Page 40 of All Saints Day (Lucifer and the Saints #2)

Frank

I awake after the attack at the log cabin by the Windmill on a tidy white hospital bed in the sickbay at the Country Estate.

In a high-backed armchair beside my bed, Susan Lowry sits asleep—her neck at a painful angle as she balances her pointed chin in one of her worn hands. The soft sounds of her snoring are just audible beneath the mechanical beeping of the machines reading my vitals.

I reach for the plastic controller with the little rubberized buttons that will help raise my bed so I can sit upright without having to strain against my probably broken ribs.

I’m relieved, if not surprised, to see that I haven't been restrained.

If nobody from the Windmill saw me with a gun in hand—but rather only saw me once I'd played possum, laid prone beside the unconscious Louise as if I had fallen in an attempt to re-capture her—one might have been fooled into thinking that I had been an unwilling captive, uncooperative to the last.

It wasn't as if Lowry would be able to tell what had gone on since my capture—unless Louise had already decided to give me away since her recapture. Considering the circumstances, the Windmill likely had thought they’d regained their asset in taking me back to sickbay.

As uncomfortable as it is to consider, Lowry has clearly long considered me to be the powerful and ruthless alpha son that she had never had, while Phil and her biological son, Josh, disappointed her.

There was something about Rook, about Francis Stone, that Lowry could appreciate—a reflection of her own brutal nature that she saw as worthy to inherit her legacy.

When I had been younger—when Francis Castle had first wearily stumbled into Susan’s warm and comforting embrace—I had thought of her as a second chance. Not just at having a mother, but a family.

It wasn't until recently that I began to see just how much damage Susan had done—the havoc she wreaked upon my life.

How she allowed me to split myself, to become the shattered man that I am now, because it served her purposes.

Would she have been so cold with her own child? After seeing the way she treated Louise, a surrogate daughter, I can't help but think that I'm not special in this regard, that maybe it's Josh and Phil who made it out of this whole thing with the better deal.

Still, I can't deny—it's likely Susan's protection, her misguided affection for me that has saved me from the higher-up’s ire.

A double-edged sword, as I will undoubtedly have to re-prove my loyalties to the Windmill while still making an effort to keep Louise safe.

There's no question that the other Saints are already furiously planning a way to rescue her, a way to help Louise escape this horrible place.

I'm not so foolish as to think that there's a happy ending for me, but I can hold out hope that I can keep her safe long enough for the others to get here.

Then I'll do everything in my power to make sure that she gets out—to make sure she gets away.

Far, far away.

As if my thoughts have become too loud, Lowry stirs from her slumber, running a hand over her mouth as she stretches away her stiffness and fixes her cool blue eyes on me.

“How long have I been out of commission?” My voice is dry and scratchy from lack of use, and I know before she says anything that I must have been under for a while.

“Two days,” she answers on a yawn, stretching like a cat in a golden beam of sunlight.

I know without having to ask that they grabbed Louise. I can feel it—like a golden thorn snagging at the edges of my consciousness; she's somewhere nearby.

The urge to seek her out—to wrap my arms around Louise and take in her scent—is almost overwhelming.

Thankfully, Lowry and the others still only believe my interest in Louise is purely carnal; they don’t know anything about us being fated mates.

“Did you manage to snatch Louise?” I ask as casually as possible.

“We did. Those cowardly Saints ran off to save their own skins once again—they managed to make their way out—but like you, she succumbed to the gas before she could escape.”

I give a noncommittal shrug.

“Guess I'm pretty lucky that you found us when you did. I don't think that the Saints were planning on keeping me around for much longer considering I wasn't giving them any information,” I lie coolly.

Susan reaches out and gives my hand that doesn't have an IV in it a pat.

“Honestly.” Susan shakes her head. “It was kind of Mr. Beckett’s old colleague to drop a dime on you—but even if we hadn’t, with that tracker you recommended we install, it was relatively easy to find you,” she smiles warmly, the crow's feet at the corners of her eyes crinkling gently.

My blood runs cold, and my stomach clutches. A tracker? When did I have them outfit me with the tracker? Instantly, I am suspicious that this is Rook’s doing.

Susan knows about my altars, about the faces and masks I have created to keep myself intact .

One could argue that Susan helped fashion Rook with her own hands in the days after my father’s death—when I first joined the Windmill.

But I can't ask her which one of us came up with the idea without giving my surprise away now, so I just nod and follow the line of her gaze to a conspicuous scar on the inside of my left forearm that I had previously taken for just another battle wound.

That little trinket will have to come out—if I ever get out of here, that is. A problem for another day, another Frank.

“Now what? The higher-ups can't be too pleased. I know that they were already looking to move up the release of the altered Zeitnot virus,” I grunt.

At this, Susan buries her face in her hands.

“We are very nearly out of time. You and I have some time with her this afternoon, but I can tell you they're not going to wait very much longer.”

I shake myself out to make sure that I've heard her properly.

“They want us both in there this afternoon?”

I do my best to keep the anxiety—the incredulity—from my voice. Susan gives a grim nod.

“I tried to put it off, but if you hadn't woken up. It would have been me going in solo. If she doesn't give them what they want—I think there's a very good chance that they'll dose her tonight.”

“Are you serious? But what if she's the cure? If they dose her tonight before they've come up with a cure or a vaccine…” I trail off into nothingness, terror gripping my chest.

“I've tried to explain that all signs point to the likelihood that she is our golden ticket, but after three months of near zero progress on a cure or a vaccine, and no luck with acquiring the results of the Penny's original research—the board members are becoming restless.”

“They'd really turn out the virus into the general population without a safety net?”

Lowry slumps in her chair.

“It certainly seems that way.”

Not long after I'm up, I'm out of bed and preparing myself to face Louise again.

This time there can be no failure—I need to find a way to keep her safe; to leave a pathway open for the cure.

So, I roll my shirt sleeves and fold the small respirator mask into my back pocket alongside a small atomizer of what will appear to Susan as suppressant melters. In actuality, the compound contained in the atomizer is a special blend of Cazzy’s psychotropic theta compounds.

During my time in captivity with the others, I had a few brief windows of time—be it in the back of the van, in the bunker, in those last dire minutes of freedom before my recapture—in which I had been able to spirit away a few vials of the precious secret sauce.

Luckily for me, the Windmill didn't get rid of my shoes when they rescued me from the Saints, and I was able to reclaim the three tiny glass vials from the holding spot in the heel of my boots.

As worried as I was for the safety of the others, I didn't ask Susan any details about the Saints' escape earlier—whether they made it far, if they're being tracked, or if the Windmill even cares now that they've got Louise back.

My only hope is that they've all managed to escape unscathed—that they have been planning from the very moment that they ran from the back door of the cabin how to rescue Louise.

There's a knock on my door, and I know that it's time.

I meet Lowry on the other side of the heavy oaken portal and, without a word, the two of us make our way to my private torture chamber in the east wing, where Louise is already bound to the mahogany St. Andrew’s Cross near the sheet glass windows.

The late afternoon sun paints her like the gilded figurehead of a ship—with her ivory skin, scarlet hair, and her cinnamon eyes searching mine, still alight with defiance.

“I hope you enjoyed your little vacation, Penny,” Susan snips icily, slowly rounding in front of Louise, arms crossed over her narrow chest.

Louise says nothing, just continues to stare at me as if to ask me If we're really going to go back to this after the horrors we all endured together during Quentin and Louise's brutal dual interrogation.

“Lucifer,” I boom, low and rumbling. “You're going to have to answer some questions for us or things are going to get very bad, very quickly.”

She says nothing, just lifts her head high—tears spilling from her eyes.

I can feel Rook pressing to the fore, making a bid to take over, but I refuse him—shoving him down, continuing onward without giving him a chance to make his entrance.

“Well, no point in wasting time, Suz,” I grumble, pulling my mask from my back pocket along with the specialized atomizer of Caz's special sauce.

Susan nods knowingly and pulls her own respirator mask from the pocket of her navy blue blazer.

Frantically, Louise begins to struggle against her bonds, but is still otherwise silent.

I can see her rounding her lips over her teeth, clamping her mouth shut—taking a deep breath to fill her lungs with clean air.

But Susan reaches forward and pinches Louise’s nose with surprising force.

On instinct, Louise's mouth pops open, and she gasps.