chapter Twenty-seven
Challenge
In the end, it was all of us who ran to meet him. We could not stand to watch another soldier die, could not wait idly by as they slaughtered the lot of us. And so we stood, a room full of descendants of the seven lines, and faced Morgan.
“No more,” Brendan said, his words echoing off the walls of what was once a ballroom. “You’ve killed enough.”
Morgan smiled. “Oh, but I’m just getting started.” He raised a hand casually to the men on our right, though they’d followed Brendan’s command to lower their weapons.
“You’ve won, Morgan,” I said. “You’ve made your point.”
He turned to look at me, but the hand didn’t immediately drop. The expression on his face made it perfectly clear he was aware of his victory. “I’m not done yet, brother.”
His eyes fell to the men standing beyond his hand, and their rifles rose. Emily flinched beside me when the first shots fired, and I couldn’t help but to reach for her, press her slightly behind me. It was a mistake, and Morgan noticed. He waved a hand and the firing ceased. Seven more Division men lay bleeding on the polished wood floor. But they were not kill shots. Not yet.
Kara’s hand pressed to her stomach, several of the others looked as if they too might be sick. Morgan was going to drag this out, he was reveling in the power.
“My, my,” he crooned, “it seems you finally care about someone, brother.” His eyes trailed slowly over Emily before returning to mine. “Aside from yourself.” His grin turned feral. “It will definitely make things more interesting.”
My stomach plunged. He was going to hurt Emily. Because I’d touched her, tried to protect her, he would torture her. And he would be certain I stayed alive long enough to watch.
“I care about everyone here, Morgan.” It took every ounce of energy not to let my tone betray the anger and tension blistering through me. “As should you.”
He scoffed. “You are a fool.”
“Just like our father?” I said.
His eyes flashed with rage, but before he could act, he remembered himself, realized I was trying to distract him.
“Come, girl,” he said to Emily where she stood partially behind me. I couldn’t see her face, but by the expressions reflected on Morgan’s men, I knew she was anything but frightened.
Morgan snapped his fingers and the man to his left fired on a young boy behind us. He screamed out, the bullet having ripped through his thigh and knocked him off his feet. He wasn’t strong. It wouldn’t heal quickly enough.
Morgan’s eyes fell back, not to Emily’s, but mine.
Daring me.
He gave us two more seconds, and then snapped again. The report sounded, and even I almost started as it ripped through the shoulder of a man not three feet from us. Four seconds this time, and then the pistol swung to face Seth.
That broke her. An instant before Morgan’s finger fell against his palm, Emily stepped from behind me.
“No!” Brianna yelled.
My heart dropped. Morgan smiled, his gaze slowly moving to where Brianna stood, separate from the others. She’d been the only one safe. The only one he wouldn’t risk shooting.
He needed her.
“She’s immune to your sway,” Brianna said. “We both are.”
Emily’s hand shifted to her back, but I stilled it. This was no time to stab Morgan, not when he’d turned the whole of his army against us. At least she still had a chance. She, and Brianna, could live.
Brianna’s shoulders straightened, and her eyes roamed Morgan’s men. “You can’t make us bend to your will,” she said. “You’ve proven that.”
Morgan slipped a hand casually into the pocket of his slacks, as if her speech was no more than entertainment.
“If you kill another,” she said, “I will not go with you. Ever.” She stepped forward. “What you had in my mother will be lost to you. Again.”
At her final threat, he took pause.
Brianna gave him a moment to fully appreciate her words. And then, “I will submit to you, to save the others.” She took a deep, steadying breath, willing this last-ditch effort to work, making this one sacrifice that would take everything from her. “It’s the only way, Morgan. Reverse the sway, and I will go with you freely.”
The muscles on Emily’s arm tensed completely, but I held her in my grip. If Morgan accepted this, it would give them all a chance. He wouldn’t hurt Brianna. Not until he knew.
I squeezed, hoping to somehow convey the idea that this could buy us time. We could rescue her. Before he tried the union, she could escape.
Morgan’s head tilted to the side, considering her offer.
Brianna took another step forward. “I can give it all to you,” she said. “Everything my mother did.”
After a moment, he laughed, a kind of joyous, disbelieving chuckle, and then raised his hands. “Deal.” He smiled. “But my brother comes with us.”
Emily’s hand fell from her blade, and her head jerked to stare at me. She knew, without a doubt, that I would go. I had to, to save her. To save Brianna.
It was the only way.
And I would not show Morgan my weakness for her again.
“Release them,” Brianna said as I walked forward.
Morgan shook his head absently at her demand, but glanced briefly at the men surrounding them. When his gaze returned to Brianna, he held out a hand.
She didn’t move. “All of them.”
A guilty smile lifted the corner of his mouth, and he tipped his head in a nod before turning back to his men. I wondered how Brianna knew, if this was part of her gift, or if she was bluffing.
Morgan concentrated harder this time, even laying hands on several of the men.
When he finally turned back to her, Brianna met us at the center of the room, where I stayed a few paces back from my brother.
He indicated the men should go, but then stopped, holding up the first finger of his left hand. “One more thing.”
The flash of metal caught my eye a split second before the realization of what he was about to do kicked in. To anyone else, it might have seemed he was merely returning Emily’s blade, but to me, it was a certainty. Morgan had never dealt with knives enough to know how to properly wield one, and the looseness in his grip told me in the last few hours, he’d learned. Not well enough to be a marksman, but enough to kill Emily, even at this distance, and he’d done so specifically for this. To return the injury she’d given him. I was acting without thought, flying through the air to tackle him and break the wrist that held her blade.
Brianna gasped as we landed at her feet, Council and Division men shuffling in the confusion of an instant’s events. They stared on at Morgan’s bloody nose, his torn shirt, the knife that now lay beside us as my hands wrapped tightly around his throat. I didn’t know what was happening behind me. I didn’t see Emily’s response. All I knew was that this monster that had once been my brother was not going to heal out of this. He would not take another breath.
But something had happened. Something in Emily’s gaze or something in the strength of my reaction, or some unknown trigger caused Morgan to come out of the immediacy of the fight, to understand my response. It was as if I could see it click. Deep within his eyes, he knew.
His face was purpling, but his eyes stared past me, and when they returned, it was no question he saw the bond. He knew what the Division had planned. He knew there was another way. And he could see it wasn’t Brianna, but Emily. The girl immune to his sway. The girl he’d tried to kill.
The struggle went out of his limbs, but not because he was giving up. He went slack, because he was using all of his focus on something else. His hands rested on my forearms as the rage swept through him. If he couldn’t win, no one would.
When the idea came into my head, I could do nothing to stop it. Because it was my thought now. My objective. I was powerless as my grip on Morgan let go to find and grasp the knife beside us. Time stilled, but it did nothing to save me. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t warn her. My movements were swift, too practiced, too fast, and in a fraction of a second, and I was standing in front of Brianna. No one realized she was in danger. No one knew to stop me. My left arm braced her shoulder and my right swung true. I could do nothing else.
I could do nothing else.
Brianna stared into my eyes as her blood ran down my arms, rushing warm and wet through my hands, over the hilt of the blade I had stabbed beneath her chest.
“It was the only way,” she breathed.