Page 82

His hands hiked up my bunches of skirts in the back and squeezed my ass and growled happily into my shoulder. “Ye, mo reul-iuil are the best of forms. From yer perfect arse tae your little flower garden...” His pinky finger slid between my legs and wiggled there.

I giggled into his neck. “My flower garden?”

“Och aye, the garden planted round your castle, I have discussed this afore.” He chuckled into my ear as his fingers played around inside me. “Do you want me tae tell ye all about it again?”

“No, I remember the whole thing, castle walls, your big cannon...” I nibbled his ear. “Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Aye, ye have watered your garden for me, tis like a dew covered morn⁠—”

A fist pounded on our door. Lady Mairead’s voice, “Magnus! Something’s happened. Oh no. Something — hurry!”

My eyes wide I asked, “What do you⁠—?

But Magnus was already up headed for the door.

51 - KAITLYN

The room was blaring, tear-inducing white. The news story was projected large on the far wall of the living room. A live-video: a dead body in the grass with the police milling around. There were smaller projections down the side: One a desolate parking garage. One a door. One a stairwell. A voice was explaining that this was Minister Donahue shot dead on the steps of his home. But I didn’t need to be told, I recognized his uniform, the coat with the medals and the fur trim. He hadn’t made it home from our meeting.

Then another smaller feed started in the bottom left corner, his wife, dead in the hallway of their home.

I clutched Magnus’s arm.

Then another live stream, a dead man slumped over in a car.

Lady Mairead was frantic. “I have a vessel. We could leave, but then we would never be able tae come back... what tae do?” She wasn’t talking to anyone in particular, just herself. “We need tae go tae the roof.”

He asked, “How long do you think we have?”

Lady Mairead’s eyes looked terrified. “I’d say minutes⁠—”

A terrifying roar blasted from outside the windows. Then for the briefest of seconds the wall of windows switched from solid white, fully screened, to clear, see-through, oh my god there were machines, like ten, hovering right outside the windows, facing us, weapons trained on us, and then before we could duck an explosive pulse, quivering the air, vibrating the sound. In the amount of time it would take me to clap my hands, a sonic boom exploded the glass, and shoved me toward the back wall and stole my air, my thoughts, my consciousness with a slam.

52 - KAITLYN

Coming to was odd. All around me was super bright, but also slo-mo, sound waves vibrating the air around me. I couldn’t focus, my ears rang, I had to keep shaking my head to clear it and then try again to understand. My arms were bound behind me. I was jerked to standing. I tried to look for Magnus but my head was wobbly, my balance off. Like I was seriously drunk and maybe on some weird sixties acid trip, like in movies, where the colors spin.

I was shoved through a door and against a wall, my stomach dropped as I rose, or rose as I dropped, the doors of the elevator opened on a rooftop, vertiginous edges, swirling wind, dark gray night sky above, so many men in uniforms — my focus returned, “Where are you taking me?”

I was shoved forward to a waiting helicopter. I tried to brake, to brace my feet against the rooftop, to pull back and not go in.

Where was Magnus?

I struggled against the men, trying to keep them from putting me on one of the helicopters. Who knew where we were going, but also, no. I was too scared of heights for that bullshit. I fought harder but the two men holding me gripped me tighter.

Magnus’s voice interrupted my struggle. “Kaitlyn!”

I craned my head to see him, across the rooftop, being led toward us. “Magnus!”

The men practically picked me up and threw me into the side of the helicopter, banging my thigh — “Ow, fuck. That hurt!”

Magnus yelled over the sound of the propellers and engines, “Kaitlyn—” The engines went louder cutting off the end of his sentence. I was crammed onto the floor of the helicopter, my arms jerked to the side, the cuff around my wrists was attached to a bolt on the floor. I was bent over sideways and very uncomfortable. Men took seats all around me, knees pressed close to my nose and cheek. Pressing me up against the bulkhead.

Magnus was shoved into the helicopter behind the seats, his bound arms chained to a bar on the floor. Magnus would be terrified, he had never flown before. Under the seats I could see his fingers curled into fists, his wrists bound, the veins of his arms straining in his struggle against the binding. Our helicopter lifted into the air.

After that it was just trying to keep my panic under control. I faced a gaping hole in the side of the helicopter. It was night, tiny lights below us, the sound of the propellers so loud it was breaking my ears. We flew over a sprawling, endless, overcrowded city, through air that was full of drones and copters and other unrecognizable machines zipping and buzzing and careening around. I curled forward and concentrated on Magnus’s hand.

53 - KAITLYN