want one too, big boy?” My voice is silky and soft, sultry. “He promised me some food. Maybe you could get me some booze?”

“I want a taste.” Ratface steps forward, but Teardrop blocks him with a meaty arm.

“No one is having her. Dwight wants her for himself.” Teardrop smiles broader, turning back to Finney. “I admire the balls on you, kid. A man has to try, right?”

Teardrop’s radio crackles, the sound sputtering in the narrow space. “Dwight is down! I repeat, Kane is down!”

Oh shit.

“Your family just killed our leader.” Teardrop growls. He takes a step forward. “I’m gonna rape you for him. He’d want your screams to escort his soul to hell.”

A spark ignites in Finney. He pulls his gun, firing it right into Teardrop’s midsection.

I jerk at the deafening sound and then again as Ratface shoots Finney.

Finney hits the wall, and his gun clatters onto the stone floor. I think about diving for it, but Ratface has his weapon on me as Teardrop holds his stomach, leaning against the wall, his breathing labored.

Finney slowly sinks to the floor, a red smear on the wall behind him. His eyes widen and then that disappearing happens, that extinguishing, a gentle breath on a candle blown out, leaving just a curl of smoke.

I can’t breathe. My ears are ringing, my eyes stinging.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper to his empty body, and put my hands up, offering surrender.

Ratface speaks into his walkie. “I’ve got the girl here. What should I do with her, Jackson?”

But it’s not Jackson’s voice that answers: it’s Roan. I recognize his voice like it’s written on my soul. “Tell me where you are. I’ll come down and deal with her.”

“We’re near the infirmary.”

“On my way.”

Roan’s descending into the dark. Death is headed my way, and I couldn’t be happier.

Ratface is gonna die.

Anyone who ever tried to hurt me is going to die, because my man’s coming to get me.

Roan will end them all.