A/N: Thanks again for all the positive feedback on this story! We've still got a long ways to go, so I hope you'll hang in there! Just a little bit of a WARNING: there is some non-consensual touching and suggestions of worse in this chapter. Poor Lucy's future isn't looking very bright at the moment, but I promise it will turn around eventually!
Struggling to maintain the brisk pace that Noah had set for them, Lucy stumbled to her knees for what felt like the hundredth time since they'd started up the trail. As far as wedding traditions went, this symbolic 'Climb to Greatness' that Rittenhouse insisted on for all would-be couples was the stupidest she'd ever heard of — particularly for a bride-to-be as clumsy as she was. About the only positive thing that Lucy could say about the long, steep hike to the mountaintop Rittenhouse headquarters was that every time she took another tumble, it also stalled her abominable destiny a little bit longer.
Noah was far from sympathetic. Unlike her, the man was more than eager to begin his new life, both as her husband, and as part of the elite class of Rittenhouse 'clockmakers'. "Get up, and keep moving!" He pressed the gun to the back of her head. "You don't want to keep our guests waiting, do you?"
The 'guests' (whoever they turned out to be) could wait until they rotted as far as Lucy was concerned, but she scrambled to her feet nonetheless. Though fairly confident that Noah wouldn't intentionally shoot her (she was far too important to Rittenhouse, not to mention to her so-called fiancé's own despicable aims), she wasn't willing to take the risk.
"How much further?" Lucy panted. While certainly in no hurry to get to the 'festivities' that were soon to be forced upon her, she honestly wasn't sure how much longer she could keep going. Between her recent lack of sleep, and the earlier knock to her head, she was finding it very difficult to keep from collapsing completely.
Of course, Noah's ongoing and increasingly disturbing lecture about their shared Rittenhouse legacy (including the sickening role that she was now expected to fulfill) did nothing to make Lucy feel any steadier on her feet. Nor did the knowledge that three of her dear friends were most likely dead, while Rufus had been pressed into serving Lucy's own evil family. If not for the fact that Wyatt was still alive, free, and sure to come after her, Lucy might already have thrown herself from the mountainside rather than submitting to Noah's will. Then again, it might still come to that.
As much as she hated to do so, Lucy had to face the very real possibility that Wyatt wouldn't find her in time to prevent her marriage to Noah, or her forced alliance with Rittenhouse. That was certainly future Lucy's sad reality as written in the journal, and considering the circumstances, present Lucy had little hope that she'd be able to change that for herself either — at least not right away. Barring Wyatt's timely intervention, she'd need to keep her eyes and ears open, and wait for the right opportunity to present itself for her to escape the insanity that awaited her.
"We're nearly there. Assuming you quit with these pathetic attempts to delay the inevitable, we'll actually make it by sunset," Noah replied snidely. "Honestly, I don't know why you're even bothering. This is your fate, Lucy — yours and mine. There's no fighting that, so you may as well stop trying."
Lucy remained silent, wary of provoking her captor. Not for the first time, however, it occurred to her that Noah didn't know her in the slightest. At least not the new her — the strong, independent, fiercely capable woman that Wyatt, Rufus, and the rest of her team had helped her become in the last year. She might have no choice at the moment but to go along with Rittenhouse's plans, but if their corrupt agenda and a life with the creep currently by her side was her 'fate', then she would never stop fighting it. Not that Noah needed to know that. The less he knew about the real her, the greater her chances would be of coming up with some sort of workable plan to rewrite her future, as Wyatt had once suggested she do.
Thinking through various possibilities based on what she already knew, Lucy missed the large rock in her path, and once again tripped. Having lost all tolerance for these delays (however unintentional they actually were on Lucy's part), Noah hauled her to her feet roughly by one arm, and slung a guiding arm around her back.
"Don't touch me!" Lucy snapped, automatically recoiling from him. Whereas the slightest touch from Wyatt typically made her weak in the knees (in all the best ways, of course), Noah's inspired nothing but an overwhelming desire to vomit.
Incensed by her rejection, Noah gripped Lucy's face none too gently, forcing her chin up so that she had no choice but to look him in the eyes. "Don't you get it yet, Lucy? You're my wife. In case it wasn't already clear, that means you belong to me. You're mine to do whatever the hell I want to for the rest of our lives. So yeah, I'll touch you — whenever, wherever, and however I damn well please," he sneered. As if to make his point, he traced the barrel of the gun suggestively down one side of her neck and over her collarbone to the valley between her breasts.
"I'm not your wife yet, and I'll never 'belong' to you in any way! You disgust me!" Lucy snarled and spit in his face, unable and equally unwilling to placate the man for even a moment longer.
Noah swiped the spittle from his cheek, then squeezed Lucy's face so hard that she was sure it would leave a mark. "Go ahead — fight me all you want. It'll just make it all the sweeter in the end. For me anyway." Releasing her face, he twirled her around, and shoved her in the back, forcing her further along the trail.
If she wasn't terrified before, Lucy was now. The man Rittenhouse had chosen to be her husband was in no way the gentle, sensitive soul that she'd once believed him to be. Rather, he was a monster right out of her worst nightmares, much like the founder of Rittenhouse himself had been.
Lucy flashed back to the one time she'd met David Rittenhouse, an incident that still haunted her dreams from time to time. Mere minutes after being introduced, the man had implied that he planned to use and abuse Lucy in all the same ways that Noah was now suggesting. If not for Rufus showing up when he had, who knew what would have become of her. No doubt, her dear friend had spared her from a life of mental and physical torture. Unfortunately, as it turned out, he'd only bought her a temporary reprieve. She was essentially right back where she'd started, wasn't she? Only this time, Rufus wouldn't be there to kick down the door, shotgun at the ready, to rescue her, would he?
Refusing to be ruled by fear ("Fear's not real," Harry Houdini had once coached her), Lucy continued to ponder possible ways of extricating herself from her current predicament, if not today then as soon as humanly possible. ("Escape, escape, escape." Once again, Harry's words of wisdom raced through her mind.)
"Finally!" Noah exclaimed a few minutes later as they turned a bend in the trail and the summit came into view.
Lucy scanned the mountaintop. With the sun just beginning to set in the distance, the view would normally have been quite breathtaking. Instead, it was marred by the presence of a large crowd of solemn-faced Rittenhouse members (doubtless those 'guests' of whom Noah had earlier spoken), including — front-and-center — Lucy's own mother. Lucy couldn't help but notice that, unlike the others, Carol Preston was currently beaming as if her every wish had finally come true.
Though she'd known from the journal to expect this, nothing could ever have truly prepared Lucy for the reality that her own mother – the same woman who had sung her to sleep as a toddler, who had kissed her skinned knees every time her innate clumsiness got the better of her, who had consoled her every time a boy she'd had a crush on hadn't returned her feelings – was a cult-loving sociopath bent on remaking the world in a monster's image.
Noah gripped one of Lucy's hands tightly, and dragged her the remaining small distance, stopping when they reached Lucy's mother.
Carol Preston eyed the couple intently, the smile that Lucy found disturbing on every level never once leaving her face. "Congratulations," she spoke first to Noah. "You've completed every task set before you successfully, and earned your just reward. Tonight, when the clock strikes twelve, you'll be united in marriage to my daughter, whose blood is every bit as pure as yours. Together you will join the ranks of the clockmakers, and assume the roles for which you've been destined since our beneficent founder, David Rittenhouse, set the very first clock in motion."
"Long live the clockmakers!" Noah replied. With a quick bow to the mother of the bride-to-be, Noah departed – to prepare himself for the upcoming ceremony, Lucy assumed.
Carol then turned to Lucy, and took both of her daughter's hands in hers. "Oh Lucy, I'm so proud of you! You're finally living up to your potential, just as I always knew you would!"
Lucy tugged her hands free, feeling betrayed in every way, and wanting no contact whatsoever with the woman she'd once adored and idolized. "How could you do this to me, Mom — your own daughter? How could you condemn me to this life of…of…."
"It's your destiny, Lucy, just as it was once mine," Carol explained, as if she thought that was all that Lucy needed to hear in order to accept it all. "Surely you realize that by now? The women of Rittenhouse — we're the only ones capable of furthering the line, Lucy, and we must. But don't worry, sweetheart. Once you fulfill your duties, and provide Noah with an heir, you'll be free to live your life however you choose. Within certain parameters, of course. Naturally we can't have you associating with those cretins at Mason Industries anymore. That wouldn't reflect well on any of us, would it?"
"Every one of those 'cretins', as you call them, is ten times the person you could ever hope to be, Mom," Lucy asserted loudly, not at all concerned with who might hear her, or how her words might 'reflect' on her mother. "Unlike you, apparently, they actually know what it means to love someone, to care about their well-being — to the point where any one of them would risk their life just to ensure my safety. Do you have any idea how many times in the last year they've done just that? Or how many times they've helped me pick up the pieces after you tried to destroy my sanity with your sleazy, self-centered scheming? You took my sister away from me, for God's sake, and let me think it was my fault that she was gone! What kind of mother does that to her child?"
"Really, Lucy. Stop being so dramatic. I understand that this is a lot to take in at once. It was for me, too, when my turn came. But I promise you that I have only your best interests at heart, sweetheart, just as I always have. Trust me, someday you'll thank me for this."
"I will never thank you for this," Lucy growled. "With my dying breath, I'll be cursing your name!"
Carol shrugged as if to say that Lucy's opinion of her as a person was of no import whatsoever. As long as Rittenhouse got what it needed, that was really all that mattered, wasn't it? "Come — we need to prepare you for tonight. We can't exactly have the mother of the next generation of clockmakers looking like this on her wedding day, can we?"
Lucy screamed every ounce of her pain (mental and physical) aloud as her mother gripped her arm tightly and dragged her, very much against her will, into the morally reprehensible world that she now knew to be Rittenhouse. If not for the two armed guards that followed them every step of the way into the Rittenhouse headquarters, Lucy might very well have finally thrown herself off the mountainside. As much as she wanted to live, she had no desire whatsoever to live like this.
