C. Redwine - Deception

“Keep going,” I say to Jodi. “Pick up anyone you can fit into the wagon and get to safety.”

“What about you?” she asks.

“I’m going to stop Carrington.”

I grab three jars of glycerin and one of acid, and then move away from the wagon. The lead soldiers are less than fifteen yards away from me. I unscrew the first jar of glycerin and spill its contents on the boards at my feet while the unsteady creaking of Jodi’s wagon wheels fades into the distance.

I’m spilling the contents of the second glycerin jar when Thom reaches me.

“I’ll do that.” His feet thud against the planks as he dismounts. “Give me the jars.”

I shake my head and unscrew the third. Carrington is closing in on the one-half mark. The shudders running through the bridge’s frame are slowing them down, but still they’ll be on me in another minute.

“Make sure all of our people get to solid ground,” I say. “Yell to me when the bridge is clear.”

“And then what? You die?” he asks.

“Hopefully not, but it’s a possibility.” The contents of the third jar arc through the air and splash onto the planks a few yards in front of me.

I need a wide base for this explosion.

Thom grabs the fourth jar from my hands, and unscrews the lid.

“Thom, please. Get on the horse. Get everyone off the bridge.”

“Get on the horse yourself. I’m doing this.” His voice is calm.

“No, you aren’t. I’m a strong swimmer.”

“Don’t figure I’ll need to know how to swim,” Thom says, and the finality in his voice stops me dead.

Carrington reaches the halfway mark and the bridge dips and sways, sending a few of them into the pillars and nearly bringing me to my knees. Thom grabs my cloak and holds me upright. I stare at him, at the pale sheen to his skin, the dilated pupils in his brown eyes, and I realize he means to die.

For me.

“They’re almost here. We don’t have time to argue. You aren’t sacrificing yourself for me, Thom. I have a good chance of surviving. Please—”

“You have almost no chance of surviving, and the group needs you.”

The insistent slap of Carrington boots against the planks comes closer. Thom upends the fourth jar of glycerin and coats the planks behind him.

A sense of sick desperation wells up within me. “The group needs us both. Go back, Thom. Please .”

He meets my eyes, and pulls the sleeve of his tunic up to his elbow. A bouquet of purple-black bruises mottles the underside of his arm.

“I’m a walking dead man, Logan. Let me die with dignity. I want my life to count for something bigger than myself.”

“Thom,” I whisper. My throat closes, and my eyes burn. This quiet, hardworking man deserves better than this. I hold his gaze for another few seconds as gratitude and regret twist through me until I can’t tell the difference, and then hand him the jar of acid. “Your life already counts for something bigger than yourself. I couldn’t have come this far without you. You’re a hero. Even before you blow up this bridge, you’re a hero.”

Grief is a tight band across my chest, and I clasp Thom’s shoulder as Carrington’s soldiers reach the glycerin-soaked planks. Then I lunge for the horse, pull myself into the saddle, and hammer the first soldier with the hilt of my sword.

His partner attacks, sword flashing. I parry, thrust, block, and stab. The horse dances in place, the bridge shudders and moans, and over my shoulder, I see the last of the Baalboden survivors reach solid ground.

I spur the horse into the next two soldiers, hacking and chopping with my sword to build a perimeter around Thom.

“Logan, go,” Thom says. “Go!”

He holds the open jar of acid above his head. The planks around him are a glycerin-soaked bomb waiting for a spark. I kick another soldier into the men behind him, and whip the horse around.

Thom meets my eyes and nods.

I can hardly speak around the grief that suffocates me. “Thank you,” I say, and spur the horse into a gallop toward the end of the bridge.

Ahead of me, solid ground is less than ten yards away.

Behind me, Thom’s voice rises in a tremendous roar of fury.

“For Baalboden!” he yells.

I twist in my saddle and see him throw the acid onto the planks at his feet. There’s a split second of silence as the liquid splashes through the air, and then the bridge explodes, sending a hail of wood, metal, and bodies to the river below.

“No!” Frankie spurs his horse forward and meets me as my mount leaps onto solid ground. I duck against the horse’s flank as chunks of debris slice into the surrounding trees. A hole the size of two wagons lined up end to end rips the bridge in two. The shorter piece, the one closest to us, remains solid. The longer piece, bereft of support and filled with soldiers, twists slowly in the air as if at any moment, it might rip free of the few pillars that still hold it in place.

Huge freckled hands reach for me and haul me out of the saddle.

“He doesn’t know how to swim. Do you hear me?” Frankie shakes me like I weigh nothing. “He doesn’t know how to swim.”

Letting go of me, he rushes to the edge of the drop-off and stares into the pile of wreckage and bodies littering the river below. “Thom!” he screams. “Thomas Kocevar, you get out of that water. You raise your head right now. Thom!”

A flash of golden skin runs by us, and suddenly Willow soars off the cliff’s edge. Jackknifing in midair, she splits the water between a slab of iron and a body dressed in red. Seconds later, the unsteady portion of the bridge rips free of its moorings with an earsplitting shriek of metal on metal and tumbles into the water below.

“Willow!” Quinn rushes to my side at the cliff’s edge, and we scan the river. “Willow!”

Bodies flail in the water, but all of them are wearing red. Another kind of red is spreading in an ever-widening circle from the epicenter of the bridge’s fall. The current tugs at the wash of crimson and slowly pushes it downstream until everywhere we look the water runs red with the blood of its victims.

Willow doesn’t surface. Neither does Thom.

“She’s a strong swimmer,” I say. “Give her more time. She’ll be okay.”

But time passes, and she still doesn’t surface. Two Carrington soldiers haul themselves out of the water and flop onto the bank on our side. A handful do the same on the opposite bank.

Willow is nowhere to be found.

Quinn makes a strangled noise in his throat, grabs Frankie’s cloak, and throws him against a tree. Frankie raises his meaty arms, but Quinn plows a fist into his stomach and then pins him to the tree trunk with his forearm across Frankie’s throat.

“Are you satisfied now?” Quinn yells. “Are you?”

Frankie’s face turns red, and his lips move, but nothing comes out. I grab Quinn’s shoulder.

“Let him go, Quinn.”

Quinn ignores me and leans closer to Frankie. His dark eyes are cold and furious. “From the moment we joined your group, you’ve done nothing but degrade us and cast false accusations at us. Do you know why Willow jumped into the river? To prove you wrong.”

Frankie gurgles, and his lips begin turning blue. He punches and kicks at Quinn, but Quinn parries the blows with swift, graceful movements, never once releasing Frankie’s throat. It’s like watching a cat toy with a mouse already half-dead.

“Quinn, you’re killing him. Let him go,” I say.

“She jumped in to prove you wrong. Not because she cares what you think of her, but because she cares what you think of me .” His voice is calm. Deadly. The voice of a predator who knows his prey is helpless. “Your opinion isn’t worth her life. You aren’t worth her life.”