“No,” Maeve said, grabbing Nora’s hand. “We aren’t going.”
I covered my face with my hands. Days ago, I’d accepted Sully’s death and was trying to get on with life. That was no longer possible. If anything, life had gotten more complicated with his return.
Catherine
Sully stood just inside the threshold, jacket shredded, face a map of fresh bruises. He didn’t bother hiding the raw, open burn at his left wrist—the bandage was already brown and weeping through. He didn’t try to talk over anyone. Never did. He let the room wind itself up, waiting for the break.
“We have to go. Now. The others are waiting.” Sully’s voice was dull, not the kind that begged for sense, just stating facts.
Maeve let loose again. “You’re not dragging my sister out in the black with the soldiers still sweeping the town. There are three English patrols between here and the old graveyard, and that’s just what we know. We’ve already left Mam and Da in danger. You want to lose us, too?”
“It’s safer with us than here,” Sully said.
She barked a laugh, sharp as a slap. “Says the dead man with the bounty on his head.”
Sully took a breath, wiped at his chin where the blood had clotted, and said, “It’s not just the Redcoats. There’s something else coming. If we wait, we lose the only chance.”
Maeve squared up, voice low and vicious. “You always think you know best, don’t you, O’Toole? You show up with your stories, your scars, and your plans. You expect us to drop everything, to follow you like sheep.”
He flinched. A real, naked flinch. I saw it. She didn’t.
“You don’t know what’s waiting,” he said, quieter. “You don’t—” He looked at me, then away. “You don’t know what happens if we stay.”
“What, we all end up like you?” She spat it out, like it tasted sour.
I started to say something, but my throat dried up. I felt Sully’s eyes on me, and for a second I thought he’d throw a punch, or walk out, or maybe even cry. Instead, he just stood there, bleeding all over the stone, like a statue someone forgot to finish.
Nora’s voice, barely audible: “I want to go.”
Maeve shot her a look. “Don’t you start. You’re too young for this.”
“I’m older than you were when you ran off with Seamus Donovan,” Nora said, maybe louder than she’d meant.
Sully’s hand went to his side, not for comfort but for the blade he didn’t have. I hated how natural it looked. I hated that it comforted me.
Maeve started pacing, five steps up and five back, always keeping me in the crosshairs. “You’ve always been stubborn, Cat. Always did what you wanted, no matter the cost. But this—” She gestured at Sully, at the ruined jacket and the blood, “—this is madness.”
“I’d rather be mad than dead,” I said.
“Funny,” she snapped, “I’d rather you be neither.”
Sully finally spoke, but it wasn’t to Maeve or me. He said, “We go to the graveyard. We meet the others. Then we figure the rest. If you want to stay, Maeve, stay. But Catherine and Nora come with me.”
Maeve’s face went red, then white. “You don’t get to take my sisters,” she hissed.
He didn’t move, but I saw his fingers curl.
“I’m not taking them,” Sully said. “I’m saving them.”
“From what?” Maeve demanded. “From the English? From the famine? From yourself?”
“From what’s coming,” he said, and the room felt ten degrees colder.
I could hear the tick of the old clock, slow and hollow. I rolled the leather cord, round and round, felt the pulse in my fingertip go numb.
Maeve spun on me, voice gone soft and savage. “You want this? You want to walk out with him, leave me here alone? You want to die together, like some cursed fairy tale?”
I looked at her, at the dark rings under her eyes, the scar at her brow that never healed right. She was my sister, but she never understood. I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. So I did the only thing that ever worked. I told the truth. “I might be carrying his child,” I said.