Page 99 of Decimation

I move through the house, checking rooms. A formal dining room with a table that seats twenty. A sitting room with furniture that looks like it’s never been sat on. A study filled with leather-bound books and the faint smell of cigar smoke. No Ezra.

I’m starting down a hallway lined with closed doors when I hear it.

A voice. Low, rumbling, unmistakable.

“Looking for something?”

I turn. Zayn is at the end of the hallway, his wheelchair gliding silently across the hardwood floor. He’s a massive man even seated, broad shoulders, thick arms, chest like a barrel.

“You won’t find the boy there,” Zayn says. “Follow me.”

He turns his chair and wheels away without waiting for a response. I follow.

He leads me through the house, past more closed doors and more silent guards, until we reach the library. It’s a vast room, two stories tall, with shelves that stretch from floor to ceiling and a fireplace big enough to roast a boar. The windows are tall and arched, letting in the pale morning light.

And there, in the window seat, is Ezra.

He’s curled up with a book, his small body dwarfed by the cushions. His dark hair falls over his forehead, and his lips move slightly as he reads, though no sound comes out. He hasn’t noticed us. He’s somewhere else entirely, lost in whatever world the words are building for him.

“He reads a lot,” Zayn says quietly. “Perhaps he’s looking for all the words he cannot speak, hidden in the books.”

I wince, hearing the awful truth in those words.

I touch Zayn’s arm and gesture toward the hallway. He follows, and we leave Ezra to his book, to his silence, to the words he can’t say out loud.

“Something is happening,” I say. “A disturbance, if you will. I need you to keep Ezra safe, to continue to keep him hidden here.”

Zayn’s eyes narrow. “How long for?”

“You’ll know when everything is done, when everything is sorted.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one I have.”

Zayn studies me for a long moment. His fingers drum against the armrest of his wheelchair, a rhythmic tap-tap-tap that echoes in the quiet hallway. “You’re being very cryptic,” he says finally. “Even for you.”

“You’ll be grateful for it. To not be pulled into secrets, into conspiracies and lies.”

He shakes his head, a humourless smile crossing his scarred face. “To be Brethren is to live with conspiracies. That’s what our world is, Lazarus. Secrets upon secrets, lies upon lies. You think keeping me in the dark protects me? It doesn’t. It just means I’m blind when the knife comes.”

I sigh. He’s not wrong. He’s never wrong, damn him.

“Just keep the boy safe,” I say. “That’s all I’m asking.”

“It’s already done.” Zayn’s voice is steady, certain. “Ezra is under my protection. No one gets to him. No one.”

I put my hand on his shoulder, a gesture of comradeship, of gratitude, of all the things I don’t have words for. He covers my hand with his own, his grip surprisingly strong.

“Be careful,” he says. “Whatever you’re walking into, be very fucking careful.”

“I always am.”

“No,” Zayn says, and his clouded eye seems to see right through me. “You’re not. That’s what worries me.”

I don’t have an answer for that. So I just squeeze his shoulder once more and turn away, walking back through the silent house, past the guards and the closed doors and the shadows that seem to watch me go.

Ezra is still reading when I pass the library. He doesn’t look up. He doesn’t see me.