Chapter 64.
The room goes quiet again, all of them staring at the door trying to process what happened since Jimmy arrived. This entire evening, without any advance warning, has turned into one more test. Or one more game, before a much deadlier one if The Host is to be believed.
Jack is the first to break the silence.
He stands so fast his chair almost goes over. He walks out of the dining room, out of the main house, into the night. He doesn’t fully know what he’s going to do if he catches The Host. He just knows he can’t sit still with Elena’s name still echoing inside his skull. Loud. Final.
Jack thinks, He might think we’re done here, but I don’t.
Jack’s not interested in what the bastard knows about war, if anything. He reminds Jack of an old general sending soldiers into combat. It’s why he wants to catch up to him. Wants to bounce him around and let him know that Elena Torres was something more than collateral damage.
A woman that Jack had cared about more than he’s willing to admit to himself, even now that she’s gone.
Night has fallen while they’ve been inside. The estate is completely dark. The lake they passed on arrival is a sheet of black glass. Jack stops briefly, the light from the moon obscured by a heavy cloud cover.
But there is no sight of The Host.
Then, perhaps a hundred yards up ahead, there is the silhouette of a tall, slender man on a bluff overlooking the water.
Jack starts after him, jogging at first, then breaking into a full sprint.
Jack wants to lower his shoulder and drive him to the ground the way he used to do with ball carriers in high school football when he’d catch one of them from behind.
He wants him on the ground. He wants his hands on something real.
But before he can, Jack is the one tackled from behind, his face pushed into the cool, wet, night grass.
Even with the wind knocked out of him he tries to wrestle out from underneath whoever it is on top of him. But his face is shoved back into the grass, even harder this time.
“Stop,” he hears.
Tipton.
Jack twists enough to see him.
“Get off me,” Jack growls.
Tipton doesn’t. He shoves Jack’s face into the grass harder, like he’s pinning down a wild animal.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jack says, trying to get enough leverage with his arms and legs to get Ant Tipton off him.
“You’re going to get yourself killed,” Tipton says.
“By him?” Jack spits.
Tipton finally eases the pressure—just enough for Jack to breathe. “By them.”
Jack blinks, rage stalling for half a second.
Tipton stands, and Jack sees his hand in the moonlight.
“You may think you know how ruthless they are. But, actually, I do know, mate.”
Tipton reaches down. “Up.”
Jack almost refuses just on principle.
Then he takes the hand and lets Tipton haul him to his feet.
“I’m supposed to trust you now?” Jack asks.
“Absolutely not,” Tipton snorts.
He still has Jack’s hand, and roughly pulls him closer.
“You don’t trust anybody. Not Donaldson. Not me. Not the ‘board.’ And not the rules—the rules don’t exist. There’s only whatever jurisdiction they rented this week and the outcomes they want to rig. Nothing else.”
Steven Noble