Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2
Jacaranda
“ H e’s sedated for now, but he’ll be alright, Jac,” Ode said, sounding grim as she looked over Deacon’s unconscious body in Wave’s infirmary. “The damage…he’s lucky the mercs didn’t have a good shot, or his face would look like Mock’s legs.”
I nodded, looking to the smaller man’s condition as he lay in the bed beside Deacon’s. His legs had been shredded by the hand cannons. Ode had sworn she could fix them, but it would take some time before he would walk on his own again.
“How long before Deacon wakes up?” I asked, feeling lost without Sarah and devastated by Deacon’s injuries.
“I’m not sure. The concussion is one of the worst I’ve seen outside the hospital I trained in,” Ode said. “I’m shocked he was able to form sentences after it happened.”
My stomach churned, and I asked the question I didn’t want to ask. “Will the neurological damage be permanent?”
“Highly unlikely. He’s responding well to treatment. But he must rest—this is imperative. He cannot fight. He cannot run. Not either for a long time. Any jarring to his skull could be fatal for the time being—"
“Give me an end date, Ode,” I said, needing to know.
“I can’t,” she said with a shake of her head, “I have to reassess him after he wakes. This situation is touchy—there are no guarantees.”
“You’re supposed to be the best!” I snarled, my hands fisted at my sides in pure frustration over the situation.
“I am!” she snapped back. “Don’t you think I want to save him? After everything he did for me?”
I took a deep breath, trying to accept her words. But they went against everything I had in me. My hands flexed and stretched. I needed something to hit, but Ode was not it. “I’m sorry—I—"
“It’s fine,” she said, understanding in her eyes. “I know. I know. Where is Wave? She was supposed to be back with more bandages by now.”
“Seriously, Ode,” I said, knowing I’d overreacted and took my turmoil of emotions out on her. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—"
“It’s fine ,” she insisted. “Now, let me get back to work, okay?”
Her voice broke at the end of her question. Her youth and terror and sisterly love of Deacon were obvious, as she looked up at me. I could see the face of the little girl he had rescued and saved so long ago.
“I’ll go see what’s holding her up,” I said.
Wave’s infirmary was far bigger than Ode’s, so the most severely injured were housed there. I quickly jogged through Allegiant’s halls, trying to find the ship’s doctor, and bumped into her in the cargo bay doorway.
Her arms were overstuffed with bandages, her normally braided gray hair now loose and askew. “Out of the way!” she barked.
I just stepped aside, while she brushed past me and ran toward the infirmary. There was nothing I could do to help. Everything was in our medical team’s hands. I wanted to stay by Deacon’s side, but I had to figure out a way to save Sarah.
She didn’t have a medical team to keep her safe. She didn’t have anyone on her side in Faithless. She was alone— no, worse .
She had Rex in her body.
That thought haunted me. I had watched over Deacon for hours before I’d left the infirmary. I was exhausted and sick with the thought of all that had happened during that awful battle we hadn’t seen coming. I knew why Sarah had possessed Rex’s body. She wanted to save us. We’d been overrun, outgunned. The fight had been pandemonium, and she found a way to stop it all in a nanosecond. She done the only logical thing she could do at the time, or else we all would have been murdered.
But it was still batshit crazy.
I jogged out to everyone who had gathered around Allegiant, waiting for word on how Deacon, and everyone else, was doing. Night had fallen. I hadn’t realized so many hours had passed. Deacon’s father, Valor, Silence, the rest our crews, and Valor’s friends stood nearest to the ship where our most injured patients were. And behind them, the conduits.
I tried not to hold all of this chaos against the ghosts—I knew Sarah would hate me if I had. But it was hard. Had the conduits not threatened Rex, had they not gone off the deep end… it didn’t matter .
Once there had been over a hundred of those speakers of the dead. Now, there were just eighteen, not including Omen.
And right before the fight, they had thrown their allegiance to Sarah. For that alone I had to bury my anger.
“How is he?” Valor asked, his face paler than I’d ever seen it.
“Ode says he will be alright.” I said.
I paused to let him collect himself after the news broke his composure, then explained everything else she had told me about his condition. I wished I could have held Valor and offered him comfort, but that was an impossibility due to him being a ghost now. But the see-through man in front of me had bought me as a very young boy and practically raised me. He was Deacon’s father, but in so many ways, he was mine too.
“It’s gonna be okay, Valor,” I said, giving him the only reassurance I could. “But he must rest, or he could die.”
Silence, his living paramour, stepped forward. “We will make sure he’s alright, Jac. I assume you’re going after Sarah?”
“Soon.” I gave her a half-hearted smile. “I just…if I found her before seeing him awake and okay, she’d kick my ass.”
Silence laughed sweetly. “Yeah, I think she would.”
I pushed through the crowd and found myself next to Omen, who was speaking to a conduit I didn’t know. All of the ghostly women looked worn. Scared. Like the rest of us.
I addressed the group. “Conduits, your queen , my consort, saved us all by ending that fight and stealing Rex into herself. What will you do to rescue her, the way she rescued you from his wrath?”
They exchanged knowing glances, before the one near Omen spoke. “We have been discussing it, Jacaranda, and,” she took a stiff breath, “we believe it would dishonor Sarah for us to go rescue her.”
I stared at them in shock. “What?”
“Well,” she nervously continued, “it was her choice to take Rex into her body…we’ve never seen anyone living do such a thing. None of us knew it was even possible, it’s not in the holy texts—"
“You owe her your lives!” Omen roared furiously at them.
“Not technically,” the conduit said meekly. “I mean, we don’t know how the fight would have gone, and—"
“You fucking cowards, I’ll do it myself!” Omen bellowed.
She stomped away. Three of the conduits ghosts followed her. To talk her out of it or to go with her, I wasn’t sure.
I glared at the remaining fifteen. “She is right about you. All of you. You have dishonored your names, your families, your legacy. Justice Bateen was right to execute you.” I followed Omen into the house. “Omen, wait—"
She emerged with her rucksack from a bedroom in the back. The three conduits who had followed her had theirs, as well.
Omen stopped in front of me. “What?”
“Don’t go yet,” I said. “Once Deacon has woken up, I’ll come with you—"
“Don’t bother.” She went past me. “I won’t tell her you were with the cowards—"
“Excuse me?”
Omen spun on me, her expression filled with fury. “None of you have even moved to save my queen—"
“If I left before Deacon woke up, she’d hate me. You know that’s true!”
Recognition dimmed her anger. She closed her eyes and sighed. “I’m sorry, Jac, I shouldn’t have assumed the worst.”
“We’re all tense, Omen. It’s fine.” It wasn’t fine, but guilt wasn’t going to help anyone in this situation. “Just…if you get to her before I can, tell her she’s a mad woman and I love her for it.”
Omen smirked. “Will do.”
She and the three conduits left.
Since I was already in the cottage, I checked on Camp Deo, my android. She doted on Valor and Silence’s twins, cooing and brushing their hair. Luckily, they’d remained in the cottage while the battle had raged just outside.
Quietly, I asked, “They’re okay?”
“They’re perfect,” Camp assured me. “Have you any word on Lanai Dea?”
I shook my head. Someone had sabotaged Deacon’s android before the fight began so she wouldn’t be able to help in the battle. We weren’t sure if she could be repaired.
Camp let out a beep that I had never heard from her before. It sounded sad, like she thought the worst. “I will say a prayer for her, too.”
“You pray, Camp?” I asked, surprised to learn that about my android.
She smiled, still haunted. “The gods may not hear the prayers of androids, Jacaranda, but that does not mean we do not pray.”
I smiled at her, glad she was there to help with the twins. As much as she adored them, I wondered whether I should release her to Valor’s employment. She was a better nanny than a ship’s android.
With that thought in mind, I asked, “Do you think—"
An ethereal shriek broke the moment.
I ran out of the cottage and toward the sound. Everyone outside stared at Allegiant —the source of the awful shriek was inside. The entry to the ship was crowded—everyone wanted to know what had happened. I plowed through them, trying to get to my companion. I went back to the infirmary to check on Deacon. But he was still unconscious.
“It’s Mock,” Valor said.
I closed my eyes, grateful it wasn’t Deacon, but still shattered by the horror of Mock’s excruciating scream of pain. I went around the curtain that divided the infirmary to see if I could lend a hand. To my relief, Mock was unconscious again. Ode stood behind his head, jet injector in hand. A blood-soaked sheet laid on Mock’s lower half. Wave stood by what was left of his feet.
They looked at me and simply shook their heads. I swallowed hard and asked, “He’s—"
“Alive,” Ode said. “But just barely.”
“Does he need more blood?” I asked.
“No, Maverick gave him plenty.”
“Can I do anything?”
She just shook her head and continued to work.
I sighed and went back to Deacon’s side of the curtain.
He was eight feet tall, well-muscled. A perfect specimen of Ladrian manhood. A face sculpted by the gods, with a thick strong jaw and a strangely perfect nose for someone who had been a soldier. Now his forehead was marred by a large black burn from the hand cannon fire that had given him his concussion. His tan skin had a pink sheen—something he had always hated about himself, but I loved.
My own taupe skin glinted blue in the light. Common blue, matching my hair. Normal, average. Not like Deacon Ladrang. My companion and one of the loves of my life. I missed the flash of his hazel eyes when he laughed, the deep boom of his baritone voice. Every detail of him…
“He will wake,” Wave said, startling me as she placed a hand on my shoulder. “Give him time.”
I nodded, and part of me was in awe of her. The moment Wave had found out Deacon was truly injured, she had lost her shit. It was strange—Wave’s usual cool, detached demeanor was something I had counted on, but not this time. Her blue-sheened jet black skin seemed flat beneath the bright infirmary lights. Her plain face haggard with worry.
I cleared my throat and asked, “And Mock?”
“Ode says it’s best to keep him comatose for now,” she said in a quiet voice. “Until we are sure the bulk of the pain has passed.”
“Makes sense. I’m—"
“Where is Sarah?” Deacon mumbled.
My heart leapt in my throat. Grateful and relieved that he was somewhat cognizant, I kissed his forehead on the small patch of skin that was still tan. “She’s…she’s with Rex."
Deacon struggled to sit up. “We have to—"
I pressed a hand to his chest, holding him down. “Hang on there a minute. You can’t move around right now.”
He blinked up at me in confusion. “What? Why?”
“Is he awake?” Ode blurted from Mock’s side of the curtain.
“Yeah, I—"
The partition skittered on its hang bar in a high pitched jerk. “You fucker!” Ode shouted happily.
Still groggy, Deacon’s eyelashes fluttered. “Huh?”
“Ode, not right now,” Wave said in a stern tone. “He’s not there yet.”
Ode calmed down and checked his vitals. As she examined him, he seemed dazed. Disoriented. But when he looked up and saw me, he smiled, and I knew he would be alright.
Ode explained Deacon’s limits to him, and he appeared to understand. Then, he closed his eyes and mumbled, “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I responded.
He opened his eyes again and looked up at me, his expression filled with angst. “I…I can’t go with you to save Sarah. I want to, but my body—”
“I’ll save her for us, Deacon,” I said, and now that I knew he was going to be okay, I was anxious to do exactly that. “I’ve got this.”
He gave as much of a smile as he could. “Thank you.”
“Thank me by doing whatever Ode and Wave tell you to do, okay?” I gently squeezed his shoulder before giving him a wicked grin. “You have to be in tip-top shape for when I return with Sarah. You know she’s going to want to fuck your brains out when she sees you again, so you need to get better fast, okay?”
He huffed out a laugh, then winced. “I’ll do what I can.”
I looked to Ode and Wave. “Take care of my guy, okay?” My voice choked in my throat.
They nodded as I left the infirmary. When I stepped out of Allegiant , I pointed to Tiger. “We’re going to get Sarah back.”
“I’m coming with you,” Treg said.
The gelatinous Gorrk surprised me. “Are you sure? Ode—"
“My girl is fine here,” he said of Ode. “ Sovereign , on the other hand, needs her engineer. She’s been acting up, we both know it. I’m coming with you.”
I nodded my thanks and appreciation, and exhaled a deep breath at the difficult task I knew lay ahead. “Alright then, a team of three—"
“A team of six.”
I turned to face the voice behind me. Fan, Bell, and Maverick stood there, bandaged from their wounds in the battle, but ready to go. “Guys, I appreciate it, but you’ve all been injured and—"
“ And ,” Fan interrupted, “if we don’t help save the woman who made sure our injuries weren’t worse, then what kind of men are we?”
Bell nodded. “You need the help. We need the distraction.”
Maverick smirked. “Plus, if you don’t agree to let us come with you, you’ll have to explain to Sarah why you got your ass handed to you by three old guys.”
I smiled and clapped his shoulder. “A team of six it is, then.”