Uprising (12 page)

“I don’t see it that way.”

“Why? We’ve both wanted this for a long time, and I’m tired of holding out because I’m scared. I won’t let Christoph control us.”

He brushed his hair back out of his face. “If we give in, he
will
be controlling us.”

“How do you know? Maybe he wants us to resist. Maybe he’s just looking for any reason to kill us. We have to stop thinking about Christoph, and what he wants. We need to decide for ourselves.” I laced my fingers between his. “If this was our last day together,” I said, “if we were never meant to survive this, what would you choose?”

His eyes softened at the thought. “You.”

“Then kiss me because you want to, not because you have to.”

He looked at me for a moment before he gave in. His warm palm slid against my cheek, his fingers settling on the back of my neck as he inched closer. Goosebumps crawled across my shoulders, and the feel of his lips made me breathe deeply, like I’d thirsted for his kiss for too long. “Are you sure?” he asked when our mouths parted.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I answered.

“Okay, just wait one second,” he said with a renewed sense of acceptance. He reached around to the back of my head and gently loosened my ponytail, letting my hair down. With the hairband in his hand he came to one knee yet again. “I’ve always known I’d marry you, Elyse, but I have to ask. Will you marry me?”

“Yes,” I answered through a smile. Despite the circumstances, I was determined to let myself feel joy, as if the feeling alone was a victory. “Absolutely, yes.”

He wrapped the black elastic band around my ring finger, twisting it until it fit. “I was planning on giving you my grandmother’s ring. This doesn’t quite do it justice.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He took my face in his hands again and kissed me softly, but this kiss was different. It was our end and our beginning in one. My chest heaved with breath as his pillowy lips slipped against mine. His fingers grazed the skin of my shoulders, taking in every inch, every feeling like it was the last moment we’d ever know.

With a hand against my waist he moved me to the center of the bed using the pressure of his kiss to guide me. My body trembled knowing this was it. We’d lost, but giving in was a freedom I’d never felt before. My fingers shook and fumbled with the buttons of his tuxedo shirt, peeling it over his shoulders. His face, freshly shaven, slid like silk into the crook of my neck, and I closed my eyes. I breathed deeply as he reached for the zipper of my dress, but before he pulled it down he stopped, holding us in that last moment before everything changed.

“I love you,” he whispered, his face inches from mine. Our eyes connected. “I love you, too,” I said, pressing my mouth into his. Defeat never felt so good.

***

I woke up to silence. The room was dark, but my eyes were used to it, and I could see the white sheets glowing against William’s back. At first I smiled to myself. He was there, next to me, safe. I slid my hands over the sheets across my flat belly. Blood pulsed under my palms and the feeling made my chest flutter. I swallowed down the nervousness. Maybe it didn’t work. My eyelids slammed shut. I didn’t feel any different. Please tell me it didn’t work.

Without warning, the door flung open. It crashed against the wall, startling William out of sleep. He jumped and rolled off the bed, taking the top cover with him and leaving me with the sheet.

Adrianna sighed, and her eyebrows climbed up her forehead. “I’m guessing I’m too late,” she said. William and I stared at her, afraid to move, and she looked back at us with wide expectant eyes. “Well? Get up. Get dressed.” Her voice was sharp and demanding and had us on our feet in seconds.

I held the sheet to my body as I scrambled to find my clothes. William buttoned up his shirt with quick fingers and was by my side to help me pull on my dress. My eyes drifted to the black cloth bag Adrianna held as she knelt down and began feeling under the bed. She lifted a key from around her neck and slid it into a lock hidden discretely under a wooden panel on the leg of the bedframe. The floor began to groan and the entire bed turned on an axis creating an opening in the floor.

“Move,” she urged, beckoning for us to take the stairs that led down into the opening. “Quickly.”

She followed us, sliding her key once again into a lock somewhere in the dark wall of the tunnel. The floor creaked and strained again, sealing us up in darkness below.

I couldn’t see, but I felt her body brush against me as she pushed past us. “Follow me.”

9.

THE AIR WAS DAMP in the narrow corridor, and the walls were sharp with jagged rock. I thought about resisting. She had no weapon, but something told me not to test her. A distant glow coaxed us onward, toward the end of the tunnel.

When we got there, she opened the wooden door, flooding the passage with a dull light. I felt William’s hand on the small of my back, urging me forward.

Cast iron cells lined the length of each wall of the flame-lit room, but only one woman was being held here. I figured we were next and wondered which would be ours. The woman stayed quiet, and watched us through loose strands of shiny blonde hair as we passed. Though she looked healthy and well kept, both her feet and hands were chained to the floor.

I heard William’s footsteps stop somewhere behind me. “Lilia?” he whispered.

“Keep walking,” Adrianna warned from ahead. “Don’t push your luck, William.”

He glared at her with disdain, but kept moving.

“Here.” She thrust the black bag into my hands. “I’ll restore your power within the hour.”

I stood taller, facing her in the dim light. “Why?”

She opened a cell door, the hinges creaking with rust. “Because I’m letting you go,” she answered. “Help me lift this.” Her eyes fell on a stone-carved bench that sat against the wall. “Behind it there’s a hole that leads to the storm drain system.”

I didn’t move at first. I didn’t believe her, but William must have because he stepped forward and gripped the edge of the bench with his fingers. The muscles in his forearms and back flexed as he braced his body to counter the weight of the stone. It crackled against the rough granite floor as he slid the seat far enough out for us to squeeze our bodies through. I stepped forward and saw the opening, an ominous black hole that led into the wall.

“Thank you,” William said to Adrianna as he tugged at my hand. I didn’t budge.

My eyes focused on her. “Why are you doing this?” I couldn’t trust anyone blindly. Mac had drilled that into our heads.

She smiled, and shadows elongated her features. “It’s just my little way of paying back Christoph.”

“For what?”

Her eyes tightened, but her lips smirked as she answered. “A lovers’ quarrel. What is it they say? Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

I stared past her into the opening. It could lead us anywhere. This could be a trap. “How do we know we can trust you?”

“You don’t.” Adrianna sighed impatiently. “Look in the bag.”

I opened the black satchel and stuck my hand inside. The familiar feeling of my dart gun graced my fingers, and I found my bracelet near the bottom.

I didn’t know what to say, whether to hate her for who she was or thank her for her help.

“What about William’s ability?” William stayed quiet, but I felt him standing strong against me. I was pushing it by asking.

“That is up to Christoph.” She shrugged. “But he is weak. He has many enemies, and the more power we take, the sicker we get. Every Council member has their limitations. He’ll give it up soon enough.”

I glanced at William. I hadn’t known that fact. “Good luck.”

William insisted on going through first. Adrianna had put a flashlight in the bag, but its single ray was lost easily in the blackness. His feet tested the rungs of the flimsy metal rebar that protruded from the cement as he lowered himself deeper.

My eyes floated toward Lilia while William climbed. She was the key, the only Council member who tied them all together. Without her, none of the Council’s abilities worked. Adrianna cleared her throat to get my attention. She was watching from a distance and had to know what I was thinking. If I could get Lilia out and away from them it would strip their power. Christoph wouldn’t lose his authority, but he would lose his ability. He’d be vulnerable. How fast could I load my thickest dart and shoot her?

“Okay,” William spoke from below. “The ladder ends short. We’ll have to jump.”

I heard the echoing splash as his feet hit wet ground. If I decided to take the risk, I was on my own. There was no way back up. He pointed the light at me and I squinted back. I had to try.

“Elyse,” Adrianna said before I made a move. “She’s been conceived. I already feel her.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but my breath caught in my throat. If those words had come from anyone else, I might not have believed them, but Adrianna was of Hera. Her bloodline was linked to the abilities of others. I couldn’t dismiss that.

“How do you . . . you feel her?” I managed, my heart squeezing and pumping in my chest.

“Like I feel every female Descendant.” I stood there, unmoving.

“Come on,” William beckoned from below. “What are you waiting for?”

Something in me switched on, and I couldn’t bring myself to draw my dart gun. I glanced at Lilia, and she stared back at me with kind eyes like she was telling me something—
go
.

She nodded her head at me, and I turned away, hoping I wouldn’t regret the decision as I ducked into the hole. My bare feet found the rungs guided by the flashlight, and when I came to the end, I hoped I wouldn’t break something or cut my toes off.

“Be careful,” he said. “Do you want me to try and catch you?”

“No. I can make it,” I answered. “Just point the flashlight at where I should land.”

I made the jump, and the sting of the impact shot up my legs as I toppled into William.

“You okay?” he asked.

I got to my feet and stared at the hole above us. “Fine.”

“What did she say to you?”

“Nothing. Come on.”

There was no way back up. The ladder had dropped us into a cement tunnel just high enough that William didn’t have to duck. In one direction, the space narrowed too tightly for us to continue. There was only one way to go.

Water ran sluggishly around our ankles as we made our way through the maze of tunnels. The smell was stale and offensive, like old toilet water, and it burned my nose. At first, the stream looked black as oil in the dim light, but when William pointed the flashlight at my toes it seemed clear enough to be safe.

“Walk on the sides,” William instructed. “And go slow. Watch where you step.”

The tunnel walls changed shape from circular to square-edged, and every so often red and orange stalactites stuck out from the cement pipe walls like fingernails reaching out to grab us.

After the fifth turn had led us nowhere, I wondered if Adrianna’s plan was to leave us scurrying around like rodents in an inescapable maze of tubes. William bounced the flashlight from one wall to the other hopelessly as we walked. I was starting to imagine us stuck down here, dying of starvation in the stink.

“There,” William’s voice rang out through the still air. His feet splashed the shallow water as he ran forward, and I hurried after. Two peepholes of light gleamed down on us as we stared at the bottom of a steel manhole cover.

“What’s the plan?” I asked. “I have no idea.”

“Should we just go for it?”

“No. Let me at least see where we are,” he said, handing me the flashlight.

I pointed the beam at the bottoms of his shoes as he climbed up through a chimney-like opening toward the street.

“What do you see?” I asked.

He closed the lid. “Fancy heels and valet workers,” he answered as he made his way down. “We’re right in front of a nice restaurant. We need to keep moving.”

“No. We’re here. Let’s just jump out and run.”

“Run where, Ellie?”

“I don’t know.”

He sighed, unsatisfied with my plan, but began to climb anyway. “Just let me make sure the coast is clear, okay? Wait sixty seconds before you come up.”

My head stayed tilted back as I counted. Twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four. The lid lifted before I got to sixty. “Elyse! Come on. Hurry,” William ordered through the hole.

I didn’t think. I moved. As fast as I could from bar to bar. “What’s wrong?” I breathed once I’d popped out into the open air. Eyes were starting to find me. People were staring.

“Get in the car,” William said through clenched teeth. I didn’t argue.

The car was silver and smooth. One of those types men usually compare to a woman. I made my way to the passenger side and ducked in, eager to escape the looks.

“What are you doing?” I asked, once William began to pull slowly and casually away.

“Escaping,” he said, enjoying himself a little too much. “What does it look like?”

“By stealing a car?”

“Well, technically it’s not stealing.” He hiked his shoulders up. “The guy gave me the keys.”

I glanced out the rear window. “What? Why? Is your ability back?”

“No.” He smiled to himself. “When I stood up, he was getting out of the car and thought I was the valet.”

“Seriously?” I laughed, despite my worry. “But you’re a mess. Your tux is all wrinkled and wet. There’s blood on it.”

“I know. He hardly looked at me. Just threw me the keys and ran in. He must have been in a hurry or something.”

I looked around in disbelief at the smooth black leather seats knitted together with white stitching. The dashboard was a glossy gray wood, equipped with navigation, XM radio, and an array of lit up features. Here we were clean as sewer rats fleeing our capture in a luxury sports car.

“What kind of car is this?” I asked, brushing the door handle with my fingertips.

William’s eyebrows lifted, and he tightened his hands around the wheel with a grin. “A Maserati.”

He revved the engine pressing the pedal to the floor. I let out a scream, and my head flew back into the seat as we launched onto the freeway.

My fingers gripped the door, the dash, anything to steady myself. “Slow down!” I yelled.