FIFTY-ONE

“THEN WHY ARE you still wearing your wedding ring?” Sara asked, trying to ignore the cold gun barrel pressed against the underside of her chin. Weston had it pushed so hard against the soft space between her jawbones that she could feel her rapid pulse pushing against the metal. For a moment she thought he would pull the trigger, but he eased up. His eyes were wet.

Wet eyes mean blurry vision, Sara thought. “You must still love her.”

“For a time, yes. Her reaction was understandable.” Weston wiped his arm against his nose, sniffled, and looked at his ring finger. The gold band glittered in the room’s shimmering aqua light. “But now . . .” He laughed, a little too maniacally for Sara’s peace of mind. “But now I just can’t get the damn thing off.”

The gun lowered some.

“You know, I wish she could see all this. What I’ve become. That my profession is valid. That I am a good father.”

Water clung to his lower eyelids, ready to spill over.

“I know it wouldn’t change anything . . .”

Weston’s arms went slack for a moment. The gun pointed to the floor.

“It wouldn’t bring him back.”

Weston blinked. Tears fell. Eyes blurred.

Sara struck.

She stepped forward and kicked up like her father had taught her to in his ten years as her soccer coach. Kick with the laces! She did. And the connection with the small bit of fabric covering Weston’s business was solid.

Weston cried out and fell to his knees. In his rage he reached out and pulled the trigger, but the pain rolling up through his gut and the wetness in his eyes threw off his aim. He didn’t get a chance to fire again. Sara’s second kick struck his wrist and sent the gun skidding across the room, sliding behind a stack of firewood.

Weston grunted and swung out wildly. His backhand caught her mouth and her bottom lip split. But she used the pain, along with knowledge of what she was doing to fuel the fire spurring her toward savage action. She needed the split lip and allowed Weston to strike her.

Sara lunged, grabbed Weston’s scraggly beard with her left hand, pulling his head to the side. With her right hand, she grabbed hold of his left arm. And then, like a feral beast, she shot forward and buried her teeth into the meat of his shoulder. Though he howled and reeled, she held on like a vampire desperate for sustenance, letting the blood coursing from his body enter and mingle with the blood of her open lip. He would give her the cure whether he wanted to or not.

“Stop!” he shouted, his voice cracking and panicked. “Get off! Please!”

Sara let go and stood. Weston was on the floor, his torso a bloody mess, his face wet with tears. But it was his shoulder that held her attention. Old scars lay beneath the fresh wound she had delivered. Scars from his ordeal with the old mothers. For a moment she pitied the man. He had endured so many awful things, so much pain. It’s no wonder his psychology is skewed, she thought.

But she wouldn’t risk pitying him for long. She headed for the door, hopping as she slipped off her boots.

“You can’t leave!” he shouted, spit flying from his mouth, collecting on his beard.

She focused her attention on escape and didn’t bother responding. The cold stone of the temple was a shock to her feet, but she moved in total silence. She thought about looking for the gun, but he might be up and fighting before she found it. Instead, she took his belt and knife from the bed and discarded her boots as she ran out the door.

Weston’s voice chased her. “You can’t escape Mount Meru, Pawn! Whether it is from old age or violence, you will die here!”

For a moment she thought about rushing back and plunging the knife into his gut. It would solve a lot of problems. But she wasn’t a killer and couldn’t risk losing what she had taken from him.

She had the cure.

She was the cure.

She descended the steep staircase two steps at a time. All of the carefulness she’d put into climbing the stairs disappeared as she bounded down, free. She had to escape. She had to survive.

Upon reaching the bottom of the staircase, she tripped, rolled on the hard stone floor of the temple, then sprang back to her feet. But she didn’t make it any farther. A moving wall blocked her path and sent her sprawling to the floor. Sara looked up into the face of the last . . . person she wanted to see.

Lucy.