The leader eyed me with a spark of recognition. “Search them,” he called, and two men stepped forward as the others fanned out inside the manor. While Hannah bowed her head, I held mine high, looking the leader in the eye. Instead of focusing on me, his gaze drifted over to Hannah.
“Ah, a Mercer. Just what we’ve been looking for.” He gestured to the soldier searching her. “Bring her to the holding facility.”
“No,” I said, and fear shot through me. I struggled to stand, but the second soldier held me down. “She saved my life. She killed Mercer—”
“She’s still a criminal,” said the leader, and Hannah stumbled across the marble floor, turning enough to look at me.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Look after yourself.”
“Hannah—no—let her go!” I shrieked, but another soldier joined the first, and together they pinned me to the ground as the others led her out the door.
“We’re not monsters,” said the leader, peering down at me. “We won’t hurt her until we receive our orders.”
“I’m telling you to let her go,” I spat. “Don’t pretend you don’t know exactly who I am.”
“I do, and I also know you’re not authorized to give those kinds of orders, Miss Hart.”
I scowled. “I want to talk to Knox Creed.”
“He might be a bit busy right now—”
“Then I’ll wait.”
The leader stared at me, and I refused to avert my gaze. At last he mumbled something into his sleeve, and another half dozen guards joined us, surrounding me while the others searched the manor. I couldn’t tell if they were protecting me or holding me captive, but either way, at least they weren’t Mercer’s men.
As soon as the leader called the all-clear, the soldiers pulled me to my feet. “Take her upstairs,” he said. “Creed’s orders. Be gentle.”
“What?” I struggled against the hands that held me in place. “Where is he? I need to talk to him.”
“He’ll be by as soon as he can,” said the leader. “In the meantime, take her upstairs.”
No amount of fighting, kicking, screaming, or biting made the soldiers release me, although I found some amount of dark satisfaction when it took four of them to carry me to the Augusta Suite. As soon as they deposited me on the bed, they filed out, locking the door behind them.
I scrambled across the room and banged on the door. “Let me out!” I yelled. “Please—I need to talk to Knox!”
But no matter how loudly I screamed or how hard I pounded on that door, no one answered. Eventually, after what must have been an hour, I stumbled to the bed and collapsed, burying my face in one of the pink pillows and struggling not to cry.
If anything happened to Hannah, I would kill Knox. And this time I meant it.
I didn’t know how long it took me to fall asleep in that pink-and-gold canopy bed. Minutes, maybe—or hours, or maybe I never really fell asleep at all. Vaguely, as I drifted on the edge of consciousness, I felt cool hands touch my temples, and a flash of bright light appeared in my eyes. Distantly I heard the low murmur of two men speaking, and while I could have sworn one sounded like Knox, when I finally managed to open my eyes, they were gone.
The next time I awoke, weak early morning light filtered through the stained-glass window, giving everything in the room a strange shimmering feel. I groaned as I tried to move, but something heavy weighed me down.
“Get off me,” I mumbled, not yet entirely conscious. Instead, the weight only grew worse, and something shifted on the mattress beside me.
“Five more minutes,” mumbled a voice into my ear, and my heart nearly stopped. Benjy.
With more energy than I thought I had left in me, I rolled over. He lay beside me, his eyes closed and his red hair sticking up all over the place. His freckled face was scrubbed clean, and he wore a fresh change of clothes that looked a size too big for him. But he could have been caked in mud and smelled like a sewer, and I would have been just as elated to see him.
“Okay,” I said, snuggling up against him. “Five more minutes.”
He kissed my forehead and cracked open an eye. “I’m still mad at you, you know. You swore you wouldn’t leave.”
“I’m here now.” I nuzzled his collarbone and inhaled his scent. “I’m sorry.”
Benjy sighed and ran his fingers through my matted, dirty hair. “Me, too,” he whispered. Together we closed our eyes, and surrounded by his warmth, I fell asleep once more.
The Battle of Elsewhere raged on for two more days. Booms rattled Mercer Manor on the hour for thirty hours straight, and as I curled up with Benjy in the darkness, sometimes I wondered if we were already dead.
The door to the Augusta Suite unlocked three times a day for meals, and once for a doctor to check on me. “You’re healing well,” she told me as she dosed me with another painkiller, and by the time she slipped out the door, I was already asleep.
I dreamed of war. I dreamed of bullets and blood and never-ending gunfire, and when I woke up, there was no relief. Benjy remained with me every moment, talking to me and whispering stories in my ear through the worst of it, and in the middle of the night, we clung to one another, both of us knowing that no matter how often Knox promised to keep us safe, some things were beyond his control.
“Sometimes I wonder if it was all worth it,” I whispered in the darkness. We were intertwined so completely that I had no idea where I ended and Benjy began.