Sanctuary

[Natalie Grey]

Expecting the heat of a burn was not like feeling it sear at flesh. Cold flooded her stomach at the sound of that disembodied laughter, until -- like a sharp jerk of the hand -- the peripheral sounds flushed in. Another voice joined, smooth as silk across a blade’s edge. Her chest tightened; the sick surprise blossoming to anger. Her expression emptied from habit, nonetheless glad for the privacy afforded by old patterns of routine. Her fingers squeezed the wheel, not from disappointment so much as frustration. At herself. There was no time to reassemble her thoughts.

“I suppose it does make things simpler, Ryker. I’m not sure I’d place charm among your merits.” The words scathed like ash. Dismissal had stung a petty insult from him last time; an effort she doubted he’d have expended unless it had bothered him.

Still, being shoved so unceremoniously into a corner armed Natalie for the recklessness of a war that was not even hers to fight. The knot in her stomach calcified to steel, emotion buried somewhere deep. When Jay confessed by the lakeside she had agreed Zacarías was right to want his revenge. She’d seen the churn of fury in his eye at the ball; knew no logic would sway that animal side of man from seeking the bloodiest of resolutions. She did not blame the heat of his passion. But neither could she let him have it.

Did he know yet?

Promises burned in the back of her mind. The sensible thing would be to hang up, and yet she didn’t. Pride or morbid curiosity; arrogance or stupidity. Jay already considered her tarnished by the association, though she hadn’t truly taken those concerns seriously. She wouldn't run. “Zacarías. Forgive my paltry Spanish. We did not get the chance for proper introductions at the ball.”

---

Zacarías vaguely remembered the woman with whom he now spoke. A beauty, but there were many that night. His attentions were focused on players of power within the room. Not until Ryker drew his attention did his awareness skim her surface. 
"And it is my misfortune. When next we meet, I will ask to dance." He will expect her immediate agreement, certainly, because what a dancer he was, too. Jungle suns blazed from his eyes when he partnered with a woman, air ripping over her shoulders as they writhed across the floor. For the Latin, dance was sex on their feet for all to watch and lust. He enjoyed the spectacle with the most mediocre of partners. With Natalie, however, the hunger bore deep. She who was once held in his arms now clenched firmly in his own. It was only a matter of time.
"I am told you have a question of me."

---

She remembered him far more vividly than she imagined he had cause to recall her. Sleek hair and dark-bearded cheeks, jewels dripping gaudy from every finger, but it was the sharp and calculated gaze above the rim of a crystal champagne flute that burned clearest in her memory. The patience of a predator in long grass.

The voice drifting through the speakers was deep and musical. Maybe it was only the lateness of the hour that jarred the disparity of such innocuous words, but the veneer of civility disguised the promise of something darker, like the shiver of an unwanted touch. She wondered how much protection her blood really afforded her. Her grandfather had held his office since the days of the ASU; he was one of the foremost pillars in the Custody’s earliest foundations. Natalie was no golden child, but Zacarías Amengual, of all men, knew well enough the fires stoked in pursuit of familial vengeance. Ryker’s suggestions made her consider for the first time the potential height of this man’s ambitions. Would he risk Edward Northbrook’s enmity by causing her harm? Such clumsy politicking would earn little regard in Brandon’s eyes, and nor would it be likely to phase the gears of expansion. Should one pawn thank elevation by stamping cracks through the rockbed of his empire, Brandon might simply find a new head upon which to fit the crown.

That’s a lot of assumption, Natalie.

“When next we meet? Such disappointingly vague promises.”

She could question Axel. He’d facilitated the original transaction, after all. But Amengual was where the line ended, and it was his whim controlling the reins -- at least insofar as Jay’s fate was concerned. He’d even said it himself. She glanced at where the dart Cayli had found rested on the dash. Felt the claws digging in her chest. Jay was where he planned to be, she presumed. He didn’t want her protection, and given the flimsy leverage she had to work with she risked making things worse. The rationale didn’t seem to penetrate far. She’d promised to keep Cayli safe. She hadn’t said anything about herself.

“Would you have me petition you for something you will not give? I’m not keen on begging.” Probably he’d already heard. Probably the soft velvet of his laughter had unfurled at the request. She did not mistake compassion as the vehicle pumping ambition in Zacarías’s chest, not for this cause, not even for the life of a child. Even in Africa, leg spilling red, unable to haul himself away from the gunfire, Natalie had not seen fear in Jay’s expression. Not like the look on his face when he’d clapped eyes on Amengual. So no, Zacarías might not choose to harm her. It did not mean she could not be used as leverage.

Her own heart sped sickly at the recklessness of thoughts beginning to form.

“Least of all on a line lacking all apparent privacy.” The words bit sharp, assuming a silent listener remained. “You would agree words have more potency in person?”

---

"At the beginning, all people says they will not beg. By the end, they always do," he said.
Inexperience held to the ignorant dream of pride, but inflict enough pain, press all the right nerves, and even the most hardened of steel spines will break and bow. She was no different than any other fragile, emotional creature. "Your friend will beg also. It is a matter of fact. I expect no less," he said. A shrug tipped his shoulder absent of revolutionary epiphany, bland as though he described the color of the ocean when all knew it to be blue. Love weakened men; the more to lose, the more to fear. 

Surprisingly, she stretched forth some of that strong spine, baring vulnerable nerves to showcase her fearlessness. The trait was admirable: bravery. "I agree with your statement. What do you have in mind, my dear?"

---

Zacarías was matter of fact. Natalie doubted none of it, even as it cooled chills in her chest; a glimpse into the jaws of a possible future. Such unemotive commentary on the nature of human behaviour was not unfamiliar to her; the words might easily have come from her own father. No denials brushed her lips in response. He misunderstood. She had not said she would not beg, only that she would not do so an ocean away, its potency lost to soundwaves. A breadcrumb trail. The breathy pulse of something captured, and the first indication of something desperate, fanned like blood in waves.

The hesitation stung silence from her, a calculated pause. It was not unusual for others to read Natalie as delicate. She allowed Evelyn to think it; the woman at the truck stop, too. The misdirection might not be necessary, but it never hurt either, for him to believe naivety hid beneath the haughty arrogance of her birth. “That you agree to listen to me, face to face.”

---

Women were ferocious creatures. Zacarías knew it for himself first hand. Corner a woman and she wilts and dies or she fights like a panther and God help anyone who put her in such a position. While he did not recall much specifically about this particular woman, the flash of her picture pulled from some online profile reconstituted an echo of memory. She was with him. Love; attachment; loyalty. Whatever it was that connected the Natalie with Jay, he did not underestimate the power of such bonds. She reached through time and space to beg for a child, but it wasn’t for the girl that she was really pleading. 

“Let me tell you a story, Señorita. In the time after your friend murdered my brother, my business suffered. There were some in my organization who thought to pick a ripe fruit, low-hanging, for anyone willing to reach for it.”

“One such gentleman was a man named Umberto Samiento. His operations oversaw our exports into Mexico with many years of great success.” Natalie would not see it, but Zacarías shook his head sadly. So many years wasted. “Umberto thought to form alliances without my support. Hiding deals with my products from me. Stealing from me. Do you understand the gravity of this betrayal? My brother was godfather to Umberto’s unborn child.” A thin veil of disgust shadowed his voice, the teeth tighter, the jaw fastened square.

Wherever they were, he did not fear the telling of this story in public area. “The day after their child was born, I visited the new parents.” It was a sunny day, he recalled. The birth was apparently smooth, or so he was told, and took place entirely at home. 

He firmly remembered the look of horror on Umberto’s face when the door opened and Zacarías waited on the other side. Umberto loved his little wife, but he had to be punished. When blood coursed the water, sharks swarmed. The little fishies stood no chance. 

“I had Umberto tied to a chair, with every intention to make him watch my justice. When I ordered the baby be microwaved alive, you’ll never believe what happened.” To this day a sense of awe struck his story. “Umberto screamed and screamed. He begged and begged. But you know what that little wife did? She took a gun and shot the baby in the head, then turned it on herself, before anyone could touch them. Isn’t that amazing?” he asked.

It truly surprised him at the time.

“So you see, I learned an important lesson that day. I will not underestimate the fury of a little woman protecting the ones she loves. When I meet you again, señorita, you’ll be tied to the chair until we come to some sort of understanding.”

---

The viper finally struck, poison pumping as conversationally as a discussion of the weather. Natalie’s stomach turned, bile burning the back of her throat as the images so blithely shared by this man bedded down deep as glass splinters in a wound. She had seen horror before. A boy’s hand smashed to dust so that his brother might play a game of war; the petty revenge of knives and blood to settle ancient gang scores; the husband so convinced of his due he would countenance the unspeakable.

But it was horror misguided, fenced by rules and reason, led astray by passion. Not something casual, nor so whimsically wasteful of human life.

Beneath her carefully maintained fortress of apathy; beneath the still expression and unnerving gaze, Natalie was still human. The insidiousness of his words crawled and swelled, until they began to choke like the bindings he promised.

Cinq choses que vous pouvez toucher.

The panic bloomed from nowhere, like the pressure on that indefinable thing broken inside her since the tunnels simply burst. It caught in her lungs like the air had gone, and there wasn’t an anchor to capture in the space around her let alone five. The interior of the car was a smear of outside lights and the twisting shadows of total night, fuzzing darker like it meant to unhinge her from the present moment. Her grip tightened. She needed to be watching the road; knew she ought to pull over. But fear was the thing keeping her moving since the railyard, as if stopping now might give such seeds a chance to root and grow too deep to ever pull free. The strain of it pressed down like ghostly fingertips pattered on the windows; memory that announced itself gleeful, but did not wait for invitation.

Pavlo’s whisper in her ear. The scars on her wrists. 

“I don’t appreciate the threat,” she said finally. He would perhaps be disappointed to find her tone little more than glacial. Had he known her better, he would likely have delighted in the true tell; that the less emotive she became, the more she usually had to hide. Either way, as he so elegantly pointed out, she was in over her head.

“That's quite an assumption of passion to be based on so little evidence. You're correct, of course; I cannot afford for the Custody to lose Jay Carpenter, in body or in mind. If you're also right about the motivation you'll agree love is rarely rational. Your threats would fall on deaf ears, no matter how visceral.” Her humanitarian work appeared to follow the steps of her mother’s altruistic legacy, but the media had always accused her of her father’s coldness. She sounded it now. But it did not matter what he believed, and she wasted no breath on convincing him. Or herself.
---------------------------------
[[written with Jay]]

---

Bleakness settled like a shroud of ash after he terminated the call. For a moment Natalie only breathed into that darkness, one quiet moment bridging seamlessly to the next. Her strongest instinct was to take Cayli and disappear, but even if she could grasp the necessary resources to allow them that chance, it would mean life lived with one eye cast constant over their shoulders. Worse, it would require turning away from the fingers plucked at the edge of the damn self-sacrificial abyss Jay had flung himself into, something her mind skipped over like the ache in her chest was a burden too heavy to bear.

The problem remained how much she just didn’t know. Ryker urged her to consider the other big players, twisting her own words at the ball into advice as scathingly condescending as Scion’s. Returning to the miscast sanctuary of one of them seemed a poor plan, Axel’s betrayal notwithstanding. She didn’t know the intricate web of enemy and ally, and she wasn’t sure she could afford the mistake of finding out. Jensen had mentioned children before now, but there was no sign of them in the house. It spoke volumes in hindsight.

Natalie dug wearily through the bare facts. True trust was in pitifully meagre supply for any eventuality, so all the choices were less than ideal. She wasn’t keen on leaving anyone behind; Jensen’s help had come eagerly and without strings since the beginning, and she couldn’t abandon Jay’s parents to any backlash that might follow. Maybe it would easier to protect Cayli with two of them; certainly that had been Jay’s contingency. And she couldn't just drive forever, not least because the car she was in right now could be tracked; she’d already been found that way once. Ditching it and securing other reliable transport in the early hours would be impossible, even for her. So why didn’t the decision settle easy?

“Who was that?”

Her eyes shifted from the road to glance at where Cayli huddled. Little surprise flared the depths of her gaze, though she had hoped the girl would sleep through the call. She didn’t relish the details she must have heard, though there was little point holding anything back. Perhaps a taste of true fear would help temper the next time instinct suggested sneaking into the boot of a car was a good idea, and blunt truth never found much resistance from Natalie’s lips at the best of times. “The man your brother wronged.” 

Cayli’s eyes widened in the sort of terror Natalie felt no pleasure to witness. Her attention returned to the road. City lights glittered around them now. “I promised Jay I would get you to the Custody if things went south. Amengual can’t hurt you if he can’t find you.”

“I won’t go without him. I want to help, Natalie!”

“You are helping.”

“But we’re just running!”

The accusation grit her teeth with painful realisation. She felt it like a physical weight noosed the very world about her feet, apt to drag under. Or maybe that responsibility was simply Cayli herself. It was a bitter thought, and yet things would have been different if the girl had stayed safe in her bed. Natalie had unerring confidence in her own abilities, but she was all too aware of the mountain stacked against her. Her temper frayed and snapped. “You do anything else stupid, Cayli, and you get caught? Your brother dies too. So do us both a favour and dial back on the recklessness -- because for now? If you’re safe, so is he.”

Safe was too certain a word, though that at least she didn’t share, even as it caved a sinking hole in her chest. In that space the panic began to grow anew, spreading wings like a phoenix from ash. 

Her eyes were burning.

She knew it hadn’t been fair to snap.

“He threatened you too.” Obstinance built a wall around the words. Warnings bounced off iron skin as Cayli twisted away, dragging the blanket back up, but not before Natalie saw the pink glaze of tears.

She was wrong, though. It wasn’t the same. It wasn’t even close.

Because Cayli’s death would be the one to break him.

They drove mostly in silence after that. Zacarías’s words scalded the hand that might have finally urged her to reach for the Northbrook’s help. Cayli was a cause her mother could champion whatever the subtext; to bullishly protect the innocent (and the not so innocent) was the core of her very nature. But the risk of retaliation was too great. She was still going to need help, though. Her thoughts skated the short list. Evelyn couldn't be seen as involved, not if things went deep as suspicion urged. But the Consul had offered her a job before, testing the waters of loyalty for a sense of her ambition within the Custody. She imagined the value he might place on a favour to tighten about her neck later -- precisely the sort of politicking she preferred to avoid, but a small sacrifice given the chasm under her feet. Ryker’s words haunted like they were meant to, but she was too tired to consider how wary she might need to be of Marcus too.

Forward me info on the Custody's practice of sedating channelers? Disturbing evidence in US. I need help pulling strings to get an underage channeler to safety; the girl who survived the Sickness. She’s too valuable to lose. Speak later.

When they finally returned, the gates of the James’s home parted smoothly for them. The house was lit softly as a lullaby, even in the dead of night, but the comfort of its welcome was greatly diminished less than twenty-fours hours since the relief of arrival. She half expected Axel’s shadow to ghost a doorway, but nothing stopped them. Cayli curled up in the mussed blankets of her room, silent. Natalie sat beside her, legs drawn up. Her bag, now housing the dart and Jay’s phone, had been retrieved and dropped beside the bed.

She’d sent a message to Jensen on arrival:

Come find me when you wake up. I’ll be in Cayli’s room

A moment later, another had followed:

I’m sorry we brought this to your doorstep, Jensen.

Now the heels of her hands pressed into her eyes. She knew it was more important than ever to rest while she could. Darkness still hung a heavy pall, dawn hours away -- the longest of nights. Either way, sooner than she could prepare for, trials of body and mind awaited. Ones she was not best equipped to fight. But thought wound like a bloody briar anyway, cutting her up to ribbons. Ryker’s laugh. Jay’s damn pin. Brandon’s cold eyes.

And realisation.

That the sharpest of weapons were forged in the hottest flames.