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It’s mesmerizing, almost. I touch a dumbstruck fingertip to it, drag it through the puddle and hold it up to the light.
It looks so wrong.
Before I can get to my feet, I find myself being pulled upright. I try to fight off whoever has decided he has the right to touch me, but then I hear Aleksandr’s voice snap at me urgently. “Fucking hell, Wren, what do you think you’re doing? I have to get you out of here!”
He starts dragging me towards the door behind the altar. “But—but—Bee!” I cry out stupidly. “What about Bee?”
“How is you getting shot gonna help her now?” he demands, tightening his grip on my arm.
“I have to make sure she’s okay. I can’t just leave her!”
He whips around, his expression incensed and borderline manic. “You can’t do anything for her. She would want you?—”
BANG!
Aleksandr flies off to the side, blood sprouting from his arm. “Go!” he bellows, panic chasing the anger off his face. “Just fucking run!” Wincing, he pulls out his gun with his good hand and starts shooting blindly.
As if in agreement with Aleksandr, my baby kicks hard against my stomach, reminding me that my life is not the only one at stake here. It snaps some sense into me and self-preservation kicks back in. I rush for the one unblocked door that remains and go careening into a huge, empty corridor. It’s so quiet here, in stark contrast to the chaos of the ceremony hall just on the other side of the door. I can hear my own heartbeat thudding in my ears.
When I hear gunshots down the hall, followed by running footsteps, I take off again without any idea of where I’m going. I just have to find a quiet, safe place to hide. I have to stay out of sight. I have to?—
I race around the corner and run right into the arms of a man in a black suit. He grabs hold of me and I immediately begin to thrash and scream. “No! Let me go! Let me?—”
“It’s okay!” he hisses. “I’m with Dmitri. I’ll get you out safely.” I stop struggling as hard, but I still don’t feel calm; I definitely don’t feel safe. The fact that I haven’t ever seen this man before doesn’t help much. “Come with me.”
He half-carries, half-drags me down the corridor, into another hallway that branches off perpendicularly. An exit at the far end shines with a rectangle of light around the borders. Outside. Freedom.
We get closer and closer, and then we’re outside, and the air no longer smells like blood, and I can breathe again.
Then he shoves me sideways.
I go tumbling into the arms of another man. One of several, actually, all of whom are clad in black and grimacing down at me.
“No—!”
I twist around, attempting to rush back inside, but the bastard who told me he worked for Dmitri catches me with one thick arm around the waist. “There’s no running now, pretty lady,” he whispers in my ear, his hot breath tinged like rotten fish.
I scream again, but he just scoops me up and tosses me effortlessly into the back of a waiting van. The doors slam shut, engulfing me in darkness.
When my eyes adjust, I realize I’m not alone back here. A silhouette hunches in the corner. And as the engine purrs to life, it speaks. “Funny seeing you here, Wren.”
A light kicks on overhead. Cian O’Gadhra looks back at me. He’s gaunt and pale, his jaw clenched tight, his hands tucked out of sight in his lap. I know who he is now. What he’s done. What he made Jared do.
But it’s still hard to look him in the eye and not see the man I thought he once was.
I scurry back into the corner of the van, as far away from him as I can get. “W-what do you want from me?”
“Have no fear,” he says in a soft, meek voice. “I don’t plan on hurting you. That was never the plan.”
I’m a mess of sweat and dirt and blood. Bee’s gown keeps flashing in my mind’s eye. So much red on all that white. The shock of her blond hair, its curling ends dipped into her own blood and drinking it up greedily.
“What is the plan?” I ask cautiously.
“Peace. I wanted peace. Ceasefire. Dmitri’s been a cold bastard these last few weeks with his attacks, one after the next after the next. So many dead men. I want it to stop.”
“You overestimate my influence,” I blurt.
He shakes his head, his expression softening and morphing in ways I don’t understand. If this is his big villain speech, it’s all coming out strange and wrong. He doesn’t look proud or vengeful; he looks sad. Almost overwhelmed.
