Chapter 9 James
James
This time, I don’t tackle Rosabelle to the ground.
This time, I don’t make a sound.
I dart into the shadows, grab the menace by the tail, and yank her backward, covering her mouth to capture her scream. I clamp
down her arms, keeping her hands where I can see them, and pin her back to my front as I pull her deeper into the recesses
of the darkening hangar, shifting us both away from the last shafts of golden sun.
“So when you told me you weren’t some kind of genius-level hacker—”
She stiffens against me.
“—you were obviously lying.”
Her chest rises and falls against my forearm. I can practically feel her heart beating, and I’m not as armed, emotionally
or physically, as I’d like to be in this moment. The knife I’d had in my pocket was a simple, everyday carry; I’ve now stashed
it out of Rosabelle’s reach, but I wish I could do this whole day over again. I’d be armed to the teeth. I wouldn’t be wearing
these jeans.
“Any other confessions you’d like to make?” I ask. “Are you a professional fighter pilot, too? Do you spend your free time base jumping off cliffs? How many languages do you speak? How long can you hold your breath underwater? When was the last time you told someone the truth?”
She shakes her head, making a muffled, indistinct sound, and I move in seconds, fluidly trading one hand for the other, flipping
open my knife and releasing Rosabelle’s mouth before pressing the blade to her throat.
“Speak,” I say sharply.
“James— Please—”
I press the blade a little harder. “That’s not an answer.”
“You’re not going to hurt me,” she says. “I know you don’t want to hurt me.”
I lower my lips to the curve of her ear. “You didn’t want to hurt me, either. But when it mattered, you didn’t hesitate.”
Her breath hitches. She tenses against my body.
I really thought Rosabelle would see reason; I thought she’d needed to put up a fight on principle; I thought she’d understand
that I literally could not let her go.
Apparently not.
Just because I believe she’s had a change of heart about the fascists doesn’t mean I’m going to let her run home without telling
us what the hell she was doing here. I need to know what her original mission was; I need to know what she was planning to
do with that vial.
Contrary to popular belief, I am not an idiot.
For as long as we have a mercenary of The Reestablishment in our midst, reformed or otherwise, we’re going to need her to
talk. The safety of the entire continent—the world—depends on it.
Footsteps shudder through the building like a roll of thunder, vibrations sending waves of tension through my barely healed body. I brace myself.
“You know,” I say, “it’s just occurred to me that I never even asked you how you broke out of prison. How were you able to
escape supermax without a trace? What did you mean when you said you left for a reason?”
She tries to launch out of my arms and I clamp down harder, pulling her more tightly against me.
“I’m not fucking around anymore,” I say darkly. “I was being nice to you earlier. Try to run again and I’ll have you on your
knees.”
I can hear her breathing. I swear I feel her tremble.
I lower my voice to a whisper, my jaw nearly grazing her temple. “Rosabelle.”
She stiffens.
“How did you break out of prison?”
“James—”
“Last chance.”
She audibly releases, sinking against me in something like surrender. Her head rocks back against my chest and she makes a
soft, breathless sound that messes with my heart rate. I’ve got her pressed so hard against my body I can feel every curve
of her through this thin, cheap catsuit. She’s dripping wet; the material is suctioned to her skin. I literally can’t ignore
the fact that she’s not wearing any underwear.
I swallow, adjusting my hold on the knife.
“Your prisons were built by The Reestablishment,” she says quietly, and my spiraling mind surges back into focus. “I’ve done hundreds of hours of sim training breaking out of every single one of them.”
“Wait.” Shock rocks through me. “What?”
“James,” she says, sounding almost tired. “You don’t understand how vulnerable you are. Your movement has already been badly
infiltrated. I’m the weakest executioner we have and your world offers me no challenge. We have much stronger mercenaries
everywhere, so seamlessly integrated into the fabric of your government that you can’t see what’s coming. And there’s no time—”
Footfalls are suddenly louder; soldiers are dispersing deeper into the vast hangar. I hear the clanging sounds of metal, the
hush of discreet conversation. I peer around the part cart partially obscuring us from view, and swear quietly under my breath.
“I cut the power to the overhead lights,” she says softly. “The last of the sun should be gone by now. They won’t be able
to find us easily.”
My jaw tenses. “You really thought of everything.”
“And you have time to change your mind,” she says. “Make the choice. Let me go. I have a chance to fix things before it’s
too late—”
“What do you mean before it’s too late?” I cut her off, alarmed. “How much time are we talking about?”
“Under seven weeks,” she whispers.
I go still, even as my heart beats harder. “And then what?” I ask. “What happens in seven weeks?”
She goes quiet.
My fears divide and multiply.
“If you let me get back to the Ark, hopefully nothing,” she says. “But you have to let me leave right now.”
“Stop giving me these cryptic answers,” I say angrily. “You’re talking about my home—my people—the possible devastation of
everything we’ve worked for. I need you to tell me something real. You came here to do something horrible, didn’t you?”
She hesitates. “They didn’t tell me what I was supposed to do until I got here.”
I let this sit for a second. “Who’s they?”
Another clatter.
I look up at the sound, and I can just make out a team searching the aircraft high above us, boots thudding up and down the
safety ladders.
“We’re almost out of time,” she whispers. “I said they wouldn’t find us easily, not that they wouldn’t find us at all. Choose
your questions carefully.”
My lips flatten into a grim line. “What were you sent here to do? Why did you change your mind about doing it? What was in
that vial?”
“I can’t answer these questions succinctly,” she says. “Any answer I give you will just prompt more questions, and I don’t
have time—”
“Why do you keep saying that? What’s the rush to get home? You said seven weeks, not seven minutes—”
“If you want so many answers, why don’t you just let your team interrogate me?” she counters. “Why hold me here, in the dark, under threat of discovery? Why do you seem to be hiding with me?”
I tense, betraying myself in the process, and she mirrors the action, stiffening against me.
“James?” she says carefully. “What’s going on?”
Shit.
I keep my voice low, speaking near her temple when I say, “First of all, don’t change the subject. Second of all, don’t change
the fucking subject. Third of all, we both know you’re not going to answer their questions.”
“But you knew I would answer yours?”
“I don’t know anything about you,” I say, my cheek accidentally grazing hers. “I don’t—”
The touch of her arrests me, words dying in my throat. Her skin is so soft it does something dangerous to my nervous system;
gives my imagination too much ammo.
It occurs to me, in a moment of panic, that I’m not really in control of this situation.
“They pushed you out, didn’t they?” she says. “You’re not supposed to be here right now, are you?”
“Stop deflecting,” I say, desperately trying to pivot. “I want to know the purpose of your mission here. I want to know what’s
in that vial—”
“What did you do?” she says, her voice sharpening.
“Rosabelle—”
“Did you try to defend me?” she says, and now she sounds alarmed. “Are they going to hurt you if they find you here?”
I finally lose my patience.
I flip her around instinctively, backing her into a corner blocked by an air compressor and a hydraulic lift, heavy shadows
pushing us into deeper obscurity.
Right away, I feel this mistake reflected in my pulse.
My thigh is firm between her legs, pinning her to the wall. I’ve got both her wrists in one hand, gripping them tight above
her head, my other hand holding the knife to her throat. Somehow, this doesn’t register.
The shadows are making things worse.
We’re cloaked in the kind of semidarkness that makes bad decisions feel forgivable. This close, I can still see into her eyes.
This close, I can still make out the curve of her lips. She’s cold and wet, her cat ears drooping as her hood slips back,
but there’s no trace of fear in her eyes. In fact, she’s giving me that wild, unguarded look, the one I’ve seen only twice
before—something so intense it’s close to awe.
It gives me a small heart attack.
She blinks slowly and I watch, transfixed, as a raindrop releases from her eyelashes. She looks so soft and vulnerable I have
to actively remind myself that this girl just stabbed me. Twice.
I really didn’t think this through.
“You need to stay away from me,” she whispers.
“You need to answer my questions—”
“Once I’m gone, I want you to leave the airfield,” she says. “Don’t let them find you anywhere near me.”
“Rosabelle—”
“I love your freckles,” she whispers, her gaze moving slowly across my face. “Sometimes, when I can’t sleep, I count them in my head.”
I take this like a gunshot.
I release on instinct, a flood of emotion disarming me just enough that she manages to slip one of her hands free and throw
an elbow into my barely healed thigh. I stumble, gasping, and it’s the edge she needs: she lands a few quick blows to my ribs,
forcing space between us before she doubles back, jump kicks off the wall, and strikes my side wound so hard I’m still reeling
when she tears off running—directly into the line of fire.
Fuck.
I grit my teeth through the pain, blood seeping through my renewed injuries. I know the instant she’s spotted, because the
hangar dissolves into an explosion of shouts and the deafening sounds of chaos. I hear the clangor of metal, the thunder of
boots. Machine-gun fire echoes off the walls, bullets pinging off steel surfaces, ringing in my ears.
I sigh, closing my eyes.
Then I wipe my bloodied hands on my ruined clothes, and limp after her into the fray.