Page 57 of Thrall
“They could come back!” Lucy said. She no longer cared what they came here for. Natalie had gone frighteningly limp in her grip. “Mila, please. Help me get her into the light.”
Mila’s attention never fully left the door. But she did return to Lucy, then, did help her drag Natalie to the opposite end of the hall. They didn’t stop until Natalie lay directly under the single pathetic sunbeam within their reach.
“Natalie,” Lucy said as she dropped to her knees again. “Natalie, can you hear me?”
Natalie’s blank stare was fixed on the ceiling. If not for the sleeplike cadence of her breaths, she would have looked dead, lying there. The only thing that moved in response to Lucy’s voice was a single bead of blood that slipped down her arm.
Lucy anxiously rubbed it dry. The nauseating, mouth-watering smell of it crested in the air. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled. “I hurt you, I’m sorry.” She was supposed to be the bait. She was supposed to be hurt, if anyone. Natalie wasn’t the sort of person these things were supposed to touch. Lucy had never really considered that anything would reach her. Naive, selfish, self-serving—Lucy should have told her from the start not to get involved, she should have screamed it if that’s what it—
“Lucy!” Athena’s voice was loud enough to hurt. “Please answer me!”
Not nowwas what Lucy had meant to say. OrOne minute, orLet me think,or any of the other proto-sentences that had bubbled up as she clutched at her ear in pain. But what came out of her mouth wasn’t words. It was something much deeper in her throat than that. It was a roll of low, guttural thunder. A growl.
Everything froze. Lucy, Mila, and the breaths from the other end of the line.
And then Natalie sat half upright and gasped for air.
“Natalie.”Lucy scrambled to get her hands on Natalie’s shoulders for support. She was staring straight ahead, her eyes focused now, her pupils narrowed to pinpricks. “Can you hear me?”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Something like a laugh escaped Natalie as she nodded. “What was I…”
“Can you stand?” When Lucy looked back to Mila, her face was shuttered. “We need to leave.”
“Hah. Yeah.” She wiped at her face, but not before Lucy saw a tear slip out of each eye. “Don’t have to tell me twice.”
Lucy clambered to her feet to help Mila lift, then ducked under one of Natalie’s arms to support her weight. Natalie walked with them easily enough, though she was stiff in their grip, as if the last thing she wanted right then was either of them touching her. Lucy could still hear Athena, breathing on the other end of the line. But for the time being, she was silent, too.
Lucy had never been so grateful for the spike of pain the sunlight brought. And as she and Mila maneuvered Natalie into it, Lucy turned to shut the door.
For just a moment, as the door’s window caught the late-afternoon glare, it looked like a lone figure was watching them from the stairwell entrance. Where they’d been just moments ago.
But by the time the door closed, there was no one there.
“Do you need anything else?” Lucy knew that she was hovering. She also knew that it was only making everyone feel worse. Natalie had managed to wrestle a smile back onto her face, but the longer Lucy stood there in the recording studio doorway, the more strained it looked. “I probably have time to make another trip to your dorm.”
“No, no. Don’t you dare. It’ll be dark soon.” Natalie squeezed her elbow—such a sweet, automatic Natalie gesture that it twisted the knife deeper. Even now, she was trying to comfort Lucy. “Athena’s got enough bedding here for me, and I can always pick up some more stuff if I want to stay longer.”
How was Natalie so good at this? All this time, she’d been there for Lucy like it was nothing. It was horribly apparent now that that wasn’t such an easy thing to do. Mila had steered them all back to the studio with ruthless efficiency. Athena had brewed the tea that was currently nestled in Natalie’s shaking fingers. But all Lucy had been able to do was stand there and watch. It was all she had done since she got to Rollins.
Over Natalie’s shoulder, Athena wasn’t looking at them, but Lucy could tell she was listening nonetheless. She hadn’t said much since they’d come back. A few hushed words of comfort to Natalie, a few equally quiet but much more businesslike words to Mila.
But there was noI told you so. There was no pointing out that they’d been impatient, and that it had nearly gotten them all killed. She was fully focused on her equipment for tonight.
If Lucy hadn’t had a few days’ worth of experience reading Athena’s microexpressions, the look on her face would have seemed neutral. She did have that experience, though. She saw the wariness behind the placid exterior.
She touched the hollow of her own throat. Wariness was the least of what she deserved.
“Hey.” Natalie set her mug down and wrapped her arms around Lucy. Her pulse pattered against the side of Lucy’s neck. “I’ll be okay. I just need some sleep and a good cry. But not too loud of a good cry, because I don’t want tonight’s callers to ask who that wailing woman behind Pallas is.”
Lucy squeezed her tighter. “Call me if you can’t sleep.”
“Sure. But if you pick up, I’m going to be so mad.” When Natalie pulled back, her eyes were wet. She laughed ruefully as she scrubbed at them. “Okay, shoo. Go get some rest.”
A hand came to rest on Lucy’s shoulder from behind. It was Mila, drawing her back into the hall. “I’ll call you later to debrief,” Mila said over Lucy’s head.
Athena nodded as she straightened. Any wariness, or anger, or whatever else she was feeling slipped neatly behind her mask. “Be careful getting back.”
Once again, they started down the hill. This time to the dining hall—though Lucy wasn’t sure she’d ever felt less like eating in her life. They were nearly halfway there by the time Mila finally spoke.
