Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
And then a miracle occurs.
I watch her face, her beautiful face, bleached white.
Sunlight beams down on her, and when Father Michael next presses into her chest, when I hear the sick cracking sound of ribs as he forces her heart to beat, she coughs.
We both stop and look at her face and watch her turn her head and throw up water.
“Madelena! Jesus. Madelena.” I cradle her head, pull it onto my lap, turning her onto her side as she vomits up more water mixed with sand. She gasps for breaths between coughs, and it’s the sweetest sound. God. It’s the sweetest fucking sound. Because she’s alive. She’s alive.
“Santos?” she says weakly as I lift her, hug her to me, pushing wet hair from her face to kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her mouth, her hands. But then I watch the horror come over her as her gaze moves over my shoulder.
I stiffen.
“Santos,” Father Michael says, following Madelena’s line of vision.
I stand, lift her in my arms and once Father Michael is on his feet, I hand her over to him.
“Get her inside. Get her warm.”
“Santos,” he starts, taking her from me because he has no choice. “Don’t do anything rash.”
Rash. There will be nothing rash in what I will do.
“Get her inside. Now.”
I glance once more to my drowned Madelena before turning my back on them to face my brother.
36
SANTOS
“You would contaminate this place,” I say.
“That’s a little dramatic, don’t you think?” Caius asks, not quite steady on his feet.
“It was you. It was you all along.”
I pick up my pistol from the sand, tuck it into the waistband of my pants and stalk toward my brother. He stands his ground. He looks as drowned as Madelena. I’m sure I look much the same.
“I had no choice, when it came down to it,” he says, a pathetic defense. I swing at him, catch him in the jaw. He spins, stumbles, rights himself. “It was her or you. And I wasn’t going to lose you. Not again.”
I hit him again, on the other side of his face this time. I’m right-handed, but my left-hook is just as powerful as my right. Shoutout to the Commander’s training.
“You had a choice. You always have a fucking choice.” I punch him again. Blood splatters the sand wall at his back.
“Not really, no.” He touches his face, fingers coming away red.
“What the fuck do you mean you won’t lose me again?” I ask. “You never lost me, you asshole.” I repeat the right-hook. This time, he falls on his ass and I take hold of his shirt to get him back up because we’re not done yet. We’re only just getting started. “You know what, it doesn’t matter. Just tell me one thing. Just one fucking thing. Why Alexia? What did she do to you to deserve what you did?”
“Oh.” He shakes his head. “Alexia wasn’t me.”
I stop, not expecting that. But then I shake my head. “You’re lying.” I draw my arm back and ram it into his gut.
He grunts, doubles over. “I’m not, brother,” he manages after a minute, spitting blood when he straightens to face me again. He’s not fighting me. He’s taking the beating. It’s not like him.
“Don’t call me that. We are no longer brothers.”
“I’m not lying. Not about Alexia.” I watch him and I realize he’s not lying. I know his tell. It’s consistent. But no, I’m wrong. I have to be wrong.
“Then who? Who would want to hurt her? She did nothing to anyone!”
“You really don’t want to know, Santos.”
I shove him backward against the dune. “Yeah, I really do. I really want to know before I squeeze the last breath out of you.”
“That’s the thing. I don’t care if I die.”
“I don’t give a fuck what you care about. Tell. Me. Who.”
He looks away for a long moment, emotions warring in his eyes. On his face. When he faces me again, he looks a decade older.
“Our mother.”
I stop dead. “What?” I hear myself ask as my arm drops to my side.
“See, told you that you wouldn’t want to know.” Caius slides down onto the sand. “He came for me. It was me he wanted,” Caius says, and I see the effort it’s taking him to keep his eyes on mine. “When the Commander found out about me, he came to take me. Our mother made a deal with him. She traded you for me.”
His words are like a punch to the gut I don’t understand.
“I told you that you didn’t want to know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Yeah, you do. You know I have no reason to lie about this. Not anymore.”
“Tell me. Tell me all of it.” My throat is tight. I’m sick to my stomach.
“You’re a fucking masochist. How many times do you want me to repeat it? She sold you to save me.”