As fast as I can, I rush down the stairs, past a pair of guards lying passed out on the floor, foaming at the mouth. The other matriarchs didn’t just poison their own husbands.
Then I spot Agatha with a cleaver in her hand and a bloodied guard right in front of her on the kitchen floor.
Our eyes connect for a mere second of mutual terror. She smiles … at me.
And she wipes her hands on her apron while tucking a vial of hemlock into her pocket. Then she turns around, as though she’s thinking of coming toward me.
I run.
She can’t be trusted. Not now, when I have my lifeline in my arms. My whole world, snatched away in mere seconds.
I almost lost her.
Just like I lost Emmy.
Tears fill my eyes, but I blink hard. No time to waste on crying. I have to save us both. She won’t survive if I don’t, so I have to keep going, no matter the cost. For Emmy.
Adrenaline fills my veins as I run through the hallway toward the auditorium. There are five bodies lying around the room, and blood spilled everywhere.
What the … hell?
I continue running while trying to ignore the stench. There’s only one other place I know I’ll be safe; Holly’s hut. So I rush to the doors and push the handle. I’m amazed it opens and that it wasn’t locked. Does that mean the temple is compromised? Did someone sneak out a key?
And where the hell are the president and my mother?
One foot outside, and I’m already stunned. People are fighting each other everywhere, men and women, going at each other with knives, pans, axes, anything they can find. Everyone seems to have lost their minds. It’s one giant massacre.
This isn’t what I wanted, what I told them to do … yet their own hatred and rage made them do it anyway.
I swallow away the lump in my throat and start running, trying to ignore the rabid fighting going on around me. I slip through unnoticed, hiding my baby in my robe in the hopes that no one will see her. I take the easy paths, avoiding the brawls as much as I can until I get to Holly’s hut.
I knock. No response. I knock a few more times, but no one opens up, so I push the door handle. It isn’t locked at all, and when I push it open, the entire hut looks to have been raided.
“Holly?” I mutter.
She isn’t there. In fact, no one’s here at all.
I turn around and look at all the other huts, wondering where I should go or who I can ask for help. Everyone’s too busy with themselves, and the entire community has turned into a sparring ground. There’s nowhere left that’s safe.
Except … maybe … the hut where we stayed when we were still all initiates.
Without thinking it over, I run to the hut. I came there so many times before, and I know the route by heart, so I bolt there as fast as I can. No knocking this time. I smash into the door and then come to a full halt.
Holly’s huddled in the corner near the beds with maybe a dozen, no more, children bundled closely together. She looks up in fear, her eyes widening when she sees it’s me.
Then a man appears from the kitchen area.
I hold up my hand, instinct telling me I can’t trust him, and I grab for the first thing in my grasp. A pair of scissors lying on the table next to the door.
“Wait! Don’t,” Holly says. “Please.”
I look at him and then her. He’s holding up his hands, backing away slowly.
“I’m just her husband,” the guy says.
“You can trust him,” Holly adds.
“Why?” I hiss. “Give me one good reason.”
“Because I love him!” she says.
My lips part as I look at her in surprise.
She loves him?
“He’s a good man. Please, he’s not like the others …” she says, rubbing her lips together as she looks at the children, and a pang of guilt strikes me hard.
I’m here looking for safety, and then I’m threatening a guy I don’t know … all because men in this community have taught me they can’t be trusted. This place has done something to me that I don’t like. I don’t want to fear every walking man. I want to believe there are good ones left.
So I lower the scissors and place them back onto the table.
The man visibly eases up and so do I.
“I won’t do anything,” he says. “I won’t harm you.” He glances at my robes. “Or your baby.”
I instinctively wrap myself up more, shielding her.
“You’re different from the others?” I ask, unsure if I can believe it.
“He never hurt me. Not once,” Holly says. “He’s a good guy. I swear.”
“Do you want to come in?” he asks.
I narrow my eyes and take a deep breath. “I just need a place to stay … for now.”
He beckons me. “C’mon. I’ve made tea. The kids were thirsty.”
I close the door behind me and look at all the kids who are gaping at me as if I’m the epitome of danger.
“Their parents are fighting, so I took them in,” Holly says. “I didn’t know where else to go. There were too many. Only this hut was big enough.”
I nod. “It’s my fault.”
She licks her lips. “I guess … it had to happen someday.”
“Will my mommy and daddy survive?” one of the kids asks as they look at her.
I approach them, and they all seem to cower in fear.
“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you, I promise,” I say.
“But you’re that lady, the one who made all the adults get angry,” one of the other older kids says, and it stings so badly it makes me want to smash my fist into the wall.
This is one thing I didn’t foresee, one thing I never took into account when my mother and I decided to start a revolution. No coup is without those who suffer.
And these kids won’t know if their parents survive until it’s too late.
I started this revolt with the best in mind … but did I make the right choice?
Noah
In one fell swoop, I punch my father in the nose so hard his face tilts back, and I twist his arm, causing it to snap. He growls in pain as I steal away the crossbow he just put an arrow in and I shoot.
BAM!
Right in the leg.
He howls out loud. “You son of a bitch! You shot me!”
I quickly reach for the last remaining arrow lying on the table and tuck it into the crossbow. Then I point it straight at his heart. “No one touches my kid!”
“You idiot! You think you can handle that bitch? That she’d listen to you? Bullshit! She’s just like your mother, an insufferable witch that doesn’t listen to her husband’s commands!” he growls. “I’m the only one who can ever take care of this family!”
My nostrils flare. “I should’ve done this a long time ago.”
BAM!
One more shot to put him out of his misery.
The arrow enters his chest, and he sinks down onto the floor like a bag of rotten potatoes. I feel nothing. No sadness, no happiness. Just a vapid sense of victory, whatever the fuck that means.
My father killed my mother, and now I killed him too.
That makes me a murderer, just like him.
But she didn’t deserve to die … he did.
There’s a sudden scream, and I turn around.
That sounded like … Marsha.
I throw down the crossbow and rush out the door, ignoring the painful sprain in my leg that I endured at my father’s hands. I focus on the sound of her screams and peer over the balustrade. Then I see her, running out of the women’s room, heading straight for the auditorium.
The president appears from the kitchen and in his hand a thick butcher’s knife.
Fuck.
I run downstairs as quickly as I can.
“Marsha? Where are you?” he growls out loud, trailing the hallways. “I know you’re in here somewhere, you treacherous snake!”
When he moves into the study, I quickly pass the door and run underneath the stairs, into the auditorium.
I’m met by a chair being held up against my face. Marsha’s panicky eyes home in on me, and as I turn my face, she breathes out loud. “Fuck.”
“It’s me,” I whisper as she lowers the chair. “He’s coming. Go!”
She nods and runs off toward the back door while I barricade the door I just came through with a few chairs. Right then, the door is smashed open, and the president peeks through the small opening.
“Marsha? Open the door, sweetie … no one will get hurt if you do,” he says with a sweet voice that makes my skin crawl. “Let me in!” He jerks the door handle a few more times. Then he stops to cough and heave. “You bitch! You poisoned me!”
He slams the door again, and it opens a little bit farther, despite the chairs I stacked against it. It won’t contain him forever.
“She’s not here,” I growl back as I inch closer to let him see it’s me. “Leave.”
“Noah?” he grumbles, narrowing his eyes at me. “I should’ve known you were on her side. You plotted against me from day one. You did this, didn’t you? You set them up to destroy this community!”
A wicked smile spreads on my lips, but it disappears the moment he starts hacking at the door.
“I’ll kill you both!” he roars, chopping away like a madman.
That’s my cue.
I’m not waiting around until he’s hacked his way through the door. It won’t be long now. The rage in his eyes the moment he looked at me was all I needed to know he won’t stop until we’re both ten feet under the ground.
I turn and head straight for the other door that Marsha just ran through. I have to go find Natalie and make sure she’s safe.
But right as I open the back door, President Lawrence bursts through the other one, violently shoving aside the chairs as though they’re made of mere paper.
“NOAH!” he yells, and our eyes briefly connect.
Then I slam the door shut behind me and run like hell.
I have no idea where to go, where to find Natalie or her mother, but I can’t stop running across the grass either. The president is right on my tail swinging a butcher’s knife in his hand as if he’s lost his marbles. No one stops him. The people outside are too busy fighting amongst themselves and with the guards to even notice the fact that the president himself is running right through the crowds.
I keep going, no matter the cost, even though every bone in my body hurts because I must save my wife and child.
Where would she go? Her friend’s house?
With the sun going down it’s hard to look around, but adrenaline keeps me going. I immediately run toward Holly’s home, the only remaining member of her initiation group, but the house looks ransacked, so I quickly bolt off.
The hut where she and her mother met then?
No, there’s no time, it’s too far and the president’s right behind me.
“I’ll kill you!” Blood and foam seep from his mouth.
Why won’t this fucker just die? How much poison does he need to just drop dead?
“You ruined my family and me, and now I’ll ruin yours!” he roars.
No, I can’t let him get close. He can’t touch her or my child, I won’t allow it.
Natalie has to be at the hut that belonged to the initiates. It’s the only place left to look.
Without thinking, I bolt straight for the initiate’s hut. I look around at the surrounding huts, but there are no weapons in sight, nothing I can use to defend myself for my family. I pray there’s something in that initiates hut I can use to my advantage and defend us. If I have to, I’ll block his path with my own body. I’d sacrifice my life if it means Natalie and my child will live.
Just a few more steps, I’m almost there, but he’s catching up. I have to be quick.
I burst into the door and swiftly spin on my heels, closing it shut behind me right before he enters too.
He bangs the doors, viciously screaming and coughing. “Die!”
I turn around to see if I can find anything I can use as a weapon, but there’s nothing more than a pair of scissors lying on the table next to me. It’s not enough.
That’s when I spot them with all the children huddled up in the corner.
A man and a woman stand near the kitchen, one clutching a knife in his hand while staring me down …
And Natalie, hugging the children in the back.
My eyes widen. “Natalie!”
She looks up, and tears fill her eyes when she spots me. “Noah! You’re alive!”
“Noah? The patriarch?” the other guy growls, and he points his knife at me. “Stop.”
The president continues banging the door, attracting everyone’s attention.
“Don’t trust me? Fine, but that monster out there will kill us all, so if you want to live, barricade that door,” I bark. “Now!”
He frowns but moves to the door anyway and grabs the lonely chair standing next to the table.
Then the president screeches. “I am President Lawrence, and I demand you let me in!”
The guy’s eyes widen. “Is that—”
“Don’t,” I interject, holding up a hand. “Don’t you think about it.”
Too late.
He’s already pushed the handle down.
“NO!” Natalie screams, and the children start to cry.
The president slams open the door and grabs the guy by the throat. “Don’t get in my way!”
He rams the butcher’s knife straight into the guy’s abdomen.
Holly squeals in terror, and her eyes roll into the back of her head, then she faints and drops to the floor.
The president throws the guy’s body aside as though it means nothing, his eyes homing in on Natalie, who’s clutching her child close to her chest.
“No,” I growl, blocking his path as he tries to get closer, still clutching the butcher’s knife.
He doesn’t hesitate as he thrusts it at me. I dodge and attempt to steal the knife from his hand, but he cuts my arm instead. I hiss and inch back, clutching my arm in pain.
President Lawrence coughs up blood, visibly losing stamina as he quakes on his legs, but he still comes at me with the knife.
Suddenly, Marsha runs into the hut with an ax in her hands, screaming her head off. “Why won’t you just die?!”
She swings the ax and throws it down as hard as she can … right into the top of the president’s head.
Everyone squeals in shock, and then his body drops down to the floor like a plump sack of shit emptying out onto the floor.
For a few seconds, we stand there as though we’re frozen in time. I stare at Marsha, whose chest rises and falls with each breath she takes. She wipes the sweat and blood spatters off her forehead. “It’s over.”
Her hands unravel, and the ax clatters onto the floor.
And for the first time in a long time, tears well up in my eyes. “We won.”
“No,” Marsha says, straightening her back. “The women did.”
