Quinn.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

LOGAN

“Quinn!” Rachel calls, but he can’t hear her.

The crowd chants, “Punish him! Punish him!” They sound excited. Hungry to see Quinn bleed. It makes me sick.

“I can’t shoot the people holding him captive. It’s too far.” Willow looks at me, her eyes wild. “We have to rescue him.”

“Find the door!” I yell, and we race through the building’s basement.

The door is at the far end of the northern corridor. We sprint forward and burst onto the porch. People are pressed against the wrought-iron fence that encloses the building’s tiny yard, staring at the stage where a short, older man with olive skin and a crisp military jacket is unfurling a whip to the wild delight of the crowd.

“Move. Move!” Willow shoves past people, spilling their drinks and causing panic as they take in our swampy clothes, our weapons, and the furious determination on our faces.

She reaches the edge of the yard, grabs the fence, and vaults over. The rest of us immediately follow suit. The crowds on the other side of the fence are worse. Densely packed. Cheering and screaming. Making it nearly impossible for us to move toward the stage.

The sharp crack of a whip fills the air. Willow starts shaking as she shoves another person aside only to find three more blocking the path. I crane my neck to look at the stage and see Quinn’s back, still unmarked. The man with the whip cracks it again, close to Quinn without actually touching him, and the crowd screams, “Punish him! Punish him!”

“He’s not hurt yet,” I say because Willow looks like she’s about to start shooting arrows at everyone between her and the stage. “We can still make it.”

“But he will be,” Rachel says. Her voice trembles with anger and fear. “The man with the whip is James Rowan.”

My heart speeds up even as time seems to slow down. “That’s the man who had you whipped?” Who ordered my father’s pain atonement. Who sent Ian to destroy us.

“Yes. Come on. We’d better hurry.” Rachel elbows her way to Willow’s side, and together they push and shove through the crowd.

“Punish him!”

I try sliding around a large man with a fistful of fried bread, but he blocks me.

“Get out of my way,” I snap.

The whip cracks.

The crowd closes in, a throng of frantic revelers smelling of sweat and sugar.

“Punish him!”

I lower my shoulder and ram the man out of my path. Pushing past him, I find that Willow and Rachel have only moved forward another few yards. The crowd is impossible. Behind me, Frankie, Smithson, Nola, and Adam have been swallowed up by the heaving, chanting sea of people.

Lunging forward, I grab Rachel and Willow. “Move to the side.” I nod toward the very edge of the town square, the strip of sidewalk shaded by the buildings on that side of the street. The crowd is thinner there.

Together, we claw and shove our way toward the side while around us people scream in our ears, throw fried sugared bread in their mouths, and then scream some more.

Just as we reach the far sidewalk, the whip cracks again, followed by a sharp whistle. The crowd quiets almost immediately, and we hold ourselves motionless. To move toward the stage while everyone else is standing still would be to invite instant death from the solid wall of trackers who line the front of the square.

“People of Rowansmark!” James Rowan’s voice echoes across the crowd. “Today is the day we display our true power. Our true honor. Today is the day we defeat our enemies once and for all! We have caught the criminal responsible for burning our government facilities.” He points to Quinn.

“Punish him! Punish him!” The crowd screams for his blood.

“You aren’t going to reach him in time.” A familiar voice speaks quietly behind us.

I spin on my heel and come face-to-face with Ian. His eyes are shadowed, his expression grim.

“Punish him!”

I grab my sword hilt, and Rachel asks, “Where’s Marcus?”

“Inside.” Ian nods toward a rooftop just visible beyond the edge of the square.

“Punish him!”

“They won’t let you up on the stage, Logan. They’ll kill you—all of you—before you come within fifteen yards of Quinn. You can’t get to him.”

“I’m not wasting my time with this lunatic,” Willow snaps. “You deal with him, Logan. I’m going after my brother.” She takes a step toward the stage, and Rachel grabs her arm.

“He’s right. Look at this crowd. Rowan won’t even have to ask his trackers to lift a finger. We’ll be crushed by a glut of people who came determined to see blood today, and it would give Rowan an excuse to kill Quinn.”

“Punish him!”

James Rowan’s voice fills the square. “We will punish the criminal as is just. But he is not the only enemy that must be dealt with. Today, Commander Chase’s army marches against us, hoping to steal our technology and take over our city. Hoping to dishonor us.”

The seething mass of people boo and jeer. I lock eyes with Ian and pull my sword from my sheath, the memory of all the people we lost across the Wasteland a lightning rod to the anger burning within me.

“It’s like I was meant to find you today,” Ian says quietly. The cocky confidence is gone from his voice. Weariness and resignation have taken its place.

Willow’s voice is desperate. “If you think I’m just going to stand here and watch that man whip my brother—”