Chapter Twenty-One

“It doesn’t take a majority to make a rebellion; it takes only a few determined leaders and a sound cause.”

—H. L. Mencken

“Why, if you’ve been recruitin’ allies for the rebellion, did you come here alone? We could’ve used more help.” Swinging a wrought iron fireplace poker like a walking cane, Errol paced from one side of the wood-paneled dining room to the next.

Brent slouched into a dining chair fit for a king. He appeared exhausted. Just the same, Chad sat across from Brent, part of his flesh not yet healed from the molten prison Errol had cleverly fashioned for the Eidolons.

“It’s simple,” Brent said, scratching his beard. “I believed Olivia was in danger.”

I shifted in my chair after hearing him call me Olivia. The name didn’t feel natural from his lips. Chad gave me a sidelong look. I hadn’t seen such a look before, but I knew what it meant. It was the kind of expression that a jealous sister gives the sibling who always gets the most expensive, thoughtful gifts at Christmas.

“Why would I let them hurt her? She’s a Master—one of only a handful left. She’s irreplaceable.” Errol didn’t hide the contempt in his brogue.

“As her assigned Reaper, it is my job to protect her. Even from afar.”

“What about the rebellion?” Chad said. “Can we talk about that, instead of how Dormier’s shit doesn’t stink?”

Nicodemus, who sat with Dudley at his side, sneaking the dog table scraps from what remained of our breakfast, exchanged eye rolls with me.

“As much as I’m loathe to admit it, Chad is right. Can we talk about the rebellion, please?” I said, with enough authority to capture the pair’s attention. “What’s our next course of action?”

Errol tossed the poker onto the table with a clank. “With all respect, lass, you lack the knowledge to assist with our plan. Let us take care of it.”

Nicodemus covered my hand with one of his. He knew the boundary Errol crossed.

“I lack knowledge?” My insides bubbled as Nicodemus tried to offer calm. “Tell me the story of when you stood face-to-face with Marin, challenged him in front of Styx, and lived to tell the tale. Tell me, Errol, please. I’m eager to learn.”

His pacing slowed, but his face was as grim as ever. “I did not mean to offend you.”

I had been agitated ever since Percy’s death. Errol’s chauvinism was the trigger my temper craved. “I don’t need protection. I don’t want it. What I do want is to give Stygians what we’ve been wanting for decades, and that’s a new government. So do you think you two could let go of your past so that we can bring Marin down once and for all? Or do the rest of us need to do it without you?”

By now I was standing with my legs rooted in bitterness. Nicodemus’s hand held mine, only this time with encouragement rather than mollification. The one cheerleader I didn’t expect, but welcomed, was Chad, who gave me his smiling endorsement when I glanced his way.

“I’m with the Scrivie. Let’s go back to Quebec and give Marin hell,” Chad said through his grin.

“Maybe it’d be best if we explained what happened between us, before we discuss the plan,” Brent said after a bout of silence. “I think she deserves to know.”

As I waited for the story, I folded my arms over my chest.

Brent leaned forward, placing his elbows on the table. “Nic, Errol, and I plotted our own little rebellion a year or so before the Purge. We believed that Nic would be the obvious replacement for Marin. One of the few things we did agree on was that Styx wasn’t ready for the rebellion then. Our plan fell apart, and we were forced to go into hiding. Some of us anyway.”

Short and sweet. I preferred business that way.

I turned to Nicodemus, who had remained silent for the duration of this meeting. “What exactly does that mean for a rebellion today?”

Nicodemus didn’t look happy with this conversation. Nevertheless, he smiled warmly at me, a stark contrast to the acrimony in the room. “What is in the past is no longer relevant. Let us look ahead. Considering our situation, we must act fast. It’s time that Stygians get their new government.”

“Haste will not do us any good,” Errol said with a bite.

“It’s the best strategy you have, it is.” Chad ran the pads of his thumbs across his fingernails. “Once Marin knows you aren’t eliminated, which will be soon, he’ll attack again. Likely harder.”

The destruction of Wrightwick and the Scrivener library full of our history and lineage seemed all that Marin was after now––or perhaps it was all he’d ever wanted. Even if we left the rebellion for another day, it was on us to stop him from destroying Wrightwick.

“I will let the rebels I’ve been working with know we are planning an attack. With any luck, they’ll be there as backup when we return to Québec. But I wouldn’t count on them for help,” Brent said. “We do this with or without them.”

“Errol, will you join us?” Nicodemus asked, since the Master Scrivener was the only member of this team of insurgents who had yet to chime in on our plan.

He lingered quietly, his narrowed green eyes moving between us. “We’ll have to land in Toronto and drive the rest of the way. I’m certain Marin has his Watchmen observin’ the airports in and around Québec City and Montreal. I’ll get the details arranged for the six of us, but I’ll need a few hours.”

My heart rate quickened as the reality of what we were about to do crashed down on my shoulders. “We’d be crazy to go back with just the six of us. We should bring the Trivials at the least, especially if the rebels can’t meet us in Québec.”

“The remainin’ Trivials must stay back and guard Wrightwick in case Marin has already sent backup,” Errol said. “Marin will expect retaliation, and the smaller the group we are, the longer we fly under his radar. You dinna seem to mind confrontin’ Marin before. What’s the difference now?”

He had a point. I had run headfirst into Lethe to save Brent and Mama and Papa. I’d had no qualms about what that would take or what I’d lose along the way. Second chances were far riskier. With second chances, a person knew the pain of loss.

I knew the risk. I wasn’t prepared to lose what I had recently been bestowed. But the alternative to do nothing was simply unacceptable.

…

“You’ve changed,” Brent said as we sat on a bench in the corner of what was left of the orchard, with a blanket of stars peeking between the strips of misty souls. I remember a similar moment in the flatlands of Colorado—the night I left had Brent to run back to Québec City to save Mama and Papa. Such a bold, silly mistake wouldn’t be so easy to make now. Besides, there was no one person to save.

Errol had made airline arrangements for the following morning. We’d be on Canadian soil in less than twenty-four hours, and back in the thick of Marin’s territory.

“Did you expect me to be the same?” I asked.

He laced his fingers with mine, a feeling I wasn’t used to but adored nonetheless. “While I don’t agree with his assessment, Chad told me you’d gotten soft.”

“Complacent is more apt.”

“There’s a difference between honest complacency, and waiting for when the time is right.”

That was a philosophy I could get behind.

He threw his arm around my shoulder and inched closer. “What hasn’t changed is your humanity. I’ve missed that about you…among many other things.”

My head lolled against his shoulder. For two years, I had survived in spite of constant anxiety. Those elevated levels of misery had become a new, comfortable norm. Now that Brent was here with me, I was able to see firsthand the stress I had been carrying for two years, and with its departure came great relief. Only problem was that my relief manifested itself in exhaustion.

“It’s my humanity that tricks people into undervaluing me,” I said.

“Well, as much as I want to punch Errol in the face—for a myriad of reasons—I also understand why he seeks to protect you. I want to do the same.”

“What about what I want?” I lifted my head and turned toward him. “What if I want to protect you or Papa? Am I not allowed to because I need to be protected?”

“This is what I mean.” He ran his fingers across my cheek. “You’ve changed. You have more fight in you. But you still have your humanity. How do you do it?”

I pursed my lips. “Not sure. I’ve spent my time in isolation, resenting everything I’ve been through.”

“I know that sentiment well.”

“I know you do,” I said, my hands playing with the softness of his fleece sweatshirt.

“I suppose,” he said with a sigh, “my desire to protect you comes from wanting you…us to live in a world not run by Marin.”

I wanted the same for him and for Papa and others. This was precisely why I was willing to go back into Marin’s den and finish what I had started.

Once again, here we sat amid the peace of the landscape, in the eye of a super cell storm. But my promise this time around was that I wouldn’t lose Brent.

Countless emotions moved across his face. I felt them all as if I were inside his heart and mind, experiencing each one with him. I suppose in a way I was, seeing as part of my soul belonged to him.

“Chad told me you got your first experience with Matching.” Brent couldn’t hide his jealousy, even though he tried to. “I would’ve told you years ago, but the time wasn’t right. You weren’t ready—weren’t in control of your powers yet. It takes time. I knew you would accomplish it eventually.”

“Why are you allies with Chad?” I asked the question I had been carrying for days now.

He sighed a long, hard sigh, like he had been waiting on this very question and was not comfortable giving an answer. “Sometimes, in order to get what you want, you have to let down your guard just enough to get it. Make no mistake, darlin’, I don’t trust Chad. Never have. But he’s got information I want. He can get us places we couldn’t ordinarily go.”

“You’re using him,” I stated, neither bitter or sad for it.

“Yes. But if he shows any sign of betrayal, I will destroy him.” Brent said it with such darkness that I did not doubt him. In fact, it scared me a little to know just how quickly he would turn on someone who was helping him. “Do you trust him?”

Uncertain of my answer, I paused and gave it thought. I didn’t trust him. I didn’t trust many, but the truth was that to win the fight against Marin I’d have to trust more Stygians than I would like. Perhaps what I saw in Chad was not so much a loyal ally but a tool to get me where I needed to go. That wasn’t trust. It was wrong to use him. But as Brent already said, it was a necessity that we couldn’t go without. So I replied, “I think Chad still needs to prove himself. Still, like you said, we need his help.”

Brent nodded slowly. He got it. He knew I got it. There was nothing more to say, for now anyway. “I’m glad that, at the least, you got to learn more about your power here at Wrightwick. Those skills will come in handy when we are in Lethe.”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” I groaned, hating that I had to relive my failure all over again. “I couldn’t even save you…us.”

He shrugged. “How do you know healing is a skill you possess?”

Mirroring him, I shrugged and said, “Because I know I can do it. I just…just haven’t figured out the missing link.”

Knowing what I do now, having melted an Eidolon into pudding, I respected how limited my experience had been before. I had burned through thirty feet of bedrock. I had stood in the face of my own death. What I hadn’t done was disintegrate a Grim Reaper with a little help from rage and guts. Indeed, I would not have been ready before.

But I was now. And I was in the company of the only Stygian I wanted to help me bring Marin to his knees. Except that right now, Marin was half of a world away, and I had more to resolve with my beloved.

“Opposing forces bring balance. Eidolons and Scriveners are complimentary tensions,” I said, repeating one of the passages from the Book of Scriveners in the Wrightwick library. Of course, I did this as I swung a leg across Brent’s lap.

“Together we create balance.” I continued imparting my research as I settled against him, feeling the hard muscles in his thighs contract as another part of him stiffened with life. “We can keep each other in check. We’re each others’ anchors of morality.”

“Like Yin and Yang.” That was as theoretical a concept as he seem to be able to muster with me pressed against his hardening arousal. His fingers curled around my hips. I was locked against him, unable to break free now that his sexual prowess was on display.

“Maybe Styx can shed the stigma of the Purge and rebuild again with our help.” I leaned forward, the slight tilt in my body forcing my groin against his.

His restraint gave way. Our lips met. This kiss was coy at first, but when his hand cupped my cheek, I surrendered.

With his mouth covering mine, I got little forewarning when he carefully laid me against the chill of the grass. We shared breaths, our faces inches apart.

I pushed my reddened fingers through his hair, brushing the strands from his eyes, which were heavy with want. My hands traveled down his broad shoulders, firm with muscle. Strand by strand, the fibers of his shirt began to melt away. Though I was burning through his garment, but not his skin, he didn’t stop me.

“I want you,” I said, so quietly I wasn’t sure I’d said it at all.

My hands slid along his sides, feeling every contraction of the hard muscles. I soon found his hips and squeezed. With such an invitation, he thrust so forcefully I gasped—that would’ve been pure gold if we had been naked. He moved above me in the rhythm of evenly paced sex.

At some point, the body does what the mind cannot. It doesn’t matter if it’s not the right moment or the right place. I had to have more of Brent because there was an ugly possibility that he wouldn’t be with me tomorrow. But for now, nothing about my life mattered except for him and connecting as deeply as two people could.

He peeled away his shirt and jeans as I slinked out of my own clothes. We were doing it without care for privacy, without breaking the connection of our lips for longer than a breath. Running his hands from my breasts to my upper thighs, inciting a flutter of activity, he leaned back onto his heels in observation of me as I lay in the grass, swathed in nothing but a bath of moonlight. His hips and legs glistened in sweat, a visceral reaction to my growing heat. My skin was red and searing, but it did not hurt him—at least, he didn’t show it if it did.

The rumble of late evening storm clouds gave their warning. With nature’s soundtrack masking the sounds of our intimacy, he lowered himself back over me, and our lips met again, his beard rubbing my skin raw.

In a breath between kisses, he moved inside of me. I screamed out from a mixture of pleasure and pain, two things that blended together impeccably. My nails dug into his back to welcome him deeper, as hurt yielded to enjoyment.

The distant essence of rain erased any fear that had been amplified from the past few days’ conflict. I was sharing myself with Brent without consequence. I once again was acting on the desires that had left me vacant and embittered for years. The sensation of him this close to me was invigorating as breathing fresh, warm air after a long winter.

As his cadence increased, rocking me faster, I pressed my lips to his collarbone, where his skin was damp but smooth, with a tang of saltiness. His heavy breaths tickled my ear as the rest of him moved with fluidity. I threw my legs higher around his waist.

Then he struck a harmonious chord. Every muscle of his that I touched grew tense. He throbbed with wetness that my parched body happily drank. I ground my teeth as I simultaneously unfurled into chaotic bliss. I wanted it to continue until I couldn’t see or hear or think straight. Yes, I could’ve done this again and again. But the tapping of raindrops on the trees in the distance quickly stirred us from our reverie.

I opened my eyes to see him, drunk from passion, staring down at me. My heart pounded in my chest as I faced the one living being whom I could not stand to lose again.

“I love you,” I said as the rain grew louder and heavier.

“What luck.” He placed a soft kiss to my parted lips. “I love you, too. More than you know, darlin’.”