Chapter 11 The Spirit of Life #2
Ella heard them. The pieces snapped into place so quickly that she didn’t have the words to express it.
Jackson lunged forward with a speed that betrayed his size, locking Kay by the collar before Ella latched onto his closed first.
Jackson froze in place at her touch, watching her in a way that seemed to show that not only was he surprised she intervened, but that her touch had so quickly halted him.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered and he searched her eyes, perhaps seeing what she meant. The depth of the apology visibly shook him, and he released Kay and stepped away, slinging his bag back over his back before marching off into the woods.
“I’m sorry?” Kay said heatedly beside her. “I’m sorry? That’s what you tell him? They killed thousands of people. He needs to know where we stand.”
Ella watched the path silently where Jackson walked off.
It seemed odd when Kay said the ROSE had disappeared after the war, though until the argument she hadn’t quite understood the relevance of the fiery scenes from Jackson’s memories or why such a fact seemed off based on what she’d experienced.
“They locked people in their city with the Strike and burned them all. An entire city.” Kay continued to remind her.
“They locked themselves inside too,” she whispered back, swallowing. She shook her head for a moment before walking after Jackson. “Jackson!” she called, picking up her pace until she snagged his shirt.
He turned sharply but his expression was unreadable, glancing back at Kay over her shoulder as they all caught up together.
“Why do you think Peter survived?” Ella asked, the inquisitive nature of her voice diffusing the tension in the air. “After everything you all sacrificed to make sure he was dead?”
Jackson looked between them, running a hand through his hair. She’d exposed something in him, and he too seemed to resent that. He turned restlessly away from her and said, “Because it’s Peter.”
As he walked off, Ella exchanged glances with Kay and watched Jackson’s back.
How did you survive? She asked, inwardly.
That ended the conversation and the silence lingered for several more hours, compounded by the fact that this world in all of its vastness still seemed empty.
The Quiet was comforting in its vacancy and Ella had begun to deeply appreciate its title in a way that she hadn’t before.
As her body grew weaker, every interruption of that silence became a disturbance, be it a question from Kay or an abrasive, cold comment from Jackson.
They settled in for another restless night with little conversation. It was soon followed by another slow morning of hiking.
“How’s your arm?” Kay whispered as they neared their destination. She was having a hard time disguising how her body rejected any effort she pushed into it.
“Fine,” she lied again. It was worse. She felt much worse, and was relieved to soak in the peculiarities of the world as they reached the stretch leading up to the tower of Life.
It was a brilliant, white marble tower with a burning sun positioned at the top.
Ella found herself blinded by the sheer sight of it, noting some of the symbolism that was used in the Imperia’s murals.
It stood on a hill, only accentuating its great height as it seemed to overlook The Quiet stretched out beyond. They approached the entrance, and there was a lightness and awe on Kay’s face as he breathed and shook his head in disbelief.
“Listeners meditate for years, just to get glimpses of this,” he then added. “Only those that are considered truly enlightened ever manage to cross over to The Quiet. The pinnacle of enlightenment is to be able to cross over without ever coming back, at least according to the religious texts.”
They both turned at a loud hissing sound behind them, Jackson striking his lighter as he tilted his head to light a cigarette.
“I’m going to sit up at the cliff and see if I spot anything,” Jackson said, exhaling a line of smoke into the air as he clicked the lighter closed. He walked off, Ella starting to follow but knowing Kay was still uneasy from their last argument.
“Explore here a bit,” she said to ease his nerves, “take what sketches you want and then you can come up to the lookout. We have time.”
Kay nodded and walked up the stairway into the tower. Ella joined Jackson on an outcropping of rocks as they looked out at The Quiet.
She slid down one of the rocks, feeling both cold and hot under the sunlight.
“Maybe something like a camp north of here,” Jackson said, much to her surprise.
Ella inspected the landscape, amazed again by the peculiar geographies that were no doubt the result of Madness mutating the world over time.
She watched the world in a tired haze, her eyes drifting from the red desserts to the snowy peaks of distant mountains in a state that felt almost dream-like.
Her vision blurred at the edges, reaching for sleep and she allowed her eyes to drift closed.
Jackson drugging her with Amnesia didn’t seem like such a terrible fate all of a sudden.
After a few minutes, she heard him shuffle around, almost startling her as she opened her eyes and found him standing over her. He knelt down, balancing a wrist on a bent knee as he scanned her over critically.
“You’re killing yourself,” Jackson said, no change in inflection, watching her eyes now.
“Why do you care?” she asked evenly, head still tilted back as she watched him through cracked lids, “you aren’t happy to be alive yourself. You’re making that very clear.”
There was the subtlest twinge in his brows before his eyes looked her over again. He started with her arm, unzipping her pack and removing fresh bandaging.
Too tired to protest, Ella allowed her eyes to drift closed again. “Can’t help it can you?” she asked, amused again by this compulsion he seemed to have to care for the group.
“I don’t enjoy hurting people,” he said, “or seeing them in pain.”
She felt him remove the bandaging, and despite the roughness of his hands, his touch was gentle.
His breath was steady as he cleaned the wound.
Hearing it reminded her of being in the flaming crate when he’d tied his boots onto her legs, breathing against her neck in their closeness.
The memory was so vivid she jolted as she surfaced from it and accidentally threw her head forward, knocking her forehead into his.
To her surprise, his first instinct was laughter as he rolled back and eased her head back with his palm, “Did that sting?”
He was asking about bandaging her wound and she shuddered with a breath and relaxed again, su ffering what felt like girlish embarrassment for the first time in a long while.
“Sorry…it’s fine, I’m just,” Just what?
He didn’t follow up for an answer and she didn’t have one, her thoughts drifting offon that sentence.
Just what?
“Thanks,” she breathed, giving up and closing her eyes.
She felt his hands on her fingers next, inspecting the shallow cuts, and she caught her breath when she felt his fingertips on her neck, tracing the line of the cut.
For the briefest moment, she wondered what the fullness of his hands might feel like, but curbed the thoughts harshly, bewildered at her own reckless thinking.
So maybe Kay did have reason to be concerned after all.
“You shouldn’t do things like that. It was suicidal,” Jackson said, addressing the conflict on the beach. Though he chastised her, Ella couldn’t help but sense the slightest twinge of admiration and wanted to roll her eyes. It seemed like such a ROSE quality to admire such a thing.
“I wasn’t planning on killing him. I was aiming for a leg. He wouldn’t have pulled the trigger on us. He was frozen solid.”
“You underestimate what a nervous Kay is capable of,” Ella replied, feeling a cloth with a cool antiseptic trace along her throat. “You haven’t exactly been friendly. I know you’re still planning on dosing us with Amnesia.”
“A Strike in the memory is like an infection in the brain,” he started, as he packed her medical kit back in her bag.
“The ROSE treat it by staying in the present, but it doesn’t go away.
They’ll always be with you, living inside you, these things you hate, enshrining themselves in your past. Pushing you to take Amnesia isn’t just about the mission of the ROSE.
It’s also because I care,” as he spoke, he used the last of the drenched cloth to dab at her fingers.
She watched him move her hands in his, lingering in the slightest way that told her he missed touch, ached for it.
The lingering didn’t bother her. In sensing it, she almost wanted to pull his hands close, touch him in return.
“Based on your history, I’m starting to think you caring is pretty dangerous,” she said, feeling somewhat defensive and meaning it as an insult, but he smiled.
“I didn’t mean that as a compliment. I’m not sure in what world that could ever be a compliment.”
“I know,” he said, but his smile didn’t fade.
His eyes flickered to a scar on her upper shoulder from where Kay had cut her sleeve, something he’d likely noticed while changing her bandages.
The tissue clearly indicated that the scar was deep and wide, spanning far under her shirt.
The pale tissue wound down from her shoulder and over her left breast, spanning out to her ribs and stomach.
He didn’t comment on it.
Ella was relieved that Jackson likely had more than his share of scars. Jackson scolded her about her throat or arm, but she’d survived much worse.
You could give me Amnesia now if you wanted, she thought. Why not?
He still held the ends of her fingers, and she put the pieces together. It was almost endearing now that she realized, but she and Kay were his new team. As temporary as it was, he was delaying getting rid of it, delaying the dive into true loneliness.
“You’re a bit of a dreamer in secret, aren’t you?” he asked.
“What are you talking about?” she replied, struck by the assessment.