by Kresley Cole
He stared at his hand. Subject closed.
"Okay, then, what about the Priestess? Can we get her into our alliance?"
"Snow falls on graves." He wrapped his arms around himself.
"What graves, sweetheart? Are you cold?" Though the fire was crackling along, I looked around for another log. Didn't see one.
Of course not. The resources here were limited. How much precious wood had Jack spent on this fire, to warm me alone while he was gone?
Matthew said, "Tredici nears."
"What is Tredici?" It was too early in the morning, or the afternoon, or whenever, for this kind of confusion. "Will you explain?"
He blinked, as if I'd asked him a ridiculous question.
Inhaling for patience, I said, "So. Today's a big day for me. Do you have any advice that won't make my head hurt worse?"
"Everything from me makes you hurt. Power is your burden. Knowledge is mine. But I gave you everything before I lose my head."
"What are you talking about?" I crossed to him, pressing the backs of my fingers against one of his sallow cheeks. No fever. "Can you try to rest now?"
"Too much to do."
He'd said that before. "Like what? Do you want me to help you with any--"
He stood, turned toward the exit, then left me.
"Good talk, buddy," I said to myself. Grabbing my bug-out bag, I went searching for a place to get cleaned up.
In a communal bathroom facility, I washed with cold water, brushed my teeth, and changed into clean clothes--jeans, halter, hoodie. I felt better, but I couldn't shake that nagging headache.
I checked on Tess, who was taking a nap--reactoring, I suppose. About a third of the fruit I'd made for her was gone, and she steadily gained weight. Someone had left a baseball cap to cover her patchy hair.
As I headed back to the tent, chafing my hands against the chill, the gates creaked open.
Jack.
He rode into the courtyard astride a striking gray horse. I stood off in the shadows, not drawing attention to myself, just watching him.
His face was less swollen. The bandage on his chest peeked up from the collar of his flannel shirt and camo jacket. His crossbow was strapped over his other shoulder.
Joules rode in, Gabriel landing nearby. All the people in the fort cheered for the returning heroes.
When a wagon loaded with supplies rolled in, Jack called orders to soldiers. A few offloaded pallets of cans. Another group went around to lift a large gun off the back.
Jack dismounted, moving stiffly. He unstrapped a bulky camo duffel bag from his saddle, hauling it over his body. Men gathered around him, asking questions. Despite his younger age, they hung on his every word.
His unforgiving life had honed him, giving him hard-earned skills, but he'd never had a chance to utilize them to this degree.
It'd taken an apocalypse for Jack to come into his own as a leader.
He paused midsentence, then turned in my direction, as if he sensed me there.
I stepped from the shadows, and our eyes met, his so vivid and gray. His gaze roamed over my face and figure the way it had on our first day of school together, like he hadn't seen a girl in years.
Never taking his focus off me, he said something that made the other men nod and set off; then he crossed the distance between us.
Without a word, he clasped my hand, leading me to his tent. How would I approach this talk? I needed to tell him about Aric, but now wasn't the right time.
The tent seemed so much smaller with him in it, because Jack was larger than life. He pulled off that duffel bag, setting aside his bow.
We stood staring at each other in silence. At length, he moved to stand before me. "Didn't think you could get prettier." Curling his finger under my chin, he leaned down to kiss me.
I was stunned, motionless. I'd pictured our reunion, but I'd never imagined him just walking up and kissing me. A thrill cascaded through me.
God, I'd missed the feel of his lips. I gasped with pleasure.
But right when my hands decided to reach for him, my feet stepped me back. "Um, how are you feeling?"
He was clearly disappointed by my reaction. What else had he expected? The problems between us hadn't magically fixed themselves. "You know me: tete dure." Hard head. "I was more worried about you."
"I'm fine. You know me: regeneration."
By the way he removed his coat, you'd never know the extent of his injuries. But that muscle ticked in his jaw. His tell. He wore a shoulder holster with two pistols, unstrapping that as well.
"When did you start carrying guns?"
"When I started goan up against firepower." He dragged his flask out of a pocket and took a pull.
I sat on Matthew's cot, as stiffly as he had before. "So you, Joules, and Gabriel took over the army?"
"Ouais. I wanted you and Selena there to give you credit, but she's off somewhere, and you shooed me away when I tried to wake you earlier." I had? "Didn't want to leave you, but I needed to make sure those filles were being treated right."
Of course he would. I'd never known any man who hated violence against women so much.
"When folks see Arcana like Joules and Gabriel, they tend to step in line." He stoked the fire. "I'm not above using that to achieve some order around here."
He sat across from me, elbows on his knees, flask at the ready. His thick black hair tumbled over his forehead, and tousles jutted above his ears.
I'd once threaded my fingers through his hair, drawing him down to me. "When did you decide to go public with our kind?" He now had seven of us here, an Arcana Justice League.
He took another swig. "I remembered that in the Basin everybody told themselves stories. We'd tell ourselves we could tolerate living there because we had our friends and family with us. Or that we were tied to those lands by our history. I started thinking folks needed new stories, and I just happened to have a kid with me who can make illusions and a girl whose skin glows." He shrugged, then seemed to regret the movement. "We've been giving people a new story to tell."
Though the sentiment was heartening, I was still surprised by his involvement. "In the past you didn't concern yourself with others. You called serving your fellow man bullshit. You said live people were the worst kind."
"I hadn't met many solid characters then. Over these months, I have."
"You never went looking for trouble. Sound familiar? This is a heaping ton of trouble."
"Dis-moi quelque chose que j'connais pas." Tell me something I don't know. "But I've realized some things."
"Like what?"
"We might be goan extinct, Evie. As in, our species is goan to lose this one. And yet Milovnici is the only one mobilizing folks? Somebody's got to stand up to him. For some reason, it's fallen to me." Another swig.
"You're drinking again. I thought you quit." He'd started so young.
"Had to be sharp to get back to you. To fight your enemies." A shadow crossed his expression. "But after a while, you didn't want me to."
I couldn't deny that. "And now?"
In a low tone, he said, "Drinking helps with the pain." I knew he meant anguish. His tolerance for physical pain was off the charts. "I didn't expect you to come, Evie."
"Of course I would." In a softer voice, I said, "Will you please tell me what happened to you? To Clotile?"
He faced me with such a tormented look that I shivered. "I'll never tell you. Jamais."
"Jack, I have to know."
"I felt the same way. Now? I wish to Christ I didn't know." His flask shook in his hand. "I wish I could've killed those two myself--making it last."
"Your friend was with you. I'm so sorry."
Brows drawn tight, he said, "You ever order yourself not to think about something? With my podna . . ." Jack's breaths whistled like a weight pressed down on his chest. "I'm hanging on by a thread here, Evangeline."
Oh, Jack. My gaze dipped to the edge of his bandage. There was no way I could tell him about Aric. Not right
now. I refused to snip that thread.
Jack pulled up his shirt to conceal the bandage. Embarrassed? In front of me? "I'll have this forever, non?" He lifted his chin. "That's what the doc said."
"You survived Vincent and Violet. Which is all that matters."
"You nearly didn't. Selena told me you fought off the High Priestess too."
I nodded.
"And that you almost killed Tess for me. Made the girl . . . take you back in time, to save my sight. What the hell happened? Joules and Gabe woan say much about it."
Deciding on total honesty, I said, "The twins took out your eyes with a hot spoon."
"Doan know how to react to that." So he took a drink. "I saw Tess this morning. Maigre, non? " Skinny, no? "But she wasn't mad. Couldn't say enough good about you."
Then she must not remember what happened. "I heard you yell. I lost it."
Hope flared in those gray eyes. "If you care that much, did you come here to be with me? Like we were? Or like we could be in time?"
"Things are different now." I didn't want him to expect something I wasn't sure I could give. "They just are."
"Maybe you came running out of guilt. Because Arcana had me?"
"I'd already planned to find you--before you were taken."
"Death was goan to let you go?"
"Not exactly." Never. "It doesn't matter. I'm here now."
"It does matter. How did you get away?"
"Matthew helped me." True, but evasive.
"But you didn't take down the Reaper?" Again, I felt Jack's disappointment in me. "Even after what he did to us? Even after he left me and coo-yon, Finn and Selena to die?" He pointed to my hands, to the icons. "You killed two. Why not Death?"
"I learned more about the history of the games, about why he hated me. I wasn't exactly Miss Congeniality in the past. I betrayed him in ways you can't imagine."
Jack swiped his hand over his bruised face. "Try me."
"It's complicated. Earlier I didn't press for answers from you, and now I want to drop this subject."
He looked like he was just getting started. "Joules told me about the offer he made you. You had a chance to get me freed days ago, but you didn't take it!"
"There's a lot about Death that you don't know. That I didn't."
"He's goan to be coming for you."
I wasn't convinced. "I have no idea what to expect."
"Did you know you were the only one he could touch?"
I shook my head. "Not before I was taken."
"I didn't figure much could shock me anymore. Then I found out the bastard wanted you for himself. Not to kill--but to keep. That true?"
"It was." Once.
"Coo-yon told me all about him. A rich noble knight. Speaks eight languages or some shit. Gave you a warm room in a castle and protection from this entire fucking world." I'd ordered Matthew to tell Jack I was safe; he might have spread it on a little heavy. "Maybe you were stupid to leave."
Stupid? "You've got a lot of nerve coming at me like this! You were the one who lied to me." I grappled with my temper, reminding myself of all he'd been through.
"Death told you those things just to drive a wedge between us."
"If you'd been honest with me, the truth wouldn't have been such a blow."
"How the hell was I supposed to tell you about your mother?" He finished his flask. "A thousand times I imagined your reaction. There was nothing I could say that didn't equal me losing you."
"For so long, I was trapped at Death's, with no friends or family to turn to. Then I learned that you'd done this thing. That you'd lied about it. Easily." My words appeared to hurt him worse than his recent torture. "Do you remember when we promised each other there'd be no more secrets between us? I do. I remember your eyes darted." Like it was yesterday . . .
"Are you lying to me? Jack, nothing is more important than trust right now. Considering this game, this whole world, we have to be able to depend on each other."
"I'm not lying. You can trust me alone, Evie. I got no secrets, peekon. Except for how bad I want you."
"I was such an idiot to believe you," I said. "I bought everything you told me, against my better judgment. You heaped so much shit on me for keeping things from you--when you hid plenty from me!"
He shoved his fingers through his hair. "I sensed things were off with you. I sensed you were in danger. I needed to know more, because I wanted to protect you. But my secrets would do nothing but tear us apart."
"Then try me now. Tell me what happened that night with my mother."
"You got to hear this, doan you? To get past it? Then I will. I'll tell you." In preparation, he dragged out a bottle from under his cot, refilling his flask.
Suddenly I wasn't sure I wanted to hear this at all.
17
"Your mere got the idea in her head when you were knocked out from that shotgun blast."
My one and only time to fire a weapon.
"She couldn't make it down the stairs, much less out on the road--so she wanted me to take you away, to save you from the Azey. When I pointed out that you'd never leave her, she goes, 'Not unless I'm dead.' "
As I waited breathlessly, he took his seat once more, flask in hand. "Karen told me, 'You're going to help me, son; you just don't know it yet.' "
Though I'd refused to see the vision of her death, Matthew must've given this memory to me. With each of Jack's words, details of the scene seeped into my consciousness.
I could smell the faint traces of gardenia in my mother's room, and Jack's scent: leather, and Castile soap from when he'd washed up that day.
I heard the wheeze in each of Mom's breaths. Her face was twisted from pain, which she'd hidden from me. I could see the pulse point in Jack's neck beating as he scrambled away from my mother, telling her he couldn't help her die. . . .
"No way I'd do that." His gaze went distant. "No fucking way. But she got this look on her face--like she had steel in her eyes. She promised me she'd slit her own throat with a shard of glass if she had to. And damn, Evie, I believed her."
My fierce mother would have. "How did you do it?" The words came out as a whisper.
"Between Karen and me, we knew just enough about pills to be dangerous. There used to be a dealer down in the bayou. Before you woke, I rode out and fetched his stash."
"So during that dinner, both of you knew what was going to happen when I went to bed. I never suspected a thing from your behavior." Dee-vee-oh.
"I tried to make it nice for her."
"So she . . . OD'd? There wasn't"--I swallowed--"you didn't use a pillow?"
Jack blanched under his bruises. "She asked me to. Dawn was coming, the army with it. And she was afraid you'd wake up before the dose took hold. I asked her to give it time, distracting her with questions about you."
While I'd slept soundly.
"Christ, I wanted those pills to work, couldn't imagine hurting her like that. But so much was at stake, I suspect . . . I think I would have. She believed I could, told me so." He tipped that flask up. "I doan know what that says about her--or me."
Eyes watering, I surveyed Jack's face. How haunted he was! My mom had sacrificed everything to save me, but at what cost? She'd used a teenage boy to help her die.
I couldn't hate him. Just the opposite.
He'd saved my life and ended my mother's suffering, when I'd been stupidly holding out hope. He'd spared her the horror of a violent passing and stayed with her to the very end.
Matthew's words: "Whenever he helps, he hurts."
Jack had helped and been hurt.
I'd so long associated him with grief because of his involvement in her death.
That association faded to nothing.
"In the end, I think the pills took her by surprise. She was looking at that picture of you, her, and your grand-mere. She was half-smiling, half-crying--like she was happy for sixteen years with you, but terrified about your future. No room for her to be afraid for herself, no. I told her I'd take care
of you for as long as I could. Then her eyes just . . . slid shut."
Now I knew. Now I had closure. As Jack had once told me, my mother "died in grace."
"Evie, what will it take to get you to forgive me?"
I swiped a sleeve over my eyes. "I forgive you. I have no doubt that my mother would've done it anyway. Because of you, she went peacefully." My voice broke. "Because of you, she wasn't alone."
"But . . ."
"But I don't know how I can trust you. You're really skilled at lying. It's like an Arcana talent of yours or something." When Jack had first come to Haven after the Flash, I'd distrusted him fiercely. I felt the same way now.
He shot to his feet, started pacing. "I didn't want to lie!"
"There's a pattern. You wanted to look in my journal, so you stole it. You wanted to know about the Arcana, so you listened to my story on that tape. You demand honesty and disclosure from me, but give me neither in return."
He pinned my gaze with his frenzied one. "I will never lie to you again!"
"How can I believe that?" I cried, standing as well. "Already we have a new unknown between us--what the Lovers did to you."
"I'll tell you right now: I got more secrets, me. A whole mess of 'em. And some are goan to the grave with me. You're just goan to have to accept that."
If we kept his secrets buried, then couldn't I bury my own?
No. Not telling him about Aric would be as good as lying. Eventually, I'd have to.
He drew closer, until he was staring down at me. "All my life I've dug at mysteries, solved puzzles. If the twins taught me anything, I learned that some things doan need to be known. That they're even uglier when brought to light."
The Priestess's words filtered into my brain. Mysteries brought to light. In a way, she and Jack were similar--
"Do you love me?" His blunt question took me off guard.
Total honesty? I swallowed. "Yes."
His eyes briefly slid shut. I thought some of his tension would fade, but it redoubled. "Good. Then you're goan to accept my secrets--and me. Because I can't keep doing this without you."
"This?" We were toe to toe, breathing heavily.
"This, Evie. Life after the Flash. Fighting for something better." He tangled one hand through my hair, cupping my head. "It's you for me. Or it's nothing." Holding me tightly, he slanted his mouth over mine.
A hint of whiskey met my tongue--like a match to dry kindling. Lust slammed into me, as if we'd trained my body to react to that sense memory.