Page 35 of Last Rites

Anders stumbled—his right hand pressed hard against his side where blood bloomed from beneath his fingers—and I didn’t hesitate. I charged across the clearing and slammed into him from the side, driving all three of us to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Penny dropped first, sprawling and choking as he hit the grass. His coughing was ragged, punctuated by wheezing inhales. I didn’t stop to check on him. I rolled, pinning Anders beneath me, knees braced on either side of his torso, and seized him by the throat.

He thrashed. I squeezed tighter.

My vision narrowed until all I could see was Anders’s face. Penny’s haggard breaths, the crunch of dead leaves, and the shrill chirp of crickets all faded into a vast, echoing quiet like there was no one left in the clearing but me and the man beneath me.

Every awful comment Anders had ever made raced through my head along with every terrible thing he’d done. Spilling leather dye on Penny’s sketchbook; treating gentle, soft-spoken Reimond like he was beneath him; carving out the poor man’s heart and offering it to Thoma like a gruesome prize; the constant digs at our private lives; harassing Penny about his art; setting fire to the mission in Wendwood with us inside…

It was always going to be either us or him, and I wasn’t going to let him have the satisfaction of ending any of us.

Anders writhed beneath me, clawing at my wrists with blood-slicked fingers that couldn’t find purchase. I held fast. His movements slowed, grew feebler. His eyes fluttered, then began to roll back, white and unfocused. Still, I didn’t let go. Not even when his arms dropped, useless, to the earth.

Awareness slowly returned when a hand gripped my shoulder and soft words I didn’t quite hear whispered near my ear. I tore my eyes away from Anders and looked up to find Isla standing beside me, the lumberman’s abandoned machete held in her other hand down at her side. Her gaze met mine, and she repeated herself.

“Kit, he’s out. You can let go now,” she said as all the sound crashed back in all at once.

Penny was still coughing and wheezing, and that was enough to spur me to move. I swung off of Anders’s unconscious body and knelt beside Penny. Rosie had her arm around his shoulders, and she sat back on her heels to let me take her place and cradle Penny against my chest.

He pressed in as close as he could get, fingers clutching at my shirt as I ran my hands over his arms and back to check for injuries. I was relieved to find none.

I leaned back so I could cup his face in my hands and meet his frantic eyes. Tears streaked his cheeks, and I wiped them away with the pads of my thumbs.

“Are you all right?” I asked. “Not hurt anywhere but here?” I dropped a hand to gingerly brush over the redness on his neck.

Penny flinched but nodded, and I turned my attention to Rosie. “You hurt?”

She shook her head. “I got him,” she said.

She raised a trembling hand to indicate the knife clutched tightly in her fist. I’d made the weapon months ago in case she needed to protect herself from Otis during the fourth Oath. Penny hadn’t thought she had it in her to use it. I was thankful that he’d been wrong.

“Good,” I said, though the word came out hoarse. As I eased back from Penny, my limbs felt distant, almost numb, like they weren’t fully mine. “You and Isla get Penny back to the cart. I’m right behind you.”

Penny tightened his grip on the front of my shirt and tried to pull himself back in. “No,” he rasped, barely above a whisper. “Not without you.”

I pried his hands free, then pressed his knuckles to my lips.

“Go, sweetheart,” I murmured. “I’ll be right there.”

He didn’t want to let go, but Rosie and Isla moved in quickly, each taking one of his arms. He was still coughing, still struggling, but they got him upright and began the slow, staggering retreat back through the trees. Toward the wagon. Toward safety.

I stood frozen in place, chest heaving, watching them go. A bitter taste flooded my mouth, and my heart pounded erratically against my ribs, as if it were trying to outrun what had just happened. What was about to.

I didn’t have much choice anymore.

Once Penny, Rosie, and Isla were out of sight, I turned back to Anders. His chest rose and fell with slow breaths that labored through the swelling in his neck. The man had been a dark shadow over us in Ashpoint since we arrived; always watching, always getting in the way, always armed with a snide word or crude suggestion. He was cruel and more calculating than I originally gave him credit for. He played dumb so well, and he’d managed to catch us off guard twice now.

There couldn’t be a third time, and there was only one thing I could do to make sure he didn’t get the chance. To make sure he could never do Merrick’s bidding again. To make sure he never got up. To protect Penny.

There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do to protect Penny.

13

Penny

Ihunkered in the corner of the wagon under Rosie and Isla’s watchful guard. My throat ached and my stomach roiled, and every blink unleashed another spill of tears. The chain of events leading to Anders’s attack and Kit’s intervention were a blur.

Rosie and I were looking for Delilah when the lumberman descended, no doubt thinking he could overpower us both. He might have succeeded if not for Rosie’s knife. And then came the blood. And the breathlessness. And I would never get used to that lightheaded feeling.