“Scar?” he called. I didn’t say nothing and he just opened the door. It were John, and the tears started again. I didn’t want it to be John. I wanted it to be Rob, saying everything were just fine and I hadn’t failed everyone and everything. “Aw, love,” he said, and came over, sat beside me, and pulled me into his lap, letting me curl around him. I started to cry harder, and he rubbed my back.

I wailed, pulling away. He made soft noises, pulling me closer again, careful of my back. “Hush,” he whispered, like I were a child. “I’m just glad you’re all right. Girls downstairs are awful worried about you. Well, they don’t know it’s you that Tuck put up here, but they said someone was crying.”

I gripped his shirt. My tears were making me shake again, and I just wanted it all to stop.

“I’m here, Scar. I’m not going anywhere.” His hands pushed back the tears on my cheek and his thumb stroked the side of my head. I looked at his eyes. “I’m not going anywhere, Scar, because I love you.”

He pulled my head closer and pushed his lips against mine, and I kissed him back. I knew it were a damn fool thing to do, but I couldn’t help it. He rubbed my neck and kept me close to his face.

It didn’t help any. Honestly, it made it worse than ever. I were hollowed out and twisted up, sick in all kinds of ways. I felt like nothing would ever be good again, and I pulled my lips back. His hand kept me right there. “John,” I said soft. “I’m—”

“Don’t stop on my account.”

I jerked to look at Rob, standing in the doorway, his fist white-knuckling the door handle.

“Guess you’ve recovered, then.”

“Did you find Thom?” John asked.

“Not yet.”

“Robin,” Tuck said, appearing in the hall. “You lot need to come see this.”

Rob glared at me again, and I stood up. John started to help me, but I were on my feet. Everything hurt. My side ached where the branch hit me, my cheek were pulsing, and my back were throwing off heat like a fire and making the rest of me feel shivery. My head felt like someone were banging a pot against it, and the kiss didn’t help any of it none.

Rob stopped me at the door, blocking my way. He wouldn’t look at me. “Cloak,” he said. The word sounded like a curse. John put the cloak over my shoulders, pulling up the hood, and Rob let us both pass.

Much weren’t in the tavern, which I thought were odd. There weren’t anyone there. Tuck went outside and we followed.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Everyone were quiet, standing in a circle. We pushed through, and vomit, pain, and blood all started fighting each other in my body.

I’m not proud of it. It were fair shameful. I took one look at the body and drew about four desperate breaths before the pain won and I fainted. Thom Walker were on the ground, his body staked out with knives, his shirt hanging off in tatters. His mouth were sewn shut with black blood-soaked thread, the mark of a traitor. Blood were dried all over his face, and on his chest, through a thick cover of blackening blood, Gisbourne carved the words GIVE ME MARIAN.

Chapter Fourteen

I’m to die today.

I woke up back in the room at Tuck’s, and this time I were in the bed, the cloak off and the blankets round me. I felt like a rock. I moved, and my whole body were sore. My eyes were like wood dust and my side were hot and swollen. I were bruised and bloody, inside and out.

I stayed for a long time on the bed, not moving, just blinking. That’s all I could think, over and over. I’m to die today. Because I knew that as soon as I started moving, I had to turn myself in to Gisbourne. I couldn’t let anyone else get hurt.

The lads wouldn’t like it. I’d have to sneak off. I wouldn’t have the chance to say good-bye neither. And then, when Gisbourne got ahold of me, he’d kill me. God knows I’d done enough to deserve it, and since my father signed the marriage contract all those years ago, he had the right.

“I can tell you’re awake, you know.”

I turned over to my other side, biting my lip as I rolled onto my bruises and back. I sat up and dizziness rocked me over.

It were Rob, sitting with his back against the door. He were rumpled and soft looking but for his eyes. They were hard, staring at the floor.

“How long were I asleep?”

“You mean passed out? You fainted, Scar.”

The memory of the body ran over me like ice. “Right.”

“You’ve been out through the night. You never moved.”

“Why are you in here?”

“Because I know you. And I knew that as soon as you woke up, you were going to run off and turn yourself in to Gisbourne.” He smiled a little bit. “Or run away. Either way, I’m not letting you go.”

My mug went hot, but it sounded more like a threat. “Coulda sworn you hated me yesternight.”

“That has little to do with whether I’m turning you over to Gisbourne or not.”

“It ain’t lawful, you know. Keeping me from him.”

“Last time I called accounts, I was an outlaw, so it’s moot. Why do you speak like that?”

I looked down, picking at the threads of the blanket. “When I were young, I used to do it to set my mother hopping. I figured they could tell me what to do but they couldn’t force me to speak right. I’d mimic everyone I could to make her angry. But then we ran off and Joanna, being oldest, did most of the talking, and we got in hot water awful fast. So I started aping the commoners, and the rougher the better. It were so easy. And the more I spoke that way, the more I thought like that, and the more I thought like it, the farther I felt from Leaford and my parents. The rougher I spoke the freer I were. Was.”