The second mrs bennet, p.33
An Island Strange and Wild, page 33
“Hurts like a bitch,” he says, flinching, consumed by what must be a wave of ferocious pain.
I peel back the shell of hardened salttain from his leg. The skin is a lumpy, yellowish purple, the torn tissue having knitted itself back together. But the bones within look misshapen and mismatched.
“You’ll need another dose of salttain.”
“For me, the ocean is a better option. But, Rosalie,” he says, both eyes flashing open. “You never said if you found Evan.”
“I didn’t,” I lie. “I’m sorry.” There’s no way he can absorb any more terrible news.
I turn away before he can see my tears. I almost lost him. I may still lose him. I lean in close, his briny scent of sea and sweat mingling with the sweet smoke of the salttain, and brush back a curl of silky black hair, relieved it no longer feels like dried roots.
He smiles, one eye smoldering silver, the other iridescent as an opal. “I’d give anything to touch you right now.”
That’s when the rock above us creaks and a spray of dirt rains down on us.
“We have to get out of this cave,” I say. “Now. If you can’t crawl on your own, I’ll have to drag you out.”
“My hands are useless,” he says. “My leg hurts like hell, but maybe it’s a little better.”
His leg has healed somewhat, but not enough to bear weight. With effort, by hooking him under the arms, I drag him out of the cave. Finally, we’re outside on the sand, the beach glittering in the morning sun.
“Bring me to the water,” he says, “Then leave. You can’t follow me where I’m going. But there’s something else you need to know, something I’ve withheld—for your safety.”
“I’ll make the decision to leave myself, thank you.”
“Please quit arguing. And get me to the water.”
It takes all my strength to drag his dead weight across the sand, to the water’s edge. I crouch beside him, committing his features to memory. Even through the destruction to his body, the real Liam shines through. This is the boy I love—not the Siren. Just him.
Liam smiles up at me. “Rosalie. I-I want you to know that the first minute I saw you on that dock—I was struck. It was like playing with fire. And you were the flame. And then…” he stops, squeezing his good eye closed. “I tried to be as much of an ass as I could—a natural talent, it seems—but my Siren’s allure was working too well. It was so hard to push you away. I wish—I wish things could be different.”
I squeeze my eyes closed and shake my head. I can’t just let go. “It wasn’t your ‘Siren’s allure,’ or whatever you want to call it. It was you. And I’m not going to roll you into the sea and walk away. I can get you to the Garden. Break this curse and then we can be together.”
He shakes his head. “We had our time. You need to do what you were brought here to do…save this island. Save our people.”
“You have to fight! You can’t just give up.”
“I’m not giving up on you, Rosalie Gatell.” Liam leans over on an elbow and wraps a stiff-handed arm around me, drawing my lips to his.
“Hands free,” he murmurs, and we kiss, long and slow, until the heat rises in me again. I ignore the humming sound that suddenly fills my ears, getting louder and louder by the moment. I don’t care if the entire island disintegrates around us if I can die with Liam’s lips on mine.
But he pulls away and murmurs in my ear. “There’s one other thing I wanted to tell you…the nuclear option.”
“Nuclear option?” I say, struggling to catch my breath.
We’re interrupted by the blare of a voice amplified by a loudspeaker.
“Forbidden love. So very poignant.” A voice booms from the helicopter that has just set down on the beach—the source of the humming sound. In moments, Liam and I are surrounded by a dozen uniformed men with guns. Godwin Sampling swaggers toward us.
“Good morning. Captain Sampling of the United States Coast Guard for the archipelago. In the current absence of Council governance, The High Magistrate, Randall Lambert, has deputized me to police the island. We follow the People’s Law here. Which means currently, I am law. You, Liam Charles O’Donnell, have violated the terms of your curse, with this individual, Rosalie Abigail Gatell.” His portly frame swivels toward me. “Step away from the suspect, Miss Gatell.”
I ignore him and try to heave Liam into the water, but we’re too far and he’s too heavy.
“On your feet, Mr. O’Donnell,” Sampling’s amplified voice booms, “to hear the pronouncement of your crime.”
I wedge myself between Liam and Sampling. “Even a moron like you can see he can’t stand up.”
“Use those wondrous powers of yours and get him up on his feet,” Sampling barks.
“You’re a real hero, Sampling,” Liam says. “Your shining moment has arrived at last.”
“Council doctrine states that you must stand for your sentencing!”
“Council doctrine, my left ass cheek. When did you and your lot ever care about that? Randy turned half of the Regional Elders into a pile of ashes. He’s making up the rules as he goes. But if you want me to stand,” he says, “you’ll have to give me a few minutes.”
“Liam,” I plead. “Don’t.”
“Do as I say!” Sampling shouts.
"Help me up, Rosalie," Liam whispers, and, bracing him against me, I manage to help him unsteadily to his feet. “I don’t regret the time we had,” he says into my ear.
“I don’t either,” I say, swallowing down a sob.
“You have been caught in the act of a severe transgression, Liam O’Donnell. The punishment for breaking the constraints of your curse is death for all violators who are of the Hand. It would be Magistrate Lambert’s dearest wish to sentence you to death as well, Mr. O’Donnell, but the curse is unbreakable.”
“What are you talking about, Sampling? You’re full of crap. You can’t do this. Rosalie isn’t a full member of the Hand yet. The Council ruled she has a month probation period,” Liam counters, his weight bolstered against me. “Which means she’s not bound by our laws.”
“As you pointed out, the Council is dead. High Magistrate Lambert alone determines your fates,” Sampling says, then points a thick finger at me. “However, you, Rosalie Abigail Gatell, are a special case. High Magistrate Lambert requests a hearing to determine your sentence. You who cannot die,” he says, turning to Liam, “will face the ultimate punishment for your kind. Your human skin will be damaged beyond repair. You will spend the rest of eternity consigned to the sea.”
I hold tight to keep Liam from falling but feel as though I may keel over myself.
“I’m impressed,” says Liam, somehow maintaining his composure, “that after all this time, you guys finally figured out how to get rid of me. You’ve had enough practice.”
“That’s enough of your insubordination, Mr. O’Donnell. You, Miss Gatell,” Sampling says, pointing at me. “Will step away from the accused.” To emphasize his command, the uniformed men train their guns on me.
“Just do it!” Liam says. “You heard him. As much as they’d like to, they can’t kill me.”
I fight the men and claw at Liam’s ragged clothes as they try to drag me away, but it’s no use. Liam topples onto the sand without me to keep him upright. Terrified, I reach for the force that incinerated Wade and find nothing but soft vibrations. The earth will not cooperate. It’s as if all the nascent power of the island has been drained away.
One of the uniformed men produces a long, telescoping stake and stabs it into the ground. He yanks Liam back on his feet and binds him in a standing position with a length of rope. Liam doesn’t struggle as the men spear the sand with their rifles and, instead of shooting him, pull long batons from their holsters.
Sampling sucks in his round belly and straightens. “Liam Charles O’Donnell, by order of the High Magistrate, your human skin will face obliteration by all means required and heretofore becomes the permanent property of the High Magistrate. You will be banished from land in your human form forever and always.”
I clamp my hands to my mouth. I’m responsible for this. Liam knew all along the risks we faced. And now he’s going to bear the brunt of it. As they bind him to the pole, his demeanor shifts from shock to desolation. “A minute?” he pleads, nearly in tears. “A final kiss—in case you need more evidence? You can allow us that, can’t you?”
Sampling grunts and looks at his watch. “One minute,” he says. The men keep their weapons pointed at us.
I rush to him and run shaking fingers through his filthy hair. “There’s got to be something we can do. That I can do.”
Liam smiles wearily, his one good eye slitted. He’s got to be in so much pain. “Randy has been looking for a way to do me in since I was nine. Now, with most of the local Council reduced to ashes, he can do what he wants. But we’ve got one more card to play,” he whispers. “Lean in close and kiss me.”
His desperation, I realize, is a ruse. Beneath it is something much harder. Resolve.
I close my eyes and, letting the tears spill, press my lips to his. The pain of their sweetness flows like poison through my veins. How will I continue to breathe, knowing what I’ve lost?
Liam’s kisses brush against my parted lips. “I wanted to tell you this earlier,” he murmurs, “but it would have gotten me in a whole mess of trouble. But it doesn’t matter now. There are sacred words of power I’ve known since I was little. We’re forbidden to speak them. Lila said that I should only share them in an emergency—they’re extremely dangerous to the untrained. They’re the same words, spoken in a different order, that turned your Aunt Millie to wood. That I invoked to start the process myself.”
“Whatever it takes,” I choke out. “I don’t care what happens to me if I can save you.”
“You can’t,” Liam says. “But you can save the island.”
“But—” I’m acutely aware of the passing seconds. Sampling clears his throat.
Liam flashes a grin. “Kiss me again. And make it a good one.”
I lean forward and open my lips to his. Threading my hands through his hair, I push it back from his brow. We kiss gently, as if there’s all the time in the world. I only pull back when he presses his lips to my ear.
“These words,” he murmurs, “may or may not work with Randy stripping away all the island’s energies.” He pulls in a long breath and meets my gaze, his silver eye as dull as pewter. “You’ve got to say them in the right order—or things can go horribly wrong. Nizedha—control. Yunakti—connect.” He pauses. “If I say them all at once it won’t be pretty.”
“I know those words. They were in one of Aunt Millie’s stories. And murmured by the phantoms in the Garden. What do they mean?”
“...Invati—infuse. Vimukti—release. Dyati—bind. Hanti—destroy,” he finishes.
“Ten seconds!” Sampling shouts.
“It doesn’t matter,” Liam says. “When the right time comes, you’ll know what to do. And this isn’t it. You only get one chance. Use it well.”
“That’s enough young love for today,” Sampling snaps. “We can make his destruction quick or draw it out. Your choice.”
Sampling’s men wrench me away. Liam pins me with a weary single-eyed gaze. “Goodbye,” he says. One corner of his mouth quirks up, a faint echo of his once-cheeky smile.
I stagger backward, air trapped in my lungs like I’ve forgotten how to breathe. Liam watches me, the lopsided grin frozen on his face. Memories of the night I first met him come at me like a winter gust, bringing images of the ocean breeze blowing through his black hair, his piercing storm-gray eyes. It hurts too much to remember. It hurts even more to let go.
“Stand down, Miss Gatell,” Sampling says, almost gently. “You can watch, but you might prefer to look away.”
When he gives the signal, a hood is lowered over Liam’s head. I half-expect the men to point their rifles and riddle him with bullets, but instead, someone wrenches one arm behind my back and clamps a hand over my mouth. I can’t even scream as I force myself to watch the others pummel him relentlessly with their batons. Liam doesn’t utter a sound as the blows land on his head, back, legs, and arms. No matter how I struggle, I can’t get free.
Liam said to wait to use the sacred words. If I’m to honor his, Evan’s, and Tyler’s sacrifices at the hands of this brutality, and one use is all I get to unleash whatever power the words contain—no matter how much it devastates me, I need to comply.
Finally, after a sadistic volley of blows, Liam’s head droops. The men approach his slumped form and untie him. Liam crumples onto his side, curled in a fetal position on the sand.
Sampling curses as he storms behind his men to surround Liam. They rip off the hood. Bloody, his face almost unrecognizable, Liam is of course, still alive.
Liam spits out blood, laughs, then breaks into gurgling coughs. I’m not sure he can see out of his swollen, slitted eye. “Of course, you know…how this works, Sampling. No matter how hard you try, you still can’t kill me.”
My legs are liquid, the sick bubbling into my throat. Again, I struggle to get free, but my captor’s hold on me is ironclad as I’m led to a dinghy anchored nearby.
“Take him to the water!” Sampling shouts, gesturing to his men.
Liam’s out-of-focus gaze searches for mine as they lift his limp form and haul him to the water’s edge.
“Remember,” I swear I can hear him say. Or maybe it’s just the wind off the waves.
Sampling’s men yank Liam’s arms over his head and bind his wrists with rope, then drag him out into the surf and push him under. I watch, the breath frozen in my chest, Aunt Millie’s mysterious string of words echoing in my head. If this isn’t the right time, then when is?
When the men shuffle back to shore and Liam doesn’t surface, I stifle a sob as one of them ties the other end of the rope to the dinghy. I know what comes next as they gag me, bind my hands behind my back, and shove me into the craft.
There’s no blindfold. They want me to see everything.
We tow a submerged Liam behind us a short distance and I recognize the rocky mound where Liam stores his seal skin.
Heat building in me, I’m broken by the skin’s beauty, how it refracts the light of afternoon sun as Sampling unfurls it like a rug for sale at a street market.
If only I could incinerate my captors with a burst of flame from my palms. Even if I could, I still have no way to control it, or to keep from setting myself on fire as well.
Sampling hurls the precious skin into the sea. The ocean crackles and boils in a red froth as his men pull Liam’s human skin from the water.
What’s left of Liam’s humanity appears to be little more than a bloody bit of fabric. Sample folds it with surprising care, hands it over to his men, then turns toward me and sneers. “Now blindfold her.”
The last thing I see before the hood is pulled over my eyes is the crimson foam that floats on the surface of the water where I last laid eyes on the human form of Liam O’Donnell.
Chapter 43
Bound, thirsty, and famished, my head encased in darkness, I’m transferred off the dinghy and taken for a long, miserable boat ride, then thrown into a cold, damp space. I see images behind my hood—black blood oozing from exposed veins. Flaming spider webs. A popped cork. Symbols that etch themselves into cobalt ice. Gridlines and threads of diamond-white wire arching over a dark void.
Then I see Lila, floating in a column of shimmering green water, pale hair billowing. She drifts closer, holding me in her gaze, eyes large and inky dark. She slants her head as if she wants to speak and gestures for me to come closer.
I’ve lost her two sons. One she doesn’t even remember.
I can’t turn away, but I can’t face her either.
Footsteps echo on a stone floor. “Well, look what we have here,” says a voice I recognize as the visions continue to bombard me. Lightning forks across a darkened sky. I’m still not sure if I’m awake or hallucinating.
“I’ve always known you were out there, sweetheart,” Randy Lambert croons in his warm baritone. “Your mother and aunt always believed they were better than me. Smarter than me, because of their sterling pedigree, their Outsider educations. But who’s winning now?”
I grunt behind the gag. Randy continues. “I’ve discarded so many failed prospects but out of sentiment, kept Wade around much longer than I should have. He did have his uses. Knew his way around bog-holes—and your Outsider communications. I ought to thank you for ridding me of that nuisance at last.”
His footsteps echo as he circles me. I’m not in a small, enclosed cell, I realize, but a large, cavernous space. “You don’t want to end up like your poor aunt, do you? So much for the high and mighty Bouchards.”
Fabric crinkles. Randy kneels and speaks next to my ear. “You have a choice. Despite what your family and those fools on the Council wanted you to believe, our future as a people hinges on my plan. The Outsiders are destroying this planet. You know it. Tyler knew it. Your father dedicated his life’s work to studying the forthcoming death of this planet. Unlike you and your stubborn mother, both of them understood their plans were failing. That other means were required.”
The shock of his words soak in. Other means were required. What exactly had he promised Tyler and my father?
His voice drops to a silken whisper. “They finally understood that I was right. That all of their efforts were futile—that the Outsiders are unwilling to do what it takes to save this planet we all call home.”
My mind reels over the implications. Were Tyler and my father complicit in getting me here? Maybe Randy convinced them his purpose was pure. New anger blooms hot within my core, but I force myself to remain calm.
“Join forces with me, Rosalie, and our combined power will be immense. Unstoppable. Together we can heal this broken planet.
“Or—” I hear him resume pacing around me. “You can continue to thwart me and watch our planet die a slow and painful death. There is no Planet B, Rosalie. Not for the Outsiders, nor for the descendants of Atlantis.”
