I quickly glanced at Montgomery who simply stared at me with wide eyes. He didn’t seem to know any more than I did, and if he did, he’d pay for not telling me. But I didn’t have time to deal with this game.
I needed to find Portia!
I ran out of the room and sprinted outside. My gut told me where she was, and when I looked off in the distance where the old Oleander Cemetery was on the top of a hill by a weeping willow, I saw torches lit up.
Sick motherfuckers put her in the cemetery to join all the ancestors of the Order.
I had never run so fast in my life as I did that moment. I couldn’t hear her screams. Which meant only one thing.
They’d buried her alive.
The burning torches lit the way, and the disturbed earth told me exactly where I needed to dig. Of course the bastards didn’t leave me a shovel or anything, so I had no choice but to fall to my knees and start frantically digging with my hands.
“Hold on, Portia,” I screamed, not sure if she would be able to hear me.
I would have kept screaming to her, but I knew I was on camera as well and the entire Order watched on as I tried to save my belle. I wouldn’t give them a show, and if I’d known where the damn camera was, I would have crushed it to pieces.
I dug and dug, struggling to breathe as if I too were buried beneath the ground right beside Portia. I made progress but not fast enough. There was another living being beneath me, and the thought of what she must be experiencing right now was a level of fear I couldn’t even process.
I clawed at the ground with so much force that my fingertips bled, my nails lifted off the nailbeds, but nothing would stop how fast and furious I removed the pounds of dirt piled on top of her. They would have had to kill me to actually stop me. But just as I was beginning to panic my hands wouldn’t be enough, and I considered running to the house to find a shovel, my fingers made contact with wood.
“Portia,” I called out just as I heard her muffled screams. She was alive. Thank fucking god for that. “Hold on. Hold on!”
She was alive. I kept reminding myself of it. But at the same time, the Order had no intention of killing her. They just wanted to break her.
And after this…
She sure as fuck would be broken.
I paused for a split second before lifting the lid, worried that too much dirt would fall on her, but I couldn’t think of any other way. I needed to get her out of this hole.
“Sully! Sully!” I could hear her scream as she continued to pound on the lid.
“If you can cover your face, do,” I yelled against the wooden coffin. “I’m opening it.”
Without waiting for a response, I removed the cover and pulled her shivering, naked body from hell.
In one swift motion, I lifted her out of the grave and held her so tightly against me that I could be the next one found guilty of suffocating her.
She sobbed against my shoulder, and I could do nothing more than stroke her back and kiss her dirty head.
“I’m sorry, so sorry. So sorry…” I kept repeating over and over. Every single minute she’d remained in that grave made me feel like a failure. I’d been so slow pulling on these stupid fucking clothes. If only I’d just yanked them on, they would have turned on the video quicker and I would have known. I could have gotten to her sooner.
She clung to me and once the sobs ceased, she pulled away and looked at me with wide eyes against dirt-covered skin. “Never be sorry. You saved me. You came and dug me out. I knew you would. I knew.”
When her body trembled beneath my hands that refused to ever let her go again, I quickly removed my jacket and wrapped it around her. Just as I did, I heard a sound that nearly caused me to become homicidal.
The thumping of canes as the entire Order made their way up the hill like snakes slithering in the dark. Over and over canes pounded against earth as they began to chant something in Latin. Haunting voices, beady black eyes that were illuminated by the flicker of the flaming torches, and the stench of absolute insane madness.
The enemy had made its claim on my soul, and I refused to let them take it from me without a fight. With fury in my blood, I let go of a trembling Portia and charged through the darkened haze of evil and punched the first man who I felt deserved it the most.