Rite of Revelation (Acceptance Book 2) Read online

  I reach over and lay a hand on top of hers. “Once upon a time, a generous woman told me that out here there are no debts to pay, only favors to be forwarded.”

  She touches the leather bracelet on my wrist and nods. No more words need to be said.

  Instead of riding out to a battle cry, we head to the east silent, with nothing but our fear and determination to point us forward.

  * * *

  By the time we reach Arbor Glen, the sun is long gone. I’m sore and hungry, though the ache in my stomach is from far worse than a missed meal.

  We stop at Jacob’s rocks, the place where Mary first found our group of PIT runaways. That day feels like a lifetime ago. Everyone dismounts and we tie off the horses as best we can in the dark.

  Liam creeps up behind me and whispers, “What’s the plan?”

  I turn and everyone is gathered around us.

  “I don’t have a plan.” I stare at Liam, but he’s still looking at me, eyes wide with expectation. “Do you think I storm villages on a regular basis?”

  “You’re the one that wanted us all to ride up here and fight back.”

  “I know, but…” sometimes I open my mouth and say things without thinking because the alternative is to say nothing and regret it. Now what? It’s like I waded into one of the animal pens without slop boots on. I can turn around and run back out, but I’ll still be covered in dung up to my knees. But the longer I just stand here, the deeper I’ll sink. “Okay, we can’t do anything until we know what we’re dealing with. We need to send a few scouts to get closer and try to see what’s going on in there.”

  Several members of the group raise their hands. “Good. That should be enough. You’ll need to stay far enough back that you aren’t seen. Surprise is on our side. Just watch and try to get an idea of where everyone is and how many guards are in there. Also, look for any weapons.”

  Six heads nod in the dark, including Mary’s.

  “The rest of you should wait at Jacob’s rocks so we can avoid any watchful eyes.”

  I nod back at Mary and she takes off with the other scouts deeper into the village.

  “Everyone else, take a minute to get some water. Check your weapons and then rest a bit while we wait for the scouts.”

  The remaining riders split up, heading back to their horses. The minute they’re all occupied, I grab Daniel’s arm and march us out of earshot before anyone sees us and follows. I move around a large stone and retch into the dirt.

  Daniel’s strong hand rubs circles on my back as I choke up the small amount of food in my stomach.

  “I’m going to get us all killed.” I stand up and wipe my mouth off with the back of my hand. “What was I thinking? This is the Acceptance ceremony hack all over again. Any minute now the Cardinal guards will find us. Except there isn’t a Quarantine to drag us off to out here.”

  “Rebecca, no one is getting killed tonight.”

  Daniel hands me a canteen of water. I take my time letting the cool water wash my mouth, but there’s no escaping the sour taste of knowing this is all going to end in bloodshed. “And you know that because?”

  “Look, this is what you do. You’re the kind of person who runs into the burning building first and figures out how to deal with the smoke second.”

  “Not feeling better.”

  Daniel rubs his hands over his face. “I’m struggling here. I have no idea how this is going to work and I will admit that I wish you would think things out first. But that’s not how your brain works. You do your best work in the heat of the moment.”

  “Why didn’t you stop me?”

  “Cardinal knows I wanted to.” He takes the canteen back and stores it in his saddle pack. “I’d do anything to keep you safe. But I’m not going to cage you up like the Cardinal and pretend that we can make everything perfect if I can only hold you tight enough.”

  Daniel grabs my hands, and I wish I could see his face clearer in the dark. I’m sure he’s trying to be comforting, but this is not working.

  “This is why you’re here. Not just because you had the gall to question the Cardinal and not just because you seem able to rally an army with a few sentences. Your biggest weapon is your brain. You see things most of us don’t.”

  “Like what? I’m going to need some more concrete examples to feel better.”

  “Like the Pony Express. It was running fine under Ana. Then you came in and took a look at the system and knew intuitively how to make it run faster and smarter. You didn’t need years to slowly tweak a system to run better. You immediately saw the bigger issues and how fixing them would make the smaller pieces work better.

  “Like how you knew when we got here what to send everyone off to do, even though you yourself had no idea what you could do to help.”

  “This is not a map with some trading posts on it, Daniel.” I pick up a rock and hurl it into the forest around us. “These are real people who are in real danger.”

  “And I’m not worried.”

  Voices drift over from the others. “Well, maybe we need Doc to check your head when we get back, because you are making some questionable decisions today. First you agree to marry me…again, and now you think I’m some wartime general from the history books.”

  Daniel grabs me around the waist and pulls me in to whisper in my ear. “Marrying you will go down in the history books as the smartest decision any man ever made.”

  He plants a light kiss on my forehead, then pulls back to look me right in the eyes. “This is exactly why the Cardinal sent you to the PIT in the first place. You have a moral compass that demands to be followed and an ability to find solutions where others only see problems. It’s time you start seeing yourself as the completely capable woman who stole my heart and terrifies the most powerful man alive.”

  I nod and pull his arms around me. For just a minute, I let myself relax into his embrace and forget that we’re standing in the middle of the forest about to attack a contingency of armed Cardinal guards. Daniel is right. And even if he’s not, we’re still here and these people still need our help.

  “The scouts are back.” Daniel and I create some distance between our joined bodies as Liam comes around the corner. “Sorry guys, I know this isn’t exactly an ideal honeymoon, but we need you back with the group.”

  Liam heads back toward the waiting scouts, but Daniel pulls me in for one last kiss. He breaks it off, his forehead leaning against mine. “That will have to do for now, but when we get back I plan to show you just how history book-worthy this marriage can be.”

  Thirty-One

  Ethan draws a crude map in the dirt with a twig. Liam holds a light stick down by the ground so we aren’t seen and everyone crowds around to get a look. “Looks like they are holding everyone in the main building.”

  “That’s the dining hall,” Mary cuts in. She hasn’t stopped bouncing on her toes since all the scouts returned.

  “Right. We checked out the other buildings on the main street and they are all silent. There is one guard in front of the dining hall. We can’t tell how many are inside.”

  “Was he armed?” Daniel asks from his spot next to me.

  “He had a gun. So much for the Cardinal’s assurance that they were all destroyed.”

  I turn to Eric. “Did you know about the guns?”

  “No, we only had shock sticks. He must only let his personal guard have them.”

  “We’ll just have to figure out a way around that.” I can’t let everyone get discouraged before we even get started. “What else did you see?”

  Carrie, the scout who went with Ethan, takes over. “While we were there, another guard came from a building over here.” She draws an X to the north of the dining hall. “He went inside the dining hall, and we could hear some shouting. A few minutes later, he came out with a man whose hands were tied behind his back and head hung down in front. The guard was kinda dragging him, so I think he was hurt pretty bad. They went into this building.” She taps the X.


  “The schoolhouse.” Mary can’t control her nerves. Her hands shake worse than a leaf in a thunderstorm.

  “Right.” Another scout, Thad, takes over from Carrie. “There was another guard outside the schoolhouse. No idea how many inside. We were able to get pretty close.” He pauses and rubs his hands along his neck. This isn’t going to be good news.

  “From the screams, I’d guess they are torturing them in there. They keep shouting your name over and over.” Thad looks up at me with pity.

  Daniel pulls me closer and steps back a bit from the map so we can expand the circle. “We have to assume the men in the schoolhouse haven’t given up any information on Rebecca and the rest of us. If they had, the guards wouldn’t still be here. We also have to assume that eventually one of them will break, so we need to move fast. The question is, how do we go in there against guns?”

  I squat down and study the miniature map of the village. The layout is straight forward and doesn’t offer any extra camouflage for us to go in unseen. The dining hall backs up to the forest, but that doesn’t do us any good. We can’t run in there without knowing what we’re up against and we don’t stand a chance against their weapons.

  What we need is a way to draw them out individually until we can gain the upper hand. There is a tipping point, we just have to find it.

  “Thad,” the scout moves over to the side of the circle where I stand with Daniel and Liam. “You know the traps you set out in the woods and around the chicken coops? The ones you use for the larger animals, pigs and such. Do you think you can build one of those here? Do you have what you need?”

  “Rope and a knife. I’ve got both in my saddle pack. What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I might be crazy, but crazy could be just what we need.”

  “I’ll go get them.” Thad hustles off to his horse, and Liam and Daniel close in.

  “What’s going on in that brain of yours?”

  “I’m thinking they have us outmatched with their weapons. We might outnumber them, but we can’t tell, and that’s not something we can risk. We can’t go in there and overwhelm them with mass force.”

  “So what do we do?” Liam keeps his voice low, but it’s tinted with fear.

  “We have to take them out one at a time. If we can disarm enough of them, we take the upper hand.”

  “And you think we can do that with one of Thad’s traps?”

  “That’s phase one.” I step out of our little threesome and back over to the main group. “Alright, everyone listen up. We have a lot of work to do and we need to move quickly while we still have darkness on our side. I have a plan.”

  Thirty-Two

  “Are you guys sure you want to do this?”

  Daniel and Thomas stand in front of me, their arms filled with pine cones, acorns, and rocks.

  “It’s your plan and someone has to do it.” Daniel nudges my foot with the toe of his shoe and tries to pass off a weak smile.

  “But do you have to be the ones potentially getting shot at?”

  “Don’t worry so much.” Thomas looks at me with complete confidence. “Your plan is a good one. Everything is going to be fine.”

  “It had better be. Constance will kill me if I don’t bring you back completely intact.” I give him a peck on the damaged side of his face, and he moves off into position.

  “It really is going to be fine.”

  “Really, Daniel? Is it really? Because I can think of at least three dozen ways this all goes horribly wrong, and in each of those scenarios you end up shot.”

  “Hey now—”

  “Just promise me you won’t get shot, okay?”

  “Okay, I promise I will not get shot. Good?”

  “Not even close, but I’ll have to live with it.” I reach up and give him a much more personal kiss than the one I gave Thomas. “Remember, disarm and capture only. Stay safe.”

  “I love you, too.”

  Daniel jogs off to join Thomas, and I have to move. Everyone is waiting on me.

  “Mary, is the building clear and ready?”

  The storage building next to the dining hall is the perfect place to watch my plan in action. I’ll be able to see everything going on from the second story window.

  “All clear.”

  “Perfect, now you and your team get back to Jacob’s rocks. We need everyone as far away from here as possible and all hands on deck to keep the horses calm if any shots are fired.”

  She hesitates a minute, her eyes glued to the back door of the dining hall.

  “Mary, we have a plan, and it’s our best shot to get everyone out of there alive.”

  She gives the back door one more glance and heads deeper into the forest.

  “Where’s Thad?”

  “Right here,” he says from behind me. “The trap is set and ready. So long as they can lead the guard through here,” he uses his hand to slice through a section of darkness between the buildings, “the trap should spring.”

  “There are a lot of variables in there, but I guess that’s the best we can ask for.” I squeeze his shoulder. “Thank you. Now get back with others.”

  Thad nods and heads into the pitch black forest. For a half second I’m alone, then Ethan walks out of the tree line.

  “You ready?” he asks.

  “For what? To risk the lives of a hundred or so people in Arbor Glen along with my husband of less than twenty-four hours and our new family on one of the craziest plans ever cooked up?” I shrug my shoulders. “Sure, why not?”

  “In that case,” he pulls open the back door to the storage building, “after you.”

  We make our way silently up the stairs and find the eastern window. Without any lights from the village, everything below is a solid mass of shades of black.

  I wait a few minutes to make sure Mary and Thad both have time to get back to the main group.

  “This is crazy, right?” I stare out the pitch black window and try not to envision all the ways this goes south.

  “Oh yeah, completely nuts.”

  “Big help, Ethan.” I shake out my hands. “I’m terrified.”

  “So what?”

  “You know, for the guy who normally can’t stop talking, you’re not really giving me much here.”

  Ethan grabs my shoulders so I face him, though I can barely make out his outline in the dark. “I could try to talk you out of your fear, but we both know that would be a colossal waste of breath. Go ahead and be afraid. There’s a lot on the line here.” He gives my shoulders a quick squeeze. “Just don’t let that fear hold you back.”

  I nod, though he can’t see me. “Okay, give the signal.”

  Ethan leans out the open window and cups his hands around his mouth. If I weren’t standing right next to him I’d swear there was a caged bird standing next to me instead of Ethan.

  Even though I can’t see them, I picture Daniel and Thomas scooting closer to the guard at the front porch. I keep my eyes trained on the front of the building watching for signs of movement.

  I can’t see anything, but I can hear it. At first, it’s just the quiet mutterings of an angry guard, but as the attack of acorns continues, his voice grows louder. I hold my breath until finally he knocks on the front door. The pounding on wood echoes through the still night.

  Another guard opens the door and a flood of light pours out. Their silhouettes have a conversation, but we’re too far away to hear any of it.

  They both step off the porch and head in the direction of the flying acorns and rocks. Crap, crap, crap. One guard we could trap and disarm, but how in the world are they going to handle two? There’s only one trap and that means another fully armed guard able to shoot Daniel or Thomas.

  They move out of the light of the building, and I’m blind again. Every once in a while I think I might see movement, but everything blends together in shadows.

  I can’t see or hear anything other than the shallow breathing of Ethan next to me. I grab at his arm. There is no abort sig
nal. Once the plan went into motion, there was no way to stop it. I can’t even warn them that everything is completely off course. I’m powerless to do anything but wait for the inevitable.

  Someone shouts and then the silence is instantly replaced with way too much noise. Shouting and snapping branches and a bang, followed by more shouting. Ethan and I jump for the stairs at the same time. He beats me down and out the back door, but only by seconds.

  “Daniel,” I whisper his name into the pitch black as loud as I can. “Daniel, where are you?”

  “Rebecca.” Daniel’s voice is off to my right, somewhere between the buildings.

  “Daniel,” I run in his direction and trip on a branch, landing face-first in the dirt.

  Strong arms grab me around my upper arms and push me into the ground. “Stay down.” Daniel’s voice is gruff in my ear.

  Ethan is at my side in seconds, followed quickly by Liam, who obviously ignored my instructions to wait at the rocks.

  Daniel’s breathing is heavy next to my ear. “Someone needs to go to Thomas. He went to check the trap, but he’s out there alone.”

  “On it.” Liam doesn’t stop to ask questions. He moves, hunched over into the darkness until we can’t see him anymore.

  I lean in closer to Daniel. “Why didn’t you go with Thomas?”

  “You need to stay quiet until we know what is going on.”

  Something isn’t right, but this isn’t the time. If the second guard is still armed, the darkness is our only defense out here.

  Footsteps crunch through the grass right toward us and I can make out four figures marching in our direction. Two in the front with hands up and two in back. I just can’t tell which pair is which.

  “Daniel, are you okay?”

  Thomas and Liam walk up with guns trained on the backs of the guards’ heads.