The Survivors: Body & Blood (book 3)

Lost, pt. 2

"Sorry, was I talking to you?" Mark answered. Yes, apparently they were still angry. He reached his hand out for me, and I took it. "Come on," he said, but Everett emitted a small growl behind me. There was too much I needed to process to waste mental space on whatever the hell was going on between them, so I chose to ignore it for the moment and crossed the room toward the outside with Mark. With Everett behind me, I felt anger, even a little jealousy bubbling so fully inside of him that it was beginning to escape his bulwark.

Before we reached the door, we all simultaneously realized that John was there too, hunched in a corner, his arms crossed. Had he been there moments before?

"Go with him, Sadie. I'm sure whatever the murderous leach has to say is much more important than your dead elder," he said. His words had an icy edge to them that was too much to handle as I was barely reclaiming the fringes of sanity.

"What do you want, John?"

"I just wanted to see how you were holding up," he said.

That seemed impossible.

"I'm better," I told him, unsure of how true that was.

He continued. "You know . . .since you've realized that God is punishing you for your crimes against this family. And in the most biblical of ways, might I add."

I straightened. "What punishment is it that you're referring to?"

John stepped closer to me now, causing the Winter boys to stiffen. "Surely you don't think Lizzie's untimely death is a coincidence, do you? 342 years old, and she drops dead only when your particularly questionable," he took hold of Mark's jacket lapel, "associations infiltrate our ranks? Only when you poison the world inside these walls with the sinful drudgery of all that's outside of it? Surely, my dear, sweet Sadie, you didn't think that our Lizzie's death had nothing to do with you?"

"That's enough," Everett said, stepping between us.

"Don't listen to him, Sadie," Mark said. "Come on. Let's go. It's important."

"Okay," I said uneasily, and I followed Mark outside.

John called after us softly, almost as if speaking to himself. "Run, run, Sadie. But there's no escaping the guilt or the blame that will come from this. Not this time."

I shook off his words and did everything I could to keep them from processing. It wasn't until I was outside that I realized I didn't ask him about the funeral, and with what he'd just said, I didn't want to.

In the square, there were an unusual number of people milling around in the darkness. The majority of my family must have been there, even at what felt like a late hour (though how could I be sure?) as well as Anthony's guests, who I assumed had fixed the protections around the city. If they hadn't been fixed, wouldn't someone have come and told me? Didn't I matter enough to be kept in the loop? Or was my inability to function in the face of Lizzie's death going to take me out of the position of power I'd come to have among the Survivors?

Everyone noticed as we emerged from the church, whispering to one another or watching us, voices and thoughts murmuring that I'd finally emerged after so many hours with Lizzie. Everett took my hand to calm me. It worked surprisingly well.

I flipped through the agenda I formed in my mind: talk to Mark about whatever it was he needed to talk about, talk to John about a funeral (This seemed infinitely less appealing after that interaction.), talk to Andrew (Where had he been in all of this? As Lizzie's love, how broken was he?) about . . . everything, and determine if we were safe from the worldwide media. Preferably in that order.

But it was Anthony who came to me first. Mark tried to stop him, but his father was not deterred.

"Tell me you have good news," I said to him.