Chapter Seventeen Jagger
I've been sitting in this hallway for six hours. The blood on my clothes has dried to a stiff brown crust. My shoulder throbs where the bullet grazed me, untreated because I won't leave this chair until someone tells me Jonah is alive.
Jace tried to make me wash up. I told him to fuck off. Jinx tried to make me eat. I threw the sandwich at his head. Elliot hasn't tried anything. He just sits across from me, quiet and watchful, understanding in a way the others don't.
He knows what it's like to wait for someone you love to survive.
The clinic is private, discreet, the kind of place that treats bullet wounds and knife injuries without involving authorities.
It costs a fortune and asks no questions.
Jace made this little arrangement when he took up residence here, back when we still believed we might need an escape route someday.
Turns out we did.
The door at the end of the hall opens. A woman in scrubs emerges, pulling off blue latex gloves. Her face is neutral, professional, giving nothing away.
I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved.
"Mr. Harrison." Her accent is French, her voice calm. "The surgery was successful. The bullet passed through cleanly, missing major organs. He lost a significant amount of blood, but we've stabilized him. He's going to be fine."
The words don't register at first. They bounce off the wall of terror I've been holding up for six hours, taking time to penetrate.
Fine. He's going to be fine.
"Can I see him?"
"He's still unconscious. The anesthesia will wear off in a few hours." She studies my face, my blood-soaked clothes, the hollow look in my eyes. "Perhaps you'd like to clean up first. We have facilities—"
"Take me to him. Now.”
She sighs, recognizing a battle she won't win. "Room three. Don't wake him."
I push past her without another word.
The room is small, white, dominated by the bed where Jonah lies motionless. Machines beep softly, tracking his heartbeat, his oxygen levels, the steady rhythm of his survival. An IV line runs into his arm, dripping something clear.
He looks small. Fragile. Nothing like the man who threw himself in front of a bullet for me.
I pull a chair to his bedside and sit. Take his hand in mine. His fingers are cold, but his pulse beats steady beneath the skin.
"You stupid fucking idiot," I whisper. "Why did you do that?"
He doesn't answer. Of course he doesn't. He's unconscious, drugged, lost in whatever darkness the anesthesia dragged him into.
I stay anyway. Hold his hand and watch the computer track his vital signs.
And I think about what I did.
A dozen people. I killed a dozen people tonight. I can still feel it. The give of flesh under my blade. The crack of bones breaking. The wet heat of blood spraying across my face.
I've killed before, tons of times. But never like that. Never with that much rage, that much abandon. I wasn't thinking. Wasn't calculating. I was just destroying everything between me and the people who hurt him.
I liked it.
Correction: I loved it. And I’ll do it again and again.
Webb's face floats up in my memory. The surprise in his eyes when I caught him. The way he tried to bargain, to plead, to offer information in exchange for his life. I didn't listen. Didn't care. I put him on his knees and took his head off with a blade I pulled from one of his own operatives.
After I had a little playtime with a few of his body parts. The skin stunk as I peeled it off his body, almost like the evil inside him had permeated his pores.
I should feel something about that.
All I feel is satisfaction at a job well done.
The door opens behind me. I don't turn.
"Brother." Jace's voice, quiet and careful. "We need to talk."
"Later."
"Now." He crosses to the other side of the bed, looking down at Jonah. "The Ministry knows what happened. Webb had a tracker. They know he's dead. They know we were there."
"Let them come."
"That's not a strategy. That's just waiting to be erased. They’ll send the Disposals."
"Maybe I don't care anymore."
"You care." He meets my eyes across Jonah's sleeping form. "If you didn't care, you wouldn't be sitting here covered in blood, holding his hand like he might disappear if you let go."
I don't have an answer for that.
Jace pulls up a chair of his own, settling across from me. He looks tired too. The gash on his forehead has been stitched, a neat line of black thread against his skin.
"Tell me what happened," I say. "At your end."
"Ambush. Four operatives waiting in the trees. Jinx spotted them before they spotted us." He pauses. "We handled it. But by the time we circled back, you and Jonah were already inside."
"And then?"
"We heard gunfire. Saw you come out the back, saw you go down." His jaw tightens. "Saw Jonah take the bullet."
"You saw that."
"I saw everything." He leans forward. "I saw you walk into that firefight like you wanted to die. I saw you kill six men without taking cover, without calculating angles, without any of the things the Foundry trained into us. I’d have come to help, but we ended up having a scuffle with some goodie two shoes trying to score points with Webb.
It was quite the fight. I took a roundhouse kick to the knee.
But that aside, I saw you tear Alfred Webb apart with your bare hands and carry his head out like a trophy. "
"Your point?"
"My point is that I've never seen you like that.
None of us have. You're the strategic one, remember?
The planner. The one who thinks ten steps ahead.
" He reaches across the bed, grips my arm.
"What happened in there wasn't strategy.
It was slaughter. You became exactly what they always wanted us to be. Mechanical, empty."
"They shot him."
"I know."
"They were going to kill us both. Webb was going to take us back, erase us.” My voice is steady, but something underneath is cracking. “I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let them take him."
"So you killed everyone who got in your way."
"Yes."
Jace is quiet for a long moment. Then, slowly, he nods.
"Good."
I look up, surprised.
"They shot the man you love," he says simply. "They deserved what they got. I would have done the same for Elliot. Jinx would have done the same for..." He trails off, shrugs. "For whoever he decides to care about someday."
"It was excessive."
"It was necessary. There's a difference." He releases my arm. "You're not broken, Jagger. You're a man who found something worth protecting. That's not weakness. That's the only thing that makes any of this worth a damn."
The machines beep. Jonah's chest rises and falls. Outside the window, the sun is rising.
"The vault was empty," I say. "Webb knew we were coming. Someone tipped him off."
"Vasquez?"
"Maybe. Or maybe he had surveillance we didn't know about." I shake my head. "It doesn't matter. The records are gone. We're back to nothing."
"Not nothing." Jace pulls out his phone, shows me the screen. "Jinx grabbed this from one of the operatives. Encrypted, but he's working on breaking it. There might be something useful."
"That's a long shot."
"Long shots are all we have right now."
The door opens again. Jinx this time, slipping in with two cups of coffee. He hands one to Jace, sets the other on the table beside me.
"How's sleeping beauty?"
"Stable."
"Good. Because we have a problem." He drops into a chair, sprawling with his usual disregard for furniture. "Ministry chatter is going insane. They're mobilizing."
"How long?"
"Before they find this clinic? Twenty-four hours. Maybe less." He meets my eyes. "We need to move him, Jagger. As soon as he can travel."
"He just got out of surgery."
"And he'll be back in surgery—or worse—if the Ministry finds us here." Jinx's voice is uncharacteristically serious. "I know you don't want to hear this. But we have to go. Soon."
I look at Jonah. At his pale face, his bandaged side, the IV line feeding fluids into his arm. Moving him now could tear the stitches. Could cause complications. Could kill him.
But staying here will definitely kill him.
"Where?" I ask.
"The cabin is compromised. They'll be watching it." Jinx pulls up a map on his phone. "But I have another place. Off-grid. No connection to any of us. A contact from the old days who owes me a favor."
"What kind of contact?"
"The kind who doesn't ask questions and has excellent security." He shows me the location. A farmhouse in the French countryside, hours from anywhere. "It's not pretty, but it's safe."
"How do you know we can trust them?"
"Because they hate the Ministry more than we do." Jinx's smile is sharp. "Some debts don't expire, brother. This one is finally being collected."
I stare at the map. At the dot marking our potential salvation. At the miles between here and there, each one a risk, each one a chance for something to go wrong.
"Okay," I say finally. "We move as soon as the doctor clears him for transport."
"And if she doesn't clear him?"
"Then we move anyway." I look down. "I'm not losing him to bureaucratic caution. We go. We survive. We figure out the rest later."
Jinx nods. Jace nods. The decision is made.
The machines keep beeping. The sun keeps rising, and somewhere out there, the Ministry is hunting us, driven by the death of one of their own.
I don’t give a rats ass.
I've already shown them what I'm capable of when someone threatens what's mine.
Next time, there won't be anyone left to report back.
Jonah wakes at noon.
I'm still sitting beside him, still holding his hand, still wearing the same blood-crusted clothes. I should have showered. Should have changed. But every time I tried to leave, my body refused to cooperate.
His eyes flutter open. Unfocused at first, swimming with confusion and drugs. Then they find me, and something in them settles.
"Hey, Daddy J," he rasps.
"Hey."
"You look terrible."
"And you look just wonderful yourself." I chuckle.
"That's fair." He tries to shift, winces. "How bad?"