The Killing Jar (36 page)

LRF-PS-103

AUGUST 30, 2232

Alone in his office, Vince slid the button on his tablet that would secure his comms.

He tapped his hand on his desk several times before pulling up a new ecomm. He couldn’t risk a full comm outside his apartment. Someone might hear and wonder who he spoke with.

No, an ecomm was the only way. He knew as soon as it was received, the message would disappear from the server, as if it never existed. Still, he kept it vague and short. Just in case.

TO: SILAS ARRENSTEIN

FROM: CALVIN HILL

MSG: DJP NEWS? RECONTAMINATION ISSUE. TWO EXTRACTIONS-DAP. PLEASE ADVISE.

His fingers hovered in the air over the virtual keys. Did he dare reveal what he’d done? Did he dare tell Silas how horribly he’d messed up this job?

It was no worse than Abby, he decided. Aida might be compromised, but she didn’t compromise the entire program. He would never be the guy that messed up that badly.

Vince couldn’t help but feel a bit of responsibility. He and Abby were supposed to be a team. They were supposed to live on the LRF with their relationship a secret. Somehow their periodic visits had turned into perfunctory bug checks. He hadn’t had a real conversation with her in months.

Maybe it was his fault. Maybe his involvement with Aida had pushed Abby away.

Still, he wanted to share what happened with Aida before it burst out of him. And if he didn’t tell Silas, who could he tell?

Vince adjusted the ecomm and sent it.

TO: SILAS ARRENSTEIN

FROM: CALVIN HILL

MSG: DJP NEWS? PLEASE ADVISE.

There was still time to salvage this. And if he couldn’t, he wanted every last minute he could get with her. After all these years, he’d earned it.

SUBTERRANEAN CHICAGO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 30, 2232

Theo woke to a dark room, a pretty blonde, and a hammer pounding inside his head. He groaned then fell back onto a small pillow.

“Hey, you’re awake.” A girl came closer and kneeled next to him. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her.

“Who—”

“Hadley.” He remembered as soon as he heard her name. “Where’s Rowen?”

“He’s gone. Mable wanted to have a match while she was here. Good thing you’re up.” Hadley smiled as if he’d settled down for an afternoon nap. “Sorry about that by the way.”

Theo pressed his hand to face and felt a sizeable lump where his cheek had been formerly smooth. He winced at the pain.

“It’s okay. I deserve it.”

Hadley pressed a cool towel to his cheek and another to the side of his head. “Did you really try to kill her?”

Theo laughed what little he could manage. “No. I would never.”

“Then what?” She rested her arm across his chest as she held the cloth to his face.

Theo didn’t know what to say. His head swam with pain and grogginess, and he wasn’t allowed to disclose anything about CPI. “I messed up and she got hurt. It was never my intention to hurt her—” He realized then he would pay for that mistake, over and over and over again, for the rest of his life.

“That’s good.” Hadley smiled. She leaned in and whispered as if telling a secret. “It’ll just piss her off.”

“And everyone else.”

Hadley laughed, her attractive features vibrant and warm.

She was nothing like the people he expected to find outside society. Drug addicts, criminals, deviants and derelicts, sure. But Hadley? Never.

“Can I ask how you got here?”

“Uh, sure. It’s not really a secret or anything.” By the way her smile faded and her tone became serious, Theo knew he should have kept his curiosities to himself. “My parents were Scholars. I was dating this guy, you know, one of those super hot, dreamy types. His name was Declan. I mean, seriously.
Declan
. Hot right? He was a painter, surrealist with acrylic. He was the best. He planned to go Artisan and was going to go with him. My parents caught us making out and reported him. Said he raped me, which never happened. But it didn’t matter. No one wanted me after that.” She adjusted the cool cloth on his cheek.

Theo’s mind spun. “They reported him so you wouldn’t go Artisan?”

“Yeah. I guess it worked.” She laughed a little at the irony.

“I’m sorry.” He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Hadley shrugged. “Sometimes it bothers me, but mostly I’m glad.”

Theo’s head was worse off than he imagined. He was pretty sure she just said she was glad her parents filed a false report that sent her to the underground. Theo was hardly close with his parents, but he was sure they would never do something like that.

“I had a good friend, brilliant mathematician. He went Artisan so he could be with his boyfriend. He was a painter, too.” Theo didn’t know why he decided to share that with her. Maybe it was his head. Either way, it felt better to get it out there.

“That’s awesome. You should be really proud of him.” Hadley’s smile lit up the room.

Theo nodded. “Yeah, I am.” He hadn’t put it all together right way, but now that he’d seen both sides, he was glad Nate defected. And he was incredibly proud. If only he could tell him that.

“I hate the class system. It’s not fair that some people belong and others don’t. That your friend had to choose between his career and his boyfriend. That can’t be the way it works.” Hadley adjusted the cool rag on his cheek. Her lips were tense with thought.

“I guess I don’t really know. I wasn’t a very good Scholar.” Though of all people, he had a better chance at Scholar success than anyone.

Hadley shook her head. “I wonder if anyone is. I mean, it’s so rigid. You have to do everything just the way they say. You can’t even pick who you want to marry. They control everything. They control the kids you have. I think most Scholars are fakes. Just pretending to go along with it.”

Theo couldn’t help but wonder if that were true. Were his parents pretending? He didn’t think so, but it wasn’t as if he knew them very well.

Hadley pulled the cloth away. “You’ll have a pretty good bruise here.” She touched his cool cheek with gentle fingertips.

“It’s all right.”

“No, it’s not. He shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have either. You know she’s never brought a guy home before?” Hadley wiggled her eyebrow at her own gossip.

“You said that Rowen guy lives here.” Theo had the distinct impression that Rowen considered Mable to be aligned with him, though he didn’t know to what degree.

“Only after she—” Hadley paused a moment. “I guess he thought that’s what she would want.”

“She takes care of you?”

Hadley smiled. “Yeah.”

Theo would never have thought of Mable that way. The human cactus exterior was quickly becoming less prickly.

“Think you can sit up?” Hadley pulled her arm off his chest and waited.

He tried to push up to sitting but felt his head swirl, or maybe it was the room.

“It’s okay. Just lay down for a while.” Hadley looked at the cloth in her hand and stood after a moment. “I should go tell her you’re up.”

Theo reached out and grabbed her hand. “You don’t have to.”

SUBTERRANEAN CHICAGO, NORTH AMERICA

AUGUST 30, 2232

Rowen’s feet were loud on the cave floor. His fists flew without purpose. He was sloppy.

He was angry.

Mable could hear his breath, heavier than usual. When he drew near enough to strike, it was easy to avoid him.

“Are you going to tell me the truth?” A punch flew well over her shoulder.

Mable ducked and kicked his leg hard enough to throw off his balance. “I didn’t lie.”

“You’re still not telling me the truth. Where have you been?”

“I told you, a research facility.” It was half the truth anyway. She didn’t want to lie to him, but she couldn’t tell him much more than that.

Rowen stopped moving. “Why’d you even bother coming back?” She couldn’t see him leave, but she heard his steps growing ever distant.

He’d never lost a match. And he’d certainly never walked away in the middle of one. And here it was, their last one, maybe the last time she’d ever see him, and he walked away?

Mable wasn’t going to have any of that.

She trotted down the tunnel after him. He was well into the light from the central cavern by the time she caught up to him. “Hey!” she shouted but he kept stomping away.

“Rowen!” Mable ran up and pulled at his arm, spinning him around to face her.

She didn’t expect him to snatch her arm and grip it hard. He pushed her back against the irregular stone wall so fast and hard the impact shook her.

Rowen held her arm in front of her face. He was too strong for her to even budge. “Where are your tattoos?” he growled.

“I got them removed,” she snapped back.

“You’re still lying to me.”

“No, I’m not! I had them removed.” She didn’t see why he was arguing about it. They could both see her fresh, new skin where ink had once been.

“I’m not stupid. I know how much those treatments cost. You expect me to believe you got hired at a facility? And on top of that they paid for expensive treatments for tattoos?” His jaw was clenched and angry. He refused to look her in the eye.

Rowen threw her arm at her in disgust. His hand reached under her shirt and pulled the fabric up. She tried to fight him, to keep herself covered, but he managed to get her entire torso into the light. More fresh skin exposed.

Rowen shoved her against the wall and walked away.

“This is some government bullshit,” he said to no one as he left.

She couldn’t let him leave like this.

“Okay, fine. It’s government bullshit.”

Rowen stopped on a dime and turned to face her, his features pained and angry. She’d never seen him so pissed off.

“It’s some government bullshit I can’t tell you a thing about without putting you in danger. I’m not going to do that, so don’t ask me. I’ve told you as much as I can.” Mable glared, angry and hurt.

“Why?” His voice was barely under control.

“They were going to take Hadley. It was me or her. I had to pick. What was I supposed to do?”

Her heart hammered in her chest as he neared. When he was close enough to feel the heat of his breath, his voice was quiet. “Why didn’t you just tell me? You know me.” He leaned in still closer, his hip pressed against hers. “
You know me
.”

Mable felt the tears well up, unwanted and betraying.

But Rowen was right. He was utterly, and entirely right. He was one of the few people she could trust, really trust. He didn’t deserve her secrecy.

He must have seen the tears in her eyes, so unlike her. His hand was cupped around the back of her head in an instant as he pulled her against his chest.

“You scared the shit out of me,” he whispered into her ear.

“I didn’t mean to,” she squeaked out. “I tried to get a message to you.”

“I don’t want to lose you. If you’re in trouble, you need to tell me. I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.” His free arm wrapped around behind her and held her entire frame against his.

Warm. Comforting. Protected.

Temporary.

Mable put her hand against his chest and pushed away. “You can’t help me. I need you to watch out for Hadley.” She looked up as he nodded. She needed to know he would do it.

“How long?” He refused to let her go.

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie to me. How long?”

“I don’t know when I’m coming back.”

Rowen kissed her then, when she least expected it. They’d kissed a thousand times, mostly in the early months of her stint at the Root. But this one was different.

That didn’t stop her from giving in, from sliding against him and giving him that moment. Her pulse pounded in her ears. He was strong as always, and a mind-blowingly good kisser. Her hands crept around and pulled at his neck, urging him on when she knew she shouldn’t.

She wanted more, and that was enough to make her push away.

He could have stopped her, he could have forced her, but he didn’t. He let her create that distance between them.

“You don’t have to go back. You can stay.” He kissed her lips again, light and slow this time.

Mable shook her head, harder than she needed to.

“I’ll protect you. You know I can.”

“It’s not that.” She turned away from him.

“Then what?”

“I want to go back.”

Rowen stepped back as if she’d slapped him.

“You don’t understand—”

“You’re right. I don’t.” Rowen huffed an angry breath, turning his fist in his hand. Then he looked up with a steady gaze. “But if that’s what you want, then I won’t argue.”

Mable lunged at him and wrapped her arms around his neck, squeezing him hard. It felt good to be close to him, to have his undeserved support. It made her question going back more than anything else.

She didn’t want to let go, but somehow she did.

Rowen slipped his strong hand around hers. “You’ll be safe?”

She nodded. Arrenstein would make sure of it.

“You’ll come back when you can?”

She nodded again, knowing it could very well be the rest of her life.

“Damn May.” Rowen kicked at the soil. “I love you. Did you know that?”

She did. Of course she did. He’d never put it to words, but she knew it. Mable leaned in and kissed his cheek. It had been a very long time since anyone had said that to her.

But love is crooked. She couldn’t be what he wanted. She couldn’t be that for anyone.

Every moment of delay was another moment of pain for him. She couldn’t stay. It would only hurt him more to pretend that she could.

Mable slipped her hand from his and walked back to get Theo. Her time in the Root was over.