Poison Princess (25 page)

It was quiet. Still.

Tears dropped, soaking the collar of her nightgown.
“Come back, Mama,”
I whispered, praying that I'd hear a heartbeat stutter to life or feel her take a breath.

Still.

“We need to go,” Jackson said from behind me.

Leave my mother?

“Evie, there's no reason for you to stay now.”

I rose unsteadily, narrowing my blurry gaze at him. “She was getting better. And then you show up, and you want us to leave. . . .” Wiping my eyes, I demanded, “What did you do to her?”

He said nothing, his expression shuttered.

“What did you do?”
I flew at him, pummeling his chest.

“I didn't do anything!” He just stood there, letting me hit him. “I came in this morning, and she was like this.” Finally he caught my wrists. “She'd injured something inside her.”

We'd suspected that, but . . . “How could
you
know that?”

“You think I ain't been kicked in the ribs enough to know an internal injury? Crawling to a hospital on Sunday mornings, me?”

“B-but she was recovering! And now . . . now she's . . .
d-dead
.” I sobbed that word.

“She's been dying for days. And she knew it! She was asking promises of me last night for a reason.”

Some distant, rational part of me knew that he was right. Her injury couldn't possibly have gotten worse. I recalled the what-if questions. She'd tried so hard to get Jackson to like me—to want to take care of me. And she'd asked promises of me as well.

Because she'd known she was running out of time.

With no one to blame, my rage abandoned me. My legs gave way, and I slumped to the floor.

Jackson just . . . stared at me, as if he'd never seen grief. Instead of comforting me, he said, “You're leaving here with me in the next ten minutes.” Then he strode to Mom's jewelry armoire and started shoving jewels into his pockets.

My mother lay dead, and he was ransacking her belongings. “What is
wrong
with you?” I cried. “Show some respect!”

He turned on me, yanking me to my feet. “I intend to. By saving her daughter's ass. We're goan to need things to trade. You just let me be the bad guy that rifles through the dead woman's jewels, yeah? I'll get my hands dirty, so you woan have to.” He dragged me into my room, scanning the area. “Damn it, Evie! You didn't pack?”

I hadn't been about to pack for me but not for Mom, and I hadn't wanted to wake her.

Had she already been dead?

He stormed into my closet, hauling a suitcase out. “Clothes in here.
Now!
”

“I c-can't leave Mom like that! We have to b-bury her.”

He scowled as if I'd said something absurd. Then he went to work on my own jewels, filching heirloom brooches and pearls. “You got anything else of value in this house?”

Confusion. “I-I don't . . .”

“Gold bars, windup timepieces, any guns I didn't see last night?”

I could only stare at him.

Cursing me in French, he yanked a clothes drawer out, dumping its contents into my bag before seizing another drawer.

Wordlessly, I watched him fill my suitcase, then force it shut.

Bag in one hand, my upper arm in his other, he started hauling me down the steps.

But he didn't understand. I'd never leave my mother as she was. “Help me with her, Jackson.”

“We doan have
time
to do right by her. I got other things I have to take care of.”

“Please, Jack.”

“Those men are coming. As soon as the winds die, you'll hear the scouts fire guns into the air, and then the whole damned army'll start grinding forward. They'll take you, and there woan be a damn thing I can do about it.”

At the foot of the stairs, I thrashed against him. “I'm not leaving her here like this! Especially not if they're as evil as you say.”

His eyes darted. “You'll go with me if I bury her?”

When I nodded, he jerked his bandanna up over his mouth and nose, yanked the bracing off the front door, then plunged into the windstorm.

As he raced toward the barn, I followed dumbly, covering my own face.

He emerged with a shovel, and I thought he would dig right there, but he found a spot beneath the windmill, where Gran's rose garden had once been.

After removing his crossbow, he stabbed that shovel into the earth. Ash erupted, swirling in the winds.

As he dug deeper, he railed at me in French, telling me that I was more trouble than I was worth, that we didn't have the luxury of burying loved ones, that if I didn't get stronger I wouldn't survive out there.

Feeling as disconnected from reality as I had during those last days of school, I sank down, nodding vacantly while he cursed me and shoveled.

Soon his forehead was beading with sweat, dripping down to wet the cloth over his face. Just as I wondered if his hands were getting blistered from the gritty shovel handle, he adjusted his grip.

Bloody palm prints now stained the wood. Had his new blisters given way?

“This is the stupidest
coo-yôn
move I've ever made.” He seemed driven,
crazed
to get this done. He increased his pace until blood ran freely down the handle.

Yet then . . . the winds died down.

Ash settled over us like snow. We both squinted up. Gradually, the sky became unbroken blue. A forced smile.

We were out of time. Those men would be here soon.

A gunshot popped in the distance, then another and another.

“Putain!”
Jackson ripped down his bandanna. “They're coming.”

“How far away are they?”

“We doan have long. Evie, I can't do right by your mother. If it's too shallow . . .” He trailed off, then snapped, “Damn it, I can't do right by her.” The way he was acting, you'd think he'd never failed at anything in his life. “She wouldn't want you to stay.”

“I-I know.” We had no choice but to leave her behind.

More guns went off, followed by rowdy yells. What sounded like a parade of trucks was rumbling our way. I shuddered when I heard a woman's
scream
—then male laughter.

I knew in that instant that everything Jackson had told me was true. “They really are as bad as you say?”

A quick nod.

I thought about poor Clotile. I thought about all the girls out there in danger because of this army. And I knew what I had to do. “I'll be back!”

“No! You can't . . .” Whatever he saw in my expression made him hold up two bloody fingers. “Two minutes, Evie.”

I stole inside the house, up the stairs. In my room, I collected my backpack, my flash drive of memories, and the necklace Brandon had given me. For some reason, Jackson had skipped over that one.

On my way out, I gazed at my room, at my trophies and paintings, committing them to memory.

In Mom's room, I sat beside her one last time. I collected the picture she held, then took her hand, smoothing it against my cheek, over my tears. “I swear to you, I-I will get to Gran's. I will figure out why everything went wrong. And I'll do anything I can to fix it.” With a whispered,
“I-I love you, Mama,”
I kissed her good-bye, pressing my lips to her forehead.

Leaving her behind was the hardest thing I'd ever had to do.

In moments, I knew I'd do something worse.

Jackson met me at the front door with a dangerous gleam in his eyes and a lighter offered up in his ragged palm.

I smelled gasoline, heard Allegra trotting a retreat away from the barn, neighing with nervousness.

The moment began to feel dreamlike, like I was outside my body. A haze fell over me.

“They can't see those crops, Evie. They'll come after you, tracking you. They woan stop. The crops have to burn, even if they're the last ones on earth.”

“Gas is . . . everywhere?” I stared at his face, at the startling gray of his fierce eyes.

He nodded.

“This is
my
home, Jackson. The only one I've ever known.” It had centuries of history, dreams both lost and found. “I'm not leaving it like this. Hand over that lighter.”

He cupped my nape, bringing our foreheads together. “I know this is your home,
ange,
but just listen to me—”

“No, you listen!” Fury made my voice low, my words like a hiss. I pulled back from him. “They can't
have it.
” I didn't want those centuries tainted by these murderers, didn't want them seeing my mother so vulnerable. They didn't get to touch our possessions or rape women in my bed.

I couldn't allow Haven to shelter that army, to help make that force even more powerful than it already was.

I'd already planned to burn my home down with my mother inside. Jackson had just been one step ahead of me.

“Now. Give me that lighter.”

His gaze widened, then narrowed on me. He cast me a look, as if we'd
finally
gotten on the same page. When he handed it over, he murmured,
“Ma bonne fille.”

I flicked the lighter and a flame danced; he took my free hand in his, readying to run.

With my heartbeat thundering in my ears and my blood racing through my veins, I whispered, “Jackson, I can make them grow again. . . .”

I dropped the lighter.

Once we were clear of the fire and any potential militia scouts, Jackson drove up on the parish levee, parking on the rise.

I stepped out of the car, shielding my gaze against the sun. From this vantage, I could see smoke billowing up from Haven.

My mother's funeral pyre.

Jackson muttered from behind me, “She's in a better place.” And that was all he said on the matter.

In this, I believed him completely.

As I gazed over the wasted horizon—at the ash-clogged mire that used to be a flowing bayou, at the sooty plains that were once verdant fields, at the angry flames rising from Haven—I reasoned that she
had
to be.

—The Empress is in play.—

I woke to the voices whispering this phrase again and again. Yet now these characters sounded different, more alert, maybe even a touch less
smug
?

I blinked open my puffy eyes, disoriented. It was dusk, the winds were still, and Jackson had just parked . . . in a shipyard? “Where are we?” Had I really slept the entire day away?

“Not nearly as far as I'd like to be. Still in Louisiana.”

“Why are we in a shipyard?” One that was on the banks of a dried-out bayou.

“People forget to loot the ships in dry dock. We're spending the night here.” As he got out of the car, he readied his crossbow. He clearly knew what he was doing with that weapon, was as comfortable with it as I'd once been with back handsprings.

I wondered who'd taught him to shoot.
Nécessité?

Before I could unbuckle my seat belt and climb out, he was at my door. “Stick to me like a shadow, you,” he ordered.

Though I bristled at his tone, I followed him as he stalked deeper into the yard.

“I like the look of that one, right there.” He pointed out a huge metal shrimp boat raised on a repair cradle, its paint blistered off.

“What's so special about it?”

“It'll take a ladder to reach the inside, and there's only one way in or out. Safe as a drum. Good money says there'll be canned food in the galley.”

In minutes, we'd found a ladder and were climbing to the ship. He grabbed my arm, hauling me aboard, then dragged the ladder up behind us.

As we stole across the deck, old shrimp, crab, and oyster shells crackled beneath our boots, but the sound seemed to please Jackson.

Inside, there was a spacious captain's cabin, and three smaller cabins with bunk beds already made up. At least we wouldn't have to sleep in the same room.