Page 34 of The Quiet
“Hate,” he rolled the word off his tongue as if tasting it, and the way he tasted it made her feel like he was indeed comparing his feelings, asking himself if hate truly was a good fit. As if resenting her analysis, he purred back, “It seems clear to me, I’ll be doing most of the work between the three of us. I wouldn’t be so quick to try and bite the hand that feeds you,” he tossed the cigarette at her feet and walked off.
“Isn’t that what the ROSE did exactly?” Ella asked, irritated by his thinly veiled distaste, and testing his temper now.
“And look what happened to us,” he replied, unscathed, as he passed between two trees and sauntered offinto the woods.
Ella found herself glaring, the only offensive strategy she was capable of for the time being. He had a point. Kay had very little experience with combat, and her health only felt like it was declining as the night went on.
She felt cold and sick, and despite her exhaustion, was unsure if the pain in her arm would let her sleep. She couldn’t let either of them see how vulnerable she was.
Kay returned after a while to their silence and without more conversation they settled in for the night. As Ella stared at the stars, the pain kept her mind racing as Kay fell asleep beside her.
Ella closed her eyes tightly, unable to tell if her questions even made sense in the wake of it all. She’d ask them again tomorrow, her mind drifting off to memories of the field of wildflowers behind Samual’s house. She could almost imagine standing in them.
Next her mind drifted to other fields. They were wheat fields, just as rich and just as familiar as the flowers, but she couldn’t recall where she’d seen them. She remembered vast farmland. She remembered harvests stretching far and wide beyond the horizon.
Hi.
Her eyes flew open and she sat up, stabbing pain driving through her arm and causing her to hiss through her teeth. She held her breath as she scanned the forest. The world was quiet. Her heart pounded.
There wasn’t anything there.
Jackson’s warnings had simply gotten into her head.
CHAPTER 10
HELLO
BAKER FELT THE throb of impending bruises as she sought shelter at the bank of a bustling, human river. Physical pain used to make her cry, but now she numbly watched the boots of strangers as they squelched through the mire of the bustling town. Their collars were turned up against the mist stirring down from a flat, stony sky. Their covered heads and dark shoulders bobbed like waves. Baker had been tossed in the throws of those waves, shoved by a passing knee, hip or elbow.
She’d landed twice in the mud, panicking as they’d stepped on a hand, and then an arm, Baker crawling to safety before she dared to venture out again.
It seemed her silence had spread through her like an infection and now she was invisible. She’d wanted to be completely invisible to the Strike since arriving at the Bleeding Grin. One year later, people no longer saw her either.
There was no victory in it. No safety. It wasn’t at all like she’d imagined.
Time had passed with excruciating tension. She’d seen many of the Strike, watched the Bleeding Grin change from a log cabin style like Marnie had predicted, to plenty of other themes that represented a wide variety of cultures and historical periods. She’d learned how to follow orders promptly, to navigate quietly, and clean and maintain a multitude of things, but she had yet to learn to speak.
Today of all days, her silence choked her.
At midnight last night, she woke up to primal screaming. Marnie was carried into their room by a group of servants, her naked body covered only in a torn blanket.
Her body was slick with so much blood that Baker couldn’t tell where she bled. Jolie had been shouting orders, arms stained up to the elbow as she rushed to treat Marnie’s wounds.
It had taken several witnesses and Marnie’s own broken storytelling for Jolie to piece together that Marnie was returning from entertaining Strike Yun. That night, he’d made himself a drink from her fears. Her visits to him had become so frequent that she’d hardly had any left. As a result, he’d indulged in her mind, dining on her memories before dismissing her from his room.
Unable to remember the directions to the servant’s quarters, and without her fears in tact, she lingered too long in the halls, happening upon Amiel.
Marnie didn’t seem to remember much else of the event, only the pain and sensation of being dragged through the darkness, grabbed, touched and bitten.
When she described the experience to Jolie, the vacancy in her eyes was eerie. The experiences didn’t seem to frighten her at all. It was only the physical pain that sent her into a screaming frenzy.
No one else seemed afraid either, Jolie coolly asking Baker to venture to the next town over for a specific medicine that would keep Marnie calm. It hadn’t occurred to Baker until later thatJolie had sent her off to distance her from the scene and the long cleaning, bandaging and hysteria that would soon follow suit.
Baker left without further guidance, having made the trip before on another errand. Jolie had once told her that her greatest gift was being overlooked. Seeing as there was no risk of one of the Strike asking for her, she was the most suited for the long errands.
Baker had been glad to leave the Grin, and now here she was.
Her panic had calmed as she waited on the edge of the road, the only small figure at the outskirts of a wide alley. People seemed to avoid this small bank and so she was safe here from their boots. A quick glance of her surroundings ultimately told her why.
