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It was always leading to this moment.
“Trayem?” Harper said in a pathetically weak voice. “What’s going on?”
I couldn’t bring myself to tell her. I could barely bring myself to believe it myself. I’d seen this exact same scene a thousand times, only I’d never found myself standing on this side of the stage before. I had always been with my fellow guards.
The side I should return to now if I had any sense.
But love trumped sense in such situations.
Which way would I go?
I leaned forward and kissed Harper’s brow, thinking about what I would do next. I gently took the baby from her arms. She looked up at me with a smile that was distant but hopeful.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice cracking.
I turned and carried the baby out of the padded cell.
“Trayem?” Harper said, her voice regaining some of its strength now. “Trayem? What are you doing?”
I couldn’t respond to her, couldn’t turn around to face her.
“Trayem?” Harper said, screaming now. “TRAYEM?”
There was a sharp slap sound as she attempted to climb from the chair. Still weak from giving birth, she fell to the floor.
“Trayem!” she shrieked. “My baby! Please! Our baby! Don’t! Trayem! Trayem—”
Her voice was cut off as the wall shimmered and locked back into place, locking Harper inside the room, alone without her baby, stripped from him and me.
Harper beat against the wall with her fists, shocking her with electricity and emitting an ugly rasp. Her voice was gone now. She must have felt the pain of the shocks but didn’t stop.
She didn’t even stop when I ascended the stairs toward Krial’s apartment. I blocked myself off from the pain and anger and sorrow in my soul as I trudged, one grim footstep after another up the steps, clutching the gibbering baby in my arms. So small, so fragile and vulnerable.
I knew with cold certainty Harper’s shrieking cries would haunt me for the rest of my days.
The blinds had been drawn and it would have been pitch black if it wasn’t for the candles arranged in the shape of a five-pointed star. In the middle sat a single pink pillow.
The other members of Krial’s personal guard took their positions at each point. At the head was Krial, bent and hobbled and old, leaning on his walking stick the same way he had when I saw him after a three-month hiatus.
His hair had fallen from this scalp once more, his bald dome clear of features. His eyes were a dull dry yellow and I caught the unmistakable sign of cataracts.
“Bring forth the child,” he said.
I hesitated a moment, hopefully undetectable in the darkness. I didn’t have to go through with this, I told myself. I didn’t have to let this happen to the child in my arms. I could have turned and ran and I could have escaped…
But Harper was still trapped in that padded cell. I couldn’t hope to rescue her as well.
It was no use. We would never hide away in the prison for long before they found us.
As emotional as I felt, with my heart pumping hard in my chest, thumping hard like it wanted to escape and run a thousand miles from this place, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
Krial and the others were my family. You made sacrifices for your family. This was just another one.
Then the baby boy reached a hand and took my thumb in his tiny fingers and squeezed, surprisingly strong for a baby so young.
He peered up at me, though I wasn’t sure if he could really see me with his brand-new eyes.
My feet were already moving forward. I placed the child on the pink pillow delicately, his makeshift towel-blanket wrapped tightly around him.
