Chapter 45
45
B ryant is late for training.
In fact, Roma thinks as she slams her fists into the heavy bag, “late” is a misnomer altogether. She and Bryant were planning to meet up at ten a.m. to train together before lunch, but that was nearly two hours ago. Roma has already thrown every bladed weapon in her possession at multiple targets and done agility drills until she was dry heaving against the wall, and now, she’s just killing time until the dining hall starts serving lunch.
It’s not unheard of for Bryant to miss training?—she occasionally gets waylaid by the Council, and she admittedly has a habit of taking naps at inopportune times?—but it’s a bit strange these days. Despite Roma’s insistence that she’s fine, damn it, Bryant has been making it a point to drag her out to the training grounds every day, loyally enabling Roma’s favorite coping mechanism and subtly using her purebred status to telegraph to other hunters that disrespecting Roma also means disrespecting a Nehemiah.
Something must have come up. Maybe Nasir called her in? Roma hasn’t spoken with the councilwoman in a few days now, not since she delivered her long-awaited report on the Deep. Even then, over a week after her failure, Nasir didn’t mention anything about a punishment.
She wishes the Council would just get it over with. The anticipation is making her sick to her stomach, and bitterly, she thinks that might be why they’re stalling in the first place.
And a small, twisted part of Roma also wants the Council to punish her because she feels like she deserves it. Not for failing her mission, but for failing Ez and JJ and Naomi and the rest of them.
Then again, the greatest punishment of all might just be that she’s stuck here. She can’t defect, not without an exit strategy. JJ had Cass, Desi, Ez, and Obie; Naomi and Sawyer had Micah and Gregorio. They had safe houses, they had resources??—
They had friends on the outside to rally around them.
Roma has nothing. She whips one last roundhouse kick into the punching bag before dropping her fight stance and checking her watch.
Noon on the dot. Time for lunch. Sighing, Roma undoes her boxing wraps, shoves them into her pockets, and starts dragging her feet towards the dining hall.
Part of her is hoping to find Chester there, but she knows it’s unlikely. In fact, she’s barely seen him at all since her mission ended and he was given more interrogation shifts. That’s not surprising, given the high volume of prisoners right now, but Roma is surprised by how much the sudden separation hurts. The four of them spent most of their days together before their final exams six years ago, but once Strike Team Kappa was on call for fieldwork and Chester was a full-time interrogator, their hangouts became a lot more infrequent.
Having him by her side during her ill-fated operation reminded Roma of just how much she missed seeing him every day. And, like JJ said so many months ago, Chester has always been the most critical of the Sanctum at baseline, always been particularly sensitive to the Council’s machinations and the bloodlines hierarchy’s oppression.
Nowadays, Roma can relate to that more than she cares to admit.
Maybe it’s good that Chester is on shift and Bryant didn’t show. She can eat her lunch in silence, surrounded by the condemnation of the other hunters, before heading up to her room, curling into a ball, and trying not to think altogether.
Just like she has every other day since last week.
“Yo, Gutierrez!”
Speak of the devil. Frowning, Roma turns around to see Bryant jogging down the hallway towards her, a manila folder tucked under one arm. “Hey, Nehemiah,” Roma says, pausing to let Bryant catch up. “Missed you on the training grounds. Where’ve you been?”
“With Councilwoman Nasir,” Bryant says, slowing to a stop in front of her. “We have a new assignment.”
Roma grimaces. “Another rogue summoner?”
Bryant shakes her head. “No. No, actually?—?” She takes a deep breath, meeting Roma’s eyes. “They found him, Roma. They found JJ.”
All at once, the world goes very quiet around Roma. “What?” she manages.
“Yeah.” Bryant gives her a small smile, handing over the folder. “Even though your mission technically failed, the Council was still able to use the intelligence you gathered to track him down. Apparently, their search led them to an Obadiah Smith rental property that came off the market right after the demons kicked you out of their clandestine meeting last week. The Council thinks that JJ?—that Jackson has to be there.”
Roma’s stomach lurches. “What? But that doesn’t??—?”
That doesn’t make sense, she realizes, horror driving through her hard and fast. JJ and Cass’s newest safe house was never compromised, because they were too suspicious to let Roma in there after last time. The only properties that she saw were Naomi and Sawyer’s??—
And Ez’s. Roma tastes bile. “Are they sure?” she hedges. “I mean, the evidence sounds a bit weak.”
“They staked out the house and found it littered with anti-tracking spell work,” Bryant says, and Roma’s heart sinks even further. “The type that would only be used to confuse the Sanctum’s soul-tracking spells. Since Jackson is the only defector we know with connections to Smith, the balance of probability is that he’s inside.”
“But?—?”
But that doesn’t make sense, either. If JJ was in that house, he wouldn’t need to bother with anything besides standard anti-tracking spells?—since his Sanctum enchantments were stripped away, they can’t find him through soul tracking anymore. His soul energy just isn’t high enough to pinpoint.
But there are two other defectors with connections to Obie. Two other former hunters who, as far as Roma knows, still have their Sanctum enchantments intact.
JJ isn’t inside that house. Naomi and Sawyer are. Naomi and Sawyer, who abandoned the Sanctum and have been working against it for years and have intimate knowledge of the entire vast conspiracy??—
If the Sanctum gets their hands on them, they’ll make them regret ever being born. Roma feels like she’s going to vomit. “All right,” she says faintly. “So, uh, they’re sending Strike Team Kappa in?”
“Not just us,” Bryant says. “They’re sending in a whole strike force, just like the last time we cornered Cassius Chin. We still want him and the kid, apparently, but Jackson is the main target. I?—I think they’re hoping they still might be able to save him.”
Roma almost laughs at the thought of the Sanctum “saving” JJ from anything. JJ saved himself?—with a little help from the people who love him. “Maybe,” she says, struggling to keep her voice neutral. “So when are we moving out? Has anyone else been briefed yet?”
Bryant’s lips twitch in a smirk. “That’s the best part, Roma: the Council wants you to lead the mission.”
The words jolt through Roma. “What? Why?”
“I think they realized they gave you an impossible assignment,” Bryant says. “Actually, they’ve given you two impossible assignments in the past six months. But even though they were hopeless, you still came shockingly close to succeeding at both?—and your intel led them straight to Jackson. I think Kenneth Long’s hand in marriage is still off the table?—we were responsible for the mega-rift epidemic, after all?—but it looks like they’re giving you the opportunity to redeem yourself.” She smiles. “You know how rare it is for the Council to give second chances. They must really believe in you.”
And, all at once, the pieces snap into place.
The Council doesn’t believe in Roma. This isn’t her second chance?—this is her punishment.
Councilwoman Nasir knew that Roma wasn’t telling the full truth about her assignment. She knew that Roma was hiding relevant information from them, hiding critical information from them.
So, rather than torturing Roma to get that information, Nasir decided to take a different approach: to force Roma to lead a mission that the Council knows is resting on a shaky foundation. To force Roma to lead a mission that she can only accomplish by using everything she hid from them in the first place.
To force her hand and make her give up her secrets.
And being chosen to head a strike force like this is a great honor, of course. Roma can’t refuse. She legitimately can’t?— if she does, then the Council will know for sure that she’s lying, and, well??—
She was just thinking about how much she misses talking to Chester, but she doesn’t want to see him again from the wrong side of a scalpel.
“Roma?” Bryant’s eyebrows pull together. “Roma, are you okay?”
Roma swallows hard, her pulse roaring in her ears. “Yeah,” she hears herself say. “Yeah, I’m okay. It’s just a lot to take in. The Council wants us to move out today?”
“Within two hours,” Bryant confirms, and Roma fights back a flinch. “You were just about to get lunch, right? Make it quick?—the Council wants you in Nasir’s office at twelve-thirty to brief you on what they found, and then you’ll have to choose a few strike teams and brief them, too.” She arches an eyebrow. “I’ll be coming with you, right?”
Roma forces a smile. “Wouldn’t be a mission without you.”
“Great,” Bryant says, but her answering smile looks strained. “And who knows? Maybe the Council is right. Maybe we really can save JJ?—or save him from himself.”
“Maybe,” Roma says hollowly, and she holds up the manila folder. “Thanks for this. I’ll review the info and head to Nasir’s office.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bryant says, and she claps Roma on the shoulder before jogging away, doubtlessly to prepare for their upcoming mission.
Roma waits until she’s out of sight before leaning heavily against the wall, all thoughts of lunch forgotten. Hands shaking, she opens the folder and stares numbly at the documents inside.
There are the records from the rental home Bryant mentioned, a cozy one-story house near Lakeside. The next section is the spellcasters’ notes, detailing the exact defensive spells around the property?—and how to get past them. The pages after that are from JJ’s personnel file, and??—
Roma snaps the folder shut, nausea licking up her throat.
JJ may not be in that house, but she still can’t risk compromising Naomi and Sawyer?—or anyone else Obie might be trying to protect. But she only has a few options, and right now, none of them are good.
Her first option is to lead the operation as planned. They’ll find Naomi and Sawyer in that house instead of JJ, and while the Council will be grimly enthusiastic to strap their two most infamous defectors to interrogation tables, it won’t take much for them to deduce that Roma knew about them all along. She’ll probably be branded a dissident and thrown into prison right alongside them.
Her second option is to come clean to the Council. That’ll lead to the same conclusion, obviously?—if she knew about Naomi and Sawyer but chose not to say anything, then that’s treason. That’s rebellion.
And that’s not even considering what Roma knows about the conspiracy.
What else can she do? Find a way to warn them? The phone Naomi used to text Roma is out of service, and so are Sawyer’s and JJ’s old numbers. Covertly sabotage the raid? She’d have to do it very carefully, and even if she managed it, the Council would probably punish her severely for her “missteps”—if they didn’t see through her deception altogether. Fake an illness or injury? That would look too suspicious, and it would only buy her enough time for the infirmary’s spellcasters to heal her.
All roads lead back to the prison. All roads lead to Roma compromising herself without the Council even lifting a finger. All they have to do is let her march towards her own fate, let her seal her own sentence??—
Let her choose her own punishment. There’s no way out of it, not that Roma can see, unless??—
Unless she’s not here for the Council to punish.
The thought stops Roma cold, slipping into her veins like ice. Defection. Exactly what Naomi and Sawyer did, exactly what JJ did.
Exactly what Roma was planning to do, back when she had Ez and JJ and all their friends by her side.
She’s known all along that defecting without a safety net would be a death sentence. But is that really so different from what’s waiting for her now? If every other option leads back to the interrogation rooms, then??—
Then maybe Roma’s best chance is to run. Her only chance, really. The odds of her lasting for more than a week or so on the outside are vanishingly slim, but they’re better than the odds of her surviving whatever the Sanctum’s interrogators have in store for her.
Roma takes a deep breath. Lets it out slowly.
Pushes herself away from the wall and strides towards her bedroom, keeping her eyes fixed straight ahead.
Is the Sanctum expecting this, too? Is this the Council’s real test of her loyalty? To either stay and be punished, or leave and be hunted? Because they know as well as Roma does that she can’t escape them forever. Forcing her to make this decision is just one more way they can place the blame squarely on her shoulders.
Roma Gutierrez, defector. Just like her sister.
This time, though, Roma doesn’t get the stab of bitterness and betrayal that she used to feel when people compared her to Naomi. Now, she feels something almost like pride coalescing behind her sternum, steeling her resolve.
Yeah. Yeah, this must’ve been how Naomi felt right before she left. Angry and jaded and scared, but determined to somehow survive.
To survive, and to make the world a better place on the other side.
Roma’s bedroom door looms large ahead of her. She ducks inside, grabs her go bag from underneath her bed, and skims over its contents.
Honestly, it’s not much. Just enough to last her a few nights during missions. She doesn’t have much to add to it, either?—just some extra clothes and the one or two trinkets she’s picked up over the years.
Her entire life can fit into this one duffel bag. She never realized how small that felt, how limiting that felt, until now.
But that’s okay. She’ll be traveling alone. She won’t need much.
She can’t bring Bryant and Chester with her. No matter how much the thought makes her heart crack, she knows she can’t. In the end, she doesn’t think either of them would believe her?—not about JJ, not about Naomi and Sawyer, not about the conspiracy.
And, even if they did, she’s not expecting to make it more than a week on the outside. She can’t ask that of them, can’t ask them to risk death for her.
She can come back for them later, but for now, they’re still safe here. Just one more way Roma takes after her sister, apparently.
Taking a deep breath, she grabs her duffel bag, casts a cloaking spell over herself, and strides out of her room without looking back. She walks through the hallways and down the staircases, detachedly realizing that this may very well be the last time she ever sees them, and slips through the double doors.
First, she has to warn Naomi and Sawyer. Once the Sanctum realizes Roma is gone, they’ll send the strike force out immediately, and she can’t let her old mentors face that alone, not when they don’t even know it’s coming. After that??—
Well. After that, she’ll figure out whatever comes next. Squaring her shoulders, she tightens her grip on her duffel bag, turns her feet towards Redwater, and takes off at a quick jog, heading towards her new fate.