The jab to the stomach made him flinch. It was something deep and visceral that flickered impending darkness. Instinct clamped down on her finger, the other to her shoulder. It wasn’t a hard jerk of the arm. Just enough to grab attention. Finally, the humor broke through and he grinned.
“That tickled,” and he returned in like kind.
“Let’s just hope your family keeps trickling the coin. I have an open invitation to join the world tour of HUNKS any time, but I really hate to have to get a job right now.” He grinned through a finger-snap hip thrust motion. Probably unlikely to really get the job after the scars were added. Though maybe he could pass it off as some kind of bizarre tribal tattoo pattern. Maybe that could be his shtick? Eh. Well. Thoughts for another time.
He purposefully avoided glancing too much at the diner when they loaded up the truck. He still had the gun taken from the school. A plastic take-out bag that previously hauled food was the only sort of luggage, which Jay dropped into the floor board as they rolled out. A few people milled about the parking lot, but there was no sign of police. Though from the look of a pair of guys exchanging goods under the motel sign, he was pretty sure police should have confiscated whatever just passed between them.
The border was approached in the evening, about an hour before dusk. Jay hadn’t planned on crossing today, preferring the blare of bright light to show the way. Nor did he want to roam around the other side of the border after nightfall, but it was better than sleeping another night with his own demons. Natalie could only chase away so many. Jay was ready to detonate the rest of them.
The border itself consisted of a high wall lined with barbed wire fence at the top. The road plunged straight through. Buildings and funnels required every car to progress in a slow moving line. Tech screened the vehicles for anything stolen, unregistered, or out of the ordinary. Strike one against their progress. Armed border agents roamed through all the vehicles, taking samples and verifying identity. Anyone flagged by either government may get tagged and dragged away for questioning. Strike two. Then there were border crossing fees, and Natalie was not an American citizen. Strike three.
He stopped the truck ahead of their approach to the border, and thumbed the wheel thoughtfully. Illegal crossings would take days to organize. Days they didn’t have.
“Think we can ride one last miracle off your name? I doubt a discharged Marine American citizen and a Custody Ambassador can just pass through on a smile. Try it and work plan B if it goes south?”
He seized the power and squinted in the distance, but the border agents weren’t patrolling in the typical way. He frowned and translated in case she couldn’t see the same he could. Then he gasped. ”There’s something going on. They’re closing the border.”
Sure enough, cars were rerouted off the passageway and began to turn back. The wall gates were sealed. Some kind of silver-plated border patrol chief exited the building, consulted with the patrol agent in charge a moment, and were quickly flanked by armed junior agents that took up a watch along the American side of the border facing outward. Jay heard the blare of sirens before seeing any approach, and he twisted in time to see a convoy of Texan national guard and state police.
That’s when he realized what was going on. “Well fuck me. The state is taking over the border from the feds.” Eyes flared wide, he had the strong urge to draw a hat low over the brow.
He exited the truck, moving slow but steady. Hiding and acting suspicious would only draw attention he didn’t want at the time. They weren’t the only witnesses. Some from the previous line of cars at the crossing had paused nearby to also watch. The smarter folks got the hell out of dodge.
”If this conflict sparks, we’ll have a chance to get through, but it’ll be hot. How’s your channeling? Remember the hospital in Sierra Leone? It’ll be like that, but way worse. Formally trained fighting forces are coming to conflict. If federal agents die today, Texas may find themselves at war.”
A war that would be bloody and pricy for both sides. Thrice and Amengual were partners somehow. On the other side of that wall, were the Mexican border patrol agents readying to ally with the state police? The force could easily be strong enough to take the federal agents captive, but shit, were they smart enough to lay down their arms without a fight? They were sworn to protect the border at all costs, but did that include protecting it from a state in the union?
He thought quickly. Pieces plunking into place. Among the unholy alliance of Governor Thrice and Zacarias Amengual, Texas and Mexico would have to work together to make this new nation powerful enough to succeed. And in the middle of this wildfire was a Custody rod of dominion, a channeler, a soldier, and an American who wanted nothing but decimate Amengual. If that happened, Thrice would have total control uncontested. Assuming the other cartels didn’t rise up in Amengual’s place. She could rally them against the Custody as the killer of their great lord. If he killed Amengual, he was effectively giving two nations to a mad woman.
If he didn’t. Cayli’s death. The slaughter of untold children. And a psychopath would go free. He would win.
His fists clenched only a moment before they slammed into the hood of the truck. The thud of metal clanged his ears as the national guard convoy rolled into an offensive position ahead of the border wall.
“Let’s go,” he spoke quiet. Cool. Despite what raged within.
“No,” was all she said. Not a terrible plan in usual circumstances, but at best it would take too long, and at worst her family’s name was little more than a liability for now. Her mother had shifted mountains to extract her from Sierra Leone while her grandfather’s hands remained publically tied, and his contact now reeked of political pressure. She was in trouble, most certainly; but more than that, having failed to return Jay into Custody possession, the onus would fall on him as DVII’s Patron to correct the omission and reassure loyalty. What action it might push him to she was unsure, the message from his office still quite purposefully unacknowledged, but it was a complication they didn’t need to invite early by announcing their location. Not that Jay was aware of any of that, of course. “I haven’t spoken to them since the flight out here. It’s probably best my name doesn’t flag up anywhere until after this is finished. Or yours.”
She didn’t choose to elaborate. If Jay really thought Brandon would sanction assasination for the reasons he’d said, they wouldn’t still be running. But she didn’t correct the lie he told himself. Negotiating passage south risked playing by rules they’d already cast to the wind, but it wasn’t just that making her reluctant.
She never allowed herself to finish the thought, though.
Jay leaned to peer past the cars lined up ahead, and though Natalie followed his gaze she did not pull in the power it would take to see or hear what he described. The narration was enough. She’d told him in passing what little Jensen had shared of Jessika’s plans, and given the woman’s chosen bedfellow the prospect of violence in order to secure the joint territory was not especially surprising -- if unwelcome.
The convoy sped by in a wail of sirens. Ahead, cars were being turned aside, jamming the road. Their timing couldn’t be worse, but the precariousness had to offer some kind of advantage.
Jay’s stark reminder of Africa intruded like a chill scraped right along the bone, unexpectedly potent, perhaps because her mind had been so far away from the past. Her narrowed gaze, which had been contemplating the border crossing, pierced sickeningly inwards instead, but it was the embassy steps she remembered; how her heart had pounded the way it suddenly did now. Alone, the power failed her; left her for dead in the collapsed and burning foyer, and though much had changed since then it was all remarkably untested. She massaged the insides of her scarred wrists as she got out of the truck. “I guess we’ll see.”
She was human, and fear pinched harder than she anticipated in the wake of his warning; a reality she hadn’t chosen to confront, and a fear she hadn’t allowed herself to realise. Natalie wasn’t a soldier; she had never pretended to be. Her jaw hardened, though she predictably said little. She glanced at another dent left in yet another car bonnet, but she didn’t comment on the frustration, or the ugly rear of his temper either.
Now toss a bomb into the middle of it. What do you think will happen?
“Do you think it’s you or me who’s the bad luck?” Her words were dry as the landscape, and she didn’t seek an answer, not least because she didn’t believe in luck. Her pale gaze took in the problem ahead as she reached to knot her hair behind her head. Anxiety was neatly hidden beneath the mask of her expression. She followed, her fingers reaching to press against his, just a light and fleeting touch, the sweep of her thumb against his like a touchstone. She rather doubted he would find any comfort in that; he pulled away more often than he didn’t, but it steadied her against the sense of walking into the fire rather than escaping from it. There was no one to rescue at the end of it this time, but she knew why she was here. Even as they headed closer to the centre of this storm, she wouldn’t forget it.
“Stupid things you shouldn’t be considering include exacerbating this, Jay. How many of those men end up dying just to facilitate a diversion?” He’d find her expression set in steel, stubborn, and expecting him to bite back. But she wouldn’t allow him to add that burden to either of their shoulders in pursuit of vengeance -- to flirt with sparking a civil war. That would not be Cayli’s legacy, Natalie would assure it. Neither was she Jacques Danjou, to accept any means to the desired end. Jay had been there at the refinery. She wouldn’t bend for this.
But shouts already grew like sparks on dry kindling. The power drew in with a breath, and suddenly the sound up ahead was shrill. She flinched at the first peppering of gunfire from the soldiers.
The pop of gunfire struck the air, and Jay’s pace quickened forward. Always one to run into a fight, so the instinct felt right. “It’s definitely you who’s the back luck!” he grinned morbidly over his shoulder even as he pulled her along by the hand. If only to ensure he didn’t lose her along the way. There was no other way than plunge straight toward the gate. The wall extended both directions all the way to the horizon with checkpoints sporadically placed in key border towns. They would all be guarded just the same, and by the time another one was reached, the situation may be in full lockdown. At least now they had one small advantage: chaos. Through the storm would run two people, one of which had zero business doing anything of the sort.
The power surged him into a sharp twang of focus and thrill even as his legs pulsed with the heat of a hard run. Dust kicked up behind their footsteps. He thought frantically, trying to come up with a plan in the next ten seconds. The dust stung his eyes as a breeze of wind whirled it into their faces. Then he thought of it.
The power flowed and the dust swept hard and fast into the air. Texas was famous for dust-storms. It swirled outward from them, crashing like a wave over the combatants. They would have goggles, but the surprise and lack of visibility bought them enough time to get close. The gunfire stopped momentarily as both sides regrouped. A small squad of national guardsman noticed their approach, their sergeant pointing at them. In the moment, Jay let the dust fall aside long enough to hurl an earth grenade at the sergeant’s feet. The guardsman yelled and all four jumped aside for cover as rocks rained down on their heads. The bits were no bigger than hail. They shouldn’t be injured, especially with their helmets.
He pulled his arm up by his eyes, shielding from the sting of a reinvigorated dust storm, forcing his way through to the wall. He hoped Natalie was hiding in the shade of his back, but unless she brought sunglasses, her eyes were probably as vulnerable as his. He tried to sweep the air clean around them, but with the focus split between that and the wall itself, chaos ensued.
At the base of the wall, looming some 30 feet overhead, he frowned upward. It was made of round bars thick as tree-trunks with concrete toppers. “Watch my back,” he called to Natalie. The orders of guardsman and agents lifted through the wind, closer than he liked, but he was going to be completely vulnerable for a few moments. If he split any more flows, he’d kill himself in the attempt.
He put his palms to the wall, lowered his head and focused harder and fiercer than on anything before. It was exhilarating. The power flowed like the sun. He thought it was going to burn the skin from the inside out, but where Placaso’s pincers ached torture, this was horrible delight.
After a few moments, the bars began to glow red hot, then burst away outward in an explosion of force. The hole smoked around the edges. “There’ll be an enforcement zone on the other side. A dead man’s zone, followed by chain link fence patrolled on the Mexico side. We have to hurry.”
He was sweating profusely. Thirst ached his throat dry, but the thought barely settled before it dissipated away in the searing heat of the power. The dust storm raged on, and he wished for the gear he once wore as special forces. For practical things, like visors, and for looking fucking badass.
He grinned with the verge of triumph and tried to climb through the hole.
Every instinct recoiled from the gunfire, the leering ghosts summoned by his warning reigniting memory of the chaos and heat and fear. But Jay captured hold of the fingers she’d brushed against his and intended to let go, and pulled her on. Ice flooded the brief cracks in composure, or maybe the flippancy of his humour realigned something knocked askew. It was that grin; the one she sometimes wondered if she would follow to the very pits of hell. Maybe.
She ran.
Soon after the wind rose, stinging sharp and sudden on unseen tendrils of power, or so she assumed. Grit burned Natalie’s lungs as visibility abruptly pitched to static. She pulled her jacket up over her nose, burying a cough and squinting ahead as her pace slowed. Would a shield of air be enough to stop the ballistic impact of a bullet even if she could figure out how to keep it moving around them? For now she concentrated on keeping up. Power pulsed like a second heartbeat, a thin skin of comfort, but Jay was the lighthouse upon which she navigated.
It thrilled him, she realised, when they finally stood in the wall’s shadow. It felt familiar, that search for exhilaration, though this was not the kind of danger in which Natalie had ever thought to look. Probably it was only the light-robbing storm that for a moment made him seem swathed throat to ankle in black.
To his order she didn’t say anything, just touched his arm in acknowledgement that she was still there, and turned out to watch the storm. Loose hair lashed her cheeks beneath the curve of her hands. Disembodied voices curled up in the wind, barking orders that even her power-tuned ears could not pick clean. Shadows darkened and wavered through the screen of dust, though she didn’t turn to warn Jay. Heat singed her back for whatever he did to the wall, and she’d felt the elastic snap of a weave interrupted before. Light she didn’t want to contemplate what loss of concentration might do now, with something like that.
Her heart pounded, but it was with an eerie calm now. Shivers prickled her sweat-sheened skin. If bullets rained through she was not convinced she could protect them, but the squint of her pale eyes did not break from the blurred landscape. The power threaded from her, building a tapestry around them; something old blended with something experimental. It had been imperfect last time; ricocheting her head off the wall and knocking her out cold. She did not think of the twisted bodies left in its wake back then, instead armouring herself with the knowledge that she knew more of its workings now as she pulled the threads into place around them. A precaution, not an intention. The voices grew closer. Too close. She half closed her eyes, counting her breaths while she waited for Jay to finish carving their path through.
But the pressure of her weave released a little before it was ready, and before she’d intended. Which in fact she hadn’t.
As the bars of the wall exploded, the air slashed out in a vicious arc around them. The sand whooshed outwards for a second before Jay’s storm danced back into the empty space with a frenzy, and a few grunts and cries sounded close by as men lost their balance to the buffeting sweep. The force of the recoil knocked her a hard step back. Natalie kept her feet but hit the edges of the hot metal, sinking her teeth hard into her lip to bite off a scream as she pushed herself off it. Pain sparked her vision white, but she’d probably only won them seconds. She caught the edges of Jay’s grin as he pushed through the hole, and she followed, though her shoulder protested in sharp agony. The edges of the metal sheened like smooth glass now, and she half stumbled out the other end, the ground bracing her a sweet second before she pushed herself up. Dizziness lingered, but with the storm it wasn’t likely noticed.
When she turned the power flooded her fresh, plucking at more unfamiliar threads; harder and thicker, more difficult to coax and guide. The earth rumbled sluggishly, and her jaw tensed, concentration warring with the throb of her injury. It was something she’d seen Pavlo do, though not how; pinning her in spikes of stone after she’d slashed the straps holding her down. The memory drained her cold, banished deep. Marcus’s app informed what instinct did not, but it was rushed work. An inelegant stump of earth thrust to cover their path, should anyone seek to follow. Unlikely, with the raging gunfire. Not worth the chance, though.
She turned to find Jay, disorientated now with the way everything twisted in the wind. Her throat burned raw. Halfway there. Chainlink had sounded a less arduous reprieve five minutes ago, but she could not even see it through the swirling dust, and a bullet was still a bullet. The sun was sinking lower, burning the world up in flames. She twisted, and realised that in that brief moment she’d lost her direction, and Jay.
After a few steps of dust stinging his eyes, and some unsavory language to go along with the pain, Jay finally wizened up and adjusted the flows to the swirls swept
away from their faces.
Genius move, dumbass. He rubbed his face with his sleeve, smearing the dust and grit into what was a previously freshly showered man, albeit likely all the more rugged and handsome by the look, and glanced over his shoulder to gesture Natalie do the same.
Except. Natalie wasn’t there.
He called her name. Careful to keep his bearings as he searched in 360. He was once dropped into a nasty storm in a storm with a 70 lb kit and a water suit and told to swim to a “nearby” boat half-mile away. In the dark. With nothing but a lamp bobbing on the waves to sight by. Talk about keeping your orientation. Now
that was fucking fun. He could drop the dusty devil, and risk being sighted. This was their only advantage. Chaos and obscurity.
“Natalie!” he called out, just in case she was within earshot, but his voice was swallowed up by the wind. The same wind swept away any kind of footprint he may have used.
Backward he went, and the power flexed at the need. He couldn’t see through walls, but the power lashed anyway, like ropes flung blindly into the night, hoping to catch hold of something. He kept count of the paces backward, jogging left or right, then forward and back again to avoid losing track of his orientation. Precious seconds were ticking by. He almost ran her down when they found each other. His heartrate did not slow, though the power ropes curled up and died as their fuel no longer fed. The storm went on, though. He held out a hand and this time, grasped hers with the kind of grip that would not let go.
The chain link was easy work to slice. Hell, it was mangled already from previous attempts never repaired. The storm was thickest in the dead-man zone behind them. They’d wandered off course a tad, but given the wayward path across, it hadn’t been a straight shot. Close enough, he nodded and tugged her along. The Rio Grande coursed nearby, caught in a million tiny flames under the dying sun. Luckily, there’d been no need to wade across a river that drowned more than a fair share of decent swimmer. Under different circumstances, Jay would have tried to conquer it himself, but dripping wet outsiders wandering the streets? They may as well have put signs around their necks that read:
don’t belong, which was exactly the opposite effect he wanted. Nuevo Laredo after dark was not where he wanted to attract attention. Not that he was worried about being unable to handle it, but rather, he didn’t want to have to.
After crossing a street and navigating some concrete barricades, he turned to focus on the dust storm behind them a moment. He let the winds die over the course of about a minute so it seemed natural, or at least, a little bit natural. The conspiracy theorists would have fun with it. They’d find the hole in the wall on the next check, and hopefully render it a consequence of the storm.
He breathed a sigh of relief when it was over, and looked around to orient himself to their location. He memorized maps like the back of his hand to calculate their best chances at any given moment, but having never intended on doing this on foot, re-calibrating his own internal head took at least two or three seconds.
On the left was the abandoned lot. Old concrete blocks and other broken bits littered a patch of ground. The lights of a grocery store flickered on the right. Walled off houses, trees limp from the day’s heat, and random mounds of dirt filled in the rest. He nodded and angled a flick of the fingers rather professionally in a specific direction before they continued. This was a mission. At least the kind someone with his sort of training should be able to navigate. Much better than the kind that landed him in that basement tied to that chair. Pincers digging into his skin. Water dripping in the silence. His stomach started to turn and he rubbed his forehead as they half-jogged forward. This was not a good time to start down that inward path. Instead, he started counting things to keep the map in his head accurate. Houses. Then allies. Then intersections. He glanced at street signs as they went, remembering and documenting. A guard dog chased them down the inside of a rusty fence, snarling and vicious with its warning snaps on the grate. More streets. Two this way. Three that way. He was already thirsty and he hated to think how Natalie was doing. She’d make it. She was tough. They were well-rested. Well. Not
that well-rested, he thought with a smirk.
He paused in the shade of a two-story building that was literally hollowed out, wall-less on the second floor. The first was occupied by closed up garage bays. The only windows were covered with massive steel bars. A glance at the script painted on the concrete told him what he needed:
trato directo.
”It says 'deal direct',” he explained, pointing out the advertisement. It was a place that rented vehicles. '
Carros, vans, pick ups'. Spanglish more than Spanish. That worked out well for him. Jay was better with the former than the latter.
He looked both directions before going to the door. Also barred up. It was dark inside, but no hours were posted anywhere. Just in case, he tried the handle, and the door came freely in the pull. It was a little surprising, but with a shrug, he glanced at Natalie.
“How’s your Spanish?” he asked and plunged inward.
They entered an empty room. Smoke hung on the humid air, but Jay wouldn’t let himself cough. There was a couch and a tv with scrambled screen playing on mute. A tray of burned out joints explained the smell. Remnants of food and other filth were scattered about.
“Hola?” Jay called. From the back, a man’s voice responded.
“¿Quién es?” There were some muffled noises followed by a question,
“¿Ramón?”
Jay chose not to answer until he knew what they were dealing with. Meanwhile, he put on his best mean-face and held his ground.
A man seeming in his mid-fifties appeared on the threshold. A black and gray scruff covered his jaw, and over a large gut was tied the sling of stained track pants.
He looked Jay up and down, but his eyes were glassy from the joints. He didn’t seem impressed. He asked again,
“¿Ramón?” and Jay was willing to make a wager.
He nodded.
The man snorted, but when he turned to grab a bag from under a counter, he finally noticed the blonde angel in their company. The bag slumped with the weight of bound up bills, and a flick of the power kicked it over just enough to see the contents start to topple out. Hundreds. The odds of his wager were leaning in their favor, though he had a feeling the risk was going to be high.
The things the middle-man drug dealer said to Natalie next, Jay was not interested in translating. Suffice to say, he had to fight his jaw tensing and punching the asshole into the next room, but he wasn’t sure yet if Ramón was the deliverer of goods, money, or both. Either way, when the fucker dropped a pair of keys on the table alongside the money, Jay seriously considered slicing his head off and leaving with the first car in the bay. But as that would go against his motto about attracting attention, ‘Ramón’ had to play along.
He hated to do it, but he let a leering smile cut his lips that joined their patron in a rather offensive suckling sound followed by an upward waggling of the fingers. A flash of his eyes begging her forgiveness was the only warning before he grabbed her crotch. The dealer watched with a hungry sling to his jaw and a jerk of his dick, and Jay shoved her aside hard enough to stumble.
The men laughed, and Jay hated how easily the aggression came. His stomach was knots. Maybe he should just kill the fucker and get it over with.
Somehow, he didn't break the man's neck, but his head was swimming as he tried to keep up with the foreign exchange. The dealer rattled off a string of instructions, but Jay only nodded along. They were shown to a four-cylinder automatic car with tears in the seats and rust on the doors. The engine was good enough, the dealer assured among other things. Jay wasn’t really able to catch all of what was said anyway, but he accepted the keys and bag of cash on the promise to deliver it. Until a phrase pulled hooks in his brain.
“… el banquero.” The dealer said again.
Recognizing the name of the banker almost made not killing the asshole worth it.
As soon as they were off, Jay smacked at the console with more anger than was going to fix a broken air conditioner. The windows were rolled down but sweat still sheened his whole body despite the night air. Somehow, it was still too hot.
“He just told us how to find Amengual’s banker,” Jay spoke to the awkward quiet.
Finally, amid the swirl of an internal map, implications of what they were walking into, and the guilt that was nearly blinding him of the ability to drive, Jay spoke quietly.
“I’m so sorry,” he said, hands gripping tight to the wheel. If he could pry his fingers off, he would have put them to his heart.
On its own, his hand grazed absently at the leg only to brush upward sadly.
Hilt to heart.
They might not survive this.
That wasn’t a new thought; the crashing tides since the storm of their first meeting rarely calmed enough for softer waves, only brief lulls before greater storms. Still, it was the first time she had really confronted the possibility since Texas. She watched the shadows zip by the window, listening to the city's ominous night noises, not remotely convinced they were even safe in the car. It seemed a world away from the motel on the other side of the border, and even that had hardly been tasteful. Africa had had places like this; places steeped in darkness, especially for a woman. The sorts of ghosts the Jasiri compound was built on, and yet she still hadn't been prepared.
Jay was utterly silent, and gripping the wheel as though perhaps the power rippled his skin under the tracery of his scars. Maybe it did. Either way, Natalie did not disturb him.
She eased her fingers against her scalp, unfastening the knot of her hair and letting it fall loose. Grit and sand clung, and it was insufferably hot even with the windows rolled down. The jacket slipped from her shoulders with a nauseating tug against the wound there, blanching the edges of her vision for a slightly dizzying moment. Its throb was a consistent touchstone, but the shoulder moved fine. She didn’t test it against the seat by leaning back though, which was just as well considering the grim condition of the car. Jay wouldn't see the injury, not with the way his knuckles strained, nor with the angle she was sitting. She did not mean him to either. Meanwhile her hand flared against the stream of air from outside, dry as a furnace.
His silences didn’t usually bother her, but it cut now.
No small part of her wanted to curl her palm overtop his fingers until she felt the tension in them ease. It wasn’t from any particular desire to bestow forgiveness, though she was worried he might construe it as such -- and that the brittle blow of such a misunderstanding might only hasten the spread of cracks, until he shattered. He couldn't afford to break now, and Natalie wasn’t armoured for that kind of meaningless comfort. The desperate flash in Jay’s eyes, begging for understanding before his demeanour snapped, was not likely to relinquish the burn it left on her retina any time soon. Nor the bruising touch; that kind of pain left a legacy of its own, but not so painful as how the violence tightened in him, the blade of it trained on her. Even for artifice. It made her feel sick.
Yet Natalie wasn’t fragile. She did not follow blindly. And she’d chosen to be here, with all it might entail.
Sometimes she wondered if Jay ever allowed himself to consider just why she’d taken his hand at the facility when it was fresh from squeezing the trigger into the skulls of a schoolyard full of children. Though no, that wasn’t true. She knew he would not, for he only lied to himself.
She knew why, though, and she’d carry that reason for the both of them.
Her attention shifted as the apology tumbled raw from his throat. For a moment there was a very dry remark cut to the shape of her tongue; an instinctual flippancy, cruelly humoured. It was likely to be the least of his sins before they were through, after all, and he knew at least a little of the ghosts already trailing in her wake. This hardly numbered among them.
The absent nature of the gesture that followed quietened her though. The sadness in it. Her pale eyes followed it like she followed the pattern of his soul.
Of all the things he might have apologised for, this was one assuredly down the list. The horror he glimpsed of himself hurt him more than she ever could, and she didn’t choose to do that anyway, but her clemency might be but another shovelful of grave dirt on his chest, widening the crevice between them. It suggested blame she did not feel, not for this. Neither could she quite ignore his pain though, drifting unmoored and pulling her in its wake. “Jay.” The way she said his name had a softness of breath to it, like it echoed deeper. As he previously fought to yank her from the chaos of the sandstorm, hers was a softer search. She was curiously open, like the trail of his hand held wide a brief passageway, and she did reach out despite better judgement. To the fingers that grabbed her like meat, and tossed her aside. The same ones that soothed the hair at her temples and traced fire against her skin hours before. The ones that seemed to brush his heart now. “I know who you are.”
One act didn’t erase the other, not in one moment like that. She couldn’t offer absolution; wouldn’t even if she thought he would accept it. But her thumb traced the peaks and valleys of a familiar landscape like the first steps on a journey home, and what she did offer was surer than platitudes.
He was a careless driver at the best of times, but she released his hand after a moment, a little reluctantly. He had her attention now; a better focus than tallying what might wait ahead, and her truest sense of north for all his doubt. A soft brush at his shoulder clouded a little of the sandstorm’s debris. She knew she didn’t look much better. “You seem to have been right about the bad luck,” she said, not accepting a lapse back to silence. Not that he could have prevented her presence even had he tried, but she recognised the complication she presented. Fearlessness did not make a soldier of her, and at worst she compromised him. The strange flare of his honour pulled at the endearment warming her chest, but she hated watching it chip and tarnish for the ways he couldn’t protect her. Just as she wouldn’t offer him forgiveness, though, she didn’t ask for his either: they pursued this path together.
She shifted a little, trying to find a comfortable way to rest her weight. The connection sought wasn’t relinquished easily now, nor did she want to let it loose as she usually might. They’d reach the next obstacle soon enough, but until then she would steady their passage. Her gaze travelled his profile. “Do you remember what you said to me back at the barn?” Probably not. But his words had held a weight of confession she hadn’t acknowledged at the time, too wrapped up in the sting of her own wounds to appreciate how difficult he found it to share his own. She’d misread him a thousand times, and been misread in return. Now she reflected on how many times and in how many ways she had seen him question himself; the good man he endlessly tried and failed to find in his reflection, because his was the well-intentioned march that probably ended in hell. And it was true he was rash. He did good things for bad reasons, and bad ones for good; not callous enough to shake off all the guilt and just enough of a decent man to think it meant him undeserving of good things in his life. Or at least the good things he really wanted.
The duality of him found no middle ground; it never had, not before he sipped under again.
She recognised the self-destructive nature of his path, and imagined he called it self-sacrifice instead, when he lied to himself about his reasons for letting things go. That had smarted, more than once. Yet its root familiarity curled tendrils through her own restless life, for different reasons. If Natalie was reckless it was because nothing pulled her back from it, or nothing she chose to honour. Not her family. Not Aaron. Certainly not the Custody. For her the void was vast, and in it she sought for something she never found. Or doubted when she did, until it burned to cinders in her grasp as this nearly had more times than she preferred to admit.
It burned sometimes still, if she was honest, but she’d discovered she could not let go either.
She didn’t much like the power he had to wound her, suspecting something eventually quite fatal in the way the promise of his grin always sparked like life inside her, tugging her in a direction that always led back to him. That was not a new thought either, but the burden of now finally weighed heavy enough for her to allow herself to feel it. There might not be a chance later, if Jay spent himself on this vengeance until the man who gripped the wheel and sought forgiveness was extinguished in the mountain of his guilt. Not that she ever meant to allow it to happen. She wasn’t sure when that decision had become a resolution, hard and stubborn as the steel of her spine. It seemed knotted to the ties of her own soul sometimes.
“About your life back then being too peaceful,” she clarified softly. It was something that resonated in her on a bone-sharp level, a life clawed ever short of fulfilment despite the rich things in it. The melody beat in him as strongly as she felt it pump the blood in her own aching chest. She’d shut him out at the time, angry that he’d shielded her from honesty she’d wanted to hear, and spitefully resistant to the truth he chose instead. She’d heard, though. How he’d confessed it like shame; the family abandoned, the life left behind. "Perhaps I'm your payment for that sin.” A bare smirk curved her lips. The morbid twist of her humour sought a twin flame in him, the same way she sometimes sought the briefest touch of his fingers against hers; both touchstones in their own way, and each footholds, too, in the cliff-face she had resolutely climbed down despite every attempt she had made to back away from the edge. No heady rush this time, no free fall like drifting back into the arms of the sea. Yet still, the same place.
There was a devilish glint in her eye, but more warmth than others ever got to see, if he cared to look. “For I think you must be mine.”
A brow rose, though by the way she said it, it did not seem he was punishment to her at all. Such was the manner of her affection that a seeming insult could be anything but. Her expression softened, a smile as rare and fleeting as shooting stars upon an ocean vista. She shot such confessions into the wind with irreverence, and it was reckless slivers of soul woven to the arrows. Foolish to give him another weapon, but he’d find his arsenal quite full already. And even at her truest, that wicked gleam was not far. Her gaze flickered to the bag of dirty money then. “Although it could have been a worse fate for you, I suppose. You could have ended up a Wall Street banker instead.”
He clearly remembered that day at the barn, and it almost brought tears to his eyes. Dust. Dust from the street, obviously. Not thinking about burning down the last, sad fringes of a life he escaped only to want it back. Thing was. He didn’t want to go back. He wanted to be exactly where he was. Driving toward justice. Natalie nearby.
Theirs were sins shared. The corner of his mouth quirked at her humor. But he didn’t disagree. Whatever past life they lived, they must have eaten too many bonbons and roamed too fancy of castle halls. Because the shit going down in this life was making up for something that must have been a hell of a time. Her final comment actually slapped a pained laugh. A playful danger danced the fringes of his eyes. “Maybe in another life,” he said. Something to imagine.
The car stopped outside a house that stood out in no certain way. There was an abandoned wagon across the street, the kind a little kid may play with. Cars were jammed here and there, wedged into whatever spot they fit. Two doors down, three teenage boys kicked a soccer ball between them, showing off trick-shots and generally impressing each other.
When the curtain parted and a man peered out to check their car, Jay knew they were in the right place. He grabbed the money and seized the power before the car door even shut.
He entered cautiously, admitted by a man with a gut of a belly wearing a tank top. A pistol was holstered on his belt. He checked the money and waved him in. The rest was a regular house, but the furniture was all shoved to the walls. A series of folding tables made the center. Money was neatly stacked. Computers were set up, but none seemed new. Another man was propped on a chair in the back, feet up. The banker vaguely looked up when newcomers entered.
Jay dropped the bag on the table. The power roared within. He had to be careful. If Amengual was warned, he would disappear again. A string of Spanish was passed between the banker and his guards, but Jay caught only mentions of mundane working shit.
He spoke in Spanish, “¿Donde esta Zacarías?”
The banker blinked. Chuckles erupted from the two guards. Jay sighed, leaning over and repeating himself.
The banker was not exactly forthcoming.
But he would be.
The power made quick work of the two guards. They couldn’t be left alive. Nor could there be a disruption to the house. Anything may trigger Amengual. The kids playing soccer were most likely on his payroll, ready to text anything unusual.
Jay returned to the car with one of the laptops and barely having broken a sweat. The money was left on the table alongside the bodies. They were truly loyal to Zacarías. The banker lasted a long time before making the right choice, but he was too much a risk to let go. As much as Jay wanted, and he didn’t have time to deal with other arrangements.
Another notch to the soul no less damaging because the dead were evil men. But Jay never claimed to be the gleaming hero of the ages. Suppose it didn’t matter.
He was quiet driving out of the city. Where was mom and dad? Did Jensen make it back to the Custody or did that crazy wife of his manage to leash him into obedience? Hopefully it was the previous. Jensen was a good guy. Too good for any of them despite the demons that he wrestled daily.
For everything between him and Axel, he didn’t want him to die. “Axel and I used to talk about how we wanted to die when the time came. He preferred a sniper shot to the head. Epic. Quick. Walking along completely unaware and boom, drops.” He snapped his fingers. ”You know. Just to pass down time.”
Natalie was quiet when Jay got back in the car, and did not question what might have transpired inside when he passed her the laptop, she only opened it up and waited for the dark screen to boot as they began the journey out of the city. Something to finally focus on drew her silent, though only that born of concentration as she began a systematic comb through the hard drive. Mercifully it dulled even the steady throb of pain in her shoulder. She glanced aside from the work only when he spoke.
Jay said it blithely, but Natalie felt no horror despite the way the words sank like a stone. The women of Jasiri had spoken about similar things on the kind of restless nights old pains stung anew, leaving unsettled ghosts to roam in their wake. Of course, for them it wasn’t the morbid confession of truths shared in down time, it was planning for self-preservation. The only sense of control to be wrestled from a world in which they’d so often had none -- the simple resolution to snatch themselves from the jaws of something worse should such a predator ever come circling back for them. She thought of the mother in Zacarías’s story, eyes briefly closed as her stomach turned cold. Then of Imani begging such a promise should things go wrong, and it had, but thankfully not like that. She didn’t know if she could have done it.
“How very cheerful,” she said, though there was a small smirk on her lips that suggested she was not remotely disturbed. “Tell me yours, I’ll tell you mine?” A coy brow rose. It was difficult to discern how much of that might only be a joke by the pale look she shot him, especially since it warmed to something more teasingly sultry a moment later. “Though I can probably think of a better use for down time. Rather more living involved in that suggestion, of course.” He didn’t always rise to her careless challenges, and she was not sure he would answer when it cut so sharply against bone. I only lie to myself, Natalie -- words she heard often enough. It didn’t stop her asking. She was not a brother-in-arms, churning bloody waters in the trenches alongside, and nor did she want to be that to him. But neither was she likely to recoil from the truth -- or shield him from the starkness of her own. Rather, she acknowledged it eye to eye, that path he strode, and sometimes dared him to look back and realise he did not always have to walk it alone.
Her attention diverted back to the screen, if her thoughts still wandered the lonely landscape of the past he conjured. “Axel told us we didn’t know what you were, when Jensen asked for his help. That we didn’t know what you could survive.” She knew some of Jay’s history through glimpses he only rarely offered out, but of its worst she’d seen only in the black and white of the documents her father had provided. Recent days shared harder insights, but little in the way of judgement. Or at least not any that did not also cast her under its self-same shadow. Natalie did not pull the trigger, but neither did she press the muzzle of the gun down. “He resented you, I think. Or maybe that you had people who cared to find you. But you were right about the trust.”
Hindsight offered the hazy outline of a different man to the one she saw in the James’ kitchen, if considering it now only served to pull on a thread of tragedy better left alone. Axel had walked a road more closely paralleled to Jay’s than she cared to acknowledge given the bullet that left him in the dirt. He’d knowingly let Cayli in the boot of the car, and for that alone Natalie hadn’t liked him -- it was such a careless betrayal, though one she suspected now to have been a swipe of petty retribution rather than true intent. But when she asked for his help he gave it without much resistance. She hadn’t been blind to the way it was Jensen’s kindness that had reached him, if she was wary now of considering too deeply why that was. She’d doubted the preacher’s capability at the time, but she’d been wrong.
“He wanted out. That’s what he asked me for, right before we left. But I don’t think it would have made him happy.” It wasn’t consolation, just truth. Maybe she had no right to the judgement. It wasn’t like she had known the man. Whatever Axel had sought though, a fat bank balance and a new name might have been salve on the wound, but they were no answer. Home wasn’t a physical place. Natalie had turned away from such bastions time and enough to begin to understand that, finally. Truth was she orchestrated her own self-sabotage as often as fate conspired to unroot her when she found the brief flame of belonging, like she always had to test the theory. The desire for it, though; that she understood.
Which was why when she sometimes wove the sanctuary of peace around them both like the promise of some intangible future, it was as an oasis, not a destination. Brief shelter for when the storms blew through strong enough to flay weaker souls. And maybe that was the difference. She glanced at Jay quietly, but then the laptop began to spit up grainy images with time stamps in their corners. A secluded mansion shrouded in shadow and leafy jungle, expensive cars lined up outside. Heavily fortified, even to her untrained eye, and it twisted in her chest like fear despite not exactly being unexpected. Jay would need to look at that, though not while driving.
“There are security cameras on here,” she said, offering a brief description of what she saw. Then a tap brought up one of the live feeds, and she watched silently as an SUV suddenly rumbled into view outside the front. Shrouded figures bundled out, and were herded quickly into the house with the butts of guns. Efficient but not cruel. It was the face that appeared a moment after that drew her attention, though, and a sinking feeling with it. She’d warned Jay they needed to at least be aware of the political considerations of their actions; his justice was bedded in the corner of a far larger stage, and they did not have a clear view of it beyond Natalie’s own conjecture. But she hadn’t expected to see this particular face slink out of the property only to quickly return to its depths; that of a friendly benefactor she had all but forgotten.
“Shit.”
A hand pressed back through her hair. Pale gold waterfalled back round her cheeks, and when her gaze rose this time it had that eerie quality of blankness once more. “Jay, there’s a Custody man at the Amengual’s property. A man called Scion Marveet. He cornered me at the fundraiser, not that I knew who he was at the time. Offered me some friendly advice.” Her mind cast back, surprised. Though recent memory unearthed an identity at the same time she had dug for Amengual’s, it had been for her own benefit; knowledge for another time, not because she foresaw connections. She did not recall ever seeing the two together, and she did not like the cold and uncertain feeling flooding her insides to ice. Unknown variables like this were unwelcome. She’d thought she’d known all the players involved.
“He thinks you’re a threat to Nikolai Brandon, Jay. That was the advice, and he means to use the accusation to elevate himself. Or he did back when he spoke to me.” She'd cautioned Jay of such pariahs at the time, but he’d dismissed the concern; as he was likely to now, she imagined. He’d already paraded the names of those waiting to exact their pound of flesh, so what was one more? This time, though, Natalie would not let it lie. Gut feeling gnawed. Too much was missing, and she hated being caught out like this. She would not carelessly march Jay towards a grave.
“Given everything we think we know, he might be here for any number of reasons. But we should consider that one of them might be you. Brandon threatened repercussions for my family if I did not return you." Not so plainly as that, of course, but the implication had been clear enough. These facts were the last thing she’d wanted to muddy the waters with, but it seemed the long line of their problems were not going to wait in a patient single file. Her voice lowered, but her jaw remained tight. “I had an official communication from DVII's office this morning. I didn't read it. But it means our absence has been noted, and my grandfather cannot risk the accusation of disloyalty. Particularly if it concerns me. He will have acted." Precisely why she had refused to lean on her Northbrook name to speed their passage across the border (and thus flag their location), and why she had warned they could no longer rely on her access to funds. Not concerns she had wanted to draw his attention to, in part because they only concerned her, and in part because she’d believed they could wait.
Her chin lifted from the images, and she watched Jay’s profile now. Behind that still mask, her thoughts were suddenly blazing in an effort to pull all the disparate pieces into their possible places. The footage ran over again in her mind, tightening her chest. She would not be snared by assumption; they did not know why Marveet was in Mexico. But at the very least they needed to account for their trajectory to be expected, and the possibility of a nasty welcome in place. The Custody had its own supply of serum; she knew that from Marcus and her skim of Weston’s research. Light. Her thoughts unravelled to worse considerations as her mind worked, but she shielded him from the worst of them. Though perhaps he knew her well enough by now to realise the blank slate of her hid something.
"You need to look at the fortifications on this place. They mean nothing to me. Can we stop somewhere? Else you need to pull over and let me drive."
Surely a sweet thing like Natalie didn’t contemplate the manner and means of her own demise. She would pass a little old lady asleep in her bed, maybe after tossing some jewels into the ocean. Or something to represent the release of an epic life. Her alternative made him smirk, and there was no denial that just such a thing was a bad use of time. The suggestion swirled momentary distraction, enough that he almost forgot where they were going. Maybe turn from the path completely and find a secluded resort somewhere in the jungle. A little hut maybe. The kind without doors and nothing but flimsy curtains wafting on the ocean breezes. He could hunt for crabs and urchin and fish. Damn but he loved fishing. Probably the only good part about growing up in Iowa. Creekside. Better yet, lakeside. Rod in one hand. Coffee in the other. Watching the sun come up. Water steaming in the dewy morning air.
They could do that now. Turn the car another direction. Cash in the trunk. Head east. He’d seen the Caribbean plenty of times, but usually at night from the side of a helicopter. It was probably very nice during the day. Nicer in some beach shorts with a beautiful girl to hang out with. Natalie would look incredible in a sarong. Hiked up high on one hip. Bikini top slipping from her shoulders.
The daydream was a poor attempt to block out the rest of Natalie’s explanation. He didn’t want to hear about Axel, nor what the guy thought of Jay in return. It didn’t matter. They saved each other’s life when the cause was needed. Except this time. The favor couldn’t be returned. As his jaw clenched, he’d rather think about that beach hut. Maybe get one of those hammocks.
The tapping of keyboard keys was a decent sign that they’d moved on from honoring the fallen. It was a good thing. He couldn’t listen to much more.
He tried to look while driving, but it was a bad angle. First chance, the car stopped and he studied the videos as insisted. It was fortified. Looked like same or similar setup to the estate they stormed the night André was shot in the face. It took him a few moments to grasp the implication, that someone clearly Custody-loyal, was rubbing shoulders with Amengual.
”You think they’re waiting to ambush us.” He continued to swipe through whatever screens were available.
One paved-drive in and out. There were likely two or three dirt-paths behind the house.
House was on high ground. Blue glistened on a high overhang. “Shit look at that pool. Must be a fucking great view,” he cocked half a smile at Natalie.
Guards. Guns. High ground. Walls. Cameras. Probably a few drones hovering. Seemed fairly standard to him.
“You know I was once part of a four-man team that crawled onto a yacht while it was at sea, neutralized the hostiles and brought back our point man without a single shred of evidence anything happened. Or at least, evidence of who did it.” He grinned, looking to impress her. Not like this shit was classified anymore. Or he didn’t care if it was.
Though it was a little sobering, he replayed the scene of people arriving. There wasn’t much to decipher, except that they could be any enemy of the cartel. Or shit. Knowing Zacarías, could be his cousins coming for a swim. Jay didn’t recognize Scion Marveet, but Natalie’s warning was taken seriously.
”Amengual was at the ball. Ascendancy probably sent someone to keep an eye on him. Better yet, to bend him to his will without anyone being the wiser. Unless there’s a connection between your grandfather and Marveet you know about?”
It was with a great deal of quiet thought that the remainder of the drive was concluded. Jay was thinking through scenarios. Running out dozens of different plays in his mind of how events may unfold once they arrived. Eventually, he purposefully missed a turn and stopped the car at the bottom of the mountain on the far side of the compound.
Natalie left him to study the screens without interruption. Of such infiltration she knew little, and she wouldn’t pretend otherwise. Not that her own incapability to the task did not gnaw a little; she did not like feeling useless. At the same time, the trust she placed in him seemed a natural thing; something well-worn and tested, though it was not. Or not like this anyway. She watched him pour over the information and did not suspect he found it difficult to catalogue it all in his head, any more so than she did when navigating the tangled threads of political intrigue.
Her expression remained unnaturally still, yet despite herself she smirked for the comment about the pool. She wasn’t entirely convinced his nonchalance was well-placed, but it soothed something inside anyway -- like puzzle pieces that suddenly slid into seamless placement right at the peek of frustration. None of her concerns diminished, and nor did the ill feeling in her bones, but right then she felt no desire to be anywhere else, or with anyone else. Even knowing how likely this was to all go very much to shit.
Jay rarely told her anything about his past, and she wasn’t sure if it was trust or the rapid unravelling of his old identity which prompted him to share such small insights now. She’d met his family of course; at a deliberately careful distance, beyond Cayli. And she knew plenty from her father’s documents, but those were only facts -- ones she wouldn’t have even read if he hadn’t pushed her to it. Hearing it was different. Honesty mattered far more to Natalie; the desire to offer it out like a reckless gift, not caring if it burned. Usually it did. But sometimes those secrets shared instead found the shelter of new homes.
When she glanced up, though, it was to a grin that suggested an entirely different reason for the confession, and it elicited a low laugh for its earnest nature. Especially given the direction of their path now. She wasn’t ever likely to tell him how much it softened in her chest, the fact he sought to impress her at all. That boyish charm was so much rarer these days than the legionnaire she’d met in Africa, only noticed for its worth now in its scarcity. “Unfortunately, this time you only have me.” It came out dry, but there was little self-disparaging about the comment. Natalie was aware of her limits, but she did not lack at all for confidence. The shadow of her own smile flickered a tease. “Though I’m sure you’ll manage. We’ve great odds, after all.”
She sobered a little for the last question. Though she’d offered the warning in the first place, it had been of necessity; talking of her family was rarely something she engaged in without some kind of internal grimace. “Maybe. I don’t know. I haven’t exactly made a habit of being the dutiful daughter.” Before her return to Moscow she’d been far removed from anything Custody related at all, let alone the minutiae of her own family. She didn’t think it impossible at all, knowing what she did of Scion’s ambitions, for him to have reached out to her grandfather though -- especially given the man’s sly approach at the fundraiser, and his apparent interest in Jay. It’s what she would have done in his place; insurance on Natalie’s empty promises if nothing else, much like Nikolai Brandon had elicited for himself when he instructed her to comply if she valued her family’s standing. The debt of a Patron was no small thing. “Marveet knew who I was at the fundraiser, though. Most wouldn’t have recognised me. Best not to rule it out.”
When the car finally stopped at the base of the mountain, Natalie did not hesitate before getting out. Sweat pricked her skin, but she put the jacket back on anyway, pulling her hair loose from the collar. The friction stung something fierce against her shoulder, but she didn’t want the injury on display, and it was easier for her to conceal the gun. Her numb fingers checked its place without much enthusiasm, though she felt better for its assurance. Then pale eyes inspected the jungle trail dispassionately as she clicked the car door quietly closed. She didn’t hide that haughty dismay, though neither did she complain. Africa had not pandered to the sort of luxury her manner generally suggested she was accustomed to, and most were surprised to discover Natalie flippant when it came to such things. But an outdoors type she was not. At least not without the sort of motivation this experience certainly did not offer.
“One of the worst nights I’ve ever spent was in solitary in a Tanzanian jail cell,” she said conversationally as they began the trek. “But we appear to be shooting for top billing tonight. I'm not sure I can think of a worse place for a moonlit stroll.”