The Black Coats(76)
His footsteps were closer now. “Thea, I just want to talk to you. If you would just listen to me!”
Moving deliberately, she tripped over an overturned root. Her knees hit the ground hard and her body rolled forward and slid, coming to rest covered in mud and rotted leaves. She grabbed at her stomach and gasped loudly, her hand curling around a thick branch and pulling it underneath her. Sahil was nearing her; she heard the snap of twigs underneath his feet, heard his easy breathing. A shadow crossed over her and chilled her entire body. “The fastest girl I’ve ever known has a very bad habit of not taking in her surroundings. Thea, you’ve caused a lot of trouble for us with your little boyfriend.” He walked slowly around her.
Thea let out a cry, pretending that she couldn’t breathe. Her hand clutched her stomach protectively. “You’re a Monarch,” she gasped.
“Yes. And I have to do this, Thea. I have to.”
“Are you going to kill me?”
He tilted his head, confusion passing over his features. “Honestly, I do not know what to do with you. You climbed into bed with the son of the man attempting to bring down the Black Coats! What were you thinking?” He barked out a painful laugh. “As if Adam Porter could ever dream of destroying my mother’s organization. I almost feel bad for the man, chasing this bear through the woods, not knowing the whole time that the bear owns the woods and everything else around him. And Drew—such an earnest boy—insists you did not tell him anything. He’s begging us to take him instead of you, as if he were of any use to us.”
Sahil shook his head. “You could have been so much more than this. I saw you, hiding inside that shell of yourself. I pushed you forward; Nixon pushed you forward. We knew that we were working with hardened clay—something that needed to be broken and reformed, a monster made of jagged pieces. And then, you were everything we hoped you would be: a leader, a Black Coat, a runner. You radiated potential.”
Thea whimpered as he pushed her head down against the ground into the wet mud, his face distorted as something battled inside of him. “Thea, I am truly sorry about all this, but I am giving you something Julie will not: mercy.” He crouched down next to her in a deceptively friendly position. “Listen to me. We can still back away from all this. You can still be a part of the Black Coats, of the Monarchs. Once we take care of Adam Porter we can all move forward together.”
“How can you honestly believe that you’re still doing good?” Thea sputtered, her body tightening. “Forcing girls like Bea to do what they don’t want to do is the opposite of what your mother would have wanted. I know in your grief you’re trying to save this thing she built, but, Sahil . . . it’s rotten inside. You know it.”
“Do not speak about my mother,” he hissed, voice thick with pain. “You could not begin to understand what it is like to hold your mother as she dies in your arms, a withered husk of who she once was, a proud survivor of the unthinkable. She found me in an orphanage across the world and made me a fighter. A son. A warrior who stands up for the weak.”
He was close now. Close enough. She was going to have one shot at this. “This isn’t who you are, Sahil,” she whispered. “And your mother is rolling in her very shallow grave.”
She flipped over underneath him, her left arm swinging the branch with all her might. It met Sahil’s temple with a hard crack that trembled up Thea’s arm and into her teeth. He blinked once at her before his eyes rolled up into his head and he collapsed into a heap with his head slumped over Thea’s rib cage. She groaned and wriggled out from underneath his dead weight, rolling his body over so that he was facedown on the forest floor. She leaned over and checked his pulse under the hot skin of his neck; he was breathing. For a moment she watched him as the hazy gray light of the wood filtered over his face. This was a boy who had lost his mother, a boy who was in fact lost to himself.
Oh, Sahil. She bent over him and left a light kiss on his cheek, not lingering for long. He was still a killer, after all. And she didn’t want to be here when he woke up.
Thea ran back through the woods, using a different route that took her around the rear of the property. The Haunt came into view, its wavy glass winking in the sun as she sprinted past it. Thea kept her head low as she came to the lone wing that jutted awkwardly from the side of the main building. She ran to door thirteen, that funny door that opened up to the outside of the house. Her hand closed around the glass doorknob and pushed it open. She let out a whispered prayer of relief as she stepped into the house.
Mademoiselle Corday had been waiting silently for her. Thea paused in the hallway, her eyes tracing up and down past the endless doors and the tasteful vintage decor. When she stepped forward, she almost leaped back at her own reflection in a large mirror lined with mercury glass. “Slow down,” she breathed.
Drew, where are you? She began pushing open door after door, moving as quickly as she could without making a sound. She passed an open window, white lace curtains flapping in the warm breeze. From outside she could hear a few raised voices, but she was unable to make out who was shouting. Hopefully, Team Banner was okay, though when she remembered McKinley and her gun, Thea’s gut clenched uncomfortably at the possibilities. She had just pushed open Team Swallowtail’s door when she heard a thump upstairs. It was the smallest of sounds, but it was enough. Thea stopped moving, her hand frozen in place over the doorknob. They were in the atrium, that same place where Nixon had once convinced Thea to join the Black Coats with nothing more than a picture of Natalie. Thea shook her head as she ran into the foyer. How easy it had been to say yes. Thea had made it halfway up the staircase when a dark shape rose above her, blocking her way. As the president stepped into the light, Thea groaned.