Outcast

Chapter Nine

“Willow! You got away from Dad.” I uncurl my fists and step forward.

“Stay where you are.” Her voice is cold and clear.

I frown. “Or what, you’ll use that knife on me?”

“Just stay where you are, Quinn.” She moves toward the front door. “I have to do this.”

“Do what?” I move to block her, and she whirls to face me, her eyes flashing.

“What I came here to do.” Her eyes are fierce, and suddenly I know—Dad didn’t come to kill Jared. He sent Willow instead. What better way to punish me than to force the sister I’m trying to save to ruin the innocent man I’ve promised to protect?

“You aren’t going in there,” I say quietly.

“Yes, I am.” Her eyes are desperate.

I grab her arm before she can go past me. “Willow, stop. Jared is innocent—”

“I don’t care about Jared. I care about you.” She lifts her chin. “You made a choice between obeying Dad or sparing a man’s life. Now I get to make a choice between torturing that man to death or watching Dad take yours.” Her lips tremble in the moonlight before she thins them into a stubborn line.

“There are other choices.”

“Not when it means I could lose you.” She tries to shake my grip, but I move with her, keeping myself between her and the door.

“What if we both decided not to obey Dad anymore? What if we both just walked away from all of this?”

For a long moment, she stares at me, and I think I’ve got her, but then she whispers, “He has my bow and arrows. On the western walkway. If I don’t kill the prisoner and make it truly awful, Dad will, and then he’ll put an arrow in your gut and let you bleed out slowly while he tears your body apart. The life of a stranger isn’t worth that, Quinn. Nothing you say will convince me otherwise.”

Before I can answer her, the council door opens. Elder Toilspun leads Jared onto the walkway. For a second, Jared’s body is silhouetted by the lamplight from inside the building. I hear the faint twang of an arrow leaving its bow.

Jared is about to die.

I dive in front of him before the thought can finish forming and brace myself for the pain of an arrow tip ripping into my body. If I sacrifice myself to save another, will that erase all the harm I’ve done?

“No!” Willow leaps forward, grunts, and crumples to the walkway, an arrow sticking out of her side.

“Willow!” I drop to my knees beside her. Jared throws himself down next to me as another arrow buries itself in the door frame of the council building. Quickly, I grab one of the flower barrels beside the door and shove it in front of us to spoil Dad’s aim.

“Gently.” Jared looks at Willow, and then snaps at Elder Toilspun, “Get me clean rags, a bucket of hot water, and whatever plant you use to disinfect a wound.”

Panic races through me, and my hands shake too much to pull out the arrow without widening the wound.

“Let me,” Jared says.

“You should get inside. He might try to shoot you again,” I say.

“Focus on the girl.” Jared nods toward Willow. She’s bleeding; a puddle is forming on the walkway beneath her. My heart is pounding, and my throat is tight.

Willow is all I have. I was supposed to save her, but instead, she saved me. I have to keep her alive. Losing my sister would do the one thing Dad hasn’t yet managed to do—destroy me.

Several elders hurry out of the building, thrusting rags our way. Matthias has been sent for disinfectant and hot water, but we don’t wait. I press the rags around the arrow’s tip while Jared gently pulls it out. Willow screams once, and then clamps her jaw shut and moans in pain. Blood bubbles up, and I push the rags against the wound while I pray that the arrow didn’t hit anything vital, didn’t go too deep.

“Get out of my way!” Dad’s voice booms through the night.

I don’t turn around, but Jared lunges to his feet.

“Did you do this?” Jared doesn’t raise his voice, but there’s power inside of it. Power and anger. “Did you shoot this girl?”

“I shot at you, you worthless piece of trash. My children were stupid enough to try to save you.”

The shaking in my fingers creeps up my arms and settles in my chest.

“You shot at me while your children were in danger of being hit?” Jared’s voice rises.

“Raised them better than to risk their lives for a stranger, but the boy is a soft-spined fool, and the girl was stupid enough to protect her brother.” Dad’s voice is filled with contempt.

Something hot and feral unfurls in my stomach as Dad approaches us.

“Get away from her,” Dad says.

Keeping my hands pressed against Willow’s wound, I slowly raise my eyes to meet my father’s. “No.”

“You listen, boy, and you listen good. This is your one chance. You get away from her and you take care of the threat the way I taught you, or the next weapon I use will be on you.”

“Quinn—” Willow whispers, her hand reaching for my wrist.

“You try to use a weapon on your son, and you’ll be dealing with me,” Jared says.

Quicker than water, Dad leaps forward, across Willow, his knives in his hands as he dives for Jared’s knees.

I slam into him and send him sprawling in front of Elder Toilspun.

“Help Willow,” I say to Jared as Dad flips to his feet and turns on me with a snarl.

“Think you’re better than me? Think you could choose a stranger over your own family, and I’d stand for it?” He spins the knives into his favorite throwing position.

I drop and roll toward him as the first knife leaves his hand. It flies over me and embeds itself in the railing that lines the walkway. Before he can throw the next one, I come up swinging.

The rage bursts free of the dam within me. I can’t hear anything but the pounding of my heart and the memory of the constant litany of abuse that has spewed from my father’s lips since I was born. I can’t feel anything but the blazing heat of my anger coursing through me and the way his body gives beneath my fists. I can’t see anything but the blood he’s put on my hands and the flash of fear on his face as he realizes I’m stronger than him.

We smash into the council door and land heavily on the floor inside. In seconds, we’re both on our feet, throwing punches and pivoting to match each other’s moves. I take his blows and barely feel the pain. We have the same training, the same instincts, but I’m faster.

I’m always faster.

This time, I don’t hold back. I drive my fist into his stomach and think of every time he laid a whip to Willow’s back. I slam my elbow into his temple and remember the way the light in my mother’s eyes grew fainter and fainter until all that was left was a haze of corn liquor. I kick his knee hard enough to shatter bone and remember my screams the first time he broke my arm. Before I’d learned that screams only made the punishment worse.

“No more,” I pant as his shattered knee gives out, and he falls heavily to the floor. “You’re done giving orders. You’re done abusing us. And you’re done killing people.”

He spits out a mouthful of blood and teeth and glares at me. “I’m done when I say I’m done.”

I lean down, my face inches from his, and say with absolute certainty, “You. Are. Done.”

His right shoulder tightens, a nearly imperceptible movement, and his eyes flick toward my chest. He whips his remaining knife toward my heart.

I block his arm with my right palm, moving the tip of the blade to the side.

He lunges forward.

Grabbing his wrist with my left hand, I wrench the weapon around, and shove it toward him.

The blade slides into his chest.

We stare at our hands, both holding the hilt, while blood pours across his tunic. My pulse pounds against my skull, and my breathing tears through me like sobs. I feel sick. Vindicated. Horrified.

His eyes find mine, full of fear and confusion, and he opens his mouth as if to say something, but I let go of the knife and back away. I don’t want to hear his last words. I don’t want to watch him die.

As his death gurgle rattles in his throat, I turn and stumble out of the council building.