Chapter 39 James
James
“I’m positive,” Rosabelle says, ducking between buildings. She drops down into a crouch, scanning the area with a surgical
precision I find fascinating.
I’ve never really watched her work before.
It was harder than I anticipated getting her off campus. She wasn’t authorized to leave The Waffle, which meant that I had
to do some technically illegal things to get her out—which I’ll definitely pay for later.
Luckily, Rosabelle knows how to run.
She kept up with my pace fairly well despite the differences in our strides, but after sprinting across the city for nearly
twenty minutes straight, she finally needed a second to catch her breath and recalibrate.
We both did.
I watch her brace herself against the wall.
“I’m convinced it’s a diversionary tactic,” she says between breaths. “Your people must’ve been close to success, or else
they wouldn’t have tried to draw so much attention away.”
“Someone blew up a fucking hospital wing,” I say, blind panic still clawing at my chest as I peer around the corner. “We had
to divert some of our forces.”
“That’s what they wanted,” she says, straightening. “It’s a move meant to fracture your troops. You and I need to stay focused on the original mission—”
“I know,” I say. “I know we need to get the vial. But there are assailants out there actively murdering burn victims and we
can’t do anything to help. It’s horrible.”
“Where are you getting this information?” she asks. “Who’s sending you these updates?”
“We have a team that runs stealth drones during operations,” I explain. “They stay in the command center and give us real-time
updates.”
She dismisses this with a single shake of her head. “Easily hacked.”
This response stuns me.
I stare at her before returning my eyes to the skyline, where smoke still spirals into the milky night. The flames have diminished,
but we’re not close enough to sight the full scale of the damage.
“You think this scene is fake?” I ask, glancing at Rosabelle over my shoulder, some of the tension leaving my body. “I mean,
to be fair, The Reestablishment has messed with our perception of reality before, but I don’t think this is a stunt.”
“I don’t think it’s a stunt, either,” she says. “I think it’s a trap.”
“You mean like some kind of an ambush?” I fall back, dropping down next to her so our voices don’t carry.
Our shoulders touch.
She immediately shifts away from me, moving a few feet out of reach.
I’m not offended. I don’t even blame her.
I’m just trying to talk to her and I’m getting distracted.
Her skin is like porcelain in this light.
She has this celestial look about her, like she might’ve been born in the sky, like she might’ve fallen from the stars.
I don’t know where these thoughts are coming from.
I didn’t even know I could think thoughts like this.
She kissed my heart.
I’m a fucking poet now.
Rosabelle looks up at me as if I’ve spoken aloud, and for a second I think maybe I did—until I remember that I’d just asked
her a question.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Maybe an ambush. Maybe something else. All possibilities nefarious.” She tilts her head back, peering
at the roofline. “I really can’t believe how little surveillance you have across the city.”
“I can’t believe you think my own people are lying.”
My pager goes off again and I read the message, then show it to her: it’s another urgent call for all soldiers to report to
the hospital immediately.
“I don’t trust it,” Rosabelle says. “A sudden humanitarian disaster is a convenient way to divert troops from a real target.
Even if your brother suspects foul play, he’ll have no choice but to abandon his position to assess the reported damage, and
that might be exactly what they want.” She hesitates. “Then again, I could be wrong. Maybe I’m not the right person to ask.”
“Why not?”
“I’m generally suspicious,” she says. “I don’t trust anyone. Ever. As a rule.”
I raise my eyebrows. “Do you really mean that, or are you exaggerating to make a point?”
“I never exaggerate.”
“What about Clara?”
“Clara’s mind doesn’t belong to her,” she says, looking away. “I can’t trust her, not even if I want to.”
This leaves me a little stunned.
It hits me, with sudden clarity, how isolated Rosabelle must feel all the time. It’s no wonder she doesn’t speak to people.
She comes from a place where everything she says is recorded and dissected. I hadn’t realized that she needed to police herself
around her own sister. It had never occurred to me, until just now, that there was no one in the world she could freely talk
to.
No one she could trust.
I still don’t know what kind of hell she lived through on the Ark. I don’t know why she first showed up here with all those
bruises on her body.
Standardized torture, Warner had called it.
I can’t wait to murder these people.
Suddenly, the words I say next mean more than they ever did. They feel heavier to me. Revolutionary.
“But you trust me,” I say to her.
Even with a few feet between us, I sense Rosabelle stiffen. She turns her face away from me, from the moonlight. “You’re different,”
she says.
A fucking firework goes off in my chest.
“Different how?” I ask, sounding calmer than I feel. “Please be specific. I’m fishing for compliments. I’d prefer your answer in essay format.”
Rosabelle cants her head. A band of light falls across her face, illuminating her lips. She smiles softly and I experience
a minor heart attack. “You know,” she says, “sometimes I think there might be something wrong with you.”
Wow.
My disappointment is real and stunning. A little embarrassing. I would not look at myself in the mirror right now.
I take a tight breath. “I have to be honest, Rosabelle, that was not the answer I was hoping for.”
She laughs softly beside me and I have another minor heart attack. “You don’t count,” she says, finally putting me out of
my misery. She turns her eyes up to the night sky. “There’s no one in the world like you.”
The effect these words have on me is a little alarming. I feel dislocated in my own body. Something dangerous detonates inside
of me.
I release a breath, feeling shaken.
“You’re really trying to kill me tonight,” I say quietly. “I thought you didn’t want me to die.”
She turns to me, wearing my hat, and smiles.
Fuck.
“Look,” she says, “I just think there’s a high chance the situation at the hospital isn’t as bad as they want you to think
it is.”
And it’s like being pushed face-first into the snow.
“Right,” I say, emerging from my own head. I force myself up, onto my feet, suddenly fighting for air. I do another quick check beyond the alley, but I feel blind. I need to get away from her. Stay away from her.
Marry her, maybe.
Nope. Nope. That pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction. This is bad. I need help.
I need to take a cold shower.
I finally get a hold of myself long enough to perform a lobotomy and do some quick calculations. We’re at least ten miles out from the first location, where the suspects were originally reported in action, and it occurs
to me, without warning, that I don’t even know Rosabelle’s birthday. It further occurs to me that I should ask her. That now
is probably the best time to ask her.
Shut up, I tell myself. Shut up.
Ten miles would take us forever on foot. The hospital is even farther out. That means we’re going to need to steal a car.
Correction: borrow a car.
I’ll definitely give it back.
But we need to make a decision, now.
Rosabelle releases the magazine on her gun, and I turn in time to see her checking the ammo before sliding it back into place
with a satisfying click. “Why is all your tech and weaponry so old?” she says. “How can you afford to continue manufacturing bullets?”
“Hey, when’s your birthday?” I say, then turn toward the wall in mute horror, squeezing my eyes shut, wanting to kick my own
ass.
“My birthday?” she echoes, surprised.
“Yeah,” I say tightly, like this is normal. I wonder how hard I can hit my head against the wall without causing myself permanent
brain damage.
“James,” she says. “If you don’t like my plan you can just say so. We can discuss it. You don’t have to distract me with random
questions.”
“That’s not what—”
“I just happen to think you have more rats in your house than you realize. I’m worried you’re relying on unsecured sitreps
for critical updates.”
Okay, this actually resets my head.
I turn to face her. “You really don’t think I can trust the people in my own command center?”
She considers the question, studying me a moment before saying, finally, “I’d advise you to be cautious in every instance
going forward. Choose your trusted circle carefully; vet everyone else thoroughly. And doubt everything you hear.”
I raise my eyebrows. “You think the situation is that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.”
“Have you gotten any messages from your brother?” she asks.
“Who? Warner?”
“Yes,” she says.
“No.”
“Nothing at all?” she says.
“No.”
She thinks this over. “I maintain that we take up positions at the first location. You said it was some kind of a warehouse?” she asks, folding back the too-long sleeves on her borrowed jacket.
My jacket.
My heart beats harder as I look at her. I briefly lose focus again. There’s something about seeing her in my clothes—seeing
her so comfortable in my clothes—that activates a deep and primal response in my body. She could probably ask me for anything
right now. Fuck a jacket, I’d give her an organ. Any organ. She can pick the organ.
A single word is building inside of me, over and over, like a pulse in my throat.
Mine.
“James?”
I want her to come to me when she needs something. I want her to search for me in a crowd. I want her to depend on me; I want
her to reach for my hand; I want her to miss me when I’m gone. I want her like I’ve never wanted anything—
“James?” she says again.
“Yeah?”
“The place we’re going— You said they managed to trap the assailant inside of a warehouse?”
“Yeah.” I feel my chest tighten. I back up a few more steps, as if the distance will help steady my heart. “Sounds like they’ve
locked it down.”
“What does it house? Munitions? Aircraft?”
“It’s not that kind of warehouse,” I say, managing an anxious laugh. “It’s one of those places where you can get things in bulk for a reasonable price.”
She stares at me blankly.
“I’m guessing you don’t have one of those.” I take a deep, clarifying breath. Look around. “You know,” I say. “I’m realizing
I don’t know anything about the way you lived on the Ark.”
She flat out ignores this.
“All right,” she says, getting to her feet. “Let’s go.”
“So you’re absolutely sure about this?” I hesitate. “You really think we should ignore the big, obvious fire in the sky?”
She nods, slinging the rifle around her neck. “I wouldn’t put it past The Reestablishment to blow up a hospital,” she says.
“But a move like that is a blatant act of war. The fact that it’s being reported in your comms as an attack from an open enemy
seems premature at best. Has anyone actually claimed responsibility for the explosion?”
“Not that I’m aware of.”
She shakes her head. “The Reestablishment doesn’t normally act without the cover of plausible deniability; it really isn’t
their style. They no longer have the manpower to fight major battles, and they have no interest in a land war. Their preference
is for a slow war of attrition, chipping away at your world incrementally, turning the people against themselves. Then taking
it out with a final blow.”
“You’re right,” I say, tensing. “They prefer psychological warfare. Every operation we’ve dealt with in the past several years was a horrific attack designed to look like an accident, or else inspire mass chaos to foment division among the public.
They’re trying to make our leadership look incompetent in order to make our own people hate us. ”
She looks suddenly grim. “You’ve been paying attention.”
“All right, fine.” I sigh, resting the rifle on my shoulder. “Follow me. We’re going to have to steal a car.”