Page 81 of Penny for Your Saints

With one of Seb’ cigarettes trembling between my lips, I close my eyes and let the tears fall.

I don't know where to go from here.

My parents obviously wanted me to become the hero that they couldn’t be, find their surviving research partners and make sure that a treatment for the Zeitnot virus is developed. Seems obvious, but how am I supposed to beat the odds when I too have been struck from the narrative, just as Frank has? Legally dead and thus a plaything for the Feds and the Windmill, should they decide to use or dispose of me.

Even if I were able to fulfil their wishes, what would become of me then? Me and my cursed fated mates—the men who stole me from my life—the men who held me captive.

I crouch down low to the ground to keep myself from falling over, the heels of my hands pressed into my eyes as I sob.

Just as I feel the darkness closing in, that I might go under—consumed by my sorrow and the impossibility of this situation, I hear a voice, clear and true against the shushing of the waves breaking on the shore.

“Louise,” Dennis chokes out, his fingers touching my hair—my face still buried in my hands.

At first I think I must be hallucinating—there's just no way that he could be here right now. But sure enough, I look up and he's standing there—salt white skin, cheeks bright-pink and chafed from the cold and wind, a black ball cap pulled over his strawberry blond hair and a black rain slicker with the collar turned up against the gale.

“Dennis!” I gasp, barely above a whisper—launching from the ground into his arms.

For a few blissful moments we hold each other in silence, his bracing thyme, hyssop, and sea salt scent mixing with the ocean air around us.

“I just knew it! I knew you weren't dead,” he murmurs reverently into my ear, like a prayer.

“How did you get here? How did you even know to come?” I struggle against my tears, using my ebbing anger to buoy me.

“When Compton told us you were dead, I didn't know what to think. Everybody thought I was crazy when I told them it must have been some mistake—that if you were dead, I would just… well, because we’re—because we were partners, I would know,” he stammers, a blush creeping in.

“Then when the breach at the second safe house went bad, I knew something was up. You had to be there. There was no way those fucking amateurs made it out of that rat hole without your marksmanship. No way in hell.”

Both of us laugh as he wipes the tears away from my face.

I want to kiss him. More than anything, but everything is confusing enough as it is—and Dennis knows nothing of fated mates or broken histories—it wouldn’t be fair to him.

At this thought, it's as if some of my sense returns to me.

“What are you doing here? It's too dangerous. Either someone's following you or even if they're not, if anyone finds you with me… I'm supposedly dead or a ‘dirty bomb’ by Tenant’s account—whichever way it means you'll be in a whole lot of trouble,” I warn.

Dennis shakes his head.

“Nobody's following me. Nobody knows that I'm here, or that I suspect anything. After my initial outbursts where I told—no, insisted to Compton and the others that you weren't dead, I've been on the straight and narrow. I even stood side by side with Susan Lowry to give your eulogy.”

White hot rage tears through me, my disgust bubbling up like black ichor.

“She knew I was alive. She knew the Saints had me.”

Dennis blinks, incredulous.

“What do you mean ‘Lowry knew?’”

I'm about to explain that Francis Stone proved it to me with a video recording of Lowry's confession when I remember, as far as Dennis knows, Frank is still dead.

My anger momentarily ebbs, replaced by icy fear. I grab Dennis by the shoulders, pressing him against the back wall of the house, poking my head out around the corner to look at shore. Still empty, not a soul on the beach. However, the aluminum boat Dennis used to get here practically glows in the strengthening daylight on the sandy beach of the small island.

Not good.

“Lowry was crooked. Compton's bad, too. Nobody is safe, Dennis. Trust no one.” I caution him.

“I know, I know. I don't understand why they're lying to me, but they are. I just knew you were alive.” He chokes down tears, wrapping me tightly in his arms.

“I came to warn you. I'm not stupid, Lou. I know that you could have broken apart from these guys if you’d wanted to by now, but for some reason you haven't. I'd tell you to leave with me right now, to run away, but the truth is—I don't think I can protect you. I don't think I can even protect myself for very much longer, but I'll do everything I can to help get you out safely. I came here because the manhunt they’ve organized for the Saints will be unlike anything you or I have ever seen. Everyone has rallied behind your supposed death, and I am to be used as their righteous spearhead.”

---