I spun around and pinned him with a stare. He was still referring to what had happened in the bar, rather than the conversation I’d overheard with Cloyd, which meant I needed to rewind things and function on the information I was supposed to have, rather than the information I actually had.
“You what?” I asked. I recalled what the conversation in the bar had been like, and allowed myself to get a little worked up, for believability. “You thought that maybe Nathan was right to be ordering us around? Thought that maybe I’d listen when you told me I wasn’t allowed to go after one of my only real friends in the world?”
He looked hurt at that, and I pulled back a little bit. I’d unintentionally implied that maybe Jace wasn’t one of my friends, and that wasn’t what I’d meant to do at all. I’d been confused by what he’d done, and still didn’t fully understand why he was blindly following Nathan’s orders, but his conversation with Cloyd had indicated that he hadn’t been happy about it. He even thought going after Nelson was the right thing to do and had been willing to let me try. For some reason, this allegiance to Nathan was overriding what he felt was the right move.
“Tell me what’s going on, Hux,” I said quietly, feeling Jackie and Ant come to stand behind me.
After a long sigh, he shook his head.
“I can’t tell you everything. I’m sorry, but it would put all of us in too much danger. I will tell you what I can. The truth is, I agree with you about going after Nelson. Of course I do. She’s your friend, and I’ve seen how much she means to you. I would never stop you from trying to save her.” He looked up at Ant and nodded. “I also agree with you about trying to find our friends. Jack is in the hands of the Ministry, and he’s one of the only friends I have. He’s like family to me—and once I make friends, I keep them for life. Which means I don’t see any way around trying to rescue him, but we can’t do anything until we have a plan. I’m thinking Nelson might be able to help with that. I’m thinking that might be the same thing you’re thinking, am I right?”
I didn’t answer right away, mostly because I was too busy trying to unpack all the information he’d just thrown into one piece of dialogue. That had been a lot to admit after what he’d just said in the bar, and he hadn’t even asked Ant and Jackie to leave first. Which was both endearing and potentially dangerous. He and Cloyd had both said that it was risky to go against Nathan on this, so it surprised me that he was admitting that he wanted to.
He was obviously conflicted about something. Though I felt bad about that, I also meant to take advantage of it. I needed whatever information he had so we could figure out our next move.
“So why are you siding with Nathan on not going after her?” I asked.
He closed his eyes for a minute, and when he opened them again, to my surprise, they were glassy.
“It’s so easy for you,” he said quietly. “You might think you have things hard, and I’ll admit that this society isn’t ideal. The government definitely doesn’t have the people’s best interests at heart, but you have a job. You have an identity. Maybe not the identity you were born with, but still one that the government recognizes. I don’t have that.”
I frowned.
“I thought you had… i-identification.” I finished the sentence with a stutter, remembering too late that Jackie and Ant didn’t know about his past. But I had been under the distinct impression that Jace’s anonymous contact had hooked him up with papers that made him legal, possibly with the help of the nuns.
Jace nodded.
“I have identification, but you know it’s not as… solid as yours is.” He shot me a warning glance that said everything I needed to know. As I’d suspected, he did have identification, but it was forged. He’d been brought down from the mountains into the city and given a name and a foundation, but it wasn’t real; it could be unveiled. If it was discovered as fraudulent, he’d be thrown right into prison as an undocumented person.
“You don’t have a job?” I asked softly, continuing my thoughts as they progressed.
He smiled with relief at my conclusion.
“No,” he replied. “I never got one because I went right to work for Nathan on OH and OH+, but those aren’t exactly government-condoned positions. I don’t really have money of my own. Nathan pays for everything, including my house. I like to have things like food and a roof over my head. And if I went against him…”
“That would all disappear,” I finished for him.
He sighed.
“It’s possible. Then there’s the question of my sister. Nathan… Well, she is where she is through his contacts. I can’t risk her safety, at least not until I have something more solid to offer her.”
I pressed my lips together.
Rhea. Of course.
She was currently housed at the Orange Grove Convent, where Nathan had arranged for her to be. It all made sense, and suddenly I fully understood why Jace would be tiptoeing around the situation. He didn’t want to risk his own security or that of his sister.
It would have been unthinkable.
No wonder he was following Nathan’s orders and had passed them on to us, even when he knew it would break our hearts. No wonder he was saying this now, when we were separated from the larger group. He didn’t trust them like he did me—and, I guessed, now Ant and Jackie as well.
So how did I tell him that I got it, that he was forgiven ten thousand times over? How could I get all of my knowledge into the simplest, most innocent statement possible, so that I didn’t give away any of the secrets he’d planned to keep from Ant and Jackie?
“I understand,” I replied finally.
I could see in Jace’s face that he appreciated my absolution. He gave me a slight smile, then took my arm and pushed me farther toward the trees that lined the sidewalk, taking me away from Ant and Jackie so that we could speak more privately.
“I can’t help you, not publicly, but I can promise you that I’ll do my best to keep Nathan’s—and everyone else’s—eyes off you for tonight. I’ll tell them that you’re angry with me and refusing to come back to my house, that we’re going to have to leave you alone for the time being, until you come to terms with it… or something.” He gave a cough that could have been a laugh, and I agreed with the sentiment. Though the old me might have been the sort of person who just came to terms with everything I’d be instructed to do, the person I’d become over the last twenty-four hours definitely wasn’t.
But no one else knew about my metamorphosis.
“Can’t you talk to Nathan, get him to see reason?” I asked quickly. “You’re one of his main contacts, right? Surely he’d listen to you.”
Jace closed his mouth for a long moment, and when he answered me, his tone of voice had changed. “I’m not his main contact. I’m in on the meetings, but I’m not the one he trusts. That’s… That’s someone else. I’m just following orders here.”
I paused. That was new information. I’d thought that Jace had been in direct contact with Nathan and had been the one who coordinated the bridge between Nathan and the rest of us. It sounded like he was saying that wasn’t true. So, who exactly was standing in that position? Could that have been why he and Cloyd were at odds when I overheard them?
Had Jace somehow stepped out of line during the meeting they had with Nathan, on my behalf? Was he already putting himself in danger?
“So, I’ve got your support… but not Nathan’s,” I concluded, hoping that Jace hadn’t done anything reckless during that restaurant meet. “What exactly is he doing, then? What’s his end goal here? If he doesn’t want to save Nelson or the others—”
“What’s the term you use?” he interrupted. “Above my paygrade, I think? You’re asking questions that I’m not allowed to know the answers to. I don’t know what he’s doing, only that he’s doing something bigger than we might realize. I don’t know what his next step is here. I don’t get that sort of information until I have to have it.”
Okay.
It felt like
there was too much to think about right now, so I shelved it for later. Which left me with only one last thing to say.
“I’m going after Nelson, and I really don’t care what Nathan thinks about it.”
Jace gave a nod. “And I’ll do my best to keep his eyes looking the other way, because I want her back on our team too. It’s the best way to get the others out of the Ministry’s clutches.”
Our gazes met, and I took a deep breath. We were talking about doing something a lot bigger than just going on meetups and recruiting new members for OH+ here. Maybe not as big as the raid we’d done, but certainly as dangerous. I wasn’t positive that I was ready for that, but I also wasn’t going to let Nelson go without a fight.
Jace reached down and took my hand, holding it loosely in his.
“One more thing, Robin, and this is something you have to know,” he said firmly. “When I said I make friends for life, I meant it. You’re on that list now, so I’m going to make you promise that you’ll be careful. Don’t do anything stupid. Don’t do anything that might get you killed. I won’t be around to save you from any Ministry agents this time, and I’ll be pretty upset if you get hurt. Understand?”
I grinned and nodded, my confidence suddenly boosted. Then I laughed outright. Sure, of course I’d promise that I wouldn’t do anything stupid. We were just walking right into a trap, hoping that we wouldn’t get hurt doing it, and praying that we’d find our friend.
Not stupid at all. Absolutely no chance of getting hurt or captured or killed.
“It’s a promise,” I said. Then I dropped his hand and stood awkwardly for a moment, not knowing where to look. Or where to put my hands. Or my feet.
Hell, even my lips started to feel unnatural.
Then he took my hand again, and I looked up. He was grinning, those slightly uneven lips of his stretching and creating dimples in his cheeks, and when he leaned in, I immediately anticipated one of his goodbye bear hugs. I opened my arms instinctively, but instead he pressed his forehead to mine so that our eyes were within inches of each other.
“Promise,” he breathed.
My arms retracted immediately and became stiff rods at my sides. I tried to say something back, but it felt like a large ball had just lodged itself in my throat. As if he’d just sucked all the oxygen right out of my lungs. So instead I gulped and nodded—then turned to my friends before my cheeks could grow any redder and motioned that we had to get out of here.
After all, we had a lot of planning to do before it got dark, and I wanted to know exactly what we were going to do before we even got close to her office.
14
By the time we left Ant’s house for Nelson’s office, it was dusk, which worked perfectly with our plans. If any mission needed to happen at night, it was this one. We were going somewhere we were sure Ministry agents had been the night before, and where we knew something bad had happened to Nelson. There was no telling what we might find there.
We’d spent the afternoon at Ant’s. First, we came up with a plan (albeit a flimsy one). Then, we gathered what we needed for its execution, before finally eating dinner and trying to get some rest.
The planning and gathering of materials had been easy compared to the resting. Though we were exhausted from the events of the night before and the mental toll they’d taken on us, getting our minds to calm down enough for us to sleep, or even relax, had been nearly impossible. I’d ended up leafing through the same magazine (one about guns and hot rod cars, though I expected nothing less from Ant and Abe) about fifteen times while I waited for the hours to pass.
When five o’clock had struck, I’d glanced outside to see the sun slowly descending toward what I could see of the horizon from their high-rise building, and then I’d jumped to my feet and declared that it was time to go.
Which brought us to this point: getting off the train at the station closest to Nelson’s office. Looking warily at each other, we bolted across the street with our expectations low.
At least Nelson’s office was in a decent neighborhood, so it was safe to walk around this late at night. If we’d been in one of the other areas of the city, we’d have run the risk of being accosted by gangs who robbed for food and money. The government might have reduced crime rates with their harsh system of law enforcement, but they hadn’t eliminated poverty, and some people still chose to steal rather than work as slaves in the factories—in spite of the threat of the death penalty. They were a desperate, vicious bunch, and I’d spent a lot of the last two years avoiding the streets at night, just to stay clear of them.
A voice suddenly cut through my thoughts, accompanied by a finger jabbing into my ribs. I jumped.
“Robin, stop walking like you’re a rat that’s trying not to get caught,” Jackie hissed from behind me. “Stand up and look like a normal person. We might be in disguises, but keep creeping like that and someone is bound to notice.”
I straightened, blushing, and realized that I’d been doing exactly what she claimed—creeping. In my new position, I could tell that I’d been slouched over, doing my best to be inconspicuous, even in the shadows drawing over the street. Jackie was right: if anything was going to get us caught, it was acting like we were doing something wrong.
Of course, now that I was trying to walk normally, I couldn’t for the life of me remember what normal felt like. I swung my arms, but that felt exaggerated, so I stopped. And my walk seemed distinctly… stilted, as if I’d somehow forgotten how to do it. My nerves were getting the better of me.
Ant snorted like he thought the same thing as me. “Great, now she’s walking like a robot. That’s much better. At least before she just looked like she had some spinal problem or something.”
“Shut up, Ant!” I muttered, straightening again and telling myself to stop thinking about it.
Focus on something else, focus on something else, I recited silently.
On Nelson. Yes, that was an idea. Focus on where we were going and what we were going to do once we got there. The plan was to get to Nelson’s office and observe it for at least ten minutes, ensuring that everything was normal. This late in the day, there shouldn’t be enforcer activity, even if the place was a crime scene, so if there were still people crawling all over the shop, it meant trouble. If, on the other hand, it was quiet and the traffic around it all seemed normal, we’d be able to progress.
From there, we… didn’t really have a plan. We figured we’d be able to make it up as we went. Possibly not the smartest idea, but how much could we scheme when we had no idea what we’d find?
We’d borrowed work uniforms from Ant’s neighbor, who was a trash collector and had owed Ant several favors. I had taken one look at the guy, who appeared to have gone at least three weeks without sleep and was definitely on drugs of some sort, and wanted to question Ant’s relationship with him, but kept my mouth shut. I really didn’t want to know what Ant and his brother had done for him, or how they’d expected him to repay them if we hadn’t needed to borrow trash collection uniforms. I’d also neglected to say any of the things that came to mind about the company they kept—which included, it seemed, drug addicts. Judging by the look on Jackie’s face, Ant would be getting an earful from her later.
Unfortunately, the neighbor in question had been significantly taller than both Jackie and me. Ant was wearing a bedraggled gray uniform decorated with various stains and tears, but it appeared to fit him, while Jackie and I had both been forced to roll up the sleeves. We tucked the legs into our boots, so that it looked like we were just protecting the clothing from trash—or, at least, I hoped it looked that way. The arms were still comically large on us, and the crotch of the jumpsuit was hanging roughly to my knees. We’d probably gone a bit overboard with the charcoal we’d created from a piece of wood we’d found in the dumpster outside of Ant’s house. We’d spent long enough burning it that it had been pretty soft, and had then rubbed it all over our faces in an attempt to look as though we were just dirty.
I
suspected, though, that we looked more like people who had rubbed charcoal all over our faces to keep from being recognized by anyone we encountered. We’d been so obsessed with privacy for so long that we hadn’t really stopped to consider how we’d look to any casual—or not-so-casual—bystander. It didn’t even matter how we walked because if anyone looked too closely at us, they were going to immediately suspect something. Not even trash collectors were this sloppy.
But we hadn’t been stopped yet, and that gave me a bit more courage. If we’d been identified, it would have surely meant that we’d be followed. If we were being followed, they most likely would have stopped us when we changed into what were obviously poorly fitting disguises with the assumption that we were up to no good. The fact that no one had come up and slapped handcuffs onto us yet made me think that maybe we were safe, at least in that regard. I couldn’t imagine the Ministry allowing something like this to go on right under their noses—with the people who had broken into one of their warehouses perpetrating it.
That slight feeling of safety disappeared the moment I turned the next corner and saw the spot where Nelson’s office sat.
Or rather, used to sit.
The building was… destroyed. Burned down as if a bomb had exploded. The second floor, where Nelson’s office had been, where, I assumed, the grocer and his family had lived, was almost completely gone. One or two walls were still standing, and it looked like the floor was still there, but the roof had been transformed from a solid structure to nothing but burnt timbers with one or two shingles attached. The remaining walls were blackened and crumbling. I could clearly see through one of them and out the other side of the building.
The ground floor was in slightly better shape, though the best I could say for it was that it was still holding up the upper level. It was entirely black, and I wasn’t sure whether that meant the flames had started at the bottom and worked their way up, somehow without burning the structure down, or if the walls had just been damaged in the explosion. I didn’t even want to think about what the place looked like inside.