Release In The Dark (DARK erotic romance series) (24 page)

There are screams, followed by
cheers and victorious chants at the Empress's death. Jostled by
excited, disbelieving people from all sides, I stagger on my feet but
my eyes refuse to leave the screen. I stare up at Owen, who has
turned around stiffly to face the camera.

His lips move. His words are
almost drowned out by the roars from the crowd. But I can hear every
word clearly, as if he is speaking in my ear.

“
Zoey, I know you are
watching this,” Owen says, his piercing emerald eyes looking
straight into mine. “You are not mine. I know. Only in my
dreams you are mine. You are the love I could have had, the life I
could have led—if only...if only I had not been me.”

He smiles into the camera and
raises his gun. “Goodbye, Zoey.”

A scream tears from my throat.

I stare into the barrel of his
gun, and he fires.

Static cracks across the entire
screen before everything goes black.

The crowd erupts into chaos.
Some hail Owen as a hero. Others demand that he be prosecuted and
executed together with the monsters he served.

Lyndea grabs my arm and drags me
through the volatile crowd. She keeps one small, powerful hand on my
wrist, while shouting into her watch the entire time.

We scramble to the side gate of
the Justice Prison, and a guard lets us through. The gate is
hurriedly locked behind us, and Lyndea leads me into a small waiting
room for visitors.

“
Wait here. Jaxon will be
with you in a minute. He has to witness the medical officers signing
off the bodies. They'll be cremated,” she tells me as an
afterthought. “There will be no graves to be defaced, or
worse, honored as the resting place of martyrs.” She makes a
face—and I see her gold-capped molars.

I suck in a breath. I have seen
those gold molars before, in the Palace. I do know who she is.

“
Wait!” I croak at
last. “Lyndea! M...”

She is already at the door, but
she turns to frown at me.

“
I...I know who you are,”
I stammer. “You...you're Mam Mallisa!”

Her mismatched eyes widen just a
fraction.

I blink at her, staring at her
bony frame, large eyes, and impassive face. This is Mam Mallisa,
without all her outlandish make up, painted, curved nails and larger
than life wigs and gowns. An image of Mam Mallisa dressed in all her
garish glory flitting around the Grooming Room in the Palace wavers
before my eyes. Like a psychedelic butterfly, the ghostly image
sashays and shimmies around the room, dressed in a shimmering dress
and neon cape, her conical green wig glimmering with countless pins
and ribbons. The smiling image of Mam Mallisa struts right in front
of me, her smile widening to reveal her gold-capped molars. Giving
an imperious wave of her thin hand before dropping to a deep curtsey
for a most convincing, compelling performance, the ghost of Mam
Mallisa steps back and superimposes itself over Lyndea, blending
seamlessly into the plain, stern figure of the rebel leader standing
stiffly at the door.

There is no mistake.

She is who I think she is. I
know I am right.

With the barest hint of a smile,
she says at last, “Whoever you think you know I am—”
She turns and walks out the door. “I'm not.”

The nurse calls my name. “Zoey
Whard.”

I stand up and Jaxon holds my
hand. “You sure?” he asks quietly for the umpteenth
time. “You don't have to, you know. But this is your
decision...”

“
I want to do this,”
I tell him firmly, tilting my head up to kiss his chin. “Yes.
This is my decision.”

“
Okay.”

I turn to glance over my
shoulder at the packed waiting room of the Central Clinic. I see men
without arms or legs, shivering women and wailing children, people
who have been injured or damaged by the Emperor, the Empress and
their Imperial Army—they are here at the Central Clinic, hoping
to get better, to heal, to recover a part of their lives.

Many of the doctors who have
worked for the Emperor have been captured. Instead of being
executed, they have been sentenced to life imprisonment. Under heavy
security in the Justice Prison, they work together with the medical
officers to come up with antidotes to the poisons and damaging,
experimental serums that they have concocted and injected into the
people, the Slaves, the Sirens.

The Central Clinic has been set
up to treat all these people, to try to reverse the effects of those
serums, and to try to right a wrong.

But there is no guarantee that
it can be righted.

It's just a hope.

A small step.

Jaxon enters the treatment room
with me. There is another couple in the room, speaking softly to a
middle-aged male medical officer at the other end of the room. We
walk up to the female medical officer, who waves us to the empty
chairs in front of her small desk.

She pushes her glasses up with
her gloved hands and peers at me. “Zoey Whard?”

I nod. “Yes.”

“
You're here for the
Fertility serum. You hope to conceive a child.”

“
Yes.”

“
All right.” She
grabs a needle and vial, and proceeds to load the syringe with a
light pink liquid. “You understand that there is no guarantee
that the Fertility serum will totally reverse the effect of the
Anphem Serum that was given to you in the Palace. You might or might
not be able to conceive after this.”

“
Yes. I understand.”

Her eyes flick from my face to
the syringe. “Okay,” she says, leaning forward. “Now,
this will hurt just a little bit...”

“
Oh, I...”

She leans back with a quick
smile. “Done.”

I stand and thank her. Jaxon
takes my hand and we are at the door when I hear the young couple's
laughter from the other side of the room. I turn to stare at the
young woman's side profile. Her long black hair cascades down to her
waist and her eyelashes are thick and curling. I stare at her olive
skin, at the healed, faded scars down her arms and legs.

As if sensing my eyes on her,
she stops talking to the medical officer and turns to me.

Her black eyes round and she
stands slowly.

“
Z-Zoey?” she
whispers.

My hand flies to my mouth and
tears flood my eyes. “Hani! Hani, you...”
You're
alive!

We rush headlong into each
other's arms, weeping and hugging each other tightly, trying to
convince ourselves that what we are seeing and feeling is real.

“
Hani! Hani, I
thought...I thought...that you...”

“
I know. I know.”
She mops her tears away with her sleeve, and smiles. “I
thought I was dead too.”

“
I saw the guards drag you
away from the Great Hall. The Emperor...” I grip her arms
hard at the memory. “He ordered that you be discarded.”

“
He did. And...I thank
him for it!” She nods happily and laughs. “Look at you!
Oh, the look on your face is priceless! You must think that I've
gone completely mad!”

“
No, no, that's not
what...”

She cocks her head at me.
“Discarded. Not killed. The guards had no orders to kill me.
And...” She glances behind her shyly. “One of the
guards saved me.” She reaches out and pulls the gaping, burly
man behind her to her side. “Zoey, meet my husband, Tai. Tai
was one of the palace guards. He saved me—and married me.”
She grins, positively glowing. “Tai, this is Zoey.
We...shared a cell together, when we were...Sirens in the Palace.”

Tai nods at me and puts his
muscular arm around his wife's shoulder. He looks up at Jaxon, and I
see his stance stiffen instantly. He stops himself just in time
before he snaps automatically to attention before his former
Commander.

“
Hi, I'm Jaxon, Zoey's
fiance,” Jaxon extends his hand.

After Hani shakes his hand, she
turns to me, the smile gone from her face. “Is O-Owen...”
she whispers. “The last time I saw him...in the Palace...”

He was about to rape me with
the generous permission of the Empress, right in the middle of the
Great Hall in front of the Emperor and all his guests.

“
I don't know if he is
dead or alive,” I tell her frankly. Jaxon has kept his promise
to me. Owen has not been hunted down. Just as long as he stays far
away from me, from us.

Hani exhales heavily and lapses
into silence.

Do I care if Owen is dead or
alive?

Despite what he has done to me,
I find myself hoping that he is alive and well, that the scars on his
body, his mind and soul can heal and fade, and he can find a measure
of peace and perhaps, happiness.

His final words, uttered just
before he fires a shot at the camera pointblank, cutting off the
transmission, echo in my mind:
“
You are the love I could
have had, the life I could have led—if only...if only I had not
been me.”

But how can you not be you?
You are you, Owen, and I hope you find the love and the life that
truly belongs to you.

Jaxon ushers us discreetly out
of the treatment room as the medical officers see to new patients.
“What are you here for?” I ask Hani as we walk out
together. “I came for the Fertility serum. But I'm not sure
if it'd work.” I sigh as Jaxon squeezes my hand.

“
Oh!”

Tai and Hani exchange a look,
and a smile.

“
It works. It sure
works!” Hani beams at me, quivering with excitement.

I narrow my eyes at her. “What
are you not telling me?”

She pats her tummy and
announces, “I'm two months pregnant.”

My jaw drops before I let out a
squeal. “Hani! Oh, you!” I hug her again. “That's
wonderful! Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful!”

“
Yes. It is. He is.”
She leans into Tai's arms, a dreamy look suffusing her soft
features. “We all are.”

We leave the Central Clinic and
say our goodbyes, but not before Hani invites Jaxon and me to dinner.
Tai has gone back to his hometown, and Hani has started a small
bakery business, selling breads and buns from their home.

“
I'll bake you a birthday
cake,” she tells me earnestly.

I laugh. “But it's not my
birthday.”

“
Every day is your
birthday. After what we have gone through, every day that we are
alive, every day that we are happy, healthy and hopeful, every day is
a day to celebrate our lives.” Hani kisses me on the cheek and
waves cheerfully. “See you tomorrow!”

We watch Tai and Hani until they
are out of sight. Jaxon kisses the back of my hand as we stroll
along the square, towards the central park which has been reopened
and restored. New trees and flowering shrubs are being planted. We
walk into the shade of a rambling, old tree and Jaxon stops suddenly.
He puts his hand into his pocket and clears his throat awkwardly.
“I...um, I have something for you. Give me your hand.”

I stretch out my hand to him,
and he holds it softly, caressing it with his thumb before he drops
something small into my palm.

I blink at the small, aquamarine
stud earring in my hand.

“
This...this is exactly
the same, as...as...” I touch my right earlobe, where my
mother's earring is. Jaxon had kept my mother's fallen earring for
ten years, before he found me and gave it back to me.

Now he is giving me a new one,
the other half of it, to complete the pair.

“
It's not an exact match,”
he acknowledges. “This one's a bit lighter...”

“
It's perfect,” I
whisper. “Will you put it on for me?”

Taking the earring from my palm,
he threads it carefully through my left earlobe. He steps back with
a look of pride and admiration on his face.

I touch the two shining studs
that I am wearing with my fingers. One from my mother. One from
Jaxon. Both filled with courage and love.

They will be with me forever.

Jaxon wraps his arms around me
and we watch the people walking and laughing in the central park.
Not so long ago, this was an execution ground, where rebel fighters
were publicly hanged.

The nightmares may diminish and
the terrors fade with time but the memories will always be there.

We have been broken, every one
of us. But the pieces must be picked up. And glued back together.

That's what Jaxon and I are—two
broken pieces, glued back together to make a whole.

We survived.

We are alive.

We have a life to live together,
dreams to dream together, so many birthdays to celebrate together.

Every day is a day to celebrate
our lives.

I tilt my face up to Jaxon,
frowning. “When exactly is your birthday? I don't really
know...”