Page 43 of All Saints Day
When the heavy door squeals open on its hinges, it’s all I can do to keep myself from letting out a pained cry at the sight of Louise.
Across the bond, she has appeared just as we left her—if a bit weary and sorrowful. In the flesh, she looks hollowed out—dark purple smudges below her eyes, her cheeks sunken, her once luminous silken scarlet tresses dulled and matted against her head, her clavicles stand out like the bones of a bird.
She lies curled on her side—her hospital Johnny parted to show her spine beneath her sallow skin like a studded opal monument to her pain—her refusal to give in.
Her cinnamon eyes are glazed as they fall on the three of us, her expression resigned.
“Come on, Penny, we’ve got an important appointment to keep,” Compton orders, the slightest edge to his voice.
Louise doesn’t respond, just lies there on the floor—her gaze looking through us.
It isn’t until Q and I get in close enough for her to catch our scents that something seems to stir in her.
This close, I can see that her pupils are heavily dilated—that she’s having trouble tracking my motion as I lean down and close a hand around her frighteningly thin upper arm.
Her nostrils flare, and her eyes search my face, her slack jaw working slowly in disbelief.
I tuck my head and bring a single finger to my lips in a gesture that asks for her silence.
Her eyes dart to Q, who gives a single clipped nod—and I feel an instant swell of relief as her lips press closed—tears of joy spilling from her glittering red-brown eyes.
Silently, we lift her from the floor—one arm over each of our shoulders—Louise’s feet dragging along the cold tiled floor as we prepare to bring her to the door.
We heft Louise’s hollow bird body with ease in preparation to exit the cell, hope finally beginning to glow anew.
Our collective comfort is instantly undone as the heavy metal door swings inward—a surprised-looking Frank, blinking in disbelief at the scene before him.
“What the fuck?” he breathes as the door slams shut behind him.
Our eyes lock—and for a moment, I could swear that Frank looks relieved.
“The Alerion,” he bites out—his eyes boring into mine.
The Alerion. The hotel I met him and Mike at that last fateful night… is he trying to say something about the bond? My mind races as our gazes stay locked together for what feels like an eternity.
“Don’t forget,” Frank warns sternly.
I have only the barest of seconds to register his movements—those dark blue eyes flitting to my bonding bite marks before his right hand flashes to his chest holster—his gun appearing in my line of vision only milliseconds before Frank fires at me.
Two slugs hit me squarely in the Kevlar; another finds its home in my right shoulder. The searing pain tears through me, my panic abated, if only for the fact that Frank is the best shot I have ever known. If he hasn’t hit me directly between the eyes, it's because he didn’t want to.
Before Frank can do anything else, Q is in motion—the blade of his hand cutting through the air to strike Frank in the side of the throat.
The open-handed strike instantly drops Frank to his knees—both hands instinctively flying to his throat as he gasps for breath, his gun falling to the ground.
My right arm a bloody mess, I brace Louise against my leftside as Quentin lunges for Frank with a loaded hypo of night-night juice.
Compton stands still as a corpse as Frank goes limp on the tile floor—not wanting to give Caz or Seb any reason to detonate his foundation garments.
“Fuck, fuck, FUCK!” Quentin hisses—his gaze snapping back up to the camera above the doorframe. “Move—NOW!”
There isn’t time to make a discussion—Quentin lifts Frank’s rag dolled body off the floor, carrying his awkward dead weight across his broad shoulders and I scoop Louise up into my arms as if I were carrying her over the bridal threshold rather than out of the confines of her holding cell.
We pour out of the hallway into the rotunda, breaking away from Compton to make an escape out the back. We’re following the floor plan, cutting through a massive formal dining room that looks out over a stone terrace and pristine gardens when the ear-piercing alarms begin.
None of us speaks, all our thoughts blaring fast and furious down the mating bond. I can feel Caz and Seb—already on their way to the vista of plate-glass windows that open the formal dining room to the estate’s charming gardens.
Drive over the lawn, through the fucking fountains—whatever you have to do—just be there when we crash through, my mind cries as my vision begins to blur. I’m losing a good amount of blood, but my adrenals have been doing their job—I’m still moving on the momentum of body chemicals and sheer will.
