The dinner was silent. Nobody spoke, and nobody offered acknowledgment to the other. They silently placed food in their mouths, staring into the fire. With three of their members gone, the camp felt empty.
Skylar had a glare set hard on her face, her knuckles white as she gripped the spoon in her hands. She hadn’t spoken a word since they had run from the prison, her fists never unclenching.
As Adalene glanced over at Peter and Alice, she saw that they were cuddled up together, their faces sad as they sat in silence. They didn’t look at each other but she could tell they were silently comforting each other.
Nothing like this had happened before. Sure, they had all been in the custody of the Dueglesteiners before, but it was usually a hostage situation in a camp with incompetent fools who only knew that it was their mission to capture the children. And most of the time, it was just one or two of the members of their group.
Not half of them.
Adalene feared for the others. They were out of their reach, locked in a fortress that they had just barely escaped from. And even worse, Adalene knew who was at the helm. They were in the hands of a dangerous man, a man who was the descendant of the destroyer of her land. The blood that ran through his veins was built from war, and he had the same thirst for death and the cunning of a fox.
And now Luke, Richard, and Helen were trapped in a prison with him in charge.
Adalene should have stopped them. She should have warned them of the dangers that the fortress held. But she knew they wouldn’t listen. These children listened with their hearts, not their heads. They would not stop until they saved everyone they could.
But she could not dwell on such things as the past. Adalene knew now what she had to do. She had known for quite some time, now, although she had held a great fear within her when she had learned. But everything was telling her that she had to do this.
The fight with the Rising Sun, Christine’s warnings, and now this. Now that they had lost three of their own to this prison, Adalene was ready. She still did not know how she would do what she planned to do, but she knew that it was her duty.
She wondered if this was how her mother felt in her final days. A sense of peace and resolve as she looked into the face of death. Perhaps that was what wisdom was. The courage to face your own demise.
Flexing her fingers, Adalene stared down at her mother’s ring. Yes. She knew she was ready now. Even with the ache in her bones and the blood that would run from her nose whenever she pushed herself now, Adalene still had her strength. What little she had left.
She needed that strength now, in order to save the children. Adalene looked over at Alice once again, guilt filling her conscience as she remembered what she had told her. It must have been killing Alice, to know that Adalene could die at any moment. She regretted telling her, but she knew that someone had to know. And Adalene trusted Alice more than anybody.
She just hoped she could trust her after this was all over to protect the rest of them. Adalene knew now that they would have to take care of each other without her...
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