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I keep my mouth shut. I think of Zeke. It feels like an eternity since he kissed me goodbye on that plane. Does he even know we didn’t take off? Did Dex wake up and alert him? The crew or air traffic control would have rung some alarm, wouldn’t they?
Will he come for me? Would he know where I am? And how can I expect him to come after I betrayed him. Dex knows what I did and I’m sure he’ll tell Zeke. If Zeke’s smart, he’ll wash his hands of me. This is his chance.
My heart sinks with the thought.
“Can I have my phone?” I ask Girard. Maybe he tried to contact me. Maybe I can call him. At least tell him I’m okay and that I’m sorry I betrayed him.
“In a minute,” Girard says when commotion at the front door draws our attention.
Two guards head up the stairs to the open door. Between them is Ines. She’s walking freely, they’re not holding onto her. She’s dressed in a floor-length blood-red dress. A gown for a ball except it won’t be a ball she’s attending.
Girard stiffens beside me, and I glance at him. His eyes are locked on her. I can’t read what’s inside them.
Ines stops just inside the door. She looks very much like she did when she knelt before the Councilor, her face stone. She glances at me but doesn’t pay me any attention. It’s Girard she’s interested in.
He sets his drink aside, takes a step toward her and holds out his hand, palm up, and I understand something. And this thing, it gives me hope.
His vendetta, it isn’t revenge for the hand he lost, the future that was forever changed. It is for her. Maybe more for her than anything else.
The woman I saw earlier suddenly vanishes and a deep, guttural sob escapes her that sounds like it was years in the making. She crosses to him and doesn’t take his offered hand but instead presses her body to his, melting against him, her face buried against his chest, her arms tucked between them.
She looks like a child. Like a wounded child.
Antoine appears stunned. What was he expecting, I wonder? It takes him a full minute to wrap his arms around her. I step away. I don’t belong here. He’s careful with her, gentle when he lays his hand at the bare skin of her back, the lashes of earlier bright, angry welts crisscrossing her skin, blood dried in places where skin broke.
It feels wrong to watch them, but I can’t drag my gaze away as the two stand in their strange embrace, her sobbing, the sounds she’s making coming from somewhere so deep inside her that they wrack her body and steal her breath.
Antoine has closed his eyes and the expression on his face is serene. It’s like the man of a few minutes ago, the one in that video, has vanished. This one, he’s something else, standing here, holding this woman. His beloved.
Another disturbance at the door interrupts the reunited lovers. Antoine opens his eyes and pulls her possessively to his side. She’s so small beside him and I think about all those years she lived at the mercy of the Councilor, he too twice her size. What’s become of her sanity over the last twenty-five years.
Antoine glares at the man entering but bends to speak to Ines, only Ines. His whole demeaner is different with her. Gone is the predator. In its place is a fierce protector.
I don’t know what she says to him, but he nods and straightens. I notice she keeps her back to the man at the door.
Antoine shifts his gaze to me, looking me over. “This won’t do. Ines, you have something more appropriate? Red, of course.”
Ines glances at me. “I’m sure I can find something,” she says, her tone elegant, like the Society lady she is, even with her smeared makeup, her tear-stained eyes.
“Good. Blue, you’ll go with Ines. She will prepare you.”
“Prepare me for what?” I ask, although I know.
“The ceremony, of course.” He shakes his head. “It’s like you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”
“I want my phone.”
“It’s rude to make demands. Polite to ask.”
“Fine. Can I have my phone please?”
“Not yet.”
I open my mouth to protest but he gestures to a soldier and four of them step toward Ines and me.
Ines moves ahead of the men toward one of the vehicles. I watch how the soldiers in this war camp part to make way for her. I know they’ll make me if I don’t go, and I know I’m not getting my phone back for whatever reason. It’s not like I’m going to call in for backup. For someone to come help me escape. The best I can do right now is go along with Ines. Pissing Antoine off won’t get me anywhere but maybe a place at the chopping block.
I follow the men and, on my way, I pass someone I recognize from the charity dinner at IVI what feels like an eternity ago. He’s not a soldier, though.
