Residue (31 page)

When I didn’t hear him deny her observation my heart skipped a beat.

“
Is she worth the danger?” asked Isadora, not in warning but to test him.

“
Isadora…” he drew in a deep, troubled breath. My heart leapt at Jameson’s next statement, meant only for Isadora’s ears. “I’m in love with her. Everything is worth it.”

I’m in love with her
echoed in my thoughts. Jameson is in love with me. Then happiness on a level I never knew possible overwhelmed me. Tickling warmth was sent through my chest and my body felt so light I had to move my hand against the sheet to make certain I wasn’t levitating. Beneath the sheets, I felt my lips curve in to a smile, unable to contain it.

“
Have you told her?” Isadora asked gently.

“
No,” he said plainly. “There’s no reason to. It won’t change her mind.”

“
Why?” she retorted.

“
She’ll never see passed our history.”

“
What history?”

His feet scuffed across the floor before he answered. Then, as if he were at a last resort to convince Isadora she were wrong, he pronounced, “My family killed her father.”

Isadora didn’t immediately respond and I wanted so desperately to open my eyes, to watch this conversation playing out, to confirm I wasn’t in the middle of some surreal dream. Only as the conversation went on did I know for certain I was not in a dream state. This was reality - because it made me sick to my stomach.

“
Maybe it would help if the two of you were to learn the truth…” suggested Isadora.

“
About what?”

“
Her father’s death.”

There was a pause and during that time I imagined Jameson’s eyes widening and the contour of his jaw tightening. The very subject was a tense one and from the sounds of it Jameson didn’t know the entirety of it.

“
Do you recall me once telling you the ministry punished me, all of us here, in fact, for the very same reason?”

He answered suspiciously, “Because you were all guilty of the same thing. You have information that The Sevens want to hide.”

My muscles stiffened at that news. These people, the ones sent here by my mother’s employer, the ones Jameson and I have been helping were committed for crimes of knowledge. They were imprisoned while Vires were free to commit crimes against those they were there to protect. The idea of it left me enflamed. Then Isadora admitted to something and the opposite affect took place. I went cold.

“
My transgression,” said Isadora patiently, “was witnessing her father’s death.”

“
You were there?” Jameson asked, his voice rising uneasily. “How could you have been there?” Clearly, the idea that she may have crossed paths with my parents had never occurred to him before.

“
I was their friend…”

Those words stunned me, making me wish I could move and plug my ears. Every bit of information I was learning about my mother was negative, devastating. I wanted to sit up and tell them that this was not the person I know. She’s kind and caring, a bit strict…but with loving intentions. I couldn’t. My muscles wouldn’t move.

“
Her mother was your friend and she sent you here?” Jameson said disgusted, voicing the same issue I had.

“
She didn’t work for the ministry then,” said Isadora offhandedly. “Her mother and father - They were young, innocent. They knew nothing about the evils of our world even though they’d both grown up in it. Both were sheltered. They learned, in a very difficult way, who not to trust. That night, as a typical family taking their usual stroll around our streets, they came for her. The abduction was planned but not well enough. Jocelyn’s father, Nicolas, picked her up, defending against them as her mother, Isabella, ran for my house. When we reached them, the attackers had fled and Nicolas, still clutching Jocelyn, was taking his last breath. With it, he told us who they’d been - ‘Vires’.”

“
Vires?” breathed Jameson, as shocked and guarded as I was.

“
His hand fell open, the neighbors saw the Caldwell family stone the Vires had placed in his palm, and no one believed otherwise from then on. Not Isabella. She couldn’t prove it but she knew the truth. We both did. I made the mistake of telling someone that I didn’t think the Caldwells were involved and they came for me the following morning. Because they knew what I’d done. I’d witnessed a crime the Vires wanted covered up.”

“
And Jocelyn’s mother sent her to New York…” Jameson summed it up.

In the serenity of her home, just above the rainfall, she whispered, “His death haunts me.”

Their voices stopped, and in the silence my now rapidly pounding heart beat was magnified against my ear drums.

“
But why?” Jameson implored. “Why abduct her? Did they already know she was The Relicuum? Is that why?”

“
No, that couldn’t have been the reason,” she cogitated. “But it is my belief that whatever caused them to take such extreme measures… it relates directly to you.”

“
Me?” he said astounded.

“
Yes, because when they failed to abduct Jocelyn, they went after you.”

Stunned silence followed and then Jameson deliberated casually, “So they were the ones…”

I had a different reaction. Several thoughts swam around in my consciousness, none of them staying still long enough for me to grasp them in full.

…
My family has been misled…

…
Jameson’s family was not to blame…

…
My father hadn’t been trying to protect me from the Caldwells…

…
The Caldwells are at risk as much as I was…as much as I am…as much as I’ve always been…

…
and I’m not the only one…

…
Jameson…

“
You need to tell her,” said Isadora, and I knew she was referring to me.

“
I will.”

“
Soon,” she insisted.

Only a brief pause later, she asked, patient but firm. “Does that shed light on why no one can know she was here?”

“
Isadora,” said Jameson cautiously, as if he knew she wouldn’t like hearing what he had to say. “No one is safe here. Look at the evidence. La Terreur hasn’t hit anywhere but in our world. And it’s spreading but only to other villages. The villages are hundreds of miles apart. How did it spread?” He gave her the chance to answer but continued when she didn’t. “There’s only one reasonable solution. Someone placed it there. But why? Who has the motive? Who has the most to gain by eliminating you?”

A chair scrapped lightly across the floor and footsteps took the person from the table.

When Jameson spoke again, it was farther away. His voice was flat, speculative, but his message sent chills down my spine. “The Vires are becoming more bold.”

“
At the request of those who control them…The Sevens.”

“
La Terreur is their way of making sure that information never gets out, isn’t it?” asked Jameson. “By purging their enemies…”

“
Yes,” said Isadora, her French accent accentuating as her anger surfaced.

A heaviness surrounded us then, choking off words, stirring up our nerves until it was hard to breath.

I’d heard enough depressing news for one day so, needing it to end, I slid my legs over the edge of the bed and lifted the sheets off me.

Jameson, who was at the window, turned and gave me a smile of relief. I returned one of my own, not bothering to hide the comfort in seeing him. It looked like he wanted to approach me but hesitated near the window. He still didn’t know I’d overheard him.

“
How long was I out for?” I asked my voice scratchy from lack of use.

“
Long enough to worry me,” he said gently, his face telling me that he was trying to hide just how excited he was to be talking to me.

“
That long?” I asked, startled.

They chuckled at me.

“
What you did was unheard of,” explained Jameson. “Healing over a hundred people, one after the other. It’s amazing you didn’t take longer to recuperate. How do you feel?”

“
Like a champ,” I muttered.

Both he and Isadora laughed and seemed to relax a little. She stood and hobbled to the stove where she poured me a bowl of soup. Jameson saved her from a good scalding by carrying it to me though, and when he handed it to me I knew he was assessing me for the truth.

I was fine, a bit disoriented, but that may have been more because of the news I’d just overheard as opposed to three days on my back. Or maybe it was a little of both.

When he’d finished his evaluation, he didn’t leave my side but instead sat down next to me. His thigh landed against mine, sending a shock wave through me, but neither of us bothered to move apart. Instead, our legs steadily pressed closer together, teasing both of us.

It took halfway through my bowl of soup before I realized he was giving me another dose of energy, channeling his own into me.

“
You need to stop that,” I reprimanded him. “Save your strength.”

He frowned. “I didn’t think you’d accept it outright…and I was right.”

He did break our contact but did it while exchanging a look with Isadora that made me think this hadn’t been the only time he’d given me a spike. I would have placed a bet that he’d been doing it regularly over the last three days.

The truth was, I wanted him to touch me but not just for that reason. I wanted it to be more than medical. Unfortunately, that wasn’t where the medical part ended. They made me lift everything in the room, together. When that didn’t prove I was fit enough to leave, I noticed Jameson’s bruise, a remnant from when he’d protected me at the outpost, and healed it. That seemed to convince them.

While I’d recovered enough to levitate Jameson and me back the same way we’d come and even though it was night again we wouldn’t have faced as much risk in getting caught, I just wasn’t sure how far my energy would take us. So we said goodbye to Isadora and then took the boat she lent us, and the car keys to an old pickup truck she kept so we could reach New Orleans. A nice offshoot to this way of transportation was that he and I had more time together. What I didn’t realize was that it would be spent in awkward silence.

Seeing things from his perspective made me realize that the last time we’d had a conversation of any real length was on his front porch, where I’d accused his family of killing my father and then told him that I wouldn’t be speaking to him again. Neither of those proved to be true.

When we reached the city, the constant rattle of the pickup truck’s cab was disrupted, thankfully, by Jameson’s voice. It was restricted and insistent.

“
You need to get rid of the rope,” he stressed. “The Rope of The Sevens.”

I blinked, taken by surprise. How could he know?

As if reading my thoughts, he said, “I figured it out the day you got it. And I thought it was an interesting artifact that might come in handy some day. But the risk of keeping it is too much…far greater than the possibility it could be helpful. You need to get rid of it. Don’t destroy it. Just move it out of the house.”

“
You knew I stored it in the house?” I muttered, still overcoming my surprise. He could read me better than I thought. “And you never said anything about it to anyone else?”

He shook his head solemnly, his eyes frozen on the road in front of us.

“
Even after you found out I was a Weatherford…?” I reflected on how much damage he could have done if he’d wanted to.

“
No, Jocelyn,” he replied tenderly.

I was dumbfounded. “Why did you keep it a secret?”

He shrugged and I noticed he was turning onto my street, preparing to drop me off in front of my house. I was temporarily speechless at his courage.

“
Just do me a favor?” he sighed. “Get rid of the rope?”

He pulled to a stop next to the curb but kept the truck running, just in case a Weatherford stepped out.

In the dim light of the surrounding houses, I could see the handsome, rugged contours of his face. What saddened me was that they were downcast.

“
Since we met,” I mumbled. “Since the moment we met you’ve had feelings for me. My family’s past didn’t matter to you.”

“
Go inside,” he instructed softly. “Your family is worried about you.”

I didn’t listen. “And here I am condemning you for
your
family’s past…and it wasn’t even true.”

Wallowing in my self-criticism, I barely noticed his head jerk back.

“
What?” he said. “How did…?”

I saw the awareness in his eyes, awakening them.

“
How long were you awake?”

Before I even answered, the memory of the entire conversation came back to him.

“
How long were you listening to us, Jocelyn?” he asked nervously.

“
I heard it all,” I admitted trying to deliver the news as gently as possible.

Still, his head dropped to his chest and he laughed. I knew how he felt. Completely exposed.

He’d been through so much my heart sank for him and I opened my mouth to tell him that he’s not alone, that there’s hope. I wanted to tell him that I loved him too.