Millennial Prince (Jaxon Prayer Trilogy Book 2)

by Rachel West

  I glance to Jaxon who shrugs with a wry smile. “It’s a good idea,” he mouths to me.

  “Annie,” I turn to my sister, “Do you want to help Kalia.”

  “No.”

  “It could be fun,” I encourage her.

  “Do you think I’m still ten?” she snaps, “Oh, let’s have Annie draw some pictures because she’s still an itty-bitty child and so we can’t have her getting involved in grown-up business,” she says in a high-pitched tone that is clearly supposed to be a mockery of my own.

  “That’s not what I was imply--”

  “You’re not mom. You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

  “What?” I stare blankly at her, confused by the direction the conversation has taken. “I know I’m not mom. I just --.”

  “You just thought you could order me to help you with your stupid protest. Well I don’t want to help you. It’s dumb and you’re just going to get us all killed. He’s going to get us all killed,” she points an accusatory finger at Jaxon.

  “Annie –” but before I can say another words she turns and flees from the room leaving the door wide open in her wake. I growl in frustration, low and deep in my throat as I watch the door swing slowly shut.

  Red approaches from behind and rests a hand on my shoulder. “You okay?” he asks

  “Yes – No,” I stumble over my words then run my fingers through my hair in frustration “I don’t understand what’s wrong with her.”

  And I’m trembling with rage because she is so infuriating and I don’t know what I am doing. I don’t know how to take care of her. I don’t know how to right all the wrongs that have been done to her. Red pulls me into his arms and I press my cheek against his shoulders, but its Jaxon’s eyes that I meet. There is an inexplicable expression on his face, but when he sees me looking he quickly busies himself with a pile of papers on the table.

  I sigh deeply. Apparently I’ve no idea how to deal with anyone in my life.

  ***

  “Riot at the crematorium – Praetors have shut it down. Protest beneath the Westwick Presidio. Two hundred missing. Presumed taken, possibly dead.”

  Jaxon scribbles notes across the sheet in front of him as Ezzor lists the day’s happenings. “Anything in the other neighborhoods?” Jaxon asks.

  “All quiet.”

  “Hmm,” Jaxon nods as if he expected the answer. “Thank you,” he says, clearly a dismissal as he waves Ezzor from the room.

  The clash of wooden weapons sounds behind us, punctuating Ezzor’s departing steps. Red has two-dozen men training on weapons in the slightly larger room behind the War Room. The two of them, Jaxon and Red, bicker daily over the sound. Jaxon claims the sounds of their “brutish fighting” drives him mad while Red just smiles and makes sure to shout extra loud during the next session. I laugh, remembering yesterday’s argument, that resulted in Jaxon throwing a glass of milk against the wall and Kalia cackling in the corner like a madwoman.

  Jaxon darts a glance at me from the corner of his eyes. I smother the grin on my face. Now is not the time for humor. Ten days. Ten days since Jaxon announced himself. Ten more innocent people executed. But the city is not standing idly by. Kalia’s flyers have found their way into every hand and home. Protests occur daily. Rumors trickle down into the Hollows. Tales of streets shut down by protesters. Of the Praetors rounding them up en masse. But still we hide deep in the Hollows, with Jaxon desperately trying to find a way to lead people that have never been led.

  The shadows under his eyes have grown deep. At night I hear him pacing outside our rooms. The swish off his footsteps lulling me to sleep. Even now, eyelids drooping and skin pale, he hunches over a map of Haven, refusing to take a moments break. With a red pen he colors the crematoriums in. There are a few other spots of red, places and businesses that have been shut down by the Praetors. His long, elegant fingers trace the city streets as I imagine their touch against my skin…

  “Jaaaxon” Ki comes careening around the corner of the War Room, breaking through my thoughts and bringing me back to reality. “Jaxon! Jaxon!” Ki slides to a halt nearly bumping into the table before he manages to stop.

  “What is it Ki?” A smile rolls across Jaxon’s face at Ki’s antics.

  “They killed some Praetors!”

  “Who did?” Jaxon leans forward.

  “Barry and Kwik and Ax,” Ki ticks off a finger as he says each name. The names are unfamiliar to me. Jaxon quirks his head to one side as if he recognizes them but he waits for Ki to continue on. “They attacked a guard post!” he finishes breathlessly.

  “That is…” I flick my eyes over to Jaxon for help. This isn’t what we planned at all. We don’t have nearly enough people to begin taking the initiative. We still have no goddamn idea what we are doing. The protests have been one thing. But it has all been outside of Jaxon, out of his control. The Praetors have quelled them all quickly, no deaths have been reported, only disappearances. But each time a protest occurs, Jaxon smiles and makes another notation on his map.

  “Excellent news,” Jaxon finishes my sentence with a flourish. “Send them to me. At once.”

  Ki nods and thumps his fist against his chest in the gesture a thief would offer their mob boss.

  “What?” I say to Jaxon once Ki has left.

  Jaxon shrugs helplessly. “We cannot divide them. If we punish them…” he changes direction, “I – we -- do not have enough control yet to get away with punishing anyone. There has been a lot of talk about our lack of action. Everyday Captain Vex and the Millennials kill another of us while we sit by and do nothing.”

  “Yeah, but what are we supposed to do? We have no idea what we’re doing. No idea how to lead a rebellion,” I struggle over the word, feeling foolish as I say it, but there is no other name for what we’re trying to do.

  “They cannot know that. The people who join us need to have absolute faith in what we do. Otherwise they will turn on us. If that happens we will have nothing.”

  There is a hesitant knock at the door.

  Three men enter. Large men. Men used to getting whatever they want with intimidating looks and thrown fists. One of them, the smallest of the three, although that’s not saying much, keeps rubbing his fingers across his knuckles and cracking his fingers. One fight finished and on the lookout for the next. I don’t recognize any of them, but that’s not so uncommon. There aren’t many of us. Not yet - -as Jaxon keeps repeating -- but our numbers are slowly ballooning and every day brings new faces.

  “I hear you have taken down some Praetors,” Jaxon states.

  “Yeah,” says the smallest of the three. He crosses his arms and thrusts his chest out belligerently. The largest of them takes a small step back, as if he wants to distance himself from the actions of the other two.

  “Where did you find them?”

  The three men look to each other, as if finally realizing that Jaxon may be less than pleased.

  “The guardhouse. The one at the entrance to the freemarket,” the largest of the three steps forward to the responsibility. “They were harassing some women.”

  Jaxon points to them, “You want to attack any more Praetors? You come to me first,” his words are cool but the threat burns just beneath them. “However…” he pauses and leans back in his chair to stare at the ceiling as if disciplining men twice his size is of no concern. “However, should you see Praetors falsely attacking innocents you have my permission to defend those weaker than you.”

  The three men look confused and I can’t blame them. I try to sort through Jaxon’s words to find the meaning underneath. Is this it? Our first step, our first attack? Permission to attack Praetors - or at least defend ourselves from them?

  “Understood…” the largest man pauses for a moment, as if debating with himself, “Sir.” The three men imitate Ki’s earlier gesture, fist to chest, than turn as one to leave the room.

  ***

  Later that evening we gather in the atrium. For ten days now the Millennials ha
ve been broadcasting the deaths of the innocent every night before the dinner hour. Tonight is no different.

  Jaxon hops onto the dais in front of the large screen in the atrium. Each night he has solemnly stood there - for everyone to look on him while Captain Vex executes another innocent civilian. Despite my begging and pleading he refuses to stop. He claims the people need to see what they are getting into. That as a leader he needs to own responsibility for what’s happening.

  He’s an idiot sometimes. I do my best to try and remind him frequently.

  “Hey,” Red comes up from behind and bumps me lightly with his shoulder. “I heard what happened. What’d our great and fearless leader have to say?”

  “Shut up. Don’t call him that,” I say with a sigh of resignation, knowing that my words will have no impact on him.

  “Sorry,” Red says, sounding anything but.

  “Jaxon declared that if Praetors are attacking innocents that we can fight back.”

  “Hmm,” Red says, rubbing his jaw as if he had a beard to stroke, “That’s smart. People were getting restless.”

  I laugh. Jaxon and Red may argue worse than a married couple but when it comes to action they are never far out of sync.

  We watch the execution. Another older man - long past seventy and close to his deathbed anyway. I look away faced by my insensitivity. Am I getting use to this? Is this what war is? Growing so used to seeing death that it no longer has an effect?

  Afterwards Jaxon steps forwards into the center of the dais. The room quiets and all eyes turn expectantly to him.

  “Eleven.” Jaxon says and the number echoes through the room like a knock to the head. “The Praetors have killed eleven of our people. Eleven innocent men and women have lost their lives for a cause they did not even know about.”

  Silence.

  “It is time we let the world know who we are.”

  There is a rumble in the room. Not quite a cheer.

  “We are going to set up a rotation of volunteers. From now on our people will police our streets. Should you see the Praetors attacking innocents, it is your job to intervene and do what is right. You need to defend the people who are unknowingly suffering for what we do. It is time we show the Millennials that we are not to be walked on.”

  This time there is a cheer. Half-hearted and supported by less than half of those in the room. But it’s a start. Jaxon dreams big and we are going to need a lot more people than we have to get anywhere. But every day more arrive – and as Jaxon said: “Everything needs a beginning.”

  As Jaxon steps down from the dais some of the men gather around him. My heart jumps into my throat and I take one lunging step forward. “Red,” I gasp. Jaxon has disappeared from sight, surrounded completely by a mob of men, swarming him with loud mutters. Anger or adoration? Impossible to tell and I fear the worst.

  “Stay here,” Red rests his hand on my shoulder. He strides forward into the fray, shoving men twice his size out of the way. One of the men, with bright yellow hair styled into a crown above his head turns angrily at Red’s interruption. Red doesn’t say anything, doesn’t do anything, but the man takes one look and sees something in Red’s eyes. A threat. A promise. Whatever he finds, it’s enough to make him back down with a stuttering gesture of appeasement.

  I think back to when I first met Red, who at only sixteen he was capable of making men twice his age step down with nothing more than a look and a quiet word.

  A half dozen men follow Red, aligned in a triangular formation. This is Red’s crew - men he knew from the Coliseum and brought to join our fight. Of all those who have offered their allegiance, Red’s men are the only ones with any skill, with any loyalty. They support Red without question and through him, Jaxon. As one they fan out around the crowd circling Jaxon. They step forward and their movement pushes others back like the motion of the tide.

  I lunge forward to help but someone grabs my shoulder, stopping me in place. I spin around with my arm raised high, ready to defend myself from whoever holds me back.

  Ezzor stands behind me. His eyes, the only thing visible through the cowl, are narrowed. “Don’t,” he warns.

  I jerk my shoulder and his grip falls away. Fear makes my heart feel like it’s dropped all the way to the ground and spilled out over the floor. Of all the men who have stepped forward to join Jaxon, Ezzor is the one I understand the least. Some clearly just want a fight. Others are tired of the life they lead and want something new. But Ezzor? I have no explanation for why he is here. I don’t trust him, not a bit.

  “Let go,” I snap, even though he already has.

  “What do you see?” he nods to the crowd surrounding Jaxon.

  “What?” I raise my eyes. He points and I follow the line of his finger. The crowd shuffles restlessly, but there are so many that I can barely see Jaxon. A hint of his shiny black hair and then he is lost again. “A mob,” I mutter angrily.

  “No.” His laugh is low and deep and echoes through him like there is nothing more than bones under his robe. “What you see is a king. Look,” he points again, this time to Red and his men, “A king surrounded by his knights; the people prostrating themselves before him.”

  “Jaxon is no king,” I spit. The Great Uniter - that is a man that wanted to be king -- to be God. Jaxon is nothing like that. He is nothing like his father.

  “Don’t look for the man you know,” Ezzor says, “look for the man they see.” I look again but nothing has changed. I turn back to tell Ezzor that he’s the blind one, not me, but somehow he’s disappeared without a sound. I look to each side but I can’t spot him anywhere.

  I shake my head and ignore the tingle of apprehension. With no one stopping me I run to the front of the atrium. When I get there the crowd has mostly dispersed. Jaxon stands with two of Red’s men a step behind him, guarding his back.

  Jaxon is finishing a conversation with a man dressed in tattered leathers. An outdated fashion still seen only seen in the Coliseum. “--my pleasure to have you with us,” Even without hearing the start of the conversation I know that another has joined our cause. I step forward, pushing past Red’s men, to stand beside Jaxon. The man Jaxon speaks with flicks his eyes disinterestedly at me, then back to Jaxon. My spine prickles at the slight.

  As we leave the atrium my sister comes running up to us. “Annie?” I blurt her name like a curse, startled to see her.

  “What’s going on?” She demands. She crosses her arm angrily across her chest, like a schoolteacher on the brink of scolding a restless child. “There are all kinds of rumors. Everyone’s talking about it. Have you really started attacking the Praetors?”

  There is a low growl behind me, Jaxon or Red, I’m not sure, but it sounds like someone cursing under their breath.

  I try to find a way to explain to Annie what we are doing, I try to find the words, but with her they never seem to be right. “We’re not attacking them. Only defending ourselves.”

  “No,” she says, taking a step back like it’s me she’s frightened of. “No you can’t do that. It will make them angrier.”

  “We have to Annie, if we don’t, we’ll spend the rest of our lives on the run. Don’t you want to live again? Have a home? Not have to worry about the Praetors finding you in the night?”

  There is another sound behind me, a light cough and a voice I do not recognize. “Excuse me for interrupting.”

  A man stands behind us, dressed like a millennial with a black vest tight over a crimson shirt. A handkerchief is knotted jauntily around his neck. Everything about him tells me that he belongs even less than Jaxon does, from his dashing hat all the way down to his polished boots.

  “I am the leader of the Westwick Foxes,” he says with a flourish “Antony DeBois.” In one smooth move he doffs his hat and bows elegantly, managing to include all four of us in the gesture.

  A choked noise bursts from Annie’s throat and I turn to see a blush burning through her cheeks. Red coughs deliberately and my eyes follow the sound. Red props
two fingers from each hand above his head in an imitation of ears. The Foxes? Understanding comes to me in a flash. Everyone has heard rumors of the Foxes. A team of thieves who have never been seen, never been caught. It’s said they’ve even broken into the homes of Millennials and come away unscathed.

  “My Prince,” Antony says from his prone position, “I have come to declare the allegiance of the Westwick Foxes yours.” He looks at Jaxon expectantly.

  An uncomfortable pause fills the hallway.

  “Of course,” Jaxon offers his hand to Antony, smoothing over any awkwardness. “What is it that your crew can bring to my team?”

  “Loyalty,” Antony says in a level tone. Jaxon flicks his eyes to me. Is this guy for real? Loyalty only buys so much, and what crew would choose loyalty to some unknown rather than loyalty to their own leader. A smile breaks out across Antony’s face like he’s letting us all in on a joke, “And of course, my crew is quite good at procuring… difficult to find items.”

  “That could be useful.”

  “I find it to be quite useful myself.”

  “Bring your team to the war room tomorrow. I’m sure we can find much to discuss.”

  CHAPTER 12

  “I hear the Foxes joined you guys,” Kalia says. Stretched out on my bed, she has her feet propped up on the small bedside table. As usual, she taps one foot against the wall in an uneven beat. The constant sound of shifting, shuffling, and tapping around Kalia has become so familiar that it no longer annoys.

  “You know who the Foxes are?”

  Kalia shrugs, “When your father runs the Hollows….”

  “Wait,” my eyebrows shoot up in surprise, “Vertigo is your…father?” Impossible. I know that Kalia and Ki are related, but they look nothing like Vertigo. They have nothing of him in them.

  “Well. I guess not technically. He dated my mom when we were little then when our mum was killed Vertigo took us in. Ki and I have lived with him for...like, ever, pretty much.”

  “Oh,” I say, making the noise just to say anything at all. That would explain why Ki walks through the Hollows with such impunity. Even in this new, safer Hollows I would not allow a child his age out alone.