The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  It was weeks later. In fact, to my knowledge, we had just crossed over into the second half of our third year onboard the Lapsarian. I was sitting in James’s quarters, on the chaise lounge closest to the fireplace, facing the fire, just staring. Behind me, I could hear the quill scratching, and I could picture him sitting behind his desk, with his glasses on his nose, his eyes narrowed in the candlelight as he filled out his incident reports and inmate evaluations and whatever other busy work he had.

  Rachel and Tom had been discharged. No one knew that she was pregnant when she had been released, so to their knowledge, she would become pregnant after their “wedding night.”

  “Just think,” I had said, “I saved you two from actually having to have sex, right?”

  Another small victory in the passing of Grace from me to Rachel.

  My heart was already aching for them, and they had only been gone a few weeks. My old enemy, nostalgia, had made camp in my heart, and he showed no signs of vacating any time soon. I remembered nights in our first house with Tony, Tom, Rachel, Joe, James, and me, sitting outside, sometimes smoking, sometimes having a drink, talking about books, movies, television, and music from the old world, or about what our lives had been like. I remembered how those outdoor nights of conversation had continued in Shadow Village, on our back porches, under the glow of the Pangaean stars, and by the light of the fire. Penny and the other neighborhood kids would sometimes join us, and generally, Violet, Nick, Alice, and Quinn would come back from their nighttime outings to join us, too. Together, the boys would start up a fire in the pit in our backyard and get the food together while Rachel and I just poured ourselves more wine. I closed my eyes, and the warmth from the fire in front of me disappeared, and I could feel the perfect chill of the summer nights we had been so fortunate to experience when we were free and all together out in the world. I could smell the distinct scent of the trees around me that clung to the perfect crispness of the summer wind, and then, the warmth from the fire in James’s room was the warmth from the fire in our fire pit, and I could hear us all, somewhere in the distance, even though I felt that I was right there. But I could hear the echoes of our laughter from that time, of our passionate conversations, of the kids giggling as they made s’mores, of Violet, Nick, Alice, and Quinn having similar discussions to ours amongst themselves, but about people I knew by name but did not care about (Justin Beaver, Edward and Bella, a meth dealer and his expletive-spewing sidekick). I remembered sitting on James’s lap, talking quietly to him, kissing him softly when everyone was distracted in their own conversations, and I remembered watching Penny proudly as she ran about with her friends, all of them so excited to be staying out past dark…

  A shot of pain, starting in the middle of my upper arm and quickly spreading throughout my entire body, jolted me out of my flashback. I spun around, swinging my fist, which James caught. Another shot of pain, starting right there in my hand that was under his hand, spread through me. He tried to grab me so he could hold me and comfort me, and that time, I actually cried out in response to the pain. He jumped back, holding his arms up, and for a moment, I focused on slowing my breaths, on steadying my heart back to a normal rhythm, and on dissipating the last aftershocks of the pain that had sunk so deeply beneath my skin that they stuck in my muscles like multiple tetanus shots.

  He dropped down to his knees and scooted closer to me, but I held my hand out, telling him without words to wait. All the while he apologized, reaching out of reflex for my hands and stopping himself each time.

  “Okay.” I told him when I had regained some semblance of composure. “Slowly.”

  Very slowly, he began to reach out.

  “Not that slowly, ding-dong!”

  He laughed more hysterically than I expected him to, considering he was still shaking.

  “Alright.” He told me, “You ready?”

  Gently, he took my hand, and while there was still a slight tingling there, like a small electrical current, it quickly dissipated, and I linked my fingers with his.

  “Did you get your work done?” I asked him, as I turned on my side and pulled his arm so it was around me. He started to rub my back, and with his other hand, he brushed my hair away from my face and tucked a few strands of it behind my ear.

  “That okay?” He asked, and I nodded, “Yeah, I got everything done. In my report on our altercation, though, madam, I had to significantly change the ending.”

  “Aww, you mean, you couldn’t write, ‘I brought her back to my room where I intended to make wild, passionate love to her?’”

  “Sadly, no. I had to settle for, ‘I brought Mrs. Elohimson to the Med Wing for treatment and received treatment as well.’”

  “Well, that’s written well.” I said, bringing my hand up to rest on his upper arm. “That okay?”

  He had his eyes squeezed shut.

  “No, don’t let go.” He told me, and even though it was quite difficult because I did not want to hurt him, I kept my hand there until the pain had gone. “I’ve been doing a lot of reading in the three years since I’ve been with you, and when testing myself on old engineering knowledge becomes tiresome, and because it’s impossible to get some of your boring Jane Austen books that I could fall asleep to after reading the opening line, I read some medical encyclopedias that have sections about Contact.”

  “Oh, did you? What did they say?”

  “As long as it didn’t ‘lock…’” I looked at him, puzzled, “That’s the term they used, and from the context, I gather that it means something like, the pain didn’t break the person’s mind, like what I pretended had happened to me. As long as that didn’t happen, then it can be cured, but it takes time. A lot of time. I don’t know, that’s what I gathered, but I’ll have to let you look at it.”

  “No, I am sure what you gathered is correct. I am sure you did just fine in your analysis. And you faked the ‘lock’ very well, by the way. You fooled me.”

  “Well, up until these past few weeks, I have been set on keeping you safe. All this time, I have thought about that conversation we had in the cells back home, after Rich and Tyre had come in and taken over. Remember? When I ended things?”

  I nodded.

  “Of course I remember.” Through a yawn, I said, “If I had a heart, James Maxwell, it might have been broken.”

  “Yes. The same can be said for me. You know, Brynna, that everything I have done has been for you? Everything I ever do is going to be to keep you safe.”

  “I know, baby.” I told him, “I have always known that. Well, not when you were pretending to hate me and engaging in physical altercations with me.”

  “Which killed me to do, by the way.” He told me, “I tried to go easy on you.”

  “Yes, a few times, I thought to myself, ‘This is not his full strength. This is not as fast or as strong as he can possibly be. Why is he holding back?’ I thought that perhaps you and the Warden had some sort of agreement that you should not scar up my face or something.”

  “No.” He said, and his tone darkened, “Fuck the Warden.”

  “Oh, be careful.” I said, “If he heard you say such a thing against him…”

  “He would, as you say, engage in a physical altercation with me, and believe me, baby, I have been waiting for it. Every time I have taken you back to your cell. Every time I have seen the way he looks at you.”

  “Everything I have done with him has been consensual, James.”

  “And would you be doing it if he hadn’t threatened Penny, and Adam, and me, and whoever else? He might not be forcing himself on you, sweetheart, but he’s forcing it.”

  “I know.” I told him quietly, “And some days, it makes me want to jump off the back of the ship like Rose in Titanic. But then I think of Penny, and of you, and of Adam, and of Illa, and Janna, and I cannot do it. When they tell me that the Warden wants to see me, I feel like one of those women who places heavy rocks in her pockets and walks out into the ocean. The c
loser I get to his room, the further I sink, but like you, I have a role to play. I have a ‘character’ that keeps me and everyone I love alive. And that character does what she has to do.”

  “That’s not a character, sweetheart.” He told me, “That’s you. You have always done what you have to do to survive. It’s one of the things that had me in awe of you when I first met you. It’s one of the things that has never failed to put me in awe of you, even after all these years.”

  “Really?” I asked.

  “Yes.” He said, but then, his goofy grin spread across his face, and I rolled my eyes, sighed heavily, and fought a grin of my own as I waited for his sarcastic remark. “Of course, I was also in awe as to how someone could be so mean.”

  “Oh, please! You were mean in your own right!”

  “I was never anything but nice to you, woman!”

  “Pardon my English, but bullshit, man!”

  He laughed again, and I did, too.

  “You told me I had a cold, dead heart!”

  “Okay, in my defense, you were being particularly heinous that night. And it made me weirdly Shakespearean. I don’t even know where I got ‘cold, dead heart’ from.”

  “Defense granted. However, you also taunted me endlessly while we were in the car going to the ship. Even when I was ready to punch you in the face, you persisted at your peril. Oh, God, I just made an alliteration, and you are going to make fun of me now…”

  He laughed maniacally, something he had not done since our reunion, and I laughed with him, and then punched him lightly in the arm several times.

  “I persisted at my peril despite your purpose of punching with the power of a petulant pithy powerhouse…”

  “Stop!” I exclaimed through my laughter, because he was making me laugh so hard that my stomach was beginning to hurt. “You sound like Dr. Seuss.”

  “And I haven’t even started rhyming yet.”

  “Don’t you dare! My stomach muscles cannot withstand any more of your childish games, and if you persist, I might pee. There you go, I purposely continued this whimsical activity of stringing random p-words together.”

  “Yes, and you spoke with your beautiful yet strange eloquence. Your verbosity still stands in a league populated by no other, and still, it sets my heart racing and my loins stirring, and if you so declared it to your liking, I would carry you to my bedchamber, lie you down upon my peasant-bed, and make wild, passionate, Shakespearean love to you, because, as is always the case, your word games and aforementioned beautiful yet strange eloquence have put mad desire for you in my heart, and if you allow me to know you in the Biblical sense this night, I could live the rest of my days in splendid bliss.”

  I was laughing so hard that I had to cross my legs and curl over to protect my stomach muscles from much more prolonged stress, but I clapped, starting off slowly and then quickening my applause.

  “That one was Oscar-worthy, baby.” I told him, “And like a knight who has just slaughtered another knight in a fight for my heart and loins, you have won. So, yes, whisk me away to your bedchambers and your peasant-bed, though keep in mind that unlike the ornamental royals for whom knights usually fight and kill, I am more than an ornament.”

  “Oh, you are. An ornament would be quiet once in a while.”

  “You cock!” I snapped, and I punched him harder in the arm as he laughed maniacally once again, “See?! You are so mean!”

  “I’m kidding. I’m kidding.” He said, “Hey, you know I wouldn’t know what to do with myself if I didn’t have you to talk to, and joke with, and fight with. But you left that one wide open for me.”

  “I did. I recognize this, and have henceforth metaphorically kicked myself.”

  “You are full of them tonight!”

  “I know.” I told him, and I leaned forward and kissed him gently. “Now, get to whisking.”

  With grand gusto, he lifted me into his arms and proceeded to carry me off to his room. I giggled in the way that only he could provoke me to giggle, but when he laid me down on the bed, we were serious. While we were being tortured, they had had us touch each other in all of our sexual areas. Feeling the Contact meet his touch on my breasts and between my legs had been the worst pain of all, and when they had ordered me to slide my hand into James’s pants and grasp ahold of him, I had refused, knowing how agonizing it had been for me and refusing to allow them to inflict the same pain upon him. With some prodding from James and Tyre, though, I had had to relent. Of course, James had been whispering to me in a trembling voice that it was alright, that I had to do it, that it wasn’t my fault, but it had taken one of Tyre’s goons sending a particularly high dose of Contact into me for me to obey. When the Contact found no touch upon me, it simply attacked every inch of my body, and with a shaking hand, I had reached down into James’s pants and gripped him.

  The worst of my fears that I felt as James laid me down on his bed was that we would find ourselves unable to touch each other even if we did so slowly. They had spent hours on our more sensitive places when they had tortured us—far more time than they had spent on other places. Tyre’s intention was to break not only our mind and hearts of our love for one another but to break our bodies of the physical wanting we felt for one another. If every time we touched, it sent us into agonizing convulsions, surely we could not feel desire for each other. Surely, we could never make love again.

  I pulled my shirt over my head as he unbuttoned his shirt and threw it aside. He was wearing his white tank top beneath, and it clung so perfectly to his muscular midsection while showcasing his gorgeously sculpted arms. Goddamn it, I thought, How does he never get any less fucking beautiful?! Delicately, and with him watching so he expected the touch of my hand, I reached out and grasped hold of his hard and rocky upper arm, so perfectly toned, and which perfectly bulged into my grip when my fingers tightened on it. My other hand reached out just as slowly and tucked underneath of his shirt where my fingers slowly ran down his stomach, feeling each individual ridge of his abs.

  “That alright?” I asked him.

  “That feels amazing.”

  “Good. I am significantly less in shape than you.” I told him as I unbuckled his belt.

  He kissed my forehead, my cheek, and my neck slowly. As his hands grasped the top of my pants, I lifted my butt so he could pull them down my legs.

  “Stop. You’re beautiful.” He told me, “You need a cheeseburger, but you’re beautiful.”

  “You need a…” I started to say sassily, but I could not come up with anything except, “…beard. Goatee. Moustache. Whatever the hell you had before with your five o’clock shadow and perfectly trimmed thing around your mouth.”

  “I’m working on it. Look.” He rubbed his chin, “I stopped shaving the day you found out about me.”

  I reached up and rubbed the stubble on his cheek. I couldn’t help it; I grinned gigantically.

  “You are still a handsome devil without it,” I assured him, “Heaven knows you are still painfully good-looking. But you know I love the sophistication of your facial hair.”

  “I do know. I shaved it because it made me think of you. It was part of me while I was with you, and I needed not to be that person anymore. It sounds crazy and weird, but…”

  “No.” I shook my head, “Have you seen how my eyes change? How one is white and one is black? I did not do that intentionally, but I embraced it when it happened. Because it made me different than when I was with you, and when I was in Shadow Village, or Don’s house, or on Earth. It fits who I am now. But when I’m with you, I just want to be me. Or I want to be who I was.”

  “You’re still her, baby.” He said, “The same way I’m still me. We’re different, but who we used to be… Those people are still in us. They’re still there.”

  “Yes.” I replied, “I guess you’re right. God, you are so freaking attractive. And when you’re in that uniform, despite all that it represents, you make me crazy.”

  “Oh, yeah?” He asked
with a grin as he leaned down to kiss me, gently at first, but then a little deeper.

  “Mm-hmm.” I said as I slid my tongue into his mouth, “I exercise full restraint to keep from cornering you in some back corridor of this awful monstrosity of a ship and throwing myself at you shamelessly. Even when I thought you were lost to me, I thought about it constantly.”

  “I would have had no restraint if you had done that.”

  “Well, pity it took me this long to throw myself at you.”

  “Ah, you’re throwing yourself at me now, and I’m throwing myself at you. What does it matter?”

  “You are right.”

  I rolled over so that he was below me and inhaled slowly and deeply when he ran his hands up the back of my thighs and rested them on butt.

  “That okay?” He asked, as his hands squeezed. I was pushing myself hard against him, already feeling him beginning to harden for me, and already feeling myself getting wetter for him. I nodded, my hips moving forward and back slowly, rubbing me against him just the right way.

  “Hang on, hang on.” Gently, he grasped my hips, holding them still, and I stopped.

  “Are you alright?”

  “I’m fine.” He said breathlessly, “I’m just not going to last very long, is all. Just hang on for a second, baby. I want to hold out for you.”

  I kissed him gently and sat up, still straddling him but holding myself up on my knees so our bodies were not touching.

  “God, you are so beautiful.” He breathed, and he could see me perfectly then. I was in my black underwear, which, though it was not my usual thong, was not baggy and stereotypically granny-like, either, and my black bra, though not my usual push-up, still supplied ample support.

  “Say it again.”

  “You are so beautiful.” He said again, as his hands crept up my stomach and caressed my amply supported breasts. My head tilted back, and my breasts pushed further into his hands as he squeezed them gently. “God, I want you.”

  “Then have me.”

  He expelled a deep breath.

  “I’m trying to enjoy this moment, just looking at you, but keep talking like that…”

  “And what?” I asked, and I watched his eyes for any sign of pain or trepidation when I slipped my hand beneath the hemline of his boxers. He nodded, and I wrapped my hand around him to find that he was completely hard for me. He closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and then reached his hand up to slide my underwear off. I was running my hand up and down his shaft and moving my hips in synchrony with my hand, and because my doing so was making him more than ready, he was checking to make sure that I was similarly ready.

  “Just do it, James. I’m okay. I’m there. Just do it.”

  “You’re not, baby. Not yet.” He flipped me over, and my back pressed into the soft fabric of his comforter. He laid on his side beside me, propped up on his elbow, and when his head came down so his lips could kiss my neck, my head tilted back for him. I drew in a breath, biting my lip, and my hand that had been resting on his stomach was gripping it now, digging my nails in. His hand came down, and gently, he slid one finger inside of me. At first, the pain took me, and I whimpered softly against my will.

  “No, don’t stop.” I told him, and he touched me again, even more gently.

  “Is that okay?” He asked me softly, and I nodded.

  “There you go.” He whispered, before planting a soft kiss on my lips, “That’s it, baby.” His kiss deepened again, and I moaned when he began to push his fingers into me gently again. He came up over top of me, and my arms came up to wrap around his back, my legs wrapped around his middle, and he asked me in my ear if I was ready. I nodded, and he kissed me again just before he gently slid himself into me. My back arched, my grip on him tightened, and a deep moan escaped me. His head dropped down to rest on my shoulder as he breathed out deeply a few times. It had been so long. We had spent two years together before, and almost every day of that time, we had made love at least once, only to suddenly lose our long built-up physical and emotional intimacy in a blink, only to be separated for three long, painful years. For a moment, being reunited in that carnal, physical way was too much. I was sure I would come then, and he thought that he would, too. I was sure that if we did not come, we would fuck so hard and fast that it would take mere minutes to come. But instead, he moved himself in and out of me slowly, looking up at me, keeping his hand rested on my face. He kissed me deeply, slipping his tongue into my mouth where my own met his eagerly. I held him, feeling that warmth begin slowly in my heart and spreading all throughout me, that warmth that was the result of his touch, that warmth that I had thought they had taken away from me. Once it had filled me up, I squeezed him to me a little harder, and felt that deep, resonant release in my lower belly as I buried my face in his neck and cried out his name.

  After he had come, too, we did not break apart. He stayed over top of me, his body protecting mine from the cold. His forehead was rested against mine, and every few seconds, his lips were on my lips, kissing me lightly and then deeply over and over again. Tears ran silently from our eyes, and I would wipe his away, or he would wipe mine away.

  We did not say much, because there was not much to say, except for a few whispered, “I love you’s.” We fell asleep, our naked bodies pressed together under the soft blanket on his bed, and in the morning, he carried me into the bathroom where we showered together. There in the steady stream of hot water and cocooned on all sides by the thick steam, he said, “It’s almost like we’re at home.”

  And it was so true that I wanted to cry again. If I closed my eyes, I could pretend that it was just another early morning in Shadow Village, and Penny was asleep in her bed, and Violet was either asleep or already at class, and James and I were in the shower together, kissing and holding each other. Nostalgia threatened to take me again, and it would come coupled with a burning need to be at home.

  To be free.

  “James,” I said, “We have to get out of here. Immediately.”

  Quinn

  “Where is he?” Alice demanded furiously. Her feet were up on the polished oak table at which our makeshift Council sat, in what we called our “War Room.” It was dark, because it was underground, and spread all around the walls was the map of Pangaea. All through the endless lands on that map were multicolored pins stuck through to mark the movements of various Old Spirits leaders and their individual troops. I studied the names of the cities, and noted that Alice’s irritation was palpable in the room.

  “It looks like we got back Shadow Village.” I said, trying to distract her.

  She didn’t reply, at least not to what I had said.

  “He has one job. Show up to these meetings, and give us permission to get back out there after this stupid mandated rest period.”

  “John and Eli and their people aren’t here yet either, baby.” I reminded her, because only Khaled was home, and he was talking quietly with two of the other members of his team, casting irritated glances at Don’s second and third men in charge and exchanging irritated looks and eye rolls with Alice.

  “Yeah, they’re on their way.” She huffed, but her voice was slightly softer because she was talking about John and Eli. “It’s not totally dark yet, and they said they would be here by the first chime. Don said he would be here right after dinner. God only knows what distracted him. I don’t even want to know. I just wish he could be competent for once and do what he’s supposed to be doing as our leader.”

  She said the last part loud enough so his people could hear. His second-in-command, a Pangaean man named Shilon, who, as I had been told, had been a huge opponent of Adam and Janna during Janna’s reign over Shadow Village, smiled at her coldly. His third-in-command was a man from Earth named Vin Kaiden.

  I kid you not, that was his real name. And besides the fact that he sounded like a character out of Mortal Kombat, and regardless of his close affiliation with Don, he was a decent guy. Well, at least he was back then.

&nbs
p; “I’m sure he’s on his way, Alice.” Vin told her gently, because he was a particularly adept Heart-Reader, and I am sure he could see her disappointment and frustration that I knew she felt at not having gotten any useful information out of the Old Spirit commander we had been sent to capture.

  “He does enjoy dessert after dinner.” Shilon told her, not gently at all, because he was an instigator of unpleasant emotions, despite also being an adept Heart-Reader.

  “Fuck you, Shilon.” Alice spat at him, her voice so thick with disdain, it could be confused with actual hatred. Alice always said that she would not grant Shilon the satisfaction he would inevitably feel if he knew she hated him. He loved to push buttons, and if he could infuriate someone, he would do so with a smile on his face and by never raising his voice or changing his arrogant tone. In response to Alice’s insult, his smile grew. He had a strange habit of smiling without ever showing his teeth, and even then, when his smile had grown, his teeth were not visible.

  The reason why he did not show his teeth is because his fangs never retracted. It was considered very rude to show fangs when there was no fight, but Shilon did not hide his fangs because he was not trying to be polite. He did so because he would only bare them when absolutely necessary.

  “How old are his desserts now?” Alice continued.

  “All well of age, I assure you.” Shilon replied, “And what business is it of yours, dare I ask? Are you interested in applying for a position…”

  She and I both stood up so quickly that we became blurred. Our fangs had shot out, and we bared them because there would be a fight, if he kept talking to her that way.

  “Oh, sit down.” Shilon said in his thick Southern accent and through a hearty chuckle. “I was only trying to get your goat, as they say.”

  “What’s going on?” A voice asked from the doorway, and when we looked, we saw that John and Eli had arrived.

  Alice’s fangs retracted, though when she ran to them, she ran so quickly that she blurred. Her arms were around John’s neck and then around Eli’s. I clasped John’s hand and threw one arm around him as he did the same to me, and then I did the same to Eli.

  “Oh, the manly hug.” Alice said with an eye roll. But then, her gaze intensified. “Anything? Please tell me you have something.”

  “We brought two in.” John replied gently, turning her away from the crowd in the room so they could not hear. He beckoned for me to follow them out into the hallway, and once we were all outside in the cold, underground corridor, Eli closed the door. In the shadows cast by the torches, the dark circles under their eyes looked painted on in ash. I’m sure Alice and I looked no better, because like John and Eli, we went hard in our searches, sleeping only when we absolutely could not avoid it.

  “Where from?” Alice asked.

  “Aelhollow and Merrihaven.”

  “I didn’t even know they had moved that far north-east!” Alice exclaimed, “Goddamn, how are they multiplying so fast?”

  “It has to be the Unallied.” Eli said. He lit a match and held the shimmering flame, which was so much brighter than the dim glow from the torches that I had to look away, to the end of his cigarette. “It’s gotta be! They’re not so Unallied anymore.”

  “Don insists that that can’t be.” I said, “He says that they wouldn’t align with the Old Spirits. If they were going to align with anyone, they would align with us. But I think you’re right. It’s the only option. But he won’t see reason when it comes to them.”

  “Yeah. He’s probably double-dealing with them, which is the last thing we need.” Eli replied.

  “They helped your mother, Eli.” John said reasonably, “When we needed them, they helped us.”

  “And look at what we had to do! Look at what they wanted as payment!”

  They had wanted to rule our people, and we had left before that deal could be struck. John had carried Lara off in the dead of night, and we had followed behind, and that Unallied tribe, for all their skills, had been unable to track us down.

  “And also, I hate to agree with something that Don is doing, but if they’re aligning with the Old Spirits, then maybe some double-dealing is what we need.” I said.

  “We don’t need them. We have enough people.” Eli replied.

  “Were there any signs of Tyre?” Alice asked, “Or of Lara?”

  “Oh, the standing Mayor of Aelhollow, the guy we brought back, swears that Tyre came through there, dragging a pretty, middle-aged brunette into the alehouse where he was staying.”

  “He was just trying to fuck with us. He knew who we were.” John added, but his eyes were distant, as they had a tendency to be, when someone brought up Lara. “He was trying to get us pissed off. He was too much of a pussy to off himself like the rest of them do, so he wanted us to get pissed and kill him.”

  “I would have killed him.” Alice hissed, “For lying, or for telling the truth.”

  We were silent, but it was not a silence of the judgmental kind. We were all thinking that we knew she would, and that she would have been justified.

  “No scent?” She asked after a minute, “Nothing around the town that even remotely resembled her smell? Or Tyre’s? Was her scent on any of the other guys?”

  Lara had told us that Tyre sometimes used her as payment for services rendered by men in other cities. That was all she would say, except that he did the same to his wife, so she was not all together insulted. Sometimes, her way of dealing with trauma had been identical to Brynna’s caustic, sarcastic way.

  “Nothing. If he came through there, then he was careful. He’s probably getting her scent off before he brings her anywhere near the places, because he knows we’re hitting them.”

  “Fuck.” Alice murmured, “He’s got his claws in her good this time, doesn’t he? He’s not taking a chance of losing her.”

  “No.” John replied, and his eyes flashed red in the darkness, “But I am going to hunt him down, and I’m taking him out this time. The last I saw him, I didn’t have a chance, but this time, I’m ending it.”

  “As long as you let me have a crack at him.” I said, “In fact, we’ll just let everyone take a crack at him. Everyone deserves at least one free shot.”

  “Hell yeah.” Eli replied with a smile as he stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete wall. “And Mom gets the final killing move.”

  “Hell yeah, she does.” John agreed.

  Don came around the corner just then, and he stopped, his eyes wide, when he saw us.

  “Hello, all.” He said finally.

  For a moment, we all stared back, not saying a word.

  “Well, look who decided to show.” Alice snapped at him.

  “I do apologize.” He said, “I had an appointment I couldn’t cancel.”

  “Was she blonde?” I asked, and it was a low blow that prompted him to scowl at me darkly.

  Instead of replying, though, he simply gestured towards the door and said, “Shall we?” I did not push the issue, but Alice and I, the last to enter the room, walked in looking at each other, trying not to laugh.

  Don sat down between Shilon and Vin, and gestured for everyone to be seated. It disturbed me that everyone, even those who did not particularly care for Don, stood when he entered the room. Even Adam, the King of all Free People on Purissimus, had not required anyone to rise while in his presence. In the Council meetings, though he, Janna, Don, and Brynna were in charge and sat at the front of the room, Brynna had said that everyone was equal. But Don needed to be revered, and the other people in the room with us showed their reverence, however unintentionally and however unwillingly, when they stood for him.

  Or maybe they were just showing their respect to him as our leader. He had been leading us for twenty-five years. Some saw him as being of the same Godly stock that they had believed Adam had been a part of; every setback had been countered and a new solution had been hatched by Don, and they were still alive due to his intelligence and benevolence. The rest of us, though, viewed
him as one whose bad qualities far outweighed the good. While we were out, searching for the Lapsarian, or for Lara, or for Old Spirit commanders, he sat at home, screwing the women who threw themselves at him, and making propaganda videos.

  Needless to say, the division of labor was badly skewed, and it was not just us out doing the hard work who noticed. The people at home who worked endlessly to keep our home bases up and running noticed how very little their leader accomplished, too.

  “Some days, I just want someone to kill him so we’ll have someone new.” Alice had told Eli, John, and me one night.

  “That will never happen.” John said, “Say what you want about the people on this rock, but once someone’s in power, they do nothing to throw them out. Well, unless it’s someone on the other side of the Split.”

  Don called the meeting to order and started with Khaled.

  “We brought in three Commanders.” Khaled informed him, “Two from Dracley and one from Daxx.”

  “In good condition?” Don asked.

  “Fit for interrogation, but certainly not in good condition. Sorry.” Khaled said airily, and the rest of us chuckled at that, but Don and Shilon frowned.

  “It’s fine. Any news of the Lapsarian in the West?”

  “None. They haven’t seen it. The story the last Commander from Aelhollow gave us was false. There is no fueling port within one hundred miles of the western coast.”

  “Wonderful.” Don replied sarcastically, “Execute him tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Unless, of course, he chooses to volunteer some truthful information.”

  “He didn’t provide truthful information even after interrogation.” I said, “Something tells me that his loyalty to those people is more important to him than his life.”

  “So, you think he should just be killed.” Don said.

  “Obviously.” I replied, “What’s the point of keeping him alive?”

  “He knows where the Lapsarian is. He knows where Tyre is, what his movements are, now and in the future. That’s pretty important, Quinn.”

  “Yeah, if he were willing to fork over the information. Fuck, the guy fought off Contact, and he fought off the truth drugs. We thought he was telling us the truth with that shit about the fueling station somewhere along the western coast, but it’s bullshit.”

  “So what do you propose?”

  “I want to work interrogation.”

  In my peripheral vision, I saw Alice look at me, her eyes slightly wide, but not wide enough to betray the full extent of her shock. She did not want the other people in the room to think that I had not at least conferred with her about the decision. It had come to me suddenly, right there at the beginning of the meeting; the solution to whatever problem I was having was that I needed to stay home. I needed to settle. We needed to settle. Alice didn’t know it yet, but she needed some stability, even if only for a little while. It would solve all of our problems.

  I know it sounds awful, but I needed to make an executive decision.

  “You want to come off the road?” Don asked.

  “Yes. Look, I want to find the Lapsarian just as much as anyone. Lara might be on it. I think the issue right now is that the people working interrogation have no other interest in finding the Lapsarian and Tyre other than that it’s how we’ll win the war. They’re looking at it from the standpoint of victory on the whole, and I guess that’s personally motivated, but it’s not as personally motivated as my investment in finding the Lapsarian and Tyre. It’s not as personal as John’s investment, or Allie’s, or Eli’s…”

  “Yeah, but I’m not coming off the road, man.” Eli said, “I can’t. I gotta find my mom. I gotta be out there trying to find her, and trying to find the guys responsible for the deaths of my sisters. I can’t just sit here.”

  “Neither can I.” John said, “But I do see your point. He’s right.”

  “So, what are you three insinuating?” Shilon asked, because he had several sons working on Interrogation, and clearly found what I was saying to be an insult, which it kind of was. “They are not completing their tasks to your liking down there?”

  “Yeah, that is what I’m insinuating.”

  “I don’t think that’s what you’re really insinuating, Quinn…” Don started to say.

  “No, that’s exactly what I’m insinuating, Don. And whatever, it doesn’t matter. I want to work interrogation.”

  “I’m not coming off the road, either.” Alice said, to my shock, though I don’t know why I was shocked, “But we’ll talk about that privately later.”

  “Allie…” I said quietly.

  “In the North, we raided the cities on our list, but got no one…” She started to say.

  But I wasn’t listening, because I knew, from seeing the red reflected in her eyes, that I was in serious trouble.