Watershed

by Jane Abbott

  ‘I don’t trust you. Not one bit. But I trust Alex. That’s all you need to know.’

  He frowned then. ‘She’s married, Jem. And she loves her husband. I’ve been watching, and you keeping her close, keeping her to yourself? It won’t change anything.’

  So this was the real reason he’d woken me: not to dream, but to lecture.

  ‘I’m not trying to change anything. But what she’s doing – the sacrifice she’s making – that deserves more than any of you are giving her. I’m the one who has to hand her over, Ballard. Not you, or that husband she loves so much. Me. And when it’s over, I’ll be the one having to rescue her too. Shit, I’ll even return her to Cade, if that’s what she wants. You have my word.’

  ‘That’s not your job. We agreed you’d stay with Thatcher –’

  ‘No!’ I cut in. ‘You agreed. I won’t leave Alex for one second longer than she needs to be there. And I can’t believe you’d even think of doing otherwise.’

  He sighed. ‘I have no intention of letting Alex suffer more than she needs –’

  ‘Needs? She doesn’t need to suffer at all! Not if you all let me do this my way.’

  ‘Your way isn’t possible. Nor is it your decision.’

  ‘And it’s not yours either, or Cade’s,’ I said, echoing Tate’s words to me, wiser than anything Ballard had ever said.

  He turned back to stare at the Sea, and it was a while before he spoke. While I waited I thought longingly of the woman still lying beneath my cloak.

  ‘What’s Alex told you about Cade?’ he finally asked.

  ‘Absolutely nothing. And that tells me plenty.’

  ‘I can see why you’d think that. But there’s something you need to know, Jem,’ he said, with a level stare, his eyes even paler in the sunlight. ‘This whole movement, overthrowing the Council, getting rid of the Watch and the Guard? It’s Cade’s doing, not mine. He’s the one in charge. He’s the one you’ll answer to. And he’s the reason Alex is doing this.’

  It took me a while to find my voice. ‘You prick. This is exactly why I don’t trust you.’

  He ignored that, looking out across the land and it was anyone’s guess what he saw. ‘I met him when I moved to the settlement. Both of us young and angry; both of us disillusioned. It started the way these things always start, Jem, with talk. Lots and lots of talk, long into every night –’

  ‘Bet that made you real happy,’ I muttered, and saw his quick frown.

  ‘– and at first that’s all it was. Just talk. But then he began to plan, to turn our dreams into reality. Alex would sit with us, grew up listening to every word. And like the rest of us, she fell under his spell. There was never any question she’d end up marrying him. The only thing she refused to follow was his beliefs.’

  ‘Funny that. He doesn’t seem to have any problem following hers,’ I said.

  ‘You really have no idea, do you?’

  ‘I’m beginning to –’

  ‘No. So just listen. What Alex has chosen to do was Cade’s idea. Oh, I don’t think he ever intended for it to be Alex, but when we were planning to recruit a Watchman and we realised we’d have to find a way around Garrick’s nasty little habit, she took it on and made it her own. Refused to let us use anyone else.’

  You know what to do.

  Fuck! I bowed my head, fighting the nausea, and began pacing, wheeling away then turning back with bunched fists, wanting to flatten him. ‘You make me fucking sick. All of you.’

  ‘I tried to stop it by getting rid of Garrick,’ he said. ‘More than once. But we never succeeded, and she kept insisting on going through with it. Then she spent that night with you, and it’s complicated everything. We can’t have complications, Jem. Not now. Not when we’re so close.’

  Hadn’t Alex told me the same thing? Don’t complicate this. But we were way past that. As far as I could see, things couldn’t be less straightforward.

  ‘Well I’m real sorry if our screwing has upset your little plan,’ I said. ‘You know, when Alex first mentioned you she told me you were a good man. But you’re not, are you? You’re just another fucking cunt. Alex wouldn’t know a good man if she fell over one.’

  ‘Coming from you, that’s somehow still a compliment,’ he said. ‘Tell me, Jem. When you were whispering sweet nothings in her ear that night, did you tell her everything you’ve done? Or don’t you want her to know the sort of person you really are?’ At my silence, his voice hardened with contempt. ‘No, I didn’t think so.’

  I fought down my anger, swallowed the dismay, tasted the bitterness. The easiest thing would be to betray them all. Return to the compound, report everything to Garrick, be done with it and hope for the best. Except now I had to think about more than just myself. I had to think about Alex.

  ‘I’ve changed my mind, Ballard. When this is over, I won’t be returning Alex to anyone. You don’t fucking deserve her. None of you do.’

  And turning my back on him, I left him standing on the edge of the world, overlord to nothing.

  Ballard clasped Cade’s arm, relieved. ‘It’s good to see you again.’

  ‘You too,’ Cade said, and then ruined it. ‘Praise be, God has delivered you safely.’

  No, arsehole. That’d be me.

  I watched him greet Tate in the same way, listened to their brief exchange. I’d forgotten how tall he was. He was with two others, all three of them uniformed, but he stood out, shiny and stiff, and older than I remembered. I couldn’t see what Alex saw, couldn’t picture him with her, couldn’t imagine him unbending enough to kiss her where she needed to be kissed, or fuck her the way she liked to be fucked.

  ‘Any problems?’ he asked Ballard.

  ‘Only one.’ Ballard mentioned Jackson, omitting the details because he didn’t know them, and Cade frowned before turning to me, a frown that deepened more when he finally looked at his wife and took in the rope and filthy gag now hanging around her neck.

  ‘Is that really necessary?’ he demanded, moving towards us, and I tightened my hold on the rope.

  ‘I was told to make it authentic, so yeah, it is,’ I said.

  ‘Jem, don’t,’ Alex said, her hand on my arm, gently squeezing.

  But I ignored her, and when Cade took another step, said, ‘That’s close enough. We’re out in the open and too near the Citadel. Anyone could be watching.’

  He made a show of glancing up and down the empty road. ‘I think it’s safe.’

  ‘It’s never safe,’ I replied, and again he frowned.

  ‘I see you managed to work out what you needed to know without my help,’ he said. So, he remembered too.

  ‘Enough to last a lifetime,’ I replied.

  He smiled suddenly. ‘And did you find the hard way to your liking?’

  The others were watching us, Alex a little confused, Ballard with growing anger and Tate, resigned. I’d resolved, despite Ballard’s confession that morning, to stand down; let the others do their thing and give Alex time with her husband before taking her on to the compound. I’d decided, magnanimously, I thought, to be the bigger man. For her sake. And because doing anything less would achieve nothing. But now Cade was in front of me, declaring his god and brandishing his arrogance, I was forced to ditch every good intention in favour of pettiness.

  ‘Very much,’ I told him. ‘Your wife was real helpful.’

  ‘Jem,’ Alex insisted, tugging on the rope. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘Remember your place, Watchman,’ Cade said, that smile of his dimming a little, his mouth tightening to a grim line.

  After a couple of beats, I passed her the rope and stood back. Maybe Tate was wrong, or at least not all right. Or maybe I’d just misunderstood. Maybe when one person cherishes another, there’s a bond stronger than any rope. Maybe Alex did belong to her husband after all, and it was Cade’s right to stake his claim. I didn’t know. I’d never had that chance. But in that moment, seeing the quick gleam in his eyes, and his bitterness, I knew he understood what Alex a
nd I had done. And knowing it didn’t give me the pleasure I’d thought it would.

  With his arm around her, he led her off the side of the road while I watched. He didn’t kiss her, as he should have. As I would have. No passionate reunion for Alex. Instead, he grasped her shoulders and talked, while she stood and gazed up at him, replying every now and then, quiet and soft. He and Ballard were a pair all right. Only once, when she lifted her bound hands to touch his face, stroking his cheek as she had mine, did he stop to hug and hold her, before talking some more. So much talk, any moment I expected him to drop to his knees and start talking to his god. But Alex didn’t need prayers. No amount of them would help her now.

  ‘You did the right thing,’ Tate said, suddenly beside me. For a big man he could move bloody quietly. Ballard was talking to the other two Guards, more relaxed now the tension had eased, but he kept shifting his feet, impatient to move on and put this moment behind him.

  Nodding across at Cade and Alex, I said, ‘I don’t get it.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Tate, ‘but we each only see what we want. You see a man too old for Alex; I see a man who’ll be responsible for great things.’

  ‘And her?’ I asked. When everyone was done singing Cade’s praises, would any of them take a moment to remember the great thing Alex was doing?

  ‘I wish I could tell you.’

  ‘It’s a shit deal, Tate.’

  ‘Yes. But not just for Alex.’

  ‘Still not too late to change it,’ I said.

  He sighed. ‘Jem, have you never wondered why you’re here? Why you, and no other Watchman?’

  You’re exactly who we wanted. But I narrowed my eyes and said nothing, waiting for him to continue. I’d learned enough to know that when a wise man spoke, it paid to listen.

  ‘It was Cade who chose you, Jem. Right from the start. He knew all about you, who you were, what you’d done. I don’t know how. I asked him once, why you and not anyone else, and all he said was, God’s vengeance is best wrought by the devil’s tools.’

  I felt my scalp prickle. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, take care in there. Of yourself, and of Alex.’ We watched Cade finally finish his little sermon and press his mouth to his wife’s forehead, before Tate added, ‘And do what needs to be done. Afterwards, if you have to.’

  Let him do it. He’s the only one who can.

  ‘Sure,’ I muttered, sick at the thought.

  ‘Thank you.’ He gripped my hand. ‘Eyes open, at all times.’

  ‘All times.’

  Before I’d left the compound, Taggart had warned me to trust no one; now, as I was about to return, Tate was doing the same. Maybe this time I’d do as I was told.

  Alex and I walked the last few miles to the compound alone. The farewells had been brief and bitter, no one keen to prolong the agony. Ballard had hugged his sister tight, and despite knowing what I did about him I felt his pain. Tate’s too. Last-minute instructions to me, and then the group turned their backs, disappearing into the gloom, Cade with only a single glance over his shoulder, his expression unreadable in the moonlight.

  I led the way off the road, northwest to find the entrance to the compound. As she stumbled along behind me, I was reminded of our first night together when we’d headed out to the Hills, when everything had seemed so much easier, the rules known, the boundaries drawn; when I’d been just a Watchman and had thought her nothing more than a useless Guard.

  Just before coming in sight of the entrance, I stopped and tucked my small knife into my boot, burying it low and out of sight. I’d have to check the rest of my weapons with the sentries guarding Garrick’s tunnel, and the gun lay wrapped at the bottom of my pack, but it was best to be prepared.

  ‘This is it. You ready?’ I asked Alex and she nodded, her eyes dark, her nostrils flaring with each breath. But after a few steps, I felt the rope tighten behind me and I turned. ‘Alex?’

  A violent shake of her head, and she pulled back, wrestling off the gag. Shit.

  ‘I’m scared, Jem. I’m so scared. What if –? I can’t –’ Tears streaked her pale face and suddenly we were back in that stone-clad room, one dead Guard before us, two more waiting for the knife, and her leaving me to take charge.

  I held her close, enfolding her in my arms, letting her cry. ‘Shh, you don’t have to do this, Alex. Not for them.’ Especially not for them. ‘I’ll take the flogging, and everything’ll be fine. It’s okay.’

  She pressed her face into me and mumbled, ‘You would, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Jem,’ she sighed, and I remembered the warm wet of her mouth on my back as she’d kissed every scar, tracing them with her tongue, the soft, heavy sweep of her breasts as she’d moved over me. I’d gladly let Garrick punish me, just to feel that again.

  ‘Alex, you don’t deserve this. And no one’s going to think any less of you if you back out.’ But they were the wrong words, at the wrong time; she pulled away, shaking her head and sniffing back her tears.

  ‘No! I can’t let them down. I can’t let him down.’ She gave a sad smile. ‘I’ve disappointed him enough already.’ I didn’t need to ask what she meant. Squaring her shoulders, she took a deep, ragged breath. ‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. C’mon, let’s get this over with.’

  ‘In a minute,’ I muttered, and ignoring my own advice to Cade about watchful eyes, cupping her face in my hands, I kissed her, soft at first then deepening it when she opened her mouth to me. I wasn’t her husband, but I knew what she needed, what she’d sought from him, what he’d denied her. I knew, because I needed it too.

  Goodbye, Alex.

  I wiped her eyes with my thumbs, then her mouth, tracing the shape of her lips and, before she could say anything, refitted the gag and turned my back. For the last time I was Jem the Watchman, returning with his spoils. It was all I knew, and I could no longer afford to pretend to be anything else.

  Excerpt ~ Letter #9

  Not being able to see something doesn’t mean it can’t exist. For instance, we can see the dust in the sky, but we can’t see the wind that carries it. Monsters aren’t make-believe, Jeremiah. They’re real and they’re terrible and they hide in dark hearts, beneath the skins of men.

  Two guards: one at Daniel’s feet, the other at his head. The second poked at Daniel’s shoulder and everyone watched his head roll and settle again.

  You worried he’s still alive? Jeremiah asked. He stood in a corner, in the shadows by the window, as far away from the guards as possible, but his scorn filled the room.

  Just making sure he ain’t stiff, the man replied, and Sarah’s sob caught in her throat. No, Daniel wasn’t stiff any more. He was loose and flaccid and empty of life, time robbing him of even that last protest. Had it only happened last night?

  It was Jeremiah who’d alerted the guards before dawn, informing them that there was another body for collection, though it seemed to take forever for the two to arrive with the barrow, ready to cart Daniel’s remains to the pyres so he could be returned to sky and earth. Sarah had sat with him during that time, clutching his cold hand and smoothing his cold face, her eyes dry, her mind numb.

  Did she hate him? Jeremiah had asked, when she stood in the doorway staring at Daniel’s dead body, and suddenly he’d been a boy again, awaiting punishment just as he had when he’d knocked over the jug of water so many years ago.

  No, she’d replied. She didn’t hate him. And perhaps it was true. But if she didn’t hate him, she lamented what he’d stolen from her: Daniel now slept the long sleep and she’d been given no chance to say goodbye. It was hard to understand, and harder to forgive, but she didn’t hate. Of course she didn’t.

  C’mon, hurry it up, muttered the first guard. We got more to get to.

  The other shrugged and shoved at Daniel again, this time to turn him, flop him over onto his stomach like the piece of meat he’d become, his dead face crushed to the bed. No fear now that he’d suffocate; he’d already been m
ade to do that when Jeremiah had held his nose and his mouth, closing off what little air Daniel had been able to draw. Had he struggled then? Sarah wondered. Had he fought that final cruelty with frail fists, or had he accepted it as quietly as he’d accepted everything else? She hadn’t dared ask. She didn’t really want to know.

  Fuckin’ stinks, the guard commented, prodding the back of Daniel’s neck. Sarah looked away; she couldn’t watch this indignity. But Jeremiah had no such qualms and, as the seconds drew out, as she imagined she could hear the squelch of flesh while the guard fingered for Daniel’s tag, he drawled: Shit, anyone’d think this was your first time.

  It wasn’t, came the guard’s terse reply. And Jeremiah had better keep it civil if he knew what was good for him. Or they’d get a bit of extra practice in.

  Was this imagined too, or did the shadows suddenly draw closer, the silence frigid with hate? Then a scratching on paper as Daniel’s number was recorded from both disc and brand, and Sarah turned back in time to see the red wet tag being slipped carelessly into a little bag. She heard the faint clink; how many others had died last night?

  Right, let’s load him up, said one. Ankles were seized, hands slipped into dry armpits, Daniel’s shell hoisted with a grunt and a last hiss of air. The guard at Daniel’s head cursed and let go – Fuck! The smell!

  Jeremiah finally left the safety of his corner. Leave him. I’ll do it, he said.

  Neither guard protested, both stepping back with faint smiles. Go right ahead, said one. Was this their usual practice, making others do their work for them? Sarah couldn’t help wondering. But perhaps she shouldn’t judge too harshly; who wouldn’t take up such an offer?

  She watched Jeremiah bend and pull the coverlet around Daniel, wrapping and closing off the sight of him for the last time, and she hated her sudden relief. Just as she hated her tears when her grandson lifted Daniel effortlessly and carried him past her, through the door and out to the barrow. Was it guilt or love that lent him the strength for such a task?