Sanctuary

[Natalie Grey]

She was good at compartmentalising.

Most people found her reactions apathetic, but scrutinise a little deeper and beneath that was a sharpness equally discomforting. Judgement rarely coloured her expression, but the process of it was clear enough in the cold shield of her eyes. The request surprised her, if not the orchestration of a moment to speak it privately. Natalie watched him quietly, aware of the trickling seconds passing before Cayli would burst breathless to the surface. She doubted the preacher had asked recompense for the favour of sanctuary. Even if pride urged Jay to offer something in return, it hardly warranted the urgency. He hadn’t even showered.

A few days ago trust might have flown on blind wings, but if doubt tempered her now it paled against the promises she had made. Whatever the intentions lurking behind deals he’d made assuming her ignorance, Natalie’s help came without strings. No bleeding heart obfuscated that steadfastness; it wasn’t sacrifice. Stubbornness, maybe. So she didn’t baulk; she barely blinked. If he knew her at all by now, he’d know her aid was assured, but if he thought to press her into an answer quickly he misjudged her belligerence at being caged so.

The corner of her lips lifted, a sharp edge of wryness at whatever amusement she plucked from the situation. The gravity was enough to swallow them whole. Whatever reasons he had for needing such a large sum, it was hardly going to amount to sunshine and roses. “Urgent, I take it.” Dry humour cracked the words. Her toes swirled in the water as she leaned in to brush a tease of fingers against the stubble darkening his jaw. She hummed laughter. “You couldn’t even find a moment to shave before the next drama?”

Intuition and logic crashed infuriating waves when it came to him, and the storm of it caught her time and again. 

The search of her expression had little to do with his request, then. Nothing vulnerable hinted behind that mask, except perhaps that she asked the next question at all. Guided by necessity rather than a desire to truly hear the answer. “If I told you I was going back to the Custody, would you let me go?”

[Jay Carpenter]

He scrubbed his chin. Finding a bristle across his jaw. Definitely needed a shave. Or at least a shower. “No drama,” he answered, peripherally aware of Cayli’s superb handstand. “An opportunity.”

He hurried to explain. “Someone with information on –” she dipped her feet down, flipped and stood. Her face pushed the surface of the water, and as she swiped rivulets from her eyes, Jay kicked a nod her direction. The one that was out to kill her, he tried to say the sentence he couldn’t finish.

Cayli’s grin was proud. Jay shrugged sheepishly. “I guess so.”

She promptly proceeded to show off another move, and Jay and Natalie had more time to talk. Her question rendered him confused. Enough to forget about the tequila for the moment. “What do you mean? You want to go back?” Did she think he’d tie her up and throw her in a closet for threatening abonnement? Sure he was capable of that kind of thing when really needed, but to do so to her? She had to think he was the monster he already knew himself to be.

Mom said Natalie wanted to leave. Maybe he’d been wrong this whole time, thinking his family drove her away. Maybe she wanted to go the whole time, and only needed the right excuse for polite departure. He wouldn’t blame her. Frankly, he was shocked she’d stayed as long as she did. Okay. He didn’t forget about the tequila after all. He snatched his own carefully crafted cocktail and downed it in a single movement. Wishing the whole bottle was in his grasp instead.

He rubbed his brow, other hand tightening on the stem of the glass till it might snap. Finally, he could take it no longer. She should go. It was as dangerous here for her as it was for Cayli. Natalie was more than money. More than an ambassador. Hell she was more than an companion for Cayli. She was an anchor in the storm. But their road ahead was treacherous. She’d be better to return home where her father wanted. He knew it in his gut. Maybe that was why he hated the idea so much. He only lied to himself…

His final response was harsh by design. Once before he tried to drive her away and the choice nearly destroyed him to do so. Well. Jay was less than he once was. Who cared what rotted when the soul was already damned? ”If that’s what you want, I’ll drop you at the airport myself,” the words were poison on his lips and he wished for more tequila. Instead, his lids fell low and he put his face in his hands, sunglasses and all.

A moment later, he got up to walk away. He’d come up with the money another way. Even if he had to steal it. He really didn’t want to ask Jensen for more favors.

Besides. Natalie was right. He could use a shower. Which was exactly where he intended to go next.

[Jay Carpenter]

Axel Miller

Former Raider, MARSOC

PPO to Governor Thrice of Texas

As soon as Jay split, Axel doused the cigarette, replaced his earpiece and returned to the gatehouse. PPO Davis nodded at his entrance, but Axel brushed by the duty-officer and skimmed a few screens, surveyed the driveway and glanced at the main entrance.
“Davis, I want surveillance on the governor’s guests at all times. At least one of them is a channeler, maybe more.”

The PPO took the news without reaction except a stern nod. “Yes sir.” As Davis moved out to set up the additional measures, Axel watched more and more views of the grounds appear. Finally, Carpenter showed up on the pool deck, speaking with the Custody heiress. They’d swapped shit like no time at all had passed. He was exactly the same. Golden boy. Perfect poster child for the marines. If he hadn’t been blacked out, he would be a national hero. Except maybe that whole ripping apart Andres Amengual with his bare hands. He didn't blame Carp at the time. That motherfucker deserved it, and for Axel’s part, he made no move to stop it. Maybe he even gave Carp the machete to begin with. Axel always carried one. 

But to the Amenguals, Axel might as well have been the one to pull the trigger. He was there that night. They all had prices on their heads. Six months ago, passing through a hotel in Galveston while the Governor vacationed, a message arrived out of the blue. The next day, Axel sat in a shithole tiki bar and two options were presented to him. He took the latter. The marriage was collateral damage, but who the fuck cared, right? 
He lit another cigarette.

Marriage. Morgan, fuck. She was safer without him anyway. But brotherhood? They watched each others’ backs in the worst places in the world. 
But Axel was tired of this shit. He wanted out.
He made the call just as he witnessed Jay hurry away from the pool.  

A pause as the voice on the other end demanded he speak. “It’s Axel Miller. I have a lead on your bounty.”  

Sorry, brother.

[Natalie Grey]

Natalie watched him, blank faced, as the words found a mark and began to chew. Something more vulnerable than fate hung in that balance, and she removed herself from its touch; hollow as every photo that existed from her father’s trial. She could have asked him about the deal outright, but no amount of conviction would outshine the shadows of doubt hovering around any explanation he offered. The price of deception, intentional or otherwise. The final answer snapped like the crack of bone, but was strangely painless. He probably never heard the breath loose from her lungs, or if he did, he misread the source of her relief.

Because his face fell to his palms. That crush of pain was harder to witness, and an unwelcome surprise, but shallow comfort was not her first instinct. She barely heard Cayli’s questing “Jay?” from across the pool, caught in the jaws of the dark place he dwelt. She’d seen the self-imposed grimness of that prison before, but had never been the one to put him there. It never even occurred to her she had such power to misuse.

Light, he really believed he was alone.

The epiphany stilled her. Jay moved before she reacted. Her gaze rose to the open accusation of Cayli’s stare for what she caught of the conversation. Droplets ran the lines of her face, brows narrow, as Jay stalked away. Disappointment drooped her shoulders as she watched her brother’s retreating back. “You told him you were leaving?”

“No. But I guess it’s what he heard.”

“Well duh.” Cay’s eyes rolled skyward. Frustration simmered for those few moments of peace lost all too quickly, not that Natalie blamed her. But there was something calculating there too as her gaze blinked to where Jay had disappeared. The girl continued to watch as Natalie lifted her feet from the pool. The flagstones were hot beneath the soles of her feet but she didn’t pause for shoes. Suspicion pinched Cayli’s expression, and the glint of something more. “Don’t say it, Cay.”

“You mean the I told you so? Because I did tell you so.”

Natalie followed the path he had taken into the house, bare feet padding against the hardwood floors. “No drama, he says, before flouncing off. All you need is the sunset and stetson.” Jay was too obtuse to absorb whatever words might calm him, and she was too irreverent to soothe that pain with anything short of dry humour. Natalie recognised walls as thick as her own; that touch of cynicism numb as novocaine, to soothe the path that cut a loss before it was felt. She didn’t know what damaged him enough to assume he wasn’t worth the risk, but she understood the sentiment more deeply than she cared to. 

At the ball he’d reached for her hand like the discovery of a lost connection. She sought it again now; every incidental moment that had burned so inexplicably strong, never quite captured for wariness of the flame. Her fingers brushed his; a more certain promise than anything she would choose to articulate in its stead. Her palm held his, tugged him a path to follow. Not that she knew the house beyond Jessika’s brief tour. And maybe because she was stalling words that did not come easy.

“I wasn’t asking permission.” If he ever imagined her so demure in her convictions, he was utterly mistaken. She was a creature of defiance, even against her best interests. To spite them sometimes. The words were curt. He’d be wrong to think she wasn’t angry, but it wasn’t a lashing rage seeking an outlet. Cold logic nudged aside her feelings on what he’d done. The subject of her father was never going to be an easy one, but assumption was poor armour against Alistair Grey.

“Cayli was under the impression I was staying. Because my father wants me outside of the Custody. What did you promise him, Jay?”

[Jay Carpenter]

Thirty minutes ago, Jay upended the darkness and told Axel everything. No judgement. Understanding and acceptance. The guy took it all with barely a blink. A few questions. Jay barely had answers.

Natalie’s question was reasonable. No good excuse to not tell her. Except for the sickness yanking his guts from inside. The way she looked at him, earnestly, patient and waiting. What was he going to say? Everyone thinks you’re safer away from all this. I promised to drive you away in exchange for information. Just say all that. Like it was so easy.

Ironically, the truth might be the only thing to actually do it. God he was selfish.

A move stripped his hand of hers, the sunglasses tossed on the counter.
Throat dry. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “He wants you out of the Custody and away from me. I need to know who ordered the strike against El Tiburon. What started this whole thing.”

He looked around worriedly. Nobody seemed to be listening. At least, there was none in sight. There were dozens of places to hide surveillance, though. If Jay was in charge of security, he’d rig everything the Governor touched to keep her safe. Instead, Axel was in charge. But just in case. He seized the power, wreathed them in silence, and pulled her aside. The image of a file in Natalie’s hands ghosted his memory. Most of the contents were erased: but not everything.

Fuck.

“When I – El Tiburon died – someone was very much fucked. Someone in our own government. I don’t know who or why. I’m pretty damn shocked that I didn’t end up in a ditch somewhere, but they got rid of me and buried the operation. 

Now El Tiburon’s brother shows up in Moscow. I talked to him at the ball, Natalie. He knows exactly who I am, who my family are. There’s a bounty on me. A bounty on Cayli. Probably one on you just for helping us. 

I don’t know what’s going on. But that doctor in Iowa knew Cayli was a channeler and continued to deceive my parents. Maybe he wanted the bounty, but when I followed him out of the hospital, I overheard him call someone from DC, and I realized that this thing went higher than I ever thought. I don’t think it’s military anymore. It’s someone in the executive branch. Maybe Department of Defense. 

Natalie, it takes incredible levels of clearance to find the information your dad found. We’re talking about Pentagon vaults. CIA kind of shit.”

The last two years flashed before his eyes. He could still feel that machete in his hands. The smell of blood on his face. Running. The relief of the job with the Legion. He fucked his own life down the toilet the night he slaughtered Andres.

“If we could find out who ordered the strike on Amengual…” he grabbed her hand, nodding along. Did she see?

That was the deal. Alistair had the ability to uncover truths none of them could alone, but he threw the phone in the lake. Fuck Alistair. They could find another way.

“I have a contact that can set us up with someone close to the cartel. Find out what they’re doing. Why they’re interested in Moscow. Why all of this is happening.”

[Natalie Grey]

Her arms folded as the frustration fountained. She weathered it silent. Hands scrubbed through hair. Eyes seeking shadows. He had every right to paranoia, yet ironically she was not sure he recognised the enemy perched on his shoulder -- the one that wore her father's slim smirk. Natalie wasn’t trying to claw the secrets from his soul, and she certainly wasn’t trying to tighten the noose of complication. She was trying to limit the damage.

“Then you should have seen it through.” Her jaw hardened, blunt as he ought to have been; she understood her place as collateral in that equation better than he probably knew. Anger flashed cold for the risks he took and the consequences that speared from the decision. Did he really expect to make a deal with the devil, yet not think the devil would collect? “Or you could have told me.”

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to share this part of herself; pain buried deep and better forgotten than given life with words and acknowledgement. Jay already spied more than he should. It hadn’t exactly ended well last time.

He repeated that Alistair wanted her out of the Custody, but it had been his communication that drew her away from Africa and straight to the heart of Moscow in the first place. Manipulation curled the very breath of her father’s every whim. She could imagine the smirk of the game supplied by one careless phone call, caring nothing for the toss of lives as he nudged pieces on a board. Betrayal pushed her to action. It always did. He knew that.

Finally the message began to unfurl. Rage plugged deep.

Avoidable, if she’d only answered a single phone call.

Alistair cared not for the safety of children he raised to be self-sufficient. No finger lifted to help her in Africa. His love had always been a unique gift, capricious as he was kind in his own way. Childhood memories flashed, ignited, died. “You’re right about his reach. Did you consider how he might treat a broken compact? Given what he knows?” A hand pushed back through her own hair then, a shower of pale gold. Her gaze pinched with the realisation that the only way she had to fix this was floating at the bottom of a lake in Iowa. She didn’t know what he’d do, but she knew the lens of his gaze out into the world. And it worried her.

Cinq choses que vous pouvez voir.

But the focus she sought snaked free; furnishings blurred unimportant and intangible. It was people she cared about. If anything touched her expression, it deadened under the flatness of that weight. Jay tugged at the hand he’d previously snatched free, drawing her gaze up. It took her less time than might have been warranted to absorb the things he said; he’d yet to paw through that second file, like a ragged tapestry of the darkest parts of his soul. He never queried how she spent the time she was not with Cayli.

“Laurie is investigating Diaz’s pharmaceutical company connections. And the man Amengual was with at the ball had Brandon’s ear too. The one with the scars? His name is Ryker.” She didn’t add the hours spent exploring the power with his sister, not sure he would find much comfort in the consideration that Cayli learn to be proficient at protecting herself. “You’re doing everything you can, Jay. So maybe pass along that torpedo and take some air while you can? This is the safest place they can be right now. Your opportunity sounds more like extortion to me, but I'll sort the money.”

[Jay Carpenter]

He knew she would forgive him if he asked it. Which was exactly why he didn’t ask.

He let the silence hang like a noose.

If Alistair chose to retaliate, well, he would need to get in line. Jay had plenty of enemies. Natalie held her father with the kind of respect one has for a shark in open waters. She was no shield. Nor would Jay use her as one. Alistair would sacrifice her innocence to kill someone in front of her just to prove a point. Men like that were dangerous. Jay had no doubt. But the unstable ones were the most predictable.
“I assume Alistair will betray us. It’s the ones you think are your friends who are the most dangerous.” He looked around them, fully aware of where they slept.

“The Governor’s house is under extreme guard. As long as she is under this roof, it’s as safe as it can be. As much as I like the idea of disappearing on a Caribbean island for the rest of our lives, it’s only a matter of time before we’re all found. Your father. Amengual. Danjou. The Custody itself.” Talk about selling your soul to the devil. It was why they had to figure this out before time was out.

“The PPO is a former operator I know.” He licked his lips.
“He was there that night. He knows, Natalie, and we can trust him.” His gaze frosted, staring down the long tunnel of the past.

Lawrence Monday. She followed Danjou to Moscow. The woman survived a firefight. When most would curl into the fetal position, Laurie saved children, and all their asses. A reporter was exactly what they needed. Unlike her, the name Ryker meant nothing to him. But at the time, he could have sworn he knew the guy. Just didn’t know where. How did Natalie learn his identity? Did they speak? What else did she know? Worse. What else did she suspect?

Her agreement to find the money solicited a deep sigh of relief. “Thank you.” He nodded and leaned a poor slump against the wall. Fatigue pulled anchors from his limbs. Pass the torpedo.

”You know I can hold my breath two minutes.” A morbid tug on the lips ghosted a smile. He nodded, torpedo passed. Maybe it was time for that shower after all.

[Jensen James]

Their lips parted, and Jessika’s wide eyes stared into his own. He was so nervous the first time they kissed. Sixteen years old after the homecoming dance. Jessika wore a pink dress with a sweet-heart neckline. She looked like a beauty queen, he remembered thinking. He thought his heart was going to bust out of his chest when she leaned close under her dad’s porch. The curls in her hair had fallen from dancing all night. A sheen of sweat touched his own. Now he realized why he’d been so nervous.

The slender crook of her arms was a familiar embrace. A subtle hint of perfume doused her ear. This time, he wasn’t nervous. He was compliant. It was like kissing his sister, and searching eyes roamed his own.
“I think we should divorce,” he never thought he’d hear himself say the phrase. Vows were eternal, but they were falsely laid promises. She deserved better.

Anger flared her brow, “Jesus Christ, Jensen” she cursed and pushed him off. His jaw dropped.
“Jessika, did you just?”
She glared at him from across the room, feigning shame, “Take the lords name in vein? Yes, Jensen, I took the Lord’s name in vein, and you fucked cowboys and bought convertibles with patron money.”

It was like a slap across the cheek.

He nodded, arms folding across his chest. “Guess that’s all the more reason to divorce.” It was hard to look at her the same, now. Like all these years away he’d built a shrine of the image that was Jessika James, preacher’s wife only to learn it was all plaster and cardboard.

“You’re that naive?” She shook her head and slipped her suit jacket from her shoulders. The red garment was tossed on the king-bed. “We aren’t divorcing, Jensen. I’m the Governor of Texas. All those years I served quiet at your side while you took the stage? This time you’ll do the same for me.”

She went into the closet and returned with one of his former suits. She sauntered near, but it wasn’t to embrace this time. The hanger was thrust in his hands as she started to undress him. “Now it’s your turn to be the doting spouse. You’re going to help me the way I helped you, because you owe me. You owe me for everything. Everything you put us through.” Her chin tilted, jaw locked firm.

Jensen took the suit and watched her exit in speechless shock.

A few moments later, he shrugged on the crisp shirt, shaking fingers clumsily closing the buttons.

[Natalie Grey]

“He’s not--” But the defense died on her tongue. A monster, she’d been going to say, tripping over the frayed ties of a loyalty that even five years silence didn't cut completely. But she didn't want to open the dialogue. Her gaze skated away, the shutter of her expression flat.

She had loved him the fiercest out of her siblings. Forgiveness found no fertile soil in the debris of past mistakes, but that still hadn't changed. It would have been easier to simply hate.

She wagered any retaliation was unlikely to take the form of Amengual’s open brutality. Alistair set people up like dominoes, then sat back to watch the elaborate downfall. Intricate schemes to prove a point or further a cause. Nudges and pushes to see how far a person would go, sometimes just for the thrill of manipulation. To break human nature into its component parts.

“I don’t know what he’ll do,” she admitted. 

But she thought she knew what he wanted, now.

Her arms folded a barrier. Jay never once asked her to cross burned bridges, even if it was the surest path to resolution for this one problem. He could have asked for that sacrifice of pride, and she wouldn't have blamed him. But he never did. She thought about asking why, but knew she wouldn’t tread down that path willingly. Instead the circle of betrayal lay abandoned. One sharp cut, and he would have had his answers. The simplest equation her father could have offered; a sacrifice of want for a gain of need. He should have done it. She saw that.

The burden passed. Her nails dug against her palms, and conviction settled on a new mark. One she hoped she didn’t regret.

Trust was in short supply, and the revelation that the contact was intimately tied to the night of catalyst didn’t soothe her the way intended. Doubt flickered her expression unspoken, despite Jay’s certainty in an old friendship. But it was nothing tangible, maybe even ignited by the cynicism in his own words, and when gratitude slumped his shoulders any protest was silenced. She had been serious about the respite, but surprised to meet no resistance; like banging on a locked door only for it to suddenly open from the inside.

The weariness caught like kindling, sweeping in like an unwelcome guest. A hot shower eased the knots of long travel, but the fleeting snatches of sleep over the last few days flared like a fresh pressed bruise -- a restless reminder she didn’t much care for. She wasn’t seeking solitude; it was part of the reason she had welcomed Cayli's company. But her lips flickered a smirk anyway, stance unravelling. She moved to smooth the frustrated tufts of his hair. Stupid, mindless affection.

“Only two?” She laughed, teasing. “Do I really have to tackle you up those stairs, Jay? I swear the sky won’t fall.”

[Jay Carpenter]

The shower was amazing.

Hot water, soap and steam made for an incredible experience. Add in the fact that the bathroom was a fucking palace, and Jay wanted to stay there all day. In fact, when he put his forehead to the wall, tile slick with steam, it was all he could do to pull himself upright again. He didn’t want to just collapse in the corner and let the water pelt the top of his head.

He didn’t realize how sore his back was until the hot water melted the knots from his muscles.

After a shave and picking around purposefully at tufts of hair, he felt like a brand-new man.

The next hour was spent sprawled on the James’ guest bed in not but his shorts (it felt amazing to just be undressed for a while) and diving into the internet.

Old news stories about Alistair Grey filled the screens. Just looking for anything that might connect him to the US government. He was convicted as a traitor to the CCD, outright supporting American anti-CCD causes. The details of his crimes, being traitorous in conduct, were obscured from public awareness. If it came out in trial, it was behind closed doors; the records scrubbed.

Then came dozens of pages he knew next to nothing about. National institutes that funded pharmaceutical research. Diaz and the guy he called in DC. They were all perfect sculptures of the model citizen living the American dream. Dead ends.

Frustrated, he closed the screens all at once and rubbed his eyes. The pillow looked amazing. He could rest just five minutes. It wouldn’t hurt to just lay back for that short time. Stretch out.. 

...Two hours later, he woke, startled by the buzz of his wallet. Orientation took a second. Temporary amnesia numbing his awareness of the room. Heel of his hands pressed to his eyes and the wallet buzzed again. 

Finally, he swiped the device. Axel had the arrangements. That night. Fucking fast, Jay thought, and responded with the affirmative. He’d be there.

He subsequently sent Natalie a message:
I fell asleep. Where are we with the money? Contact tonight.

He frowned at the screen a moment, then tapped out another line:
You’re not coming.

Probably wasn’t going to do any good to tell her, but it was worth a shot.