Chapter 17: The Gate

The room in the Widows' Wing was pale yellow with a white bed and a lock on the outside of the door.

The window looked down on the east lawn, where a crew was raising a white tent the length of the lawn.

A banner on the tent read: Keane Marine Group, Sixty Years.

I put my palm on the glass.

Desmond was holding his gala tonight, with the whole of Miami on the guest list.

The bolt scraped.

I turned and put my back to the window.

The nurse came in first with a covered tray, and the two guards who had dragged me came in behind her.

On the tray lay a syringe.

"Mrs. Keane," the nurse said. "This will help you rest."

"No."

"It is for your own good."

"That is the sentence they all say to the widows."

She did not answer.

One guard took my left arm, the other my right.

I let them pull me forward, and then I kicked the tray up out of her hands.

The syringe flew, the cover rang off the floor, and the nurse yelped and grabbed at her face.

I stamped on the syringe with my heel and heard the glass go.

The guard on my right swore and hit me across the cheek.

My head snapped around and the room rang.

"Hold her still," said the other.

"Hold her yourself."

I hooked my foot behind his knee and he went down on top of me.

We hit the floor together.

I got a fistful of his collar and a thumb into his eye, and he howled.

Then a sound came from far down the corridor that I knew.

Someone was shouting my name.

It was Rory.

"Willa!"

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