"He said I had to get better, had to… because…" She began to cough, and he gave her another sip of water.
"Take it slow."
"No, I must… must tell you… We have to… have to save…" That was all she could manage, then Adele lost her tenuous grip on consciousness. There was something wrong with her, any idiot could see that. Even in sleep, her face was a rictus of agony. Maybe he'd missed something internally, some fragment from the bullet that he hadn't spotted? Although he knew about the human body he was no doctor and hadn't had the best of facilities in which to work.
Whatever the case, it was too late to do anything but sit and wait.
The second time she woke, three days later, was the last. Tanek sat up when he saw her stir, especially when she'd grabbed his hand, gripping it tight. Adele looked at him, eyes wide, staring with an expression that only came when a person knew they were close to the end.
"He made me promise," she spluttered. "My father."
"Promise what?" Tanek leaned in. Maybe if he hadn't been able to keep his own pledge to De Falaise, he could fulfil Adele's. Would that make up for his mistakes?
"Save-"
"You said that before. Save who?"
The grip tightened again. "His child."
Tanek shook his head. He'd tried, he'd really tried.
Then Adele said her final words: "My brother. My little brother…"
She fell back on the pillow, letting Tanek's hand go. Tanek felt her neck; she was gone. It had taken this long but Mary had finally killed Adele with that bullet. He shed no tears, though. Not because it wasn't in his nature — he was just too preoccupied with what she'd imparted.
A brother, a younger sibling. But where? In France, over here? A sudden thought struck Tanek. Perhaps the child De Falaise had been talking about in his dreams hadn't been Adele at all. What if it never had been?
Perhaps he was meant to save someone else? Meant to keep someone else safe?
It was a thought that would plague him even as he buried Adele in an unmarked grave. Even as he left Cynthia's house and drove on up the road again.
It was a thought that would continue to plague him for some time to come.
Gwen finished feeding Clive Jr, spooning the food into his mouth and wiping it.
She sat back and looked at her son, and not for the first time she wondered just how and why they'd been spared.
He must be kept safe…
That's what the cultist had said. A man she'd been led to believe was evil — who painted a skull on his face and had the mark of a sinner on him — and yet had actually saved her from Jace, smuggled her out of the castle when she was about to be used as bait, when Christ alone knew what was going to happen to her son.
What had he meant? She didn't have a clue, and hadn't had a chance to ask again. Because after they'd dropped her off near to New Hope, they'd all disappeared: Skullface and the rest.
Gwen had ditched the robes before walking into the village, Andy and Graham rushing over when they saw her. They'd bombarded her with a flurry of questions she either couldn't or didn't want to answer. But once she was safe again inside her own home, once she was sure she wouldn't be spotted or followed, she took Clive Jr and headed out to retrieve those robes.
They hung, even now, in her wardrobe upstairs. Gwen didn't know why she was keeping them. A souvenir of her escape? She doubted it, she wasn't the sentimental type anymore. Not since Clive…
Then why?
That wasn't all. Ever since she'd got back, every time she left the house to visit Clive's grave, or walk through New Hope, or attend meetings about the best way forward for the village — by which she and the others meant the best way to get hold of more weapons — she'd had the uneasy feeling she was being watched. Gwen would turn around quickly in the hopes of catching a glimpse of what was in the periphery of her vision. But it would always be gone.
Now, as she rose and walked to the window, hugging herself in spite of the fire that she'd made in the hearth, keeping out the dying breaths of winter, she thought she saw something out there in the dark. Just a quick flash, a figure perhaps, amongst the trees, wearing a hood. But not him: not the person she'd sent away when he'd brought Tate back to plead forgiveness.
No.
This was a different kind of Hooded Man altogether…
His presence heralding a different kind of future.