His eyes are closed and I think he’s already asleep, but as I step into the room, he opens them and sits up, staring at me with a guarded hope, as afraid of rejection as I am.
Suddenly I’m nervous but I don’t know why. It’s not like anything is going to happen, and it’s not like I’ve never slept next to a guy before because there was that one night with Rey. But maybe I’m nervous because Rey is downstairs. Or maybe I’m nervous because it’s Jax and there’s something between us I don’t fully understand yet, a sharp vulnerability I’ve never felt before, something I know I can get hurt on.
“Kelsey, I can sleep on the couch,” he says, rising from the bed and crossing the room. “Really, it’s fine.”
But as he moves closer, my apprehension melts away. “No, please. I want you here.”
I pad across the moth-eaten carpet and slide between the cool, patched sheets. After a moment, Jax slips in beside me, drawing me into his arms until my face presses against his chest. I feel secure and protected, forgetting that less than twelve hours ago I lied in a dark cell waiting for my death.
“We didn’t destroy the League completely, did we?” I ask softly.
His fingers twist through my damp hair, lightly pulling at the loose curls. “No.”
“And Sawyer and Elijah are still alive?”
“Probably.”
“Which means we aren’t done with them yet.”
Moving slightly, Jax pulls away until our heads rest on separate pillows and we gaze at each other. He still wears the scar on his forehead that Elijah gave him when I let myself be taken. Seeing it again makes me feel sick because Jax was hurt because of me.
“Nole and Charlie have a plan,” he says. “I don’t know the details, I was more focused on rescuing you, but they are done being terrorized by the League. It’s time the League was terrorized by us.”
“Even with the Risers on our side, and with the damage we did to the League, they still outnumber us.”
Jax pulls the blanket up to my shoulders, tucking it around me and then slipping an arm under my neck so that I am partially supported by his body, warm and hard beside me.
“Kelsey, after what you have been through, right now you only need to worry about sleeping.”
“I won’t feel safe until they’re dead.”
“You’re safe with me. Always.”
Then he kisses me delicately and caresses my back. I allow myself to unwind and slip into the first comforts of sleep.
But my last thought, is that tomorrow I have so very many things to worry about.
* * *
I’m awoken hours later by a noise, a soft click I wouldn’t normally notice, but in the quiet apartment, with my senses already on heightened alert, it might as well have been one of Jax’s fireworks.
Launching up, I realize I am alone, Jax has vanished, leaving the bed frigid and igniting my frazzled nerves. I shiver despite the room being humid and muggy from the mid-spring air outside. Glancing out the window, I see darkness creep past the curtain. I must have slept the entire day.
“Hello? Jax? Nadia?”
My calls are met only with silence. It’s not, however, the soothing kind. It’s the heavy, ominous kind that sets the tiny hairs along my arms on edge. As silent as the air around me, I slither from the bed. I have no idea where my gun has been put and I’m kicking myself for yet again being unarmed. Jax keeps one nearby, but he is gone, and I am weaponless.
In the pressing darkness, I tiptoe to the edge of the doorframe, peering into the hallway and trying to see the main door. Light from the moon outside flitters through the common room windows, casting everything in an unearthly grey glow.
A tall shadow unfurls in the light. One that doesn’t belong to Jax and certainly not to Nadia.
My heart rate accelerates as I glance around for anything I can use to defend myself and find nothing. A floorboard creaks, one at the end of the hall and I realize I have about twenty seconds to figure out where to go before I am seen.
Allowing the darkness to close around me, I retreat into the bedroom. Knowing I can’t scale a three-story building, my only option is the wide closet, so I sneak inside and crack the folding door just a sliver. I’m shaking, my hands shivering with fear and palms sweaty.
The figure appears in the bedroom doorway; a man; his form taking up nearly the entire space. My breath constricts in my throat and I draw my hands to my mouth to stifle any cries that might try to escape. My heart thunders so loud, surely it will betray me.
The man steps into the room and I see the outline of a gun in his hand. A million possibilities and potential scenarios race through my brain, each worse than the last. And all I can think is that I’m stupid enough to yet again be caught without so much as a butter knife.
I scoot myself into the farthest corner of the confined space for whatever good it will do. Muffled footsteps fall on the bedroom carpet and I know the man stands directly outside the closet, less than a foot from my hiding spot. Shrinking against the back wall, flattening myself into the cool plaster, I silently pray to whatever gods might be listening to please let me survive, just once more.
But perhaps they have decided I have already had enough chances. Through the slit in the door, I see the man reach forward and clasp the knob, slowly opening the door outward until we are face to face and I can hide no longer.
“Hello, Kelsey,” Elijah whispers. “Sawyer and I weren’t done with you yet.”
I open my mouth and scream.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lashing out with both hands, I lunge forward even though I will never be a match for his gun. My fists fly and feet thrash as I try to connect with his face or his stomach or anything that will give me a small window in which to flee.
“Kelsey!” he bellows, his breath brushing my neck. Except it’s not Elijah’s voice. Suddenly arms grab me from behind, and I’m pulled tight against someone.
“Stop! Stop, Kelsey, it’s me.”
Panting and drenched in sweat, my pulse pounding so hard I hear the blood pump in my ears, I flick my eyes across my surroundings. I’m still in the bedroom, but daylight creeps past the curtain, not darkness, marking late afternoon. I’m sitting bolt upright in bed, held tight as I struggle against my captive.
Jerking free, I whip around to find Jax staring, his eyes wide and mouth open in terrified surprise. “You were having a bad dream.”
Casting a frantic look around the room again, I realize I am safe. Elijah isn’t here. He’s never been here. A bad dream, that’s all it was.
Folding my knees to my chest, I place my elbows on them before dropping my head into my quivering palms and let out a long exhale to sooth the adrenaline in my veins.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my words muffled by my hands as my heart finally begins to slow. “I’m sorry. It was Elijah. He came here for me.”
The bed sheets rustle and Jax takes me into his arms, leaning me backward to his chest until his chin rests on my shoulder, lips brushing my cheek in a light kiss. “If Elijah shows his ugly, stupid face here, I’ll knock his oversized teeth down his throat.”
Despite the fear still running through my blood and the fogginess of my mind trapped in the last vestiges of sleep, I giggle. Twisting around, I face Jax. We’re so close, separated by nothing but a hint of empty space. He hasn’t let go of me.
His hair lays flat on one side and sticks straight out on the other and it almost makes me laugh again.
“I’m sorry I woke you,” I say, trying to tame the wild side of his hair. He catches my hand and kisses the back of it.
“It’s ok. Go back to sleep, it’s only been a few hours.”
Guiding me down onto my pillow, resting my head on his arm, Jax holds me against him. He fits his body to mine as if we are two connecting pieces of a puzzle. Brushing my hair aside, baring my skin, Jax presses his lips to the back of my shoulder just along the top of my shoulder blade. It sends a gentle prickle down my spine.
I’m nearly asleep
once more, secure and reassured in his arms, my eyelids tugging shut when a thought occurs to me and I launch myself upright again. “Nadia!”
“Is in the other room asleep,” Jax replies, his voice tired, as if he’s already fallen back to sleep.
“But she would have heard me scream and come in here, but she didn’t!”
I’m out of the bed and in the hall before Jax can even toss the blankets away. Nadia’s door yawns wide open and I immediately see that both her and Tisis are gone, the bed unmade and her shoes and nightclothes strewn carelessly on the floor.
“Nadia!” I cry again, hurrying into the vacant common room. The front door is unlocked and I fling it open, rushing through the hall for the stairs, all while calling her name, not caring who I might disturb. My bare feet slap the concrete stairs, stinging the bottoms as I fly downward in a frenzy.
Reaching the first floor where the old classrooms and offices reside, I bang open the stairwell door, round a corner and smack into Charlie who stumbles backward from the force of impact. Upon seeing the frenetic look across my face, she clutches my upper arms to steady me.
“Kelsey, what’s wrong?”
“I can’t find Nadia. She’s not in the suite.” I’m breathless and panicked, convinced something has gone wrong because up here on the surface, nothing is ever the way it should be. Things always go wrong. Maybe my nightmare was a warning. What if Elijah did come and take Nadia? What better way to hurt me?
“She’s fine,” Charlie says, placing a hand on my shoulder. “I just saw her with Rey.”
It takes me a second to process her words as I stare dumbfounded. “With Rey…”
I’ve forgotten Rey is here, alive again, or never dead in the first place if I want to be technical. It still feels surreal and disorienting. I reach a hand out for the paint-chipped wall to stabilize myself. The stairwell door opens and Jax nearly collides with both of us, shirtless and his hair still disheveled.
Charlie glances between Jax and me, clearly noting his attire, or lack thereof. My face flushes. She raises both eyebrows and puckers her lips. I’m expecting a reprimand but instead she says, “they’re outside.”
Brushing past her, I stride to the front door, Jax on my heels. Rey and Nadia perch on the top step absorbing the last rays of the day’s golden sunshine. An antique, yellowed book with crinkled pages rests open on her lap.
“Con… con-for… con-form,” Nadia stammers, over exaggerating the pronunciation before squishing her nose to look up at him hopefully.
“Conform,” Rey corrects. “It means to follow laws or rules.”
“Like in the O.Z?”
“Exactly like in the O.Z.”
“I don’t like to conform.”
Rey chuckles. “That’s fine, there are plenty of times where you don’t need to and you should learn to think for yourself. But it’s not always a bad thing. The O.Z. has just taken it to an extreme.”
I’m reminded of our conversation last night, everything that Rey admitted, all the laws he broke. He’s certainly not one to conform.
I’m no longer mad. I could never stay mad at Rey for longer than a few hours, not even when, in a temper tantrum, he accidently broke my favorite doll when we were kids. Now I’m in awe, amazed that he risked so much, had such faith in possibilities no one could prove. While I cried about an arranged marriage, he was helping to plot an entire revolt against the Council and still found time to remember my birthday, steal a cookie, and ease my troubles. He sold his number to the Gamble hundreds of times, to save others from dying and never once asked for anything in return.
“Nadia,” I say again, rushing forward to kneel beside her and drawing their attention away from the book. “What are you doing? Where have you been?”
Her big round eyes widen even more as she hops up to hug me, her skinny arms latching around my neck. “Kelsey! Jax told me they got you back. And look, I met Rey. He says he’s from the O.Z. and that you’re friends. Rey is teaching me how to read since I missed school today.”
Untangling myself from her grip, I hold her at arm’s length, hands on her boney shoulders, my expression stern. “You can’t go off like that. I didn’t know where you were.”
She stares at me, confused, her previous joy evaporating. “But I didn’t go anywhere. I’ve been here the whole time with Rey, we only barely left the building.”
I realize my admonishment is lost on her. For someone who has known nothing but the confines of ROC and then imprisonment with the League, as far as she’s concerned, she really didn’t go anywhere because she’s still at the school building, sitting right outside the front door. She feels safe here. She is safe here, with people who will look out for her rather than harm her. She stayed inside the unofficial barricade we’ve unknowingly assigned. Another confinement for her.
“Ok,” I say carefully, not wanting to take the smallest bit of freedom from someone who survived too much to ever be trapped again. “Well, next time if you want to go outside the suite or the building without Jax or me, can you let one of us know? Even if we’re asleep. I’ll worry otherwise.”
“Hey Nadia,” Jax calls and I’ve almost forgotten he’s right behind me. “You hungry? Let’s go figure out some dinner.”
She looks at him while squinting one honey-flecked, dark brown eye against the setting sun. “You don’t have a shirt on.”
Glancing down, he rubs at his eyes as if he’s still fatigued, which, considering the night we endured, is a good possibility. “Right. I’ll find a shirt and then we’ll get dinner. It smells like someone on dinner crew made fresh bread today. Maybe they have a loaf left over.”
Nadia scampers inside, Jax behind her and suddenly I’m alone with Rey, who still sits on the steps, arms on his knees as he watches the sun light the sky with an array of dazzling colors; mauve and cerulean and indigo. I watch it in wonderment as well. I still can’t believe how beautiful the sunset is.
Or that Rey is really here.
My emotions have tempered from our fight, grateful instead that my best friend is back, only a few feet away. How many people would give everything they have for a loved one to be returned from death? Having him beside me makes everything else I suffered worth it. I survived a living nightmare, and this is my reward.
Running my hands through my knotted hair, I stroll over and sit on the step next to him so our shoulders almost touch. His skin is tan and glowing, and freckles, ones that I had never noticed before, dot his cheeks and arms.
“Hey,” I whisper, nudging his shoulder with my own.
“Hey,” he says back, repeating the gesture.
“I’m not apologizing for what I said earlier.” I’ve always loved how I can be straight and to-the-point with Rey. We never waste time on niceties when there’s more important things to be said.
He snorts and smiles. “I wouldn’t expect you to. You had every right to be upset. I’m not, however, apologizing for not telling you. I did what I thought was right, what would keep you safest. I’d never be able to live with myself if I told you and you got hurt. You know that, right?”
“I know, Rey. It was just a lot to take in on top of everything else.”
“It’s all been a lot to take in. Half the time I think I’m dreaming and the other half…” He shakes his head and wrinkles his face as if it’s too much to contemplate and he can’t handle it. Then he shifts slightly until our shoulders prop against each other, as if we are two walls holding up a building. “How did you end up on the surface anyway?”
I sigh, gazing over the tops of the trees to where the bottom edge of the sun hovers over the horizon, bathing in the world in pinkish- blue light. Lightening bugs float up from the grass, dancing through the air as crickets begin their nightly symphony for accompaniment.
“That does seem to be the story of the year. I stole a gun, held Wyatt as hostage and forced him to open the exterior door.”
Eyebrows lifting, Rey stares at me, eyes sparkling with a mixture of shock and adm
iration. “Seriously? Geez, Kels.” Then he laughs. “Would have loved to see the look on his face when you pulled a gun on him. You know, the first time I saw you I said to myself, that girl looks like she’s gonna be pretty awesome, we should probably be friends. Glad I was right.”
Grinning, I feel a bit of pride swell. And for the first time since I stepped a foot out of ROC, I share the full, true story. How, after Rey was gone, I wanted to die. How I found my father’s gun and kidnapped Wyatt. How Jax and Daniel stumbled upon and captured me because they thought I was a spy, and how Randolph eventually shot me for trying to escape, prompting Rey to ask to see the permanent scar on my shoulder.
I told him about both experiences with the League, about rescuing Nadia and about the other ROC citizens that had escaped and are now dead because I’d been fool enough to trust Sawyer. I talk about the people I have killed and those I watched die; Daniel and Ashlynn and total strangers; and by the end tears dampen my face. I can taste the salt of them on my lips and a tightness has formed in my chest.
I feel a pressure on my hand as it grips the edge of the stair I sit on. Glancing down I see Rey’s long fingers knotted with mine, squeezing for reassurance. Resting my head against his shoulder, he reaches out and holds me tight to his side.
Suddenly it’s like nothing has ever changed, as though the story I just voiced was nothing more than a bad dream or a book I had read. A story that had happened to another person, not to me.
Together we watch the sun dip below the horizon, the sky bruising with the first indigo colors of night. The weather has grown warmer, the air heavy and muggy, but I don’t even mind because it feels good against my skin, better than the coldness of the League’s basement and certainly better than the weatherless artificial air of ROC set at a constant sixty-six degrees. For energy conservation, even the temperature in the individual suites can’t be changed. Whether you’re too hot or too cold, you deal with it.
The Choice (The Gamble Series Book 2) Page 4