Page 84 of The Secret of the Three Fates
“Andrew was here.”
“Ishere…” Ruan tilted his head farther up the rocky incline to the outside of a tumbledown croft near the top. I squinted, struggling to keep my eyes open against the frigid rain. Half thecroft’s roof was missing—ravaged by the intemperate weather along this part of the world. The other half nearly consumed by low-growing brush and vegetation.
Andrew Lennox lay partially propped against the side of the building, barely sheltered from the rain by the decaying eaves. I tore off up the hill after him, Ruan at my heels.
“Andrew…” I sank down beside him in the tall grass. His breath was ragged as he laid his hand on his blood-splattered satchel.His blood. A pair of surgical scissors lay on his thigh atop the gory makeshift bandage. “What happened?”
Andrew didn’t answer immediately, weak from loss of blood.
“Ruan, can you help him?”
I saw the hesitation there—brief though it was—before he grunted what I took to be a yes.
Andrew reached out, grasping Ruan’s left hand. His dark brown eyes were frenzied. “My cousin. I tried to stop her… followed her here.”
I continued scanning over his body, looking for other wounds for Ruan to tend to. It seemed Andrew had only been shot the once. A strange mercy.
He grabbed on to my hand. “You need to see to my cousin… she…”
“Who else is here? You’re the first soul we’ve seen on this island,” Ruan grumbled, reaching for Andrew’s bloodied medical kit.
Andrew jerked his head angrily toward the other side of the stone wall behind him. “Can’t… can’t get to her. Was trying… trying to stop her. Too… too… dangerous. He knows… he knows she knows…”
Hair rose on the back of my neck. “Andrew, who knows… who did this to you?”
He clenched his jaw and groaned as Ruan shifted Andrew’sweight in order to slip the medical kit off of him. “I wouldn’t b-blame you if y-you let me d-die…”
“The old man would never let me hear the end of it. Now hush and let me take care of things.” Ruan continued rummaging through Andrew’s medical supplies. While his words were gruff, there was an edge of tenderness in his voice. I pulled the Webley revolver from the holster and handed it to Ruan.
His eyes widened and he shook his head. “No, you keep it.”
“You have a fractured shoulder and a wounded man. Get him stable and take him to the skiff. Find shelter in the rocks by the shore. I’ll come back to you. I promise.”
Ruan stiffened. I could see he wanted to argue, but thought better of it. He grabbed me by the hand and tugged me down, pressing a hard kiss to my lips before letting me go. “Don’t die.”
I nodded before ducking around the corner into the croft, peering into the darkness. A part of me wished I had taken Andrew’s surgical scissors with me, at least then I’d have something to protect myself with beyond my wits and sheer luck—but Ruan had far greater need of them, gauging from the amount of blood seeping through Andrew’s trousers. We’d be lucky if he didn’t bleed out before Ruan could stop the flow of it.
The overgrowth provided little shelter from the storm raging outside. Wiping the water from my face, I looked around. The room was mostly empty with broken shelves long since abandoned by whoever once lived here. In the corner, beneath what remained of the roof, was a filthy boy, and a lumpy blanket covering a pile of debris beside him.
I stepped closer, and my mouth grew dry as I realized it wasn’t a boy at all—it was Genevieve. She’d cut her hair short and was dressed as a young man. Her cap was slung low on her head as she looked up at me, her cheeks streaked with blood and mud.Her wrists were bound with iron shackles, affixed to the wall by a thick chain.
Her eyes grew wide. “You should not be here…”
The lump beside her moved.
Elijah.
His face was swollen beyond recognition but I knew to the very marrow of my bones it was him. Whoever had captured her had taken their venom out on him. “He’s alive?”
She wet her cracked lips and nodded. “For now. But you should go before he comes back. He’ll do to you as he did to him. He will not harm me. But you… you he will kill…”
I hurried to the windowsill, looking for a key or something to free her from the barbaric chains binding her. “Who are you?” I spat the wet hair from my mouth and continued searching through the broken and rusty tools scattered around. “If I’m risking my neck to save yours, the least you could tell me is who it is I’m saving?”
Genevieve looked again to the opening behind me. “There isn’t time. I’ve told you. You need to go—the inspector betrayed us. You must save yourself.”
“Inspector Burnett?” I asked, resting my hand on the nearby table.
“He must be in his pocket. He stole the only proof we had.”
