James 16
James
Warner considers me in the quiet.
The line of his mouth is so compressed it’s halfway to a grin; a dimple flashes in his cheek before he releases the tension, his sigh almost soundless. He seems to be building up to something. Like he might be about to say something.
His pager buzzes, but he doesn’t reach for it.
Mine is probably buzzing somewhere, too, except I don’t have it anymore.
I handed my traitorous pager over to Warner this morning, and he read the offending messages in a stoic silence without an ounce of surprise.
He was alarmed about the security breach, obviously, but his otherwise composed reaction was reassuring.
None of it was new to him.
He made a detour before meeting me at Nazeera’s place, passing the pager off to a team at HQ for analysis. I’m supposed to pick up a new one with a new line as soon as it’s ready.
Until then, I’m in free fall.
I turn in a half circle in the dusty, unfurnished space and push my hands through my hair, still a little damp from my shower this morning. I take in the vacant living room; the darkened corners; the single bulb hung like an unshed tear in the center of the ceiling.
In the absence of Kenji and Nazeera, the house feels suddenly eerie. Emptier.
The silence seems thicker.
My mood flickers in and out of darkness, like a fuse finally giving out. Unresolved anger struggles back up to the surface of my skin, but it’s lost its focus—I’ve lost my focus—and nerves knot across my body in a tangle of anxiety.
My chest feels tight all over again.
My heart is pounding all over again.
I glance at Rosabelle’s bedroom door and I’m feeling bad all over again.
Fuck.
I used to be better at this.
I’ve always been pretty good at compartmentalizing; I don’t know what’s happening to me now. It’s like I’ve run out of storage space. Like there’s nowhere else to stack all these boxes of bad feelings, but I keep trying to shove more shit in there anyway.
The effort has backfired.
The door to my mental basement has blown open, and all the unresolved darkness is surging through my veins now, contaminating everything.
“Your birthday is coming up,” Warner finally says, surprising me.
“What?” I take a shallow breath. Try to return to my body. “Oh. Yeah.”
“You’ll be twenty-two.”
I take another shallow breath. “Yeah.”
“I was twenty years old when I asked Juliette to marry me.”
“I know.” I’m really struggling with these breaths.
“I’m sorry,” he says, holding my gaze. Another beat of silence. “For doubting you.”
This is a shock.
Warner isn’t known for apologizing.
When the initial impact fades, his words fully register, putting out a fire inside of me. My lungs finally expand, affording me relief.
Warner’s pager buzzes again in his pocket.
Again, he ignores it.
“For what it’s worth,” he says. “I want you to know that I tried. To negotiate with her.”
Sharp pains pull across my ribs again, the ache gathering deep in the center of my chest, igniting a string of new fires. I manage to nod, but my skin feels tight. “Okay,” I say. “So where is he?”
Warner’s eyes flicker. “Who?”
His pager buzzes.
“Is she with him?” I ask.
“Who?”
“Don’t do that,” I say, my anxiety releasing all at once to anger. “Don’t pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about.”
“I’m not pretending,” he says. “I’m giving you a chance to change course.
In the past five days you’ve asked me this question a hundred times and I’ve given you the same answer each time: I can’t discuss him with you.
You already know that’s part of the deal.
She doesn’t want you to have any involvement with him—”
“That’s because she knows I’ll kill him.”
“James—”
“You can’t let her marry him.”
Warner’s eyes widen a fraction. “How do you know about that?”
“You can’t let her do it,” I say, ignoring his question. “You can’t seriously be considering letting her go back to the island with that piece of shit.”
Warner’s expression shutters. “Her choices are none of your business.”
His pager buzzes again.
“She’s pushing me away on purpose,” I say, my voice rising. “She’s not—Listen, I know you don’t believe me, and I don’t care. I need you to understand that Rosabelle cut me out of her life for a reason—”
“Yes,” he says sharply. “She cut you out of her life because she doesn’t want to see you anymore.”
I almost laugh; the fake sound catches in my throat. “Why is it so hard for you to believe she might actually feel something for me? That maybe she’s trying to protect me? Maybe she’s shutting me out right now because I’m the only person who’d stop her from doing something dangerous—”
“You’re giving yourself a lot of credit.”
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows. “Name one other person on this continent who gives a shit about what happens to her.”
Warner sighs.
“You’re ready to let her run off with the bastard who nearly killed her,” I shout, then gesture at the empty house.
“And Nazeera can’t even be bothered to buy her simple groceries.
I’m telling you, bro, Rosabelle is plotting something, and you need to pay attention.
I think this Sebastian guy has something to do with her plans, and I don’t think he’s a normal person. He might be some kind of psychopath.”
Warner pinches the bridge of his nose. “James,” he says, his next words stiff and measured, “your feelings are so loud I can hardly process what you’re saying. If you don’t calm down, I don’t know how much longer I can tolerate standing this close to you.”
“Fine.” I hold up my hands and try to calm down, try to exhale some of this anger from my body. “We can end this conversation right now, okay? Just tell me you’re not leaving them alone together. Tell me she has some kind of security detail with her all the time.”
“Why?”
“What do you mean, why?” I stare at him. “She has an abusive history with this guy—”
“You’re sure of this?”
“You need more proof?” Shit. I’m yelling again. “He nearly killed her!”
“Yes, he nearly killed her,” Warner says quietly, his eyes narrowing. “There were times when you nearly killed her, too. There were several times when she nearly killed you.”
This slaps me across the face. My collected thoughts scatter across the room.
“That wasn’t—” I suddenly can’t remember what I was going to say. I can’t catch up quickly enough. “That wasn’t the same thing—”
“The girl is a mercenary,” Warner says slowly, looking at me like I might need help.
“You talk about her like she’s some kind of defenseless innocent.
Do I need to remind you that she personally murdered three of our people?
That she might’ve killed Kenji? Twice? She was fighting behind enemy lines that night at the warehouse.
Her fiancé might’ve been under orders to bring her in. ”
I visibly flinch.
He just used the word fiancé to fuck with me, and it’s working. My head is suddenly pounding.
“You did the same thing the night you chased her down at the airfield,” Warner goes on, driving the knife deeper.
“You were trying to bring her in, too, weren’t you?
By the end, she could hardly walk. She was covered in her own blood.
Barely alive.” He lets this sink in. “She always puts up a good fight.”
I meet his eyes.
This death shot takes me out.
The major difference, of course, is that I wasn’t personally responsible for her injuries at the airfield; but it doesn’t seem to matter. I’m losing this argument and I’m losing it badly. Warner’s already made up his mind, and the greater issue is that I can see how he got there.
Rosabelle is a mercenary.
This is more than half of my problem. No one thinks she needs help; everyone thinks she’s indestructible; and I don’t know how to explain myself in a way that makes enough sense.
“Look, I don’t—Fine,” I say, relenting angrily.
“I don’t know for a fact that she has an abusive history with this guy.
She never talked about him. But I think he might’ve been the same shithead who slammed a rifle into her face the day we escaped the island.
And we never figured out why she had almost three hundred bruises all over her body when she first arrived here.
” My fists clench. “You called it evidence of systematic torture, which means someone’s been torturing her.
And I’m telling you, the way she looked at him when she saw him at the warehouse—”
“Enough,” Warner says, his eyes hardening. “Your concern has been noted, but Rosabelle is more than capable of defending herself. I won’t discuss this situation with you anymore.”
Another buzz of his pager.
Jesus. I feel like I’m repeatedly slamming my head against a wall. It’s making me feel crazy.
Maybe that’s why I can’t seem to shut up.
“Listen to me.” I step into a shaft of light, nearly shaking with desperation. “Don’t make this mistake. Don’t let her make plans with this guy. I promise you, she’s going over your head. Everyone underestimates her. You have no idea what she’s capable of—”
“James—”
“Didn’t you just admit that I was right about everything?” I’m raising my voice again. “Why won’t you listen to what I have to say?”
“Because I need you to stop,” he cries, finally losing his temper.
His eyes flash; the force of his fury nearly pushes me a step back.
“Stop thinking about her. Stop caring about what happens to her. Stop imagining what she might be doing or who she’s with.
You have to kill this. Kill it now. And not because I think you’re an idiot, but because there’s no point. ”
“How can you say that?” I say, stunned. “If she might be putting herself in danger—”
“James,” he says sharply. “If she wants to put herself in danger, it’s none of your business. If she wants to set herself on fire, it’s none of your business. I don’t know how to make this any clearer: she never wants to see you again. Never.”
I recoil.
“I am in no way exaggerating,” he says, fighting to restrain his voice.
“In fact, I am possibly underrepresenting the gravity of her demands in the interest of sparing your feelings. You have no future with her. She wants nothing to do with you. If she were to drop dead today, you would not be invited to the funeral. Do you understand what I’m saying to you? Do you need me to make this clearer?”
My heart seems to stop. Then suddenly speed up.
“I am asking you now,” he goes on, “as your brother, as someone who cares about you, to protect yourself. You have to let this go—”
Another buzz and he cuts himself off with an aggravated sigh, fishing the pager out of his pocket. He scans the message and his face hardens.
My pulse is chaotic.
“What is it?” I ask, forcing the words out around the knife in my chest. “What’s going on?”
“Not immediately clear,” he says. “Stand by. I need to go right now, but I’ll be in touch—”
“I’ll come with you,” I say to him, trying to activate. Desperate for a distraction. “I can help—”
“No,” he says quickly. Then, slower: “No, you can’t.”
It’s like being punched in the lungs. “Oh,” I say. “This has something to do with her.”
He averts his eyes. “I have to go.”
“Right.” I feel sick.
“So do you.”
“Me?”
“Your new pager is ready for pick up,” he says, striding toward the door. “And I want you out of this house immediately. Don’t go near her room.”
“I won’t.” I say it automatically, but I don’t know what I’m going to do. All I know is that right now, everything hurts.
If she were to drop dead today, you would not be invited to the funeral.
I drag my hands down my face.
Warner pauses at the threshold. His pager buzzes again. His eyes tighten as he scans the incoming message, and he takes a sharp breath before shooting me a final glance. “It won’t help,” he says to me. “Going in there won’t make anything easier.”
“I know.”
“Don’t do it.”
“Okay.”
He’s shaking his head as he leaves. I’m rooted in place. The door snicks shut behind him, and the soft sound is like a trigger pulled.
I turn, slowly, in the vacant house.