Snippet #2815525

Ulrich staggered back another step, narrowly avoiding slamming into part of the door. "Protection? What?" Ulrich gave Hokushin a quizzical look, pale blue eyes protruding from his ruddy face, which otherwise was lost to the shadows and darkness, silhouetted against the lights in the hall. The old woman had noticed he'd shut off the lights in their cells. He grabbed his knife, but held it at his side, blade pointing downward, staying back from Hokushin. "How can this be? Why would you, or whoever you answer to, want to protect her?" The pain and the rage were evident in his voice.

The old woman remembered. She remembered his father, who had the same blue eyes and moved into the same fighting stance, and she remembered the bomb that had prevented the man's family from even having an open casket for his wake and funeral. He had blamed her. They all had. And she'd had no choice but to stay silent about what had actually happened, why the bomb was created and who had put it inside the church. She'd never said, and she knew she never could. When Ulrich had learned where she'd come from, what her ancestry was, he must have become convinced it was connected. He hated what she was. He'd said as much when he'd come for her two weeks before. But he couldn't bring himself to do it - not then. He'd stopped short before a killing blow.