Page 524 of Coal Hearts

“Me too.” Mollie nodded. “I’m willing to take the gamble in order to get more manpower. Who knows...maybe even a guard or two would be approachable.”

“Crap on a cracker.” Rachel buried her face into her hands. “You’re both as crazy as each other.”

“And crazy is what’s needed,” Mollie muttered.

Wrapping my arms around Rachel, I whispered in her ear. “I’m not going to let you have your baby in here, okay? We’ll be smart. We’ll only tell the ones we have a good feeling about, and...we just have to hope karma is on our side.”

Sagging against me, Rachel nodded reluctantly. “I knew going into this it would be risky. I’m not gonna back down now.”

Pulling away, I looked at both girls. “The moment you guys covered for Henri when Victor interrogated us was the moment you ensured luck will favour us. I know it. We’ll get out. We’ll get everyone out. You’ll see. And if we don’t? Well, I’m going to fight the whole damn way.”

Chapter Sixteen

...............................

Henri

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THE CURSE OF BLOOD & DARKNESS

by

Henri Mercer

I’ve always liked to read.

I can still remember my first book as if it were yesterday.

A boy, who sat in the desk next to me at school, forgot his thick fantasy book as he chucked everything into his backpack the moment the bell rang on Friday afternoon. All the kids bolted toward the weekend. Most of them ran home to families and friends, their days full of adventure and fun.

Me...I didn’t rush.

I hated weekends.

I hated my quiet house and silent mother. I’d amble around the village when the silence got too much and usually ended up at the beach till way past bedtime.

She never grounded me.

Didn’t even care to ask where I’d been when I finally walked through the door.

But all of that changed the day I borrowed that book and took it home.

I vanished into the pages and traded my life for that of a man who didn’t know he was a Seeker. I struggled with some of the English words, my mind slowly trading French for a different language. Even at my snail’s pace, I finished by Monday and returned it to the boy despite wanting very much to keep it. He thanked me profusely for finding it, letting slip that he’d stolen it from his older brother because he’d overheard him saying some woman called a Confessor was hot.

I look back now and see what I missed when I was thirteen.

The strangest pang in my body when he mentioned an older brother. The quickest memory of siblings that felt familiar before vanishing just as quick.

Thanks to him, I found a way to cope with my weekends and spent every hour in the local library from then on. I read every book in The Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind and fell in love with words because they were never silent or cold. They were messy and chaotic, giving me pages full of friends, enemies, lovers, and homes.

Reaching for the ice-cold beer an inconspicuous staff member had left for me on the side table where I wrote in the library, I swallowed a tart mouthful.

Even this short break.

Even this micro-pause where I returned to reality—everything inside me howled and snarled and left me in the eye of the hurricane that hadn’t stopped blowing.

Every time I slipped back into the present, the darkness snatched me quickly.