Panic churned through my stomach, blood roaring in my ears. We were stuck here.
Richard switched off his flashlight, plunging us into darkness.
There was a large group of people coming in this direction.
Please, please don’t come this way. If we stay here and stay quiet, maybe they’ll go another way.
A dull thud came as someone fell roughly to the floor.
The feet were running now. The people had heard us.
We’ll be butchered right here.
Else taken down to the cellar and killed there.
We had to run. Poppy would be left behind, but we had no choice. None.
Footfalls came from the other direction.
Too late. We were trapped now.
Flashlights strobed the air, slicing across our faces and bodies.
In the snatches of light, I could see that there were over a dozen figures.
They were almost upon us. Silhouetted. Hooded. Terrifying.
I prepared to die, my mind blanking out.
“What’s going on here?” Brother Sage’s voice boomed down the long, narrow space.
Jerking my head around, I searched the figures until I found his face. It was him. I hadn’t imagined his voice.
My body slackened in relief. The mentors hadn’t been murdered. Neither had all of the monks been slaughtered.
We weren’t alone here.
“Well, thank fuck it’s you,” cried Richard, his voice shakier than I’d yet heard it.
Kara had vanished.
I looked around for Poppy. She was slumped on the floor. Running to her, I dropped to my knees and lifted her top to just above her navel. “We need a bandage—now!”
Poppy shivered uncontrollably under my hands. She’d lost so much blood already. Kara’s cold words about how long it would take Poppy to die sprang into my head.
“Here,” Cormack told me under his breath. He tore off his shirt. I tried to wrap it around her.
Poppy struggled to sit, her voice raspy and strained with agony. “Kara was just here,” she told Brother Sage. “Bitch stabbed me.”
“Get Poppy to the infirmary,” ordered Brother Sage. “Before we lose her.” He half-turned then to speak with one of the other monks.
I frowned, shielding my eyes from the harsh glare of flashlights. I knew the monk that Brother Sage was speaking to. But from where?
My stomach hitched as the answer came to me.
Wilson Carlisle.
The man that had been at the Sydney casino with Kara.
He wasn’t a monk.
Brother Sage turned around a fraction more.
I caught a split-second view of the back of his robes.
A symbol.
A ladder inside a hexagon.
The same symbol the person who’d killed Saul had worn.
Everything inside me crushed to a single point, a single thought.
We had not been rescued.
The monks were not monks. The mentors were not good.
What had Kara said they were? Yeqon’s Saviours?
Gasping breaths rattled in my lungs.
Brother Sage finished his conversation with Wilson and fixed his gaze on me, a sudden knowing look curling his lips. “Get this lot down to the cellar. Brothers, three of you go and find Kara.”
“What the hell?” demanded Richard. “Do you have any idea what’s happening in the cellar? There are people—” He broke off suddenly, making a low moan as he came to the same realisation that I had.
Wilson grinned at me, shrugging.
“Fuck.” Cormack tried to run and barrel his way through the men behind us.
“You bastard!” Richard charged straight at Brother Sage with his knife held straight out.
But the Saviours grabbed both of them and held them tight.
Brother Vito strode forward from between the dark figures in front of us. Bending down, he gathered Poppy into his arms.
He shot me a resigned look. “I’m sorry, Evie.”
Poppy rested her head against his chest. “About time, Vito.”
I stared from her to Brother Vito.
“Poppy . . .?” My voice crushed to grains.
Poppy cast a dark look in my direction. “You ruined it. I get a kick out of being hung up in the cellar. All these cuts on my body? Brother Vito did them. We do this every year. As a special anniversary treat between lovers.” Sighing, she eyed Richard. “Awww, cheer up, baby chin, I really did like you.”
Brother Sage clapped his hands together. “Hurry, go find the rest of them. There should be about seven.”
Poppy giggled. “They were trying to make a break for the exit.”
“They made it out there,” said Brother Sage. “They’re being rounded up at the moment. Well, this year’s event has certainly been different. We need to get things back on track.”