Page 61 of Fate of the Fallen

“I think we should run for it,” Beth spoke up.

Her head popped up from behind the pew, covered by what, after a week without brushing, was now a blonde nest. Her skin and hair took on the oddly spaced red, blue and green geometric shapes of the stained-glass windows surrounding us. Beneath our knees where we crouched, the torn pages from the congregation’s hymnals and debris from years of abandonment, looters, and stray animals.

“What if we were supposed to go further out?” she asked next. “Someplace further away. Someplace outside this godforsaken town.”

Errol didn’t budge as he shook his head. “We can’t risk moving again. They’ll find us. I put the red strip on the knob like they said to do, so … they’ll find us,” he repeated.

While I, too, felt a bit vulnerable here, I agreed with Errol’s logic. I was certain that, if we left again, we might not be as lucky as when we fled from the prison.

“We’ll just … wait here, and someone will come,” was Errol’s attempt at a comforting word.

So, for now, we were basically stuck here, but at least we had each other.

“Got food on you by any chance?” Beth asked. When prompted, Errol proceeded to dig into the pocket of the dark hoodie he wore. My eyes lit up with hope he’d come out with something good, but it was only gum—one measly stick at that.

It disappeared from his fingers and was split between us before he could even offer it. We hadn’t eaten since the day before and even when the guardsdidfeed us, it was mostly table scraps from their own meals. So, yeah, a stick of gum was like a buffet to us at the moment.

We were plunged into silence, hearing only the commotion that went on outside and our own light scuffling over the mess that covered the floor. I was just going to see what other info Errol had to share when Beth spoke up instead.

“So … you’re kind of like a spy, huh?”

Errol glanced at her and nodded. “I guess you could say that.”

“Impressive,” Beth added with a smile, and there was no missing the redness that tinted Errol’s entire face when she did.

“It beat having to return to my hometown, pretending like being at Damascus didn’t change my life,” he replied. “I know we didn’t get to stay for the full experience, but it still impacted me in a big way.”

“Big enough for you to risk your life saving us tonight,” Beth observed.

This time, Errol was slow to speak, keeping his eyes trained on her.

“Yeah … I guess you could say that.”

These two were so much alike—competitive, fearless, loyal. Heck, he hadn’t seen Beth in months, but he still thought nothing of coming to our aid tonight.

“So … when whoever you take orders from told you to help us, did you know who we were?” she asked next.

Errol smiled a bit. In my opinion, there were very few things that could make a guy smile at a girl in a situation like this. He had to have some pretty intense feelings for her, which I suspected to be true.

“I uh … I saw you the day the soldiers brought you two in. Your eyes were covered, so it took me a sec to convince myself I wasn’t seeing things, but … then I knew,” he shared. “Actually, even before orders came down, I was already working on a plan to break you guys free. But let’s just say I was incredibly grateful when I got the order and realized I wouldn’t be on my own. Having an entire army behind you makes things a bit easier.”

Beth smiled at that. “Well, I’m glad it was you.”

I smiled, too, watching them dance around their feelings, still too focused on the mission to own them. The most I could do was hope they’d get a chance to explore them once this all blew over.

The sweet moment between them was shattered into a million pieces when a soul-crushing roar filtered beneath the door, through the walls themselves. It didn’t sound like any of the others that had torn through the area tonight. It was … different.

“What the heck was that?” Errol asked, his eyes widening when he seemed to reach the same conclusionIhad. Whatever made that noise wasn’t your average, everyday shifter.

I swallowed hard as a thought passed through my head. I was quickly reminded of a lycan. One who wasfarfrom ordinary.

“I think … I … that’s … that has to be Nick,” I stammered, hating how prevalent the presence of terror was in my voice. “Sebastian must have set him free.”

For a time, Sebastian seemed hellbent on laying claim to the child I carried. He must have changed his mind about how much trouble I was worth or maybe even thought he’d just use Nick to find me and bring me out of hiding. Only, if that was the case, he’d grossly underestimated the hold this curse had on Nick.

Because, if he found me, he’d kill me.

“We have to hide her someplace else,” Beth said in a rush. “Someplace safer than this. He’ll hear her heartbeat and then come straight for her.”