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We approach the door together, and I keep glancing over my shoulder to make sure no one’s seen us. Finally we stop outside the room. I listen out, but I can’t hear any noises from behind the door. I look at Yoru again. Tiny flames are licking around him. He’s ready.
I cautiously turn the doorknob and hope that whoever is in the room is unaware of my presence because then I have a slight advantage. There’s an almost imperceptible click as the door opens. Now I need to move fast. I fling the door open, burst into the room, and stand rooted to the spot. Despite my hunch, I’m speechless when my suspicion is confirmed.
I stare as though paralyzed at the person in front of me, who’s sitting at a desk and now turns to look at me in surprise.
My shock is gradually replaced by fear and then panic. I glance at the door and quickly close it behind me.
All I can think is: We need to get out of here! I stride over to Noah and grab his arm. I don’t ask how he wound up the hands of the Fabricis or how he’s doing. That will have to wait. All that matters is helping Noah escape and getting him out of the house unseen. The Fabricis may guess that I had something to do with it, but that’s a risk I have to take.
“Come on!” I say. “You need to get out of here. There’s a window I always use to get out of the house. Maybe we can get you out that way.”
Without delay, I try to pull him to his feet, but to my surprise, he doesn’t budge.
He looks up at me and says, “Tess, what are you doing here? How did you find me?”
“That doesn’t matter now. Come on, we can’t afford to waste time. It won’t be easy sneaking you out of here.”
I pull on his arm again. We need to go now. It drives me crazy that we’ve already wasted valuable minutes. Who knows – the Fabricis could show up to check on their prisoner.
Noah looks straight at me, and I gaze into his rich brown eyes, which used to have such a profound effect on me. They always contained such fiery passion and incredible vitality. But I see none of that now. His eyes look tired. There’s a shadow hanging over him that I’ve never seen before. He slowly reaches up and prizes my hand off his arm.
“Noah, what …?” I begin, but he shakes his head and doesn’t let me finish.
“You’ve got it all wrong,” he says. “I’m not a prisoner. I came here voluntarily.” He regards me with an icy gaze – totally cool and impassive.
By contrast, I can’t contain my horror. I stagger back, as if his words were a slap in my face, and all I can do is stare incredulously at him. My mouth opens and closes, but nothing comes out. Eventually, I manage to stammer, “You … you can’t be serious! Why would you voluntarily hand yourself over to the Fabricis?! It makes absolutely no sense.”
“It does if we share a common goal.” He stands up and rests his hand on my shoulder. “I’m helping them eliminate Mr. Cunningham.”
For a moment, I forget to breathe and just stare at him.
“Tess, you should leave now; stay out of this. Trust me. Just go.”
This makes no sense at all. Why would he want to kill Mr. Cunningham? Why would he work with the Fabricis and betray his own people?
I’m still trying to grasp all this, shaking my head, when I hear myself say, “No, I’m not going anywhere. Tell me what’s going on! What happened?”
He looks at me in silence, his jaw grinding and his eyes flashing with fury. He turns abruptly, goes to a backpack beside the bed, and takes something out of it. He throws it to me. I reflexively catch the small book.
“The last few pages,” he says.
I run my fingers over the leather binding and then open it. The pages are filled with beautifully flowing handwriting. I flip through them almost to the end and begin to read.
I’m becoming really slow and cumbersome. Every movement takes effort, and I’m often short of breath. But I feel good, and I enjoy feeling the baby’s kicks in my belly. I’m really looking forward to meeting this baby, and I’m sure it’ll make us all happy and proud.
I frown and look questioningly at Noah. I have a hunch about whose diary this is.
He nods as if he can read my thoughts. “It’s my mother’s.”
He turns to face the window, staring through it absent-mindedly as I read on.
I never thought something like this could happen. I know I shouldn’t have left the Odyss in my condition. But James wanted to treat me to a concert. He knows how much I love the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. He couldn’t have known that they would track us down and target us so quickly. I suspect they must have been following James for a while.
It happened out of nowhere. They appeared all of a sudden. The hunters thought I had the tear of destiny. They kept demanding that I hand it over, but it hasn’t been in our family’s possession for a long time. There was a raid a couple of generations back and it was taken from us, and we never found out where it went. But these men didn’t want to hear that. They almost killed James. He fought back fiercely and tried to protect me and the baby. But it was no use. They grabbed me by the hair and beat me half to death. And the whole time they kept asking the same question: Where’s the tear of destiny?
I knew they wouldn’t hesitate to kill me. So I pretended to be unconscious. One of the men said, “Stop. If you kill her, we’ll have no leverage against her husband. Maybe we can get him to talk.”
They threw me on the ground like garbage. I was in agony and clutched my belly. But it was too late. I could already feel the blood gushing between my legs, and with it, the little life that I so cherished.
