19. Amal
AMAL
We shower together to clean the blood off us. I know Jet’s wound hurts, but he acts like it’s nothing. Like it’s normal to get stabbed and shot at. Normal to watch a man be murdered. To kill the killers.
After, he cleans every tiny cut on my face, my hands, smearing antibiotic ointment over each. Kissing every bruise like they cost more than his knife wound.
Is this just another day at the office for him? Is this his life? I don’t understand how this can ever normalize for anyone.
“Aren’t you scared?” I ask him when we finally lie down to try to sleep.
“Of what?”
“All of it. What just happened.”
“Being scared isn’t going to help and it’s not going to make the problem go away.”
“Well, I’m scared,” I say, looking into his chest rather than his eyes. I touch old scars beneath ink that doesn’t hide them. The opposite. Like this is Jet’s way of owning whatever it was that happened to him. Of choosing to no longer be a victim. “What happened to you, Jet?”
He shifts his gaze from me to the ceiling. He doesn’t answer right away. I wonder if he knows how to put words to his past.
“Your father wasn’t the only monster in the world,” he finally says.
He’s right. I know this truth. “Who was your monster?”
“That is a long and boring story.”
“I have time. I doubt I’ll sleep tonight.”
“You know what I like about you? You’re innocent and you trust. Still. In spite of all you’ve seen. And you’re honest.”
I turn away. I’m not honest. I’m the opposite of honest. Even the story I told him about Daniel’s birth was a lie. Well, not all of it, just the part about the three of us cuddling together. The part about my mother loving me. How can you love the result of something so violent? So hateful.
“Hey. Where’d you go?” Jet asks. He’s turned on his good side and is studying me.
Feeling the sting of old tears, I wipe my eyes. “I’m right here.”
“My monster was my grandfather,” he says after a long time.
My heart races as I try to understand. To look deep into his eyes and see. “Your grandfather hurt you?” I trace a long, jagger scar.
“That’s nothing.”
We watch each other and I don’t know if he’s waiting for me to ask for more or if he’s hoping I won’t.
If he is terrified of reliving his own hell.
I don’t ask him for more. I don’t want that for him.
“It was his watch I took?” I ask instead.
Jet nods. I recall the dried blood on it and wonder if it was his grandfather’s or his. Then the tattoo on his arm catches my eye. A skull with the broken crown. The roman numerals inside the prongs, each split in two, also broken.
“IVI.” I trace the letters. “It was on the back of the watch. It’s what you told the man at the shop and got him to let you in. What does it mean?”
“Imperium Valens Invictum. Strong Unconquered Power. Or some such bullshit.” He sounds angry, his voice harder.
“It’s a bunch of grown men playing cloak-and-dagger except that they actually have the power to do serious damage.
That watch turning up where it did, we got unlucky that the shopkeeper recognized the symbol and made that call.
He’d be alive if he hadn’t and this problem wouldn’t be a problem at all. ”
“What is it? What are they?”
He is looking up at the ceiling again and I can see how hard his eyes have grown. “Secret Society.”
A beat passes, a cold shudder running through me. “I thought that was only in books or movies.”
“Oh no. It’s very much real.”
“Was your grandfather a part of it?” Then I realize something. “Are you?”
He considers his answer, then turns to me.
“The Blackstones were a part of the organization. Until we weren’t.
Best thing that happened to us if you ask me, but I guess they’re a little sore at the inscribed Rolex turning up in public like that.
” He looks at his watch. It’s two in the morning.
“Anyway, none of this matters. Not for you. Severin and I will handle it. Money talks, you know? And we have a lot of it. I don’t want you involved any more than you already are.
Once I figure some shit out, I’m sending you back to Devil’s Peak.
You’ll stay with Cassian until this is done and I come back for you. ”
“I’m not going anywhere without you. No way.”
He rolls onto his side to face me. “Yeah, you are. What you saw tonight? That is just an inkling of their power. Of what they can do and cover up. Most likely, those bodies are gone, any trace of any IVI members at that shop erased. It’ll look like a robbery gone wrong.
That’s how they work. I won’t let them near you. ”
“But Jet—”
“It’s not up for discussion, Amal.” His tone tells me he’s done. Well, I’m not but I know to bide my time. He reaches to switch out the lamp on the nightstand. “Let’s get some sleep. My brother will be here bright and early, and I need to be ready.”