Adagio (Book One of the Muse series)

38. When the Dust Settles

Many, many sad miles later we were back in Winter Rain. Two hours or so earlier I had attempted to open the door and jump onto the now only slightly snowy shoulder as Esteban drove along a country road, so he'd pulled over and tied me to the seat. He had my shoes. He had my purse. He had my broken heart in his pocket.

We were well away from the populated neighborhoods, driving along a quiet street bearing a few houses between patches of open land. I knew this part of town very well—I drove along this street almost every day on the way to rehearsal. It was usually a lovely area, but today the bare trees looked like skeletons in the unyielding glare of late afternoon sunlight against a clear sky. We turned down a few side streets, then came up to a house I remembered having passed by a few times over the years, a huge, old estate-style home now boarded up and long since deserted. Esteban pulled into the drive while I looked on, dumbfounded and terrified. There was no cabin. But he could have taken me anywhere at all—why had he brought me back here to this town? Why this place?

He untied me quickly and lifted me into his arms as though I weighed nothing at all. Who was this beast? He was hot to the touch, and groaning quietly under his breath as he walked. We were face to face, but he wouldn't look at me, continuing to stare forward with singular focus. So instead of continuing my efforts to make eye contact, I let my gaze move over his features, which were indeed altered. He absolutely looked like a bird, from the slope of his nose to the way his eyes darted back and forth. He was beautiful and frightening.

The house was cold, filthy, and cobwebbed. The boards had been removed from most of the enormous windows, sending sunlight streaming through the open space. We passed through the main hall into the sitting room, and then Esteban wasted no time in tethering my hands and feet together so that I couldn't move, depositing me along the wall below one of the windowless windows. As he worked, he must have noticed me shivering. He moved suddenly into the foyer and then I heard a loud crack; seconds later he returned with a piece of wood that looked to have come from a banister or railing somewhere. He tossed it into the fireplace and lit a match.

I took a chance. "What are you going to do with me?"

"We are going away."

"Where?"

"Far from here." As he spoke, there was absolutely no change in his expression. It was positively chilling.

With that, he left me alone in the room again. I could hear him working somewhere else in the house, doing I knew not what. I could hear his voice every once in a great while, cold and staccato, then silence or quiet movement.

"Call him."

The whispered sound came right next to my ear and almost made me scream. I turned my head to find Tristan's face at the window, the rest of her hidden below the ledge among brambles that probably used to be a manicured flower bed years ago. She was flushed and dirty, with spots of blood on her face and hands. "Call him. Now." For one eternal second we locked eyes and spoke an entire language of I'm sorry's and thank you's to each other. Finally, I obeyed her command, beckoning Esteban in a loud, pained voice. He came running.

Now what? I thought to myself. "The ropes . . . they're cutting into my skin. Can you fix them?" Well, they were, after all. He bent down, adjusted my bindings, and carefully massaged the chafed spot on my wrists with two fingers.

"Thank you." Finally, he looked into my eyes, and I could indeed see some care there.
Without responding, he rose and moved again toward the door, possibly to continue whatever project he was working on in the next room. But before he reached the doorway, I saw something hit him with the speed of a train.

The movement was too fast for me to follow, but suddenly Esteban was on the floor, and I heard a snap. He didn't move. But the form on top of him did, and came toward me. Tristan.
She was breathless and concerned, looking into my eyes and lifting my chin to make sure I was fully conscious and uninjured. Her tenderness, the knowledge that I was safe, the shock of seeing Esteban sprawled on the floor in front of me, the confusion over why I had been in danger, the absolute exhaustion—all of them together overtook me, and I began to weep as she held my face in her hands.