Chapter Seventeen Jace #2
"Secret family recipe." Landon grins. "My grandmother would be horrified that I'm sharing it with a bunch of assassins and fugitives, but I think she'd make an exception for the circumstances."
Briar appears in the kitchen doorway.
"Jinx finished the perimeter sweep," he reports. "Motion sensors, cameras, trip wires on all approach routes. If anyone comes within a kilometer of this place, we'll know."
"Good."
"There's something else." Briar glances at Elliot, then at me. "Jagger sent word. Webb is recovering, but slowly. You broke his jaw, cracked three ribs, and ruptured something in his abdomen. He'll be out of commission for at least two weeks."
Two weeks. Not long enough. But better than nothing.
"And the Custodians?"
"Divided. Some are calling for a full investigation into his activities.
Others are circling the wagons, defending one of their own.
" Briar's jaw tightens. "Helena Cross has formally requested access to Webb's operational records.
He's blocking her, but she has allies on the council.
It's only a matter of time before something breaks loose. "
"Then we use that time." I pull out a chair, sit across from Elliot. "We plan. We prepare. And when the moment comes, we strike."
"Tomorrow." Briar holds up a hand when I start to object. "Tonight, we rest. All of us. We've been running on adrenaline and desperation for too long. We won't be any good in a fight if we're half-dead from exhaustion."
"Yes. Tomorrow."
Elliot finishes half the soup before his eyes start to droop. I guide him to the bedroom, ease him onto the mattress, pull the blankets up to his chin.
"Stay," he mumbles, already half-asleep.
I nod and text Jinx.
Wake me in four hours. I’ll swap watch then.
I will.
I return to the bedroom. Elliot has curled into a ball under the blankets, taking up less space than seems possible for a grown man. I strip off my outer layers and slide in beside him.
He gravitates toward me immediately, seeking warmth, seeking contact. I gather him against my chest and let myself sink into the mattress.
"Jace?"
"Mm."
"Tell me something. Something real."
I consider the request. Search through memories I've spent years compartmentalizing, looking for something I can offer.
"I had a dog once," I say. "Before the Foundry. When I was six or seven."
Elliot's hand stills on my chest. "What happened to it?"
"They took it away. Part of the conditioning process. Teaching us not to form attachments." I pause. "I don't remember its name. I don't remember a lot from before. But I remember the way it felt when they came for it. This... hole in my chest."
"I'm sorry."
"It was a long time ago."
"That doesn't mean it doesn't still hurt."
I think about this. About the hole I've carried without examining. About the way it felt when Webb took Elliot—that same carved-out sensation, magnified a thousandfold.
"No," I agree. "It doesn't."
Elliot shifts, propping himself up on one elbow to look at me properly.
"Tell me something else."
"What do you want to know?"
"Anything. Everything. I want to know who you were before they made you into this."
I search my memory. The pre-Foundry years are hazy, deliberately obscured by conditioning designed to sever connections to the past. But fragments remain, buried deep.
"I liked to count things," I say slowly. "Even as a child. My mother used to joke that I'd count the stars if she let me stay up late enough."
"Your mother." Elliot's voice is careful. "Do you remember her?"
"Pieces. Her voice, sometimes. The way she smelled—something floral, I think. Lavender, maybe." I close my eyes, reaching for more. "She used to sing to me. I don't remember the songs. Just that they made me feel safe."
"What happened to her?"
"I don't know. When they took us to the Foundry, they said our parents had given us up. That we were better off being shaped into something useful." I open my eyes, stare at the ceiling. "I never questioned it. By the time I was old enough to wonder, questioning wasn't something I did anymore."
Elliot is quiet for a long moment. Then he settles back down against my chest, his arm tightening around me.
"Maybe we can find out," he says. "After. When this is over. Maybe we can find out what really happened."
"Maybe."
"Would you want to know?"
I consider the question. The honest answer is complicated.
"I don't know," I admit. "Knowing might change things. Might make me angrier. Might make me weaker. The Foundry taught us that the past is a liability."
"The Foundry taught you a lot of things that turned out to be wrong."
That's true. I'm learning just how much of what I believed was programming rather than truth.
"If we survive this," I say slowly, "if we manage to bring down Webb and reform The Silent and live to see the other side—I'll look for answers then. About my mother. About what really happened to my father. About all the things they tried to make me forget."
"We'll look together."
"You don't have to—"
"I know I don't have to." Elliot shifts, propping himself up to look at me in the dim light. "But that's what partners do. They share the burdens. The mysteries. The pain." His hand finds mine under the blankets. "You carried me out of that facility. Let me carry something for you too."
I don't have words for what I'm feeling. The tightness in my chest, the burn behind my eyes that I haven't experienced since childhood.
"Okay," I manage.
"Okay." He settles back down, tucking himself against me like he belongs there.
Maybe he does.
Maybe we both do.
"Jace?"
"Yes?"
"I'm glad you found me at the auction. I'm glad you broke whatever rule made you take me home. I'm glad that whatever's wrong with you is wrong in exactly the way that matched what's wrong with me."
I think about the night I saw him on the platform. The way something in me shifted, clicked, realigned around a new center of gravity. The way I moved before I calculated, acted before I analyzed.
The first truly irrational decision I've ever made.
The best decision I've ever made.
"I'm glad too," I say.
He presses his lips to my chest, a soft kiss over my heart.
"Goodnight, Jace."
"Goodnight, Elliot."
He falls asleep with his hand still pressed over my heart.
I stay awake for hours, watching the moonlight move across the ceiling, listening to him breathe. Outside, snow falls, soft and silent, blanketing the world in white.
Finally, sleep catches me, just as I look at the time and realize Jinx never texted me.