Cinders [Completed]

Chapter 40: Nightmare

Guards. A lot of guards.

"Stay here, please," Orion had said, his voice burning with desperation. Then, he had run from the room, muttering wildly. But only after he had placed me carefully in a circle of guards positioned around a small, empty room.

I hold perfectly still.

We're in a bunker, or something. The walls are concrete. Rows of cots line the opposite wall. I see boxes of supplies around the bend.

It only takes a millisecond for me to say, "Where's Lucy?"

The guards don't respond.

"Excuse me," I say, and I'm almost surprised how firm and commanding my voice is. "Where is my sister?"

"She's on the way, highness," the nearest guard assures me.

I allow ten more minutes before the panic takes over.

"What's happened? Where is she? Did he find her?"

The guard opens his mouth, but closes it again. His eyes are slightly glassy, and I know he's mind linking with the other guards.

"Please, tell me."

"They - can't find her," the guard admits.

My stomach drops to the ground, then jumps up and shrivels in my throat. My knees shake.

It would be stupid to go looking for her. It might be exactly what Dad wants. Maybe - maybe he took her, to get to me. There's no way for him to know that Lucy and Orion are close, but he knows that Orion is my mate. Everyone knows. He doesn't know that he can hurt Orion by hurting Lucy - but he knows that he can hurt me. He would want me to go out myself and find her.

But, Goddess, I can't just stay here. I can't just wait. What if there is something I can do?

Another hour passes. Still no Lucy.

I would have to ask Orion's forgiveness. But I know he would want me to take care of Lucy. I swallow the fear in my throat, prepared to do whatever it takes to fight my way out of this bunker.

Then, the guard's shoulders relax. "They found her," he tells me. "She's coming."

I release the breath that was pressurizing in my chest.

In the next minute, the locked vault door opens. I try to force my way through the wall of guards, desperate to see over their tall frames.

"Lucy!" I call.

"She's here," Jonah says, and they finally come through the guards. Jonah is carrying Lucy, like I once did, all those months ago, her crutches nowhere in sight. She looks shaky and pale, but fine.

"Where were you!" I demand, suddenly irrationally angry with her.

"Garden," she says softly, "I - I didn't know. I didn't know."

She holds tightly to Jonah.

"It was Mom," she says, her voice heavy with a desperate melancholy. "It was Mom, it was Mom. She did something - and now he's gone."

I gape at her. "What?" 

"She said - she said she was going to go with him. That's all she said. She knew. I thought - I thought she was just being crazy, but I don't think that anymore."

Jonah's face hardens at Lucy's words.

The guards shift, so that all three of us are surrounded. It seems so ridiculous, to me. He's just one man. Any single guard could take him down. We don't need these protections, surely.