on forever.
Chapter Twenty-six
Renata walked into the back door of the lodge and paused just over the threshold. She had left Nikolai in the shelter, deciding that her need for the bathroom, a hot shower, and a change of clothes that actually fit her was greater than her reluctance to step foot ever again in Sergei Yakut's domain.
Now she hesitated. The early afternoon sun was a warm presence at her back, encouraging her along, but inside the lodge was dim and cold. Shadows played over the toppled furniture and stretched across the rough planks of the floor. She drifted in, and walked toward the place where Lex had fallen.
His body was gone, the blood too. Nothing but the smallest trace of ash left behind - just as Nikolai had promised. The shutters on the bedroom window were thrown wide open, but the sun had since moved past. A fresh breeze carried the scent of pine pitch and crisp forest air into the dank stillness of the place. Renata breathed it deeply into her lungs, letting the fragrance of the new day purge her memories of all the death and blood and violence that had cloaked the lodge last night.
Today, in this new light, so much seemed different to her.
She herself seemed different, and she knew the reason why.
She was in love.
For the first time in a very long time, perhaps in all her life, she knew a sense of true hope. It nestled in her heart - a belief that her future held something more than just bare survival, that she might at some point measure happiness in years, not rare, fleeting moments. Being with Nikolai, whether in his arms or standing by his side, made her believe so many things were possible.
Renata walked into the great room, bolstered by the fact that this would be the last time she'd need to look at the place.
This was good-bye.
When she and Nikolai left here to continue their search for Mira, this lodge, the terrible barn and holding pen out back, Sergei Yakut, Lex, and everything else that scarred the past two years of her life would be history. She would leave all of it here, the ugliness and pain banished from any part of her future.
This part of her life was over.
She strode into the small bathroom she'd shared with Mira, at peace with herself and her surroundings as she turned on the hot water for the shower. As a humid steam began to roll out from the curtain, she unfastened the few buttons left on Jack 's borrowed oxford shirt and stood there for a moment, naked, contemplating her future with new eyes. She didn 't know what awaited once night fell and a dangerous new leg of this journey began, but she was ready to face it head-on.
With Nikolai beside her - with hope and love burning as bright as a flame in her heart - she was prepared to take on anything.
Like a battle-bound knight seeking anointing and blessing, Renata stepped under the hot spray of the shower. She closed her eyes in a solemn prayer as the cleansing water poured over her.
Nikolai stayed in the shade of the vine shelter as Renata's footsteps approached from outside.
"Knock, knock," she called to him through the leaves. "Coming in now, so watch the daylight. Wouldn't want you going crispy on me."
She parted some of the thick greenery and slipped inside, mouthing a quick apology when she noticed he had Lex's cell phone at his ear. Niko had called the Order soon after she'd gone out to the lodge to clean up. The news out of Boston was a mix of good and bad, along with an extra helping of seriously fucked up.
The good? One of the numbers on Lex's phone was, in fact, Edgar Fabien's. Using that bit of intel, Gideon had been able to hack into Fabien's records in the International Identification Database. Now the Order had the addresses for the Darkhaven leader's Montreal residence, his country house, as well as data on all his other property holdings, both business and personal. Gideon had access to Fabien's cell phone numbers, license plate tags, computer files, even the son of a bitch's electronic surveillance equipment at the Montreal Darkhaven.
And that's where the bad had come in.
Edgar Fabien wasn't home. Gideon's hacking had turned up a video feed from early last night showing a group of seven Breed males - one of them presumably Fabien - leaving the Darkhaven in the company