Page 115 of Fallen Thorns
“You don’t think I’ve lost people?” Marianne straightened her back and raised her chin. “Do you think I haven’t had to fight before? That I haven’t had to watch those I love be taken away right from under my nose?”
It was only then that I noticed the echo in the room and Marianne’s voice grew larger than life.
Casper stiffened, hands forming fists at his side while his eyes turned crimson.
Marianne stepped towards us so that we were all but inches apart. I wanted to step back but I didn’t.
“We will find Ben, through any means necessary, but I cannot justify any more bloodshed. We willnotbe taking any lives unless it’s clear they plan to sacrifice us.”
Marianne was the smallest of us all, by far, but her voice rose ten feet above us. No one dared to move.
The room grew cold, as if a draft had found its way through every crevice and crack in the walls and floor.
I looked up at Mars, their eyes were locked onto mine. Instantly, I knew that we were both thinking exactly the same. The cage. Jade.
I thought Mars was about to open their mouth, and I glanced at both Marianne and Casper, but they were cut off as Casper stood to full height with his brow furrowed into a deep scowl.
“You’re such a hypocrite,” he spat before turning on his heels and storming out of the door, Ben’s worn, old coat billowing behind him.
How long can one wait?If you’ve set out with the intention of doing something, how long is it before you concede? I speak as though this was an art and crafts project, perhaps my novel I so dutifully neglected at the start of the term, or the bundles of poetry I crumpled to the bottom of my bag. Maybe that could have been something I couldn’t hold my tongue about, if I’d had the confidence. Something to be proud of. But not this. No, this was malicious to the core. Having us chase around like wild dogs, hunting for a scent that was never left in the first place.
She waited a further two days, let us wallow in shame, before she sent her second note.
She knew where we resided, and likely had known for quite some time, yet how long exactly, none of us could tell.
Thepackagewas dumped at the door right at the point when Rani and I were walking past the entrance, as if she was able see our every move and calculated the prime time. Or maybe it wasMichael’sdoing. After all, he always knew where I was.
I couldn’t bring myself to speak his name; the name I so adamantly knew wasnothis real name — if he even owned a name at all. His voice had grown quiet since that evening in the woods, but I knew he would never be too far. A small flicker of otherness still burned in the back of my mind.My darkness. Just ticking away until the time was right.
I refused to let there ever be another time.
“Did you hear that?”Rani turned to me, her face startled.
“I did.” I barely looked at her, my attention already focused on the exact point of the sound’s origin — the front door, barricaded up as it always was.
“Someone’s outside,” she guessed, and she followed me as I stepped closer.
I placed my palm flush against the oak and pressed my ear to it. Closing my eyes, I let my senses do the rest.
“Anything?” Rani asked after a handful of seconds had passed. She extended a cautious arm in my direction.
After a few minutes of utter silence, I motioned for Rani to stand back. I carefully removed the metal bar and latches to one side, slowly creaking open part of the door, just enough to see that there was in fact no one there, but a lone brown box sat on the pavement below. I was at first hesitant to do anything, but my brain was beyond being cautious by that point. If it were to bring us immediate harm, I would have thought it would have been executed much more professionally.
I scraped the package, which was much lighter than it looked, across the ground and onto the other side of the door, swiftly closing it behind me and locking it back up.
“What does it say?” Rani crouched down to read the cursive black scrawled across the top.
She traced her finger across the words then looked up at me, sucking in her lips. Her eyes said everything I needed to know.
“‘For Casper’,” Rani read slowly.
I crouched down to her height to inspect it further. It was indeed addressed to Casper, and though I had not spent too many months around them all, my gut knew it to be true — it was Ben’s handwriting. Shaky and unsure, but the curl of the ‘C’ was unmistakable.
Rani stood back up and headed for the door.
“No.” I held her back, but I knew I was trying to reassure myself more than her. Rani wouldn’t have been so stupid as to go outside now, but I perhaps might have been.
Her eyes flashed to me. “What are we going to do?What’s inside the box?”
