Fear is ice in my veins, keeping me rooted to the spot as I frantically scan the row of doors until I find the one I’m looking for.
The one Sylph jokingly calls her honeymoon cottage.
A giant X slashes across the door like a knife wound.
A small, hurt sound escapes the back of my throat, and I move. Half-dragging Logan with me, I stumble down the hall, past a marked door on my right, and another on the left.
Sylph can’t be dead. She can’t.
The X is still wet, blood gleaming faintly against the dark brown wood. I reach for the doorknob, and stop, my hand hovering just beneath a streak of crimson.
“Open it, Rachel.” Logan’s voice is calm, but I hear the dread underneath.
“I can’t.” What if she’s dead—another piece of my childhood brutally ripped away from me? Will I see her face when I close my eyes at night? Will her blood pour over my hands while she tells me I should’ve saved her?
He reaches past me and turns the knob. Sylph and Smithson lie on a blanket, another blanket covering them. I can’t see if she’s breathing. I can’t see if there’s blood.
Logan shuts the door behind us and grabs the doorjamb as I let go of him and rush to Sylph. I fall to my knees beside her, and grab her shoulders.
“Sylph!”
Her eyes fly open. So do Smithson’s. And I suddenly realize Sylph’s shoulders are bare.
So are Smithson’s.
“Oh!” I let go of her.
“What’s going on?” Sylph asks, shoving a hand through her tousled black curls. The blanket slips.
“Ah!” I yell, and turn around to block Logan’s view. Smithson beats me to it by sitting up and yanking the blanket up to Sylph’s chin.
“What are you doing in here?” Smithson asks. His chest is covered in curly brown hair, and I can’t even look at him. Or at Sylph. Or at Logan.
I should just close my eyes and hope nobody notices while I crawl out of the room.
“There was a note. And then we saw the X. And I thought you were dead.” I find Sylph’s eyes and hold her gaze. “I thought you were dead.”
A frown pinches her brow, and she starts to sit up.
“No, no,” I say, even though she’s clutching the blanket to her neck.
“Stay down,” Smithson says.
She throws him a look of affectionate exasperation. “It’s just Rachel.”
“It isn’t just Rachel,” he says, and Logan clears his throat behind me.
“I can step out for a minute,” he says.
And leave me alone with a naked Smithson and a naked Sylph? Over my dead body.
“No!” I say, and everyone stares at me. “I mean, um, maybe we should both leave. Because clearly they aren’t dead. And they need some . . . they need a minute.”
Sylph’s hand joins mine, and I feel new calluses on her palm. I stare at our hands, her golden fingers curved around my pale ones, and the relief I feel threatens to choke me. I clutch her hand too tight for comfort, but I can’t bear to let her go.
“Why did you think I was dead? What X?” she asks.
I shake my head. The lump in my throat isn’t going to let me talk. Plus, I’m busy not noticing that no one close to me is wearing clothing.
“The tracker got into the building last night. He left a note for me in our room,” Logan says, and the strain in his voice might be due to the subject matter, or he might be busy not noticing the general lack of clothing as well. “It said that the marked will die.”
“What does that mean?” Smithson asks, and reaches behind him for his tunic.
“We aren’t sure, but when we left our room, we saw several doors marked with an X.” Logan clears his throat again as Smithson reaches for his pants. “Maybe you should join me over here, Rachel.”
“Good idea,” I say, but Sylph won’t let me go. She tugs my hand closer to her, and I meet her eyes.
“Our door was marked, wasn’t it?” she asks.
“Yes.”
Her breathing quickens, but her voice is calm as she says, “Well, the message lied. We’re fine.”
“Maybe it didn’t lie. It said ‘the marked will die.’ That’s in the future. Maybe we’ve been selected as the next target,” Smithson says, and I look at him with new respect.
He flaps his pants at me, and I whip my head around to stare at the other side of the room while he finishes dressing.
“Maybe that’s it,” Logan says. “We’ll need to take down the names of those whose doors were marked and keep a careful watch on them.”
“Good plan,” Smithson says. “Now get out of our room so my wife can get dressed.”
I give Sylph’s hand one last squeeze and gently disentangle our fingers. “I’m glad you aren’t dead,” I say, and my voice breaks.
Her smile is gentle. “I’m glad you aren’t either.”
“Come on, Rachel,” Logan says, and then he lets go of the doorjamb and nearly pitches to his knees. Smithson lunges forward and catches him.
“Sorry,” Logan says as I hurry to his side. “Took a rock to the head last night. Still a little dizzy.”
“Who did that to you?” Smithson’s voice promises retribution, and the burgeoning respect I feel for him doubles.
“The same person who put a bloody X on your door,” I say.
Logan pushes his fingers against his temples as Smithson holds him up on one side and I support him on the other.
“Has he had any medical attention?” Sylph asks.
“Not yet,” I say. “We have to go check on last night’s guards, get the group ready to leave, and light the fire. Then he can visit the medical wagon.”
“I’ll ride in the wagon and get the medicine ready for him,” she says.
“And I’ll stay with you,” Smithson says to her, his eyes on the door as if he can see through to the bloody X on the other side.
“Thanks,” I say, tightening my hold on Logan. “We’ll see you once we get away from this city.”
I help Logan back into the hall. People leave their rooms and stare in fear at the crimson Xs sprinkled throughout the rows.
Quinn joins me on Logan’s other side, and together we weave our way through the terrified people, afraid that we’ll discover that every guard we posted during last night’s second shift is dead.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
RACHEL
People roll up blankets, fasten travel packs, and jostle each other as they maneuver into the hallway and instantly add their voices to the tumult when they see the Xs on the doors. We push our way toward the stairwell while people fling frantic questions at our backs.
What happened?
Who did this?
Is anyone hurt?
I don’t have any answers for them, but since Logan looks like he’s about to pass out, and Quinn would rather eat dirt than speak up when a crowd is watching him, it’s up to me to respond.
Quinn dabs his finger in the blood of an X marking the door closest to the end of the hall and then rubs his finger and thumb together.
“Is it human blood?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I can’t tell.” He gazes down the long corridor. “But this took a lot of blood. Unless whoever did this bled someone dry, my guess is he caught a few rabbits in the Wasteland and drained them.”
The people around us keep calling out questions and dire predictions. I have to put a stop to it so we can check on the guards and then get out of the city before the army arrives. Raising my voice to be heard above the commotion around me, I say, “We aren’t sure what happened, yet, but—”
Is this some kind of sick joke?
Is it the Commander?
A woman with her graying dark hair pulled back in a bun bumps into Quinn as she hoists her travel pack over her shoulders, and he almost loses his grip on Logan. Two young boys race down the hall and nearly knock me over as they try to slide past me to get to the stairs. Their faces are full of fear—wide eyes and pale skin.