Chapter 16 With What Army? #2
“If they did, we’d already be dead.” Jameson ran a hand through his silver hair.
“But they’re looking harder than before.
They were surveillance class, but they’ve been upgraded.
They can fit in small, confined spaces now, can see through dense structures.
They have heat tracking, facial recognition, mapping systems. They followed me halfway to the north checkpoint before I shot them down. ”
“What are they mapping?” Samuels leaned forward.
“From what I could gather off the chips I salvaged, population density. Structural weak points. The kind of intel you gather before—” Jameson’s throat went dry.
“Before you level everything,” Rook finished, her scarred face going pale.
Jameson nodded. “The Heart is preparing for something, something big.”
“War?” Samuels asked.
“Or its aftermath. It wouldn’t be war for us, it would be systematic euthanasia.
It would be mass murder.” Jameson turned back to the map, his eyes tracing the boundary between their district and the toxic wasteland beyond.
“I want the bomb shelters prepared. All of them. The ones from before the partition still have their lead lining. Priority for children and medical staff.”
Rook’s sharp intake of breath was the only sound in the room.
The bomb shelters were a relic of the time before New Found Haven, concrete bunkers buried deep enough to survive whatever had destroyed the old world.
They’d been maintaining them as a last resort, a final sanctuary if the Heart ever decided the Boundary was more trouble than it was worth.
“You think they’d actually do it?” Rook asked quietly. “Sacrifice an entire ring?”
“I think Maximus Serel has never let human life stand in the way of control.” Jameson’s voice had gone cold. “And I think we need to be ready for anything.”
Rook nodded once, already calculating logistics in her head. “I’ll get teams working on the shelters. Water, filters, whatever medical supplies we can spare.”
“We can’t spare any,” Samuels interjected.
“We’ll make it work.” Rook’s tone left no room for argument. “What else?”
“Double the patrols along the northern edge. If they come on foot or in vehicles, that’s where they’ll hit first.” Jameson pointed to the map.
“And I want a meeting with the Cardinal rebel leaders. I want to speak with Farrow about the credit situation. If food stops flowing from the Heart completely, we need to know immediately.”
They continued for another hour, working through contingencies, allocating their dwindling resources. As they spoke, Jameson felt the weight settling heavier on his shoulders. So many lives depending on him making the right calls. So many ways to fail them.
Rook and Samuels finally moved to the door, readying to carry out orders when Jameson stopped them.
“There is one more thing.” He paused, tapping his knuckle on the desk’s scarred surface. They would not like this. “In two days, I will be going into the Heart with Jaeger and his men to get Shade out.”
“You can’t,” Rook blurted, her brow creasing as she shook her head. “We need you here, Ghost. We can’t risk losing you. Let the Daggermouths take care of their people. You need to take care of yours.”
Jameson stared at her for a long moment, letting her words settle—the divide in them.
Their people. Her words held no malicious intent, but they scratched at his mind wrong.
“There is no them or us. Not here, not in the Boundary,” he said, his voice stern.
“It doesn’t matter if you choose to call yourself a rebel or a Daggermouth, the reality of our situation doesn’t change. We all want the same thing, to live.”
“Jay . . .” Samuels started, but he held up his hand to stop him.
“I’m not asking permission. We need her—I . . . I need her home. I won’t abandon her, just like I wouldn’t abandon you. I have to at least try. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try.”
The room stayed silent as they both stared back at him, their concerned expressions softening into understanding.
“If, for some reason, I do not come back—Rook, you will take my place until the rebels elect a new leader. But believe me, I have no intention of dying in the Heart.”
He watched as the possibility of that responsibility settled on Rook’s shoulders, watched her throat work, her eyes dart to Samuels before she gave one curt nod. They filed out of the room silently, shutting the door behind them as Jameson’s hands splayed out on the desk.
He leaned his weight onto them, letting his head hang for only a moment before blowing out a long breath and straitening. His hand scrubbed down his face as he moved to the window, pushing aside the metal sheet with the other to look out over the camp.
Fires burned lower now, the night growing colder. Shadows moved between structures—guards changing shifts, medics making rounds, parents walking crying children who couldn’t sleep from hunger.
His fingers found the deep scar that ran from collarbone to rib cage, tracing its familiar path over the tattered fabric of his shirt.
His first lesson in Heart savagery, delivered by a Veyra officer who’d caught him stealing medicine for his dying sister.
The officer had smiled while cutting him, explaining the anatomy lesson as blood soaked through Jameson’s shirt.
His sister had died anyway, the medicine he’d finally stolen arriving too late.
The memory lingered in the front of his mind, often resurfacing even fifteen years later.
The image of her perfectly still on her cot when he entered their makeshift home with the antibiotics, the coldness of her skin when he had tried to wake her.
He’d stayed with her for days holding her lifeless hand, tears streaming down his face as the last of his family left him alone in this city.
He had chosen then to become a smuggler, sworn it to her. He couldn’t save her, but he could save others. At the very least, he would try.
Jameson closed his eyes, listening to the distant sound of someone singing, voice cracking with emotion over the words of that anthem but never faltering. He let the sounds wash over him, let himself feel the fear he couldn’t show the others. Let himself feel the absence of her.
He would find her. Or she would find her way back to him. Those were the only possibilities he would allow himself to consider. Anything else was unthinkable.
The song outside grew louder as more voices joined in, a ragged chorus of defiance floating over the Boundary like a prayer. Or maybe, it was a promise.