19. Jack
NINETEEN
JACK
Jack was listening to the lullaby again. He could hear her voice so clearly. He couldn’t see her; still, her voice was enough. The soothing way she spoke made him want to dream forever.
“Jack! Jack, are you all right?”
Jack was ripped from his happy memory and brought back to his harsh reality. There was sand everywhere: in his mouth, in his hair, even in his boots and gloves. He blinked as he struggled to sit up. The sun beat down on him with no sympathy. He squinted as he saw Aareth beside him.
“Rough landing, but it could have been a lot worse, right?”
Jack nodded, getting a good look at their surroundings. Desert greeted him in every direction. The locomotive tracks were to his left and stretched out in front of him in both directions as far as he could see. “At this rate, I think we’ve done as much damage to ourselves as to the bad guys.”
Aareth offered Jack his right hand, which still wore the gauntlet.
Jack reached out and hesitated at the last minute.
“Don’t worry, they’re powered off. I’m starting to get used to them. I’ll get better with the gauntlets. I just need more practice. Are you all right? Anything broken?”
Aareth helped him to his feet. Jack looked down at himself and stretched.
His head hurt and there was a ringing in his ears.
Aside from a few bruises and scratches, he was fine.
“I feel like I’ve been fried and thrown from a mage-powered machine traveling at a ridiculous speed.
Other than that, I think I’m going to make it. ”
“Good. And look at this; our luck is already changing. I found this in the sand while I was searching for you.” Aareth reached behind him and pulled out Jack’s new wand from his belt.
“How about our friend?” Jack accepted the wand. “Did we—did we kill him?”
“I haven’t seen his body yet.” Aareth shook his jacket, eliciting a shower of sand. “I don’t expect to.”
“Listen,” Jack said, brushing sand from his hair. “You just zapped me and got us both thrown off a locomotive, and that’s all right, I can handle that. What I can’t handle is being lied to. I know you’re not telling me everything.”
Jack was reminded that if his father was correct, he was talking to an assassin. He didn’t care anymore. He needed to get to the truth.
“All right.” Aareth shook out his own long black hair before wrapping it in a ponytail behind him. “Let’s walk back and see if any of those mage-powered bicycles are working. I’ll tell you whatever you want.”
Jack fell in step with Aareth. The two followed the tracks backwards in search of a means of transportation.
“So what do you want to know?”
Jack had so many questions, he wasn’t sure where to begin.
“Why did that man call you ‘Ghost’? You knew him, didn’t you? And how did he move so fast? Why were you really chosen to come on this trip? Are you—are you an assassin?”
“That’s a lot of ground to cover.” Aareth took a deep breath and looked deep into Jack’s eyes. “I’ll tell you, but you have to promise that this stays between you and me. I trust you and your father. There’s something about the captain that just doesn’t add up.”
“You think Sloan’s on the other side of all this? That she had the locomotive hijacked?”
“No.” Aareth shook his head as he studied the horizon in front of them. “I don’t think that she was part of the attack that took place just now. I do think she’s hiding something.”
Jack took a minute to think about Aareth’s words. I thought we were just going to track a bloodthirsty animal for the Queen. Who knows what we’ve gotten ourselves into.
“Twelve years ago, I joined New Hope’s department of justice. I had a respectable job and I was good at it. I even got married.”
Aareth paused and Jack could tell he was choosing his words. It seemed Aareth hadn’t spoken to anyone about this in a very long time. He wasn’t even sure how much he wanted to say.
“I showed so much promise as an officer that I was promoted to the level of inspector. This was when the Queen was really cracking down on the corruption inside the city. I was given an assignment to go undercover and infiltrate one of the toughest gangs in New Hope. Well, long story short, I succeeded, but in the process, they found out who I really was, beat me within an inch of my life, and killed my wife. It’s ironic really—they didn’t kill my body, but I still died that day. The best part of me died that day.”
Jack didn’t know what to say. Half of him wanted to console Aareth. He just didn’t know how. Even if he did, he wasn’t sure if Aareth even wanted to be consoled.
“I know that it’s not the same,” Jack avoided making eye contact, “but I lost my mom when I was still a baby. I was born in New Hope. My father doesn’t talk about it much. There was a break-in, my father wasn’t home. They robbed us and shot my mother.”
Both men avoided making eye contact now. Instead, they continued to walk in the direction the locomotive had traveled, toward New Hope.
“Now I’m reminded why I don’t talk about this kind of stuff.
” Aareth sighed. “Anyway, I went off the deep end. For these last three years, I have been an assassin for hire to the richest men and women in the Outland. The man who attacked us on the train is another assassin I’ve run into in the past. I don’t know his real name, but he’s known as Scar. ”
“Creative.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“And you’re Ghost?”
“Not a nickname I would have chosen for myself. But when I do go on assignments, I prefer to do things quickly and quietly.”
Jack nodded. He knew he should be scared that he was in the presence of a trained killer, but he wasn’t. Maybe it was the way Aareth talked about his past, about the wife he once loved. Whatever it was, Jack could tell that Aareth wasn’t past saving.
“Why did the Queen choose you to come with us?” Jack asked.
“It was Edison.” Aareth smiled at the thought of the inventor.
“He was my boss when I worked for the justice department in New Hope. I guess he still saw something in me. He’s always believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.
When he offered me this chance to get my life back on track, I took it. ”
“So you’re done being an assassin?”
“For years, I’ve tried to fill the hole she left when they killed her.
I’ve ended more men’s lives than I can count and drank more bottles than I can remember.
But the hole only gets wider, Jack. Killing, drinking; they’re just temporary fixes.
I’m hoping that something changes while I’m on this mission.
That there still might be some hope for me.
Honestly, I don’t know. Maybe it’s too late. ”
Jack struggled with the right words to say. He was surprised Aareth had revealed so much. But something told him deep down Aareth wanted to talk to someone, that this conversation was as beneficial for Jack as it was to him.
“My father says that, every day, we decide what interpretations of ourselves to be. That there are many types of people we can be in the future, and every day, we take steps toward who we are going to become.”
“Is that why you didn’t kill Scar when he was coming at you?”
Jack bit his lip as he remembered the man charging him on top of the locomotive. “I—I’ve never killed a man before.”
“How old are you, Jack?”
“Just turned eighteen.”
“I’m thirty-four, killed my first man when I was your age. There will come a time when killing one man will save either your life or the lives of the ones you care about. When that time comes, you don’t hesitate.”
Jack didn’t have anything to say. He knew Aareth was right; however, the way he was raised was completely different. His father was a peaceful man, and even when it came to tracking, he preferred to run off paranormal creatures or even relocate them when he could.
Jack still had questions for Aareth about their attackers and who he thought they were, but it seemed like the time for questions was over.
“Do you see what I see?” Aareth raised a finger and pointed toward the setting sun.
Jack squinted. His eyes fought through the sun’s bright orange rays. Then he saw them, two bulky mage-powered bicycles sticking up from the sandy floor.