Page 116 of Don't Let Me Go
“Huguenot whore!” the thick-bearded ringleader shouts, throwing the woman to the ground.
“Please!” she pleads, her face smeared with blood, her eyes searching wildly for pity in a pitiless crowd. “Spare me! I’m with child!”
Thierry grips my hand, but there’s nothing we can do. The men snigger in disgust as the ringleader grabs the woman by the back of her head and pulls her up to her knees.
“With child, are you? Then we’ll be doing the world a favor by ridding it of another heathen bastard!” Before the woman can respond or I can look away, the ringleader unsheathes a dagger from his hip and plunges it into the woman’s belly. She collapses to the street with a wail, and the men howl with laughter, circling her body like wolves moving in for the kill.
“Let’s go,” I whisper, pulling Thierry in the opposite direction and breaking into a run. Stealth is no longer an option. Speed is the only thing that will deliver us from this nightmare.
We turn east and follow the sun, passing more corpses. Then we turn south onto an avenue that should take us across the Seine and out of the city. The streets are surprisingly deserted, and I’m about to offer a quick prayer of thanks for this unexpected mercy when up ahead I spot half a dozen men pouring into the intersection. They’re wearing white armbands and crosses, and one of the men, a giddy youth with orange hair, is dragging the mutilated corpse of a naked man behind him like it’s a speared boar he’s carting home for dinner.
I grab Thierry, stopping us in our tracks, but it’s too late. The mensee us, and it takes only one look at our frightened faces for them to realize what we are.
I start to pull Thierry back in the direction from which we’ve come, but another group of men marches onto the avenue from a side street and blocks our retreat.
Thierry gasps. “We’re trapped!”
Both groups begin to advance, their bloodstained faces breaking into eager smiles at the sight of fresh prey. I draw my rapier, but Thierry clings to my side, too terrified to reach for his blade.
“Stay behind me,” I say, backing us up against a wall.
The two mobs close in around us and become one. I count twelve men, some old enough to be my father, others too young to grow beards. I wonder who taught them to hate at such an early age.
“Heathen devils,” one of the men spits at us. He grabs a large stone off the street and hurls it at my head. It misses, but the next one doesn’t. It slices open my cheek, and in blinding pain, I drop my rapier. It’s only a second of weakness, but it’s all the men need to press their advantage. In an instant, they’re upon us, pulling Thierry from my arms.
“Gaspard!” he shouts, but a rain of fists and sticks falls hard and fast upon my body, pummeling me to the ground. A knife pierces my back. The blade is like ice, but the pain is fire. I taste blood in my mouth. And in an instant, the raging animal instinct to fight for my life is replaced with the cold, grim certainty that I am going to die.
I raise my battered and bloody face off the cobblestones to look for Thierry. A group of men have him on his knees, just like the pregnant woman whom I was equally helpless to rescue. The orange-haired boy twists Thierry’s arms behind his back with one hand, and with the other he forces his head up, exposing his neck. That neck that I have covered in kisses. That neck that I will never kiss again.
My Thierry. My other half. My world.
Unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything as my life drains out of me, I watch in horror as the bearded ringleader stands before my love and unsheathes his dagger. He holds it over Thierry’s head as he offers up a short prayer to his bloody, merciless god. The blade glistens in his hand under the cruel August sun.
Then he brings it down and ends my world.
Orlando, Florida
(The Present)
Chapter 44
Jackson
Riley is shaking in my arms. He’s gasping and fighting back tears, clinging to me like his life depends on it. I hold him tight, fighting back my own tears, as we huddle on the floor of Jocasta’s kitchenette.
I don’t know what time it is or how long we’ve been out. The sun is setting, casting its dying orange light and long purple shadows across the empty hotel room. There’s no sign of Jocasta or her things. Not even an overturned teacup.
“They were killing us,” Riley whimpers, his voice choked with fear. He clutches me even tighter. Like he’s afraid that if he lets me go, even for a second, I’ll slip away forever. Or he will.
“It’s okay,” I tell him, my own voice little more than a whisper. I’m still in too much shock to say or do anything more, so I find myself repeating that phrase as much for Riley’s sake as my own. “We’re okay. It was just a dream. We’re okay.”
My words are hollow, though. I don’t believe them.
Riley and I both know we are far from okay. Just like we know that that excruciating dream wasn’t a dream. It was our past.
And unless we listen to Jocasta, it’s our future.
Chapter 45
