The Choice (The Gamble Series Book 2)

by Kathryn Jacques

  “And then I was finally getting the one thing in this world I truly wanted. You. Until the Gamble took that too, separated us and now, even though you’re here with me again, it’s not the same. I can still feel that separation between us, Kels, like whatever bond we once had has been sliced apart with a knife. But instead of healing, the wound has festered and decayed, growing wider and wider and I’ve begun to realize we’ll never be the same again.”

  He hangs his head, unable to meet my eyes and I think it’s because he’s trying not to cry. In all the years I’ve known him, there were only two times ever when he cried. Once when his mother left for the chambers, and again when his aunt got sick and died and he entered his number extra times to afford food for his cousins.

  Eventually he regains composure and lifts his head. Tears don’t line his face, but his eyes are so deeply, depressingly sad I think that tears would be better.

  “No matter how much I love you, Kelsey, the moment my number was called, it sealed our fate and took you from me for forever. Sometimes… sometimes I wish I had never escaped. Sometimes I wish I had stayed in that chamber and died with everyone else. Death would have been easier than this.”

  Against my better judgment because I don’t know how this new, tortured Rey will react, I rush forward and embrace him. My arms wrap so tight around his thin body, I’m not sure if he can even breathe. He doesn’t push me away though, choosing instead to return the embrace and we stand in the small room, laced in each other’s arms for what feels like a blissful eternity and I am reminded of the one, beautiful, perfect night we spent together, our last in ROC.

  Then I feel his fingertips on my chin. He lifts my head and kisses me, soft and slow and sweet, in the way that makes my knees melt and my stomach flip-flop with giddy joy. It’s the way old Rey kissed me when we thought we’d never see each other again and now I realize how horribly I have missed him.

  Pulling slightly away, he takes my shoulders in his hands, running his fingers across my collarbone and up my neck until he cups my face.

  “Kelsey, I swore to myself I wouldn’t do this, that I wouldn’t beg you, but I can’t hold true to that anymore. Please… please choose me. Please tell me you love me and that you’ll pick me over Jax. If you do, I promise I’ll forget ROC. I’ll help you convince Nole and Charlie to get everyone to run away. Or you and I will just run away and leave all this behind, whatever you want. Please. All I really need is you.”

  This is my Rey, the Rey who would always give up anything for me. And selfishly, I have always accepted it, never fully realizing what I was doing to him.

  I break away, twisting my face to hide my own tears. I’ve spent so much time crying. I don’t want to anymore and yet it takes all the strength I have to keep the tears away.

  “Kelsey, please.”

  “No, Rey. This isn’t fair. I do love you and you know that, but you can’t make those kinds of promises just to convince me to be with you. You’ll never be able to forget about ROC. After everything you just said minutes ago, I know you Rey. I know you can’t move on from this. I hate my father and the other Councilmembers for what they’ve done, but for you, it’s been so much more. They destroyed my trust, but for you, they’ve destroyed your entire life.”

  “What are you saying?” he asks.

  I face him again, hating what I’m about to say next but knowing there’s no other way around it. Rey has always had the ability to do that, change my mind without even meaning to. It’s how I always ended up in trouble when we were kids. I have no illusions that it won’t end any differently now.

  “I won’t help you break into or attack ROC,” I say. “But I won’t stop you nor will I hold it against you if that is the choice you make. This has changed you, made you into someone else who I don’t even recognize. Regardless of Jax, or me and Jax or however that ends up, I want my best friend back. If this is the only option we have, then so be it.”

  He goes to open his mouth, but I hold up a hand.

  “Don’t say anything. This doesn’t mean I’ve picked you over Jax and it doesn’t mean I’ve made a decision. What happens between you and me is totally separate from what happens to you and ROC.”

  Chewing his lips, he swallows and then stares at me hard. “And what happens if I kill your father?”

  My gaze drops to the floor. I have no idea how to answer. A part of me wants the man to pay for what he’s done, the lives he’s destroyed and for letting my mother be killed, but the other part reminds me this man is my father. He raised me and loved me and has probably been devastated since I disappeared.

  “That’s what I thought,” is all Rey says when I don’t respond. “Our lives will never be separate from ROC.”

  I raise my eyes, finding his. “Do whatever you need to do Rey. Whatever you think is best for you. Then we can worry about us.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Three days have passed since Sawyer died and Elijah disappeared. I can’t say I haven’t spent most of that time looking over my shoulder expecting to see Elijah's fiery hair and maniacal eyes behind me. The nightmares won’t stop and I feel bad because I’ve been sleeping at Jax’s bedside and my screams wake him every night when all he really needs is rest.

  He doesn’t want me to leave though, and at least he’s showing slow improvement. Color has returned to his skin and yesterday he sat up and ate an entire bowl of soup and some bread. Even the fever has broken and his wounds no longer look so wicked and inflamed. We haven’t been able to move him from the safe house yet, but maybe in a few more days when he's stronger.

  I haven’t spoken to Rey since our fight, or whatever it was. Not so much because we are avoiding each other, but because he’s spent so much time with Nole and Charlie plotting against ROC. I would have thought they’d need some down time to recover from our war with the League rather than race straight into another one, but both Rey and Nole have launched themselves into these plans with intense vigor, surviving off the adrenaline from our recent win. I think Charlie trails along so as not to be left in the dark, or perhaps to provide a voice of reason. She hasn’t been the same since… well, since we ended the League.

  I know little of the plans, holding to my promise to not be involved but to not pass judgment on Rey or anyone else. I have no desire to ask questions and have found it’s easier to not judge when I don’t know anything. Besides, Rey needs this, maybe Nole and Charlie and the rest of the Risers do too.

  And for the time being, Jax needs me. Camrie, the closest person to a doctor we have on the surface, came from the Riser’s compound to tend to the wounded. She checks on Jax often, but others were wounded in the battle whom she needs to attend to as well.

  “Are you hungry?” I ask Jax after changing the bandage wound around his chest for the third time.

  “Not really.”

  His response worries me because he should be hungry and the fact he isn't means his body could still be fighting a deep infection we don't know about.

  I brush his arm. “You should at least try to eat something. I can see if there’s fresh bread downstairs? I heard someone talking about making some.”

  He thinks for a moment, as if assessing his stomach.

  “For me?” I plead.

  Smiling weakly, he nods. “Ok. I can eat a little.”

  Standing from the side of the bed, I touch his hand for a moment. “I’ll be right back.”

  Gripping my fingers, he flashes a charming grin. “And I’ll be here looking fabulous.”

  Making my way to the old kitchen, I accidently startle Charlie as she heads out, a loaf of warm, fresh bread in her hands. The delicious smell floats from inside the kitchen, indicating additional loaves await. My mouth waters.

  “Kelsey, how’s Jax?” Charlie asks. “I feel bad I haven’t really been up to check on him the last few days.”

  “He’s better, sleeps mostly so aside from the occasional ridiculous joke, you really aren’t missing much."

  “I know, but
I should make a better effort. He’s grown up into a good young man, hard to believe he was that anxious, panicked, silent twelve-year old that showed up at the compound all those years ago. It’s so sad about Daniel, I still have a hard time accepting he’s gone. Jax needed a father figure. A mother figure too, though that never really worked out. I thought of him as a son once, but…”

  Her voice fades off as we both stand in awkward silence. I haven’t told anyone, Rey or Jax included, what I learned the night we ended the League. I don’t think Ryder or Nole or anyone else who had been there has said a word of it either. It’s not our secret to tell.

  Still, I hadn’t expected Charlie to ever mention it, let alone talk about it, but here she stands, her brownish-green eyes hidden as she gazes at the floor. She looks thinner, weaker, exhausted; less like the confident leader who strode into that cabin prison my first morning on the surface accusing me of being a spy.

  “You must think I’m a horrible person," she says.

  “I… me? What?” I stammer. “No. I think you’re amazing. You’ve saved my life, what, three times now?”

  “I know. It always seemed the right thing to do, but I’ve begun to wonder if I put more people at risk to save one life because I seem to think it will make up for what I’ve done.”

  The sadness hanging on her voice tears at my gut as she slumps into an old, dusty armchair placed against the scratched and marred wood-paneled wall.

  “It wasn’t always like this. Sawyer wasn’t always so… so psychotic. He was actually a really good father when I was a child. He loved his family and the rest of the League and was grooming me to take over his role someday because he believed I was a natural born leader, even over my brothers."

  "Then, when I was fifteen, ROC attacked the League with some sort of biologically engineered virus. We lost half our people, my mother and both older brothers included. Sawyer sat at their bedside, watching them gasp for air as the virus essentially drowned them in their own mucus. So many died in those couple months that we ended up just making a mass grave instead of burying each person individually. I still remember the smell of it.”

  I say nothing. I know my father had no involvement in that attack. He wouldn’t have even been appointed to the council at that time, let alone be Protector, but guilt chews on me all the same.

  “After they died,” Charlie continues, “Sawyer fell apart, transformed into this insane tyrannical force intent on destroying ROC and everyone inside. Over the years, he tried dozens of ways to get through that door or draw people out, all of which failed obviously, and drove him even deeper into insanity each time. It was like he deemed each failed attempt a personal attack on himself, as if that stupid door were taunting him."

  “Then one day about twenty years ago I guess, a ROC escapee showed up looking for help. They shot him, right in the head outside the main doors. But it gave Sawyer his next insane idea. He ordered his men to search for any other ROC citizens who may have escaped with the belief that if we captured enough and held them for a fake ransom, ROC would fling open their doors to retrieve their lost citizens. He’s been set on that course for decades now, I can’t even imagine how many prisoners have died in that time. He always thought he just needed one more. One more and then it would be good enough. As you know, it would never work. I told Sawyer that too, that his idea was hopeless. He hit me for the first time ever in my life. Smacked me right across the face with the back of his hand and knocked me flat to the floor. But it wasn't even so much that he had hit me, but the look on his face when he did it, as if I were the enemy. I knew if I ever dared to stand in front of him or derail his mission, he'd kill me without a second thought. That’s when I knew I had to leave.”

  “That was easier said than done though. At that point I was married and Elijah was already four. I wanted to take him with me so badly. I had to save my only child from the madness of my family and whatever war would inevitably begin between the League and ROC. I thought if I could just get us both far enough away, Elijah would stand a chance to grow up normal. I thought we'd go east. Some people say there's a huge ocean there and I always wanted to see it for myself."

  She falls into a silence so long, I wonder if she’s forgotten she’s been speaking aloud all this time. I don’t press though, wanting to hear the full story, try to understand how Elijah came to be so awful, but I don’t want to push Charlie away. I have no idea why she's chosen now to confide in me.

  Charlie scratches at her face, maybe trying to discreetly brush tears away from her sunken eyes. “I had a whole plan and I didn’t tell anyone, not even Elijah. We’d sneak out in the middle of the night and head into the woods and never look back. I knew how to survive, how to hunt and trap and build shelter, Sawyer insisted he raise strong, independent children."

  "Except somehow my husband found out. Maybe I was careless with a small detail, or he noticed me acting strangely, I’ll never know. He was my father’s first in command and held more loyalty to Sawyer than he ever did for me. Sometimes I wonder if Sawyer pressured the marriage so my husband could keep watch on me. I don't know. Either way, they took Elijah and locked me in the basement. They said I’d be hung for treason like the United States use to do right before the revolution and all the bombs.”

  “So how did you escape?” I ask, unable to hold my silence any longer.

  “With Daniel’s help," she says to my surprise. "They had him locked up down there too. We escaped together and ran into the woods. After a couple days we happened upon the compound, abandoned and in a serious state of disrepair at the time. For some reason, Sawyer's men never came looking in those first few years. I guess he figured I'd run in fear and he was never interested in anyone who showed fear. He had Elijah to raise and groom anyway. As long as I didn’t bother him, I thought I could finally live in peace. Daniel and I started to fix up the buildings and eventually others from various parts of the country showed up, a sort of collection of nomads and misfits who belonged nowhere else. The compound grew and they became my family, but I’ve never been able to forgive myself for leaving Elijah behind, seeing the… the monster my husband and my father turned him into. If I had just tried-“

  “You did try,” I insist, lightly touching her arm in reassurance. “You tried to save him, it’s Sawyer who corrupted him.”

  She rubs at her forehead, as if the painful memories have manifested into a migraine. “I should have stayed. I shouldn’t have planned to run away.”

  “You think things would have ended any differently?”

  Looking away, she wipes at her face again and I wish I had a tissue or handkerchief or something but things like that don’t exist on the surface.

  “Maybe it would have been different," she says. "Maybe it would have ended the same. We’ll never know, will we? I just can’t believe I left my baby behind to become… what he is.”

  “Charlie,” I say, resting a hand on hers. “You can’t be responsible for what others become. Even with what you endured, you’re still a good person who does good things. Maybe Elijah didn’t have good role models or a fair chance as a kid, but eventually we all learn the difference between right and wrong and you can't tell me no matter how he was brain-washed that Elijah believes torture and murder is a good thing. At some point we all have to make a choice. Ryder said to me once that ‘we choose who we become’. You choose to leave and turn your back on your father and his insanity. Elijah, even once he was old enough to know better, choose differently. There’s nothing you could have done after that."

  A sad smile hovers on her lips. Then she sighs as if coming to terms with what is and shoving aside the thoughts of what could have been. “Thank you, Kelsey. I mean it. You’re a good person, you know how to inspire hope. I think that’s why I admire you so much.”

  I blink. “You admire me?”

  “Of course. To have survived what you have? Escape your father’s rule, run away from your home, try so hard to keep others safe regardless of harm to yourself? T
hat all takes a very unique kind of strength and courage. I would know. It’s a kind that can’t be taught or forced upon someone. It’s the kind that comes from inside your soul, a part of who you are as much as your eye color or curly hair. Our lives are so very similar; I think that’s why I’ve always liked you and why I’ve risked so much to keep you safe from my father. I guess I’ve always felt like I was saving a part of myself too. Or maybe saving someone else’s child because I couldn’t save my own.”

  Leaning forward in her chair, she pulls me into a hug and after a moment of surprise, I return the embrace, reminded again of how she smells and feels like the few memories I have of my mother. I wish I knew what it was like to grow up with a mom, to have someone to aspire to be. I guess Maeva and Elsa and now Charlie are the closest I will be fortunate enough to have had.

  A moment later Charlie pulls away, her calm, unflappable mask back in place. She rises from the chair, runs a hand through her hair and turns to leave.

  “Hey Charlie,” I call, causing her to twist back around. “Just out of curiosity, why was Daniel locked up too? I didn’t know he’d been part of the League. I guess I don’t know anything about him at all really.”

  She shakes her head. “I don’t know why Sawyer had him as a prisoner, he’d never talk about it. Guess now we’ll never know. He did have a family though, in the League. A wife and a little girl about nine or ten at the time. He never talked much about either of them, I think it was too painful, but I do remember him saying his daughter, Lillynn I think her name was, was a real spunky kid.”

  Charlie’s gone around the corner of the hall before her words finally settle in my mind. Then another set of words float to the forefront of my memory.