TWENTY-FIVE
Decima
I easeddown into the sewer tunnel on the far side of the pond, using an entrance behind a small maintenance building. The stench hit me fast. I started breathing strictly from my mouth as I eased my way down the ladder and into the humid corridors.
Thank God it hadn’t rained in the past week, or this excursion could have been a lot messier.
The heat sent sweat trickling down my back. My shoes squelched onto the ledge alongside the channel of sludge, but I didn’t allow myself to glance at whatever nasty things I’d stepped on.
It didn’t matter. All that mattered was confirming that Noelle was alive—and then working with her to carry out the mission I’d first set out on: destroying the people who’d slaughtered the closest thing we had to a family.
Those people being the four men I’d spent most of the past week with.
My stomach tied itself into knots. I wasn’t usually all that anxious when I got down to work, not after all my years of practice, but this situation was like nothing I’d dealt with before.
Noelle would straighten it all out. Noelle would see the way through. She’d always been there to point me in the right direction and make sure I was prepared. Why would now be any different?
Assuming it really was Noelle, and this wasn’t some horrible trick.
I approached the meeting spot quietly, avoiding piles of waste that’d collected along the edges of the rounded tunnel. I wanted to get a good look at whoever was waiting for me before I showed myself. My footfalls were silent, so as a slender, muscular woman’s figure came into sight in the wide alcove up ahead where a few different tunnels joined, I had time to analyze her.
While I remained cloaked in darkness, hazy light seeped over the woman from a grate high overhead. From the back, her shoulder-length salt-and-pepper hair looked just as familiar as it always had. She stood with a typically rigid posture, both hands clasped behind her back. Then she turned her head, revealing her profile, and my shoulders sagged with pure relief.
There was no doubt that the woman before me was Noelle. I wasn’t alone in this mess. Everything could go back to—well, not normal, but closer to normal than the craziness of recent days.
“Noelle,” I called out, stepping closer.
She whipped around, and her cool, hardened eyes—so ready to take down any threat—soothed me. Finally, I had someone on my side.
My steps sped up as she looked me up and down.
“Where have you been all this time?” she asked in her usual demanding tone, as if this were a regular meeting and I’d shown up late for a training session. “It took days for you to get your hands on that phone, and practically another day to answer me.”
Her voice echoed through the tunnel, and I nearly flinched at the accusation I heard in it. I stopped in my tracks, still several feet away from her. “I didn’t have the opportunity right away,” I said. “There’s a lot I need to tell—"
Noelle didn’t let me continue. “Why did you leave the household at all? Your orders are always to remain in your rooms unless otherwise instructed.”
The knots in my stomach came back, tighter than before. This wasn’t the reunion I’d pictured. I hadn’t expected hugs and fawning praise, of course, because that’d never been Noelle’s approach, but I’d thought she’d be relieved to see me too. Concerned about what I’d been through. Upset about the deaths we hadn’t been able to prevent. Angry, yes, but at the people who’d carried out the massacre.
Instead, she only appeared to be annoyed with me, as if I’d veered off track on an assignment I’d already had a playbook for. As if nothing had been lost but my obedience to instructions she’d never actually given me.
It felt… wrong.
My legs stayed locked in place. “I didn’t have a choice. Everyone was dead. I couldn’t save any of them. I thought you were dead too. The only thing I could think to do was track down the people responsible.”
Isn’t that what you’d have wanted?something in me said, but I didn’t ask the question out loud. The answer was obviously no.
Anger crackled through Noelle’s words now, but it was directed at me. “One of the first lessons you learned was to keep to your part of the house. You weren’t given permission.”
Given permission? Did she really think I should have stayed put after I’d seen what had happened in the rest of the mansion—that any sane person would have pretended all was well? How could I have known there was anything or anyone to wait for?
My uneasiness prickled deeper into my skin. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, instinctively testing the surface beneath me. “I didn’t think I needed permission in a situation like that,” I said. “And—and I had it anyway. Anna opened my door. She told me to leave.”
Leave. Find somewhere safe.I hadn’t followed the second part of those orders all that well, but I wasn’t sure that was my fault.
Noelle’s lips curled into what I could only describe as a sneer. “Anna wasn’t responsible for your security. Anna was your cook and your housekeeper. She was useless. I’m the one who makes the real calls about where you go and what you do.”
I knew that Noelle was a cold woman, but I’d always thought that if my life were in danger—if I were in a perilous situation—she’d be there to help me. Judging by the way she looked at me now, that wasn’t the case after all. She didn’t seem to care about anyone.