Chapter 41

Evan opened a window as soon as Amnon’s transport was no longer in view.  He rested his hands on the sill and breathed in the night air.

“Come away from the window,” Katherine said.  Evan didn’t budge.  “Come away from there and help me clean up.  It looks like a tragedy in here.”  It was true.  The late-night brainstorming left an unseemly amount of thermo pods and dining platters like so much debris in its wake.  The ideas had given Katherine no comfort, and she allowed her thoughts to imagine what it would be like if she never left this safe house.  These thoughts assumed the house would remain safe and she wouldn’t have to live a frantic life scurrying from place to place like a scared mouse.  No, as long as this small house should become her forever home, it should be a tidy one.

“You go ahead,” Evan said, “I’m heading out.”

Katherine stopped her chores.  “Out?”

“What?” Evan looked at her blankly.

“Out where?  Where is there to go?” Katherine said.  “Why can’t you stay here?”

“You heard them.  There’s no plan.  Lillian is trapped in the termination center.  Maybe she has a day to live, two tops.  I’m not letting her die.”

“It’s dangerous out there,” Katherine said.  “Don’t you remember the last time you snuck out alone?  Didn’t Amnon tell you he could follow your every step?  You’ll get caught out there.”

Evan looked back out the window. In the silence, Katherine could hear the ominous sounds of the unfamiliar city. “I forgot about that,” Evan said, lowering his shoulders. Katherine exhaled slowly as she got back to cleaning up. Evan began to pace. 

He was doing it again, Katherine thought.  This is how it started when he was no longer a detective.  Pacing, constantly pacing.  It was like seeing a hungry tiger in the zoo.  Back and forth, back and forth, looking for a way out for the hunt.  She reminded herself that he would calm down.  He needed to burn some energy.  Eventually, he would resign himself to give up the hunt.  It might take a couple of days but — “That’s not where that goes.” 

“I thought you wanted help,” Evan said, walking away from the pile of dishes he had just moved.

“I do, but that’s not where those go.”

“How do you know where they go?  We haven’t lived here long enough to know.”

Katherine could see she’d stepped on a nerve.  She was always doing that.  Why did she care so much about small things?  “Don’t worry about it,” she said.  “I’ll take care of it.  Why don’t you get some rest like Amnon said.”

“Because I’m not tired.  I’m frustrated.  You know how I get when I can’t fix something.”

“I’ll bet if you lay down, you’ll go to sleep.  You have to be exhausted.”

Evan began pacing again.  “I’d sleep a lot better if I could get her out.  I mean, don’t tell Amnon, but I saw a way in.  Probably, the reason Amnon didn’t see it was he was trying to work as a team, but it’s a one-person job.  If I could just get to her, I could get in, get out, no one would be the wiser.”

“But you shouldn’t go out.”

“That’s what you keep telling me.”

“Did I tell you she spoke to me,” Katherine said.

“No, I don’t think that came up,” Evan said.  “What’d she say?”

“She said that she appreciated what I was doing.  What we all were doing.”  Katherine touched the place where her fetterseal lay.  “She put her hand right here.  It burned a little when she did it.”  Katherine turned her attention over to Evan.  “It has been the only time since we got here that I’ve had any sense that everything was going to be alright.”  She dropped her hand and got back to tidying.  “But then Eye Patch, or Saw Yatha, or whatever his name is, took her away, and I knew in that moment it was over.”  With tears in her eyes, she stared helplessly at Evan, hoping for reassurance.  “She’s going to die, and we’re going to be trapped in this place forever.  Evan.  I’m scared.”

“Then let me go out there,” Evan took a step closer.  “Let me go out there and free the Princess.  Once she’s free —”

“You don’t know that,” Katherine said.  “That’s what you all seem to think, but you know know that.  No one knows the future.  You could get caught freeing her, and then where would that leave me?”  Evan shook his head.  “Or you could be successful, but on the given day, these people’s armies are more powerful and cunning than her armies.  Or you get her out but then, alarms are everywhere, and you can use your mark at the whatever-its-called, and her armies can’t get in.  They track us down and kill all of us.  I’m trying real hard to think up a happy ending, but I’m not seeing one, Evan.  I’m not seeing one, and it makes me scared.”

Evan approached Katherine and took her by the shoulders.  She turned her eyes to his.  “My, aren’t you a fretful thing,” he said.  In his gaze, she saw that the tiger was gone and the man she fell in love with was back.  All of the warmth, care, and protection was hers.  It was the most safe she’d felt in ages.  Katherine clung to Evan and felt herself melt into his chest.  She felt Evan’s strong hands pet her hair.  He was hers again.

“Your mind is a tornado,” Evan said.  “I would never do anything to hurt you or cause you more fear.  You need to understand that.  You are my first priority.”  Katherine smiled and pressed her cheek closer in.  “And part of that protection is seeing this thing to the end.”  She pulled away and searched Evan’s eyes.

“What does that mean?”

“Kathy…” 

She pushed him away.  “Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t take that tone.”

“I have to go.”

“No, you don’t.  No, you don’t.”  How could she have let him do this to her again?  Kaherine felt the safe house wall start to move in.  “Honestly.  Is it so hard, for you not to play by your own rules?  Does that make you feel more like a man?  I don’t know if you’ve noticed by Amnon is plenty manly and he is helping everyone work together.”

“Is that right?”

“You could learn a thing or two from him.”  Katherine saw the cloud cover Evan’s face.  She saw it happen the moment the words left her mouth.  Why had she said that?  Why did she have to push him?  Katherine wanted to chase the words and pull them from Evan’s memory.  She was losing him.

“I think I see where this is headed,” Evan said and retreated to the window.  “I’m going to go, and when I get back when I get back…” His anger stopped the flow of words.

It struck Katherine that though it was her words that shot the first volley, he didn’t want to stay and get to the bottom of their problems.  Why not?  He was always quick to rescue strangers; he was hot to trot over to Lillian and rescue her, but not his own wife.  Tears bit at the corners of her eyes.  No.  She was not going to cry.  She was not going to cry.  She was not going to let him know that he’d hurt her.

“Yes,” she said, jutting out her chin, “run away.  Prove yourself one more time.  Yes, Evan Gold, you have what it takes.  You are the only knight that can rescue the princess.”

Katherine’s stomach was a ball of fury.  Evan gave her a bitter grin, flung one leg out the window, and headed out into the night.  She ran to the open window to see what he was going to do.  Katherine watched Evan as he mounted Drex’s hoverbike and figured out the controls enough to power it up.

“What are you doing?”  Katherine hissed.  Moments later, her husband was lost to the night.

“You don’t even know where you’re going,” Katherine mumbled to herself just before she heard a strange sound from the opposite direction.  She shut the door in the hope of keeping the danger out, but she looked around the small room.  Katherine felt as much in danger in the safe house as she would out in the night.  She couldn’t contact anyone, and there was no one there to protect her.  There was no way she was going to sleep that night.

Katherine curled up on the couch and ran through the whole fight with Evan.  Only then did she realize what she might have done differently.  But no, he was still selfish.  He could want him to change, but until he wanted it first, all her effort in getting in line with him would be fruitless.  She pulled her knees tight to her chest, looked out the closed window, and wondered if she had just doomed herself to a life trapped away from home.