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“You have until she agrees to marry me. Wait too long . . .” Lucian shrugged. “But Hughes, if she doesn’t want to go to you, I won’t make her.”
Lucian noticed the front the other man had been putting up so far shifted. No matter what, the cards were always stacked in his favor when it came to something he wanted. He made sure of it.
He gripped the handle of the door and Parker quickly asked, “What if she isn’t there?”
“Then both of us are fucked.”
Lucian climbed out and slammed the door. Clint drove off. One fortifying breath and his legs were moving. He hoisted himself onto the cement bib outside the door. Like Hughes had said, it was propped open enough for a person to slide under. Sighing, his knees dropped to the cold ground, he gathered the tails of his coat to his body and slid under the opening.
The acrid stink of urine and waste practically choked him. His eyes adjusted to the dim light and he headed in the direction Parker had pointed. People lurked in shadows, and small fires burned here and there. No one seemed to pay him any mind, their focus purely on keeping warm.
There was a dense area that was set up like a compound of sorts. He pushed through the putrid odor of human waste, and the smell dispersed as the individuals thinned out. When he reached the last corridor, the silence seemed impenetrable. It was as if he’d left the last of the living and traveled somewhere altogether worse, some circle of Dante’s, he was sure. Except it was so fucking cold.
The reverberation of his steps echoed down the quiet corridor, and the sound of a muffled cough trickled from the very end. His steps grew faster and soon he was running. He slowed as he approached the last door. Needing a steadying breath before he faced whatever he was walking into.
Turning the corner, Lucian found what looked like a dead body sprawled on a collapsed stack of cardboard boxes. Emaciated fingers protruded like sticks from fingerless gloves, and breath was sucked audibly from the rank cell, followed by a rattling cough. Not Evelyn.
As his eyes shut he heard a slight clatter and jerked around. There in the corner, back to the wall, curled in a little ball was his Evelyn. Taking two long steps to reach her, he fell to his knees and pulled her to him. She jerked, startled and weakly struggled.
“Shh, shh, Evelyn, baby, it’s me. I’m here.”
Her body shook violently. Her skin was chilled right through her clothing. Her eyes were surrounded with purple shadows and her chin quivered as her teeth chattered.
“L-L-Lucian?”
“Yes. Come on. I’m getting you out of here.”
Relief was a living thing, infusing him with energy and the strength to do whatever needed to remove her from this vile place.
The body in the corner began to hack violently. Evelyn scrambled out of his arms and crawled to the heap of flesh and bones hidden under layers of dirty fabric. She quickly uncapped a bottle of cloudy water and pressed it to the person’s blue lips as she cradled the head in her lap. The person, a woman, gasped and choked, but eventually settled back into a restless sleep, mumbling and chanting nonsense.
“Evelyn, come on. Let’s leave this place.”
“How did you get here, Lucian?” He saw that his presence cost her a chunk of pride. She didn’t want him to see her like this. He didn’t care.
He went to her and took her hand, urging her to stand. “It doesn’t matter. I’m here and we’re leaving.”
She snatched her hand back. “No. You shouldn’t have come. I can’t leave Pearl.”
Pearl. He gazed down at the heap of rotting flesh. She was infected with some disease and clearly dying. He warred with choices, Darwinism versus compassion. He tried to understand the fierce loyalty Evelyn felt for this person.
“Who is she, Evelyn? She’s sick and I’m not sure moving her is wise.”
Her silver eyes, so incredibly weary, looked up at him. A sheen of tears built and trickled past her matted lashes. “She’s my mother.”
Her words cut through him with realization and sympathy. The woman was at death’s door and Evelyn wouldn’t leave her. The pain he felt for her, with her, in that moment was crippling. Lucian’s mind went back to his mother’s funeral, the agony of loss, the relentless force insisting he remain stoic and strong in the face of fear, the emptiness, the irrelevance of it all, the immeasurable consuming grief, the nothingness that had stolen all the color from his world for so long. He couldn’t ask her to walk away.
Swallowing the lump in his throat, he stood and surveyed the room. Mold corroded the walls. Water trickled down the plaster, leaving a puddle in the corner. There was a flipped-over box with an oxidized candle, a spoon, a strap, and a syringe. Heroin.
