“Of course, General.” Stel said, and even though Celine was the one to help Stel develop an American Republic accent, it still felt unnatural to hear it coming out of her mouth.
“You’ll go to the palace,” the other voice resumed, and Celine assumed it was Kessia. “And then-”
“Guys!” Everyone jumped at the interruption, before groaning and yelling at January, who had just walked in. “What happened?” he asked dryly, rolling his eyes at everyone’s reactions.
“Stel is currently having a meeting with Kessia,” Z hissed at him, turning back to the screen.
Jan immediately walked forward, his face serious as he said, “Well then, everyone shut up so I can hear this.”
Celine rolled her eyes, trying to make the sound quality clearer without much result.
“I’m sorry, General?” was all that they heard next from Stel, her voice heightened and astonished.
“Is there a problem, Crawford?”
“No, not at all. It’s just that I wasn’t expecting you to order me to assassinate the king so suddenly.”
Celine turned her head slightly so she could see Jax’s reaction, which was a clenched jaw. She tried to meet his eyes, but he refused to move his own from the screen, staring intently at the lines moving.
“That was always the plan, Arleyene. Now that we got his old wanker father off the throne, it will take a minimal effort to dispose of him. Then, next in line from the throne is-”
“Dmitri Gallagher. The closest relative eligible for the crown, though he is decidedly anti-Immortale.”
“Pliable?” Kessia asked disinterestedly and unconcerned.
“Very.”
Z snorted at that.
“Good. Then you arrange a way to kill Jaxcon without making too much of a commotion, and I’ll be able to guide our future King Dmitri’s hand without an issue.” There was pause, filled with the clinking of glass on Elix, and anxious breathing on NNR. “Something is wrong with you. You look quite pale for someone who was just assigned the most important mission of their career.”
“Nothing is the mat-”
“In all the years I’ve known you, you really seem quite shaken. Never mind, let’s enjoy our food before we have you sent off. Hopefully you haven’t lost your nerve. I would hate for my favourite spy to-”
Suddenly the line went fuzzy, and the interchanged words on the other end weren’t audible. “What happened?” Fey immediately asked, her back still turned to the rest of them.
“I don’t know,” Celine said slowly, frantically trying all the trouble shooting she knew. “The line just became all staticky.”
“Let me take a look,” Z said, and Celine moved out of the way so the mechanic could work on it. “What was that, by the way?”
“Stel learning about Kessia’s plans of my assassination,” Jax said calmly, before turning to look at Jan. “January; aren’t you on Dmitri duty?”
“You mean aren’t I assigned to babysitting your incompetent asshole cousin? —because, I am. But he’s getting nosy.”
“Meaning?” Celine prompted, deciding that focusing on the problems that could be solved was a better use of her energy.
“Meaning I had to tell him I’m a bodyguard for an heir to a generous fortune in the American Republic for him to get off my back. What story are we telling him?”
“Stick with the heir story and make it as big as possible without attracting unwanted attention. We need to intimidate him so he backs off a bit. Though if you can, can you try and extract the real reason why he’s here, out of him?”
“On it. Permission to convince him to go into the city and make a complete idiot out of himself after threatening him physically to not use your name?”
“Granted.” Jax sighed, shooting Jan a wry smile. “Try to not lose your sanity.”
“I already have,” January informed him dryly, before exiting the room. “Also, you look extremely sick, Downcley!”
“I am not,” she growled, before doubling over in a coughing fit.
Celine jumped to her feet, moving to help Fey. “Are you alri-”
“Don’t,” she practically growled, breathing heavy. “I am fine, and anyone who says otherwise will get to meet my newly sharpened knives. All 7 of them.”
Raising her eyebrows, Celine moved away, sighing as she dropped down into her seat beside Z. “How’s it coming along?”
“Nothing seems to be the matter here,” he said, moving back from his position huddled over the computer. “Something is going on over there.”
“Well surely there’s something-”
“Celine, I’ve tried.”
“But we might be able to find a way-”
“If it’s a way, I’ve tried it.”
“Well-”
“Everyone, be quiet,” Jax suddenly announced, causing Celine to shut her mouth and Z to straighten up. “There’s something going on.”
Straining her ears, Celine indeed found that something was going on, but she struggled to hear it. Z, realizing what was wrong, quickly pressed a few keys, causing the volume to suddenly jump up, the quality of the voices still extremely crackly, but audible.
“Thank you, General, but I would like to retire to my bedchambers.”
“Of course. But first, I’m sure you wouldn’t mind staying in detainment for a bit?”
Celine’s blood ran cold.
“Excuse me, General. Detainment?”
“If you have nothing to hide, then let yourself be searched. Guards?”
“General yo-” the line went static again, and Celine found herself struggling to breathe this time. Stel was going to be detained and searched. They would surely find the comm or investigate close enough to find that it wasn’t Arleyene. Maybe they hadn’t done a good enough job cleaning up, maybe they would find a trail, maybe this mission was all just a bust, maybe-
“Hey,” Jax said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder, grounding her back to reality. “Don’t worry; Stel’s been trained with these types of situations and she’ll find a way out of it.”
Celine looked up at him. “How are you so sure?’
“I’m not,” he admitted, removing his hand from her shoulder to drum it on the table. “But I can hope.”
“Hope?” she asked, curious how he dared do such a thing in a time like this. When everything that they worked for could be ruined.
“Yeah, hope. It might give you pain at its worst, but you will never suffer by the hand of it. Right?”
Celine let out a grim smile. Confronting that night was apparently happening. “Right. About that night in the cemetery, Jax. You need to know that-”
“He’s gone,” Jan walked in the room again, sighing with relief. “I offered to sucker punch his sorry face if he dared mention the name King Jaxcon, and now he’s peacefully on a car ride, thinking he’s a celebrity of some sort. I swear to god, I need something to try and calm the pounding headache he gave m-” Jan suddenly stopped. “What happened?”
“Stel got detained. Searched, questioned, we don’t know. But the line went silent, so who knows what is actually happening,” Celine told Jan over her shoulder, though she noticed that something was wrong. His slate eyes weren’t looking at her. “January?”
“The bad news probably got to her hard,” Celine furrowed her brows, not understanding him. Jan looked up, his eyes wide at their astonished expressions. “You mean you didn’t know that Fey is collapsed on the table?”
Celine whirred suddenly, eyes searching for her fellow agent, only to find her unmoving, sprawled against the table as Jan said, her brown hair spread haphazardly around her.
“What?” Z asked, stopping his troubleshooting to gaze at January with wide eyes. Celine herself was frozen in shock, though this wasn’t the case for Z, because he turned back to this computer, working even more furiously than before. If Fey needed to know the news of Stel’s safety to feel better, Celine knew that Z would make sure that he would find it.
Jan wasted no
time, sprinting to the chair that Fey was seated in, picking up her limp form. “Where can I take her?”
“Get into the elevator.” Jax commanded, pushing himself out of his chair. “On the second floor, there’s a small infirmary made just in case. I’ll be with you in just a second.”
Jan nodded, running out the doors with Fey collected in his arms, his face ashen and determined. “What happened?” Celine questioned loudly, feeling her heart race.
“I don’t know. But I think you were right about this mission being Downcley’s lifeline. The news that Stel could be caught probably caused some shock, though we don’t even know what’s happening to her body. I’ll call some of the doctors.”
Z cursed loudly, hitting the table in frustration, before typing again, muttering ‘please let this work, please let this work’ furiously under his breath.
“Let me go help,” Celine pleaded, ignoring Z.
“No.” Celine glared up at Jax, and to her surprise, he looked unusually hard, his mouth set in a line and eyes dark. “You stay here with Z. Find a way to fix the damn comm and find out Stel’s status, stat.”
Celine locked gazes with him for a moment, catching the undercurrents of pure panic and worry in his cerulean eyes, and she nodded, realizing that this was probably for the better. She was making a lot of those decisions lately; the ones that she never liked but had to do for the benefit for everyone.
“Go. I’ll kick the monitor, or something, but you better tell me how she is as soon as you can.”
Jax nodded, looking mildly grateful that he didn’t have to argue with her. “That I will do. Good luck, you guys. And kicking the monitor does wonders,” he told her, his mouth pulling up in a weary smile. Celine managed a small one back, and with that, he sprinted off, leaving Celine to find a way to fix a problem that could cost the nation’s peace.
…
Z managed to fix the comm, though there was radio silence on the other side, leaving Celine to wait in agitation as Z patiently waited to hear anything from Stel. They both agreed that it made more sense for one of them to have the headset on to concentrate the sound, allowing the smallest of noises to have a stronger likelihood of being heard.
Celine had no idea for how she waited, longing to hear word of anything. From Stel, for Jax or anybody up with Fey, hell, maybe even the news that Dmitri made an idiot of himself out in public. Anything to distract herself from waiting, not knowing what to expect.
It was anywhere from between 5 seconds to 5 decades. Time was seamless, leaving Celine unaware of when minutes ran into each other and bled into hours. Maybe it was days, maybe it was minutes, but either way, it was too long.
“Stel?” Celine immediately perked up to see Z talking into his headset with a look akin to relief on his face, but Celine daren’t assume anything. Instead, she waited, staring at the moving line disbelievingly, as if she could hear the words from watching the line move. Soon, Z dropped his headset, grinning, and Celine let herself look at him, hope holding a tight leash on her windpipe.
Then he nodded, and Celine let herself sag into her chair, relief coursing through her veins in a way she never knew was possible; tears springing to her eyes. Somehow, Stel managed to be free. Stel managed to evade the Immortales and would be coming home soon. Soon, this entire nerve-wracking mission would be done, and they would be safe.
Not everything was good. Fey was still in the infirmary, and by Celine’s guess, not in a good state. Neither Jax nor January came down to tell them anything yet, so Celine assumed that they were in a situation where staying by Fey’s side was the best plan.
Either way, right now was a good moment and Celine found herself smiling despite herself.
Hope. It might give pain at its worst, but it would never cause you to suffer by its hand.
Fifty-Two
CELINE stared up the stairs, glaring at the painstaking amount of them. Ever since she recovered, she found going up stairs harder than before, every breath a burden. But taking the elevator was not an option; the thought of staying in the small, closed up elevator gave her the shudders. Being claustrophobic wasn’t the best thing for someone who couldn’t properly breathe, but it was what Celine had to face. Clutching the railing with her hand, pressing the metal rod so hard that her knuckles turned a ghostly white, she pulled her body weight up.
Going slower than she thought imaginable, Celine eventually hauled herself to the second flight of stairs. Thankfully, the infirmary was on the second level, so she only had to go up another set of stairs. As slowly as before, she made it, short on breath, gasping for air. She sat against the wall, propping herself so that she could put all her attention on levelling out her air. Maybe next time I’ll try the elevator.
“Celine?” She looked up wearily to meet the questioning eyes of Jax, wondering how his timing always managed to be perfect enough to always catch her at her worst.
“That’s my name.”
“Do you need a hand?” She was about to snap back a ‘no’, but she realized that in the reduced state that she was in, there was no way she would get up without making a fool of herself. Instead, she just nodded numbly, letting him pull her up. “How’s Downcley?”
It wasn’t his fault, but Celine felt like brittle ice, threatening to break with a resonating snap. Her voice was dry, “What do you think?” They were walking side-by-side now, auto-piloted to the infirmary, which is where they had spent a little over half their nights at, staying by Fey’s side.
Jax ran a hand through his dark hair, looking a bit ashamed. “I’m sorry, I really shouldn’t have asked.” His voice was apologetic, and Celine felt bad at how quickly she reacted. She was doing that lately, snapping and pushing everyone’s buttons. Her voice was much softer now, smoothing out it’s now usual jagged tone.
“No, you should be; I’ve been up at everyone’s throats these past days. Fey isn’t dead, and that’s the good news. We’ve been trying everything, but she says it’s useless. She- she knows it’s useless.”
He looked at her, his face unreadable. Celine could almost see the question of whether she still followed her advice of hope, echo back at her through his blue eyes. She knew that she shouldn’t give in; that she was no longer that hypocritical girl who said whatever the hell she felt, but never followed a word of her own saying. But god, hoping was hard.
It takes only a second longer before he drops her gaze, his question apparently answered, and he nods. “You should tell everyone of the news.”
“What news, might I ask?”
He stopped abruptly, looking a bit astonished. “You haven’t heard?”
Celine shook her head, quite unsure of what he was talking about. “Well, Stel just came back, a half an hour ago at most. I thought that was what you were going to tell her, but I was clearly mistaken.”
“Yeah, you were,” she muttered, wondering how the hell she didn’t hear that. Then, seeing the look on Jax’s face, she stopped herself. “Why don’t you look happier?”
Jax licked his lips, with a thoughtful look on his face. “Stel’s safe arrival was great, and so was the fact that we got the evidence that proves that the Immortales have not been staying loyal to the Treaty. But Stel also found that they have been betraying us for a longer time than we thought. Their technology is advanced, light-years ahead of whatever we could ever imagine. Before she left, Kessia told her of some plan.”
“No.” Celine’s voice was a horse whisper. All of their work dosed in gasoline and set on fire. “We saw those files! By the information we gathered-”
“It’s not enough, Celine. It never has been,” he gave her a wry smile, devoid of amusement. “We can still hope, can’t we?”
“Yeah,” she murmured softly. “Not sure it’s going to do much right now though.”
“I’m sorry to be the bearer of such disappointing news. But we do have information on them, and nothing is more than they think we know. We’ll have to come up with another plan.”
Celine nodded, b
eginning to walk away from Jax, into the infirmary.
“And please, please don’t tell Fey about the bad news.” The voice of Jax barely reached her before the door slammed shut. Celine had a feeling that seeing Fey in her state, was going to be way worse than the feeling of going up a flight or two of stairs.
…
Everything was placid white, but the colour was doing everything but calming Celine’s nerves. She never liked the sterilizing smell of the infirmary, regardless of how many times she visited these halls, and the fact that she came to see her death-sick friend wasn’t helping much. She barely had to walk into the hallway before she came to the curtain where Fey Downcley was assigned to fight her illness until they could find a cure. If they could find one, a voice inside of Celine’s head reminded, but she determinedly pushed that out, taking a deep breath before pushing the thin curtain out of the way.
There was Fey, looking smaller and frailer in her huge hospital bed than she did a few weeks prior, and it made Celine’s heart ache to see her friend in such a reduced state. Fey Downcley was condemned to this fate, and Celine knew that, as did the sick girl herself. When Fey had first introduced herself, and told them of her condition, it seemed like a faraway fantasy. She had been so healthy, so alive. There was no way some illness could take that from her.
But here they were, and it struck Celine—not for the first time—how real this was. She couldn’t possibly fathom what the illness could take from Fey, what it could do to her. That it could kill her. But now, it seemed more like a fate than a possibility. And god, Celine hated herself for thinking it, but lately, that’s all she could think of while she spoke to Fey.
That she was dying.
For a person who had never been closely acquainted with death—save having a brief run-in when she was fighting Scorchen—Celine thought an awful lot about it. She didn’t want Fey to be snatched away from her. She wanted Fey to be alright again. She didn’t want to be thinking about death so much anymore, but she never had the choice to determine her future, and that choice wouldn’t start right now.
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