45. One Last Thing
FORTY-FIVE
ONE LAST THING
Jack
“ Y ou’re bleeding,” Blaire said, approaching slowly like I was a wild animal.
I felt like a wild animal. I needed to tell Seven something fucking important, and I kept getting interrupted. And I was starting to worry that if I didn’t say it soon, I might lose the opportunity.
Stop thinking like a loser , the monster snapped. Start thinking like you’re going to shred that place and all those assholes to smithereens and be finished in time to eat Blossom’s cunt for dessert.
“Jack! Your finger’s bleeding.”
I shook myself, glancing down at the trickle of blood pooling from under the nail of my pointer finger.
“Huh,” I muttered, sticking my finger into my mouth, sucking the blood away. The wound had already sealed itself up. I showed it to Blaire. “No harm done.”
She shook her head, a look of misery on her face. “That’s a mirror wound, Jack. And you know it. Do you know how vulnerable you’ll be, going back in there, handing her over to them?”
I shot her an angry look. “Do you think I don’t know how fucking dangerous this is? But fuck, Bee, you heard Seven tell you what it was like in there. And everything she said, times that by about a hundred, and that’s actually how bad it was in there. I put up with it for … what, a few weeks? She’s been in there a quarter of a century! She deserves a chance for vengeance.”
Blaire’s mouth was a grim line, but I wasn’t finished. “And we can’t leave the rest of them in there, either. I know how much Roman and Farida and Ellis hate Fortis … well, I learned a thing or two about him, too.”
I sat again, pulling the envelope out of my pocket. It was smeared with blood from Blaire’s ‘little party trick’ back in the cabin, but the paper inside was relatively unscathed.
“This letter was given to me by … by my uncle. My biological uncle.” I glanced up at Blaire, wanting to know what she thought of this. Her eyes were fixed on the paper, her face ghostly pale. I tapped it against my palm.
“He’s been working with Baxter for years, providing the … genetic material they’ve been using to create the hybrids. He’s supposed to be raising an army of renegade Strangers to take down Fortis. But he only agreed to it if Baxter makes good on his promise to provide hybrids to join the war. He doesn’t trust Baxter.”
Blaire snorted. “Well, already he sounds like a smart guy.”
“Anyway,” I continued, “I … this letter is from his twin brother … my biological father.” I glanced up at Blaire. “Who is dead now. He killed himself, because of things Fortis had done to him … to his Joined.”
Blaire sucked in a shaky breath. “Jack, I …”
“Look, it’s not worth getting fucked up over. I never knew him. But the things he described … I want Fortis dead. And I think if we can get those hybrids out, get them to my uncle … we might be able to rally enough of a force to actually make that happen.”
I shoved the letter back into the envelope. “If they want to fight that is. They need to have a choice. They’ve never been given one before.”
Blaire dropped onto the porch beside me. “Jack … I think this is all super noble of you. And I can see that you’re … committed to this course of action. But … I spent weeks, terrified for you, desperate to find you, to get you to safety. And now I’ve finally found you again, and you want to walk back into danger … and in a more vulnerable position than ever, because of your Join with Seven.”
I raised an incredulous eyebrow at her. “Fucking seriously? You’re going to throw my Join in my face? Don’t forget I witnessed first-hand just how horrific it was, seeing you in pain. Seeing you get hurt because somewhere else in the world, he was getting hurt.”
“But Jack, I—”
“Nope, I’m not fucking finished,” I barked. “Are you hiding away because of your Join? No! You’re fucking zipping Operation Agents to a bloody pulp! And I don’t hear you telling Roman he can’t do anything dangerous because it might injure you.”
Blaire’s eyes glistened, but her mouth was an angry slash. “After you got shot in that clearing, everything went to shit, Jack! The Skin Thief who had me went berserk. The Operation and the Coalition attacked one another. Roman fought the Skin Thief, told me to seek shelter. I did.
“When Roman got shot by a couple of rogue bullets in the back … he barely even blinked. And meanwhile, I was dying from those same wounds in the supposed safety of the trees. I would have died if Farida hadn’t been there to heal me.”
She grabbed my hand, squeezing my fingers. “Jack … they can survive that sort of injury. But we can’t … not yet anyway. If they do something to Seven while she’s in there playing prisoner … something that damages a vital organ … you’ll be dead before anyone can get to you.”
Rage turned my vision red.
I’ll tear the innards out of every single one of them, hang them like fucking Christmas tinsel! the monster seethed.
“They won’t,” I bit out, fighting to keep control as the monster pummeled my insides, demanding to be let out. “She’s too valuable to them whole. They’re not going to injure her like that.”
Blaire looked dubious but didn’t argue.
“It sounds like Farida’s got a plan, anyway. I just need to get us all in, and she’ll manage the rest. She’s … what the fuck is she, Bee?”
Blaire’s expression morphed from worry to something that made my stomach churn.
“She’s … Roman and Ellis … they know she’s powerful. They know more about her than I do, and they believe she can make this happen. She’ll get our parents out … get Jude out. Hopefully she can get the hybrids, and you and Seven out, too.”
I nodded, not wanting to argue that Seven and I were capable of getting ourselves out. I didn’t want her to start freaking out again.
“Shit,” Blaire muttered, rubbing at her temples. “I really need to … I know something about her, Jack, and I haven’t been able to talk to anyone about it.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “Why can’t you talk to Roman about it? Isn’t that a benefit of being Joined—that you can share shit with one another?”
Blaire shook her head, her lips a tight, grim line. “I can’t, because it’s about him … about his mother. Jack …” she looked at me, her eyes stark. “Farida killed Roman’s mother. So that she could take him to tithe to Fortis. And she took his memories of her away, made him think his mother died when he was tiny.”
I reeled back, whacking my head on the porch post.
“Shit,” I grunted, rubbing at the back of my head. “That’s … fucking hell, Bee. That’s one fucking doozy of a secret! Why the fuck would she do that, anyway? Doesn’t she hate Fortis?”
Blaire’s mouth twisted. “Farida claims she was Joined, that Fortis used her Joined as collateral to blackmail her into doing whatever the fuck he asked. In this case, getting Tilly—Roman’s mom—out of the picture because she was causing problems between Fortis and Raoul—Roman’s dad. It’s a whole thing. But to just take out a mother, in cold blood … and then make her kids forget about her? That’s …”
“That’s someone who can switch off their emotions,” I finished for her. “But … is that Farida’s coping mechanism? I mean, she scares the fuck out of me, but maybe the only way she’s able to survive is by not letting herself feel the things she’s had to do.”
Blaire let out a long breath. “Yeah, well, whatever it is, I just can’t trust her … and that scares me. I have no idea what she’s capable of, or who she feels comfortable throwing under the bus, to make this mission a success. And she’s been very single-minded about getting into this place. She knows something that she’s not sharing.”
Blaire looked me right in the eyes. “I’m not going to stop you from doing what you’ve decided to do … but I just want you to know, she’s got an agenda. She tried to make Roman and me break our Join, said it would be safer that way.”
“She … what?” I shook my head, horrified at the thought of breaking my Join with Seven, even though the Join had been the last thing I’d wanted … before we did it. “How is that even possible?”
Blaire shrugged. “How was it possible that she knew you were in the forest tonight? How was it possible for her to put her hands on me and heal me of two phantom bullet wounds to the lung and heart? How was it possible that she stood there, looked over that clearing back on Greenrock, and every single being—human or immortal—that was left out there, just dropped to dust?”
I shivered. “She’s not a Drinker …”
Blaire grunted. “She’s definitely a Drinker … but she’s something else, too. And I don’t think even Roman and Ellis have any clue of what that might be. Just … be really fucking careful, okay, Jack?”
I gave a wan smile. “We’re going to tear that place down around Baxter’s ears. And I’m gonna do my touchdown victory dance when we make it out with all those hybrids and the parentals.”
Blaire rolled her eyes. “You know you look like a total dork when you do that dance.”
“I know that dance got Rylee Myers to let me feel her up under the bleachers one Friday night.”
“Rylee Myers let a different jock feel her up every week. It wasn’t your dance that got you in her pants. It was your jersey.”
I guffawed. This was nice. The teasing banter felt like old times. I wrapped an arm around Blaire.
Huh , I thought. The last time I’d held her, I’d been all sorts of fucked up over the fact that she would never be mine. This time, it felt like hugging my sister. Nice, but with no confusing feelings attached.
The door to the Vault burst open, and everyone poured out. I jumped to my feet, adrenaline pulsing.
“What’s happening?” I asked as Cas and Clay walked past, flanked by their pack members.
Clay nodded gravely. “We need to move. If we want to get to the Taiga facility by tonight, we need to leave now. I’ll be briefing the rest of the pack, and my six here will pick their teams, and we’ll follow not far behind you.”
Wait. What?
“Uh, but what’s the plan?” I asked. Blaire met my eyes as Roman came up behind her.
“We’ll fill you in on the way. Farida’s got it all worked out,” Roman told us. Blaire’s expression said, see what I mean?
“There is just one last thing that we need to finalize before we can leave.” Farida stepped closer, watching as all the Shifters filtered back towards their village and out of sight.
“Which is?” I asked as Seven stepped up beside her, looking mystified. “What’s going on?”
Like a blur, Farida turned, slashing a knife at Seven’s stomach.