Chapter Seventeen Jagger #2
"Straight through. Missed everything important. You'll be fine in a few weeks."
"A few weeks?" His laugh turns into a cough. "We don't have a few weeks."
"We have what we have." I squeeze his hand. "The doctor says you were lucky."
"Lucky." He stares at the ceiling. "Is that what we're calling it?"
"What would you call it?"
"Stupid. Impulsive. Completely fucking idiotic." He turns his head to look at me. "But I'd do it again."
"I know. That's what terrifies me."
"Good." His smile is weak but real. "You should be terrified. I'm a wildcard. You never know what I'll do next."
"I'm starting to realize that."
He reaches up with his free hand, touches my face. His fingers come away stained with dried blood.
"Is this yours?" he says. “I saw you get shot.”
"Minor scrapes. The one on my shoulder has been stitched. I’m fine."
"How many?"
"A dozen."
He almost grins. "Webb?"
"Dead."
"How?"
"You don't want to know."
"I do, actually. I want to know everything." His eyes search mine. "I can’t remember, just pieces. I want to know what you did for me. I don't want you to hide any of it."
I think about Webb's head in my hand. The weight of it. The way his eyes were still open, still surprised. The satisfaction I felt, carrying that trophy out of the burning house.
"I decapitated him," I say. "With a knife I took from one of his men. I put him on his knees, and I cut his head off while he begged for his life, after I cut his cock off and skinned his chest."
Jonah doesn't flinch. Doesn't look away. "He deserved it all.”
"I made sure of it."
"Then good." He closes his eyes, exhaustion pulling him back under. "I'm glad you killed him. I'm glad you killed all of them. They were going to take you from me."
"I was going to say the same thing about you."
His mouth curves. "Look at us. Two broken people who'd take bullets and skin people alive."
"Is that what we are?"
"That's exactly what we are." His eyes open again, just slightly. "I love you. I know I said it before, when I was drunk, but I mean it now too. Sober and shot and drugged out of my mind. I love you."
"I love you too. Also, sober and drugged don’t work together. You’re one or the other, but not both. Dumbass." I smile when he rolls his eyes. "Get some rest. We have to move tomorrow."
"Move where?"
"Somewhere safe. Jinx has a contact."
"Of course he does." Jonah's eyes drift closed again. "Wake me when it's time to go."
"I will."
His breathing evens out. Sleep pulls him under, and I watch him, memorizing the lines of his face, the rhythm of his breath, the way his hand still curls loosely around mine even in unconsciousness.
Then I stand, finally, and go to find a shower.
The clinic's bathroom is small but functional. White tile, harsh fluorescent lighting, a mirror that shows me exactly what I've become.
I barely recognize the man staring back.
Blood is crusted in my hair, dried brown and flaking. It's streaked across my face, my neck, pooled in the hollow of my throat. My clothes are stiff with it, saturated, the original color impossible to determine beneath layers of other people's deaths.
I strip mechanically. Shirt first, peeling it away from skin it's adhered to. Pants next, heavy and wet in places where the blood didn't dry. Boots, socks, underwear. All of it goes into a pile in the corner, destined for incineration.
The shower is hot. I stand under the spray and watch the water run red.
Pink, then lighter, then finally clear as the last of the evidence swirls down the drain. A dozen men. Their blood is mixing with Geneva's water supply now, diluted to nothing, forgotten.
I don't forget.
I remember each of them. The operative whose throat I opened in the kitchen. The one whose eye I destroyed. The man I punched through, feeling cartilage and muscle give way beneath my knuckles. The ones on the lawn, in the house, the ones who begged and the ones who didn't have time to beg.
Alfred Webb, on his knees, offering me everything. Money. Information. The names of every Custodian who funded Project Omega. His words tumbled out in a desperate stream while I stood over him with someone else's knife in my hand.
I didn't listen.
I should have listened. That information could have been useful. Could have given us leverage, evidence, ammunition for the war we're fighting.
But all I could see was Jonah. On the ground. Bleeding out. Taking a bullet that was meant for me.
So I took Webb's head and left his secrets to burn with the house.
The water runs cold before I get out. I dry off with a thin towel, pull on the clean clothes someone left outside the door. Black pants, black shirt, anonymous and forgettable. The uniform of a man who doesn't exist.
In the hall, Elliot is waiting.
"Jace went to secure transport," he says. "Jinx is monitoring Ministry communications. I volunteered to make sure you didn't drown in the shower."
"Thoughtful."
“You’re welcome for the clothes. The lost and found had slim pickings.” He falls into step beside me as I walk back toward Jonah's room. "How are you doing? Really."
"I don't know."
"That's honest, at least."
We stop outside the door. Through the window, I can see Jonah sleeping, chest rising and falling with reassuring regularity.
"When Jace first brought me home," Elliot says quietly, "I was terrified.
Not of him. Of what he might become, because of me.
I watched him kill people who threatened me.
Watched him throw away his position, his safety, everything he'd built.
I kept waiting for him to realize I wasn't worth it. To resent me for making him choose."
"Did he?"
"Never. Not once." Elliot turns to face me. "The man in that room took a bullet for you. He's never going to resent you for what you did to protect him. He's going to love you harder because of it."
"You don't know that."
"I know what it's like to be saved by someone who became a monster for you.
It doesn't make you love them less. It makes you love them more, because you finally understand the depth of it.
" He puts a hand on my arm. "Stop punishing yourself for being human, Jagger.
You're allowed to feel things. You're allowed to protect the people you love.
That's not weakness. That's the whole fucking point. "
I don't know what to say. So I just nod, and he nods back, and then I push through the door to sit beside Jonah again.
The afternoon passes slowly. I doze in the chair, jerking awake every time a machine beeps or a door closes somewhere in the building. Jace comes and goes, reporting on transportation arrangements. Jinx sends updates about Ministry movements, each one more concerning than the last.
They're closing in. Webb's death has mobilized forces we didn't know existed. The hunt is on, and we're the prey.
But we've been prey before. We know how to survive.
At dusk, the doctor clears Jonah for transport.
"Against my recommendation," she adds firmly. "He needs rest. Proper recovery time. Moving him now is a risk."
"Staying is a bigger risk," I tell her.
"Then on your head be it." She hands me a bag of supplies. Antibiotics. Painkillers. Dressings for the wound. "Change the bandages every twelve hours. Watch for signs of infection. If the stitches tear, you have maybe an hour before he loses too much blood."
"Understood."
"I hope so." She looks past me to where Jonah is being loaded into a wheelchair. "He's strong. Young. With proper care, he'll make a full recovery. Without proper care..." She doesn't finish the sentence. She doesn't have to.
"He'll have everything he needs."
"See that he does."
We load him into the back of a van Jace got from somewhere I don't ask about. Elliot sits with Jonah, monitoring his vitals, adjusting the portable IV we rigged from clinic supplies. Jinx takes the wheel, because he's the best driver and because sitting still would drive him insane.
I ride shotgun, watching the road, calculating threats.
Geneva falls away behind us. The mountains rise ahead, dark shapes against a darkening sky. Somewhere out there is a farmhouse owned by someone who owes Jinx a favor. Somewhere out there is safety, at least for a little while.
I watch the lights of the city fade in the side mirror and think about everything we've lost.
Webb is dead, but the vault was empty. The records we needed are gone, destroyed or moved, beyond our reach. We're no closer to exposing Project Omega than we were before this disaster started.