Chapter 7-1
2002 Words
A bright purple moon cast soft light down upon a narrow suburban street that was sandwiched between two sidewalks where trees stretched for the starry sky. Streetlights came on when the motion sensors detected her presence.
Anna walked in the middle of the road, hugging herself and rubbing her arms for warmth despite the muggy air. The chill she felt had nothing to do with temperature. She had wanted to put this off a little while longer.
On her left, a wide gap between two houses opened into a park where two Vadluc goalposts stood on either side of a grassy field. A series of benches on the sidelines were positioned under tall, black lampposts, each one bathed in a cone of light.
VadlucThis is the place.
This is the place.She wasn"t sure how she knew; the most logical thing would be to call Jack and ask to sit down and talk, but something – an intuition – had led her to this place. It was only a five-minute walk from Harry"s house. There was no reason for Jack to come here. Anyone else would just go home. Except she knew that Jack liked to sit quietly under a night sky when he was feeling unhappy.
Biting her lip, Anna shut her eyes and felt thin strands of hair fall over her face. She gave her head a shake, flinging them away. “You went and got yourself into this, Lenai,” she whispered. “Time to get yourself out.”
She went into the park.
Sure enough, Jack was sitting on one of the benches with his back turned, bathed in a cone of light from a nearby lamppost. Had he noticed her? He seemed to be focused on some trees on the other side of the field, but that was the problem with Keepers. Spatial awareness meant you could never really tell if they had failed to notice your presence – possibly because they were distracted – or if they were just ignoring you.
Anna slowly came up behind him with her arms hanging limp, her eyes fixed upon the ground. “Jack?” she asked, rounding the bench. “Is that you?” Of course it was, but that seemed like the thing to say.
He looked up with a glum expression, his eyes widening just a bit when he saw her. “Hey…” the word was strained, forced. “Did…did you want to use this bench? Because I can go if you want.”
Bleakness take me.
Bleakness take me.He was afraid of her! That wasn"t feigned nervousness; he was really afraid. Damn her consistent failure to think past the end of her nose. She should have realized that this would happen.
Anna smiled, her cheeks burning. That last comment left her feeling pretty stupid. “No, I don"t want you to go.” She spun around and sat down beside him. “I"d like to talk if that"s all right.”
“Sure.”
“Why did you leave the party?”
Jack closed his eyes, visibly calming himself for an awkward moment before he spoke. “I just had a few things to take care of,” he said. “Some files Larani wanted me to review before our next meeting.”
“And you chose to review them in the park?”
He wrinkled his nose as if he smelled something awful, then shook his head. “Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “As polite excuses go, that one"s right up there beside "Cough, cough, I have the flu." ”
Leaning back on the bench with arms folded, Anna looked up at the heavens. “You left because of me,” she said. “You were afraid that being around me again would be too hard, weren"t you?”
“No. Not at all.”
That stunned her.
When she ventured a glance in his direction, he was watching her with those deep blue eyes of his, and she felt butterflies in her stomach. Bleakness, what did it mean that he didn"t find it hard to be around her? “I wanted to see you every day,” Jack said. “Each and every day, I wished I could talk to you.”
That eased some of the tension. Companion have mercy, this was why she found it so hard to be around him. All he had to do was get within five paces of her, and suddenly her whole world was thrown off its axis. With everything else on her mind – Bradley, her sister, the deteriorating state of galactic politics and the feeling that she had to somehow find a way to hold it all together – she couldn"t handle this. She had to be sharp.
whyBut it seemed that Jack wanted her in his life. And she felt a little guilty for taking some relief in that. “That must have been painful,” she said. “I"m sorry you had to go through that.”
“Why are you being kind to me?”
The question felt like a punch to the face, and for a moment rage flared up. But she took the five seconds necessary to think past her urge to snap at him, and she realized that it hadn"t been intended to cut. His tone…
Jack wasn"t being passive-aggressive; he really wanted to know.
No, it wasn"t a punch to the face. It was a knife in the gut that twisted and twisted until her insides were shredded. Somehow, she had convinced Jack that he meant nothing to her, and that made her want to cry.
Closing her eyes, Anna shuddered as she took in a soft breath. “I"m sorry,” she said, patting his knee. “Jack, I"m being kind because I care about you. I know I haven"t done a good job showing it…”
“It"s not your fault,” he said. “I was a jerk.”
“No, you weren"t.”
Jack stood up and took a few steps forward, standing with his back turned. “I tried to reconnect before you were ready.” His shoulders slumped. “I should have given you the space you needed. I"m sorry.”
Anna forced out a laugh, unable to suppress the sudden grin she felt. “Maybe we both made mistakes,” she murmured. “But I never wanted you to avoid your friends, and I realize that I do want you in my life.”
do“That"s good to know.”
“I"m not ready to delve deep into everything that happened,” Anna said. “I"m still kind of processing it. But I would like it if you came back to the party.”
He turned to face her with one hand in his pocket, head hanging as he let out a sigh. “Yeah, I guess it"s time I left Sargent Hunter"s Lonely Heart"s Club Band,” he teased. “It pains me to say it, but our last album was way too commercial.”
“You"re coming then?”
He gestured to the path that led back to the street. “Lay on, MacDuff.”
The party was fun, though a little tame for his taste. Or maybe it was just that he didn"t have much to say to a dozen or so teenagers. Anna and Jack seemed to be getting along – which was a plus – but they spent most of the evening with their heads together. Which meant Ben had to find his own entertainment.
He sat in a chair on Harry"s patio, his arms folded as he watched the starry sky. “Is there any chance you have a beer?” he asked his host. Only then did it occur to him that asking Harry to fetch things was a bad idea.
The other man was in his wheelchair with his hands clasped in his lap, his attention focused on his daughter. “They grow up fast,” Harry murmured. “Just a few years ago, I would have thought the worst thing I had to worry about was pushy boys.”
Ben wasn"t sure what to say to that.
He felt his mouth tighten, then shook his head. “You"ve got nothing to worry about, Harry,” he managed at last. “Your kid was born to do this. I saw how she handled herself against Isara. She"s a true Justice Keeper.”
“That"s what scares me.”
“Come on, old man,” Ben teased. “You"ve been hanging around Keepers for a few years now. You know they don"t suddenly become different people when they Bond with a Nassai.” No…Instead, they remained the same people they had always been. Why did Nassai prefer to join with people who had sticks wedged so firmly up their asses?
Harry watched Ben out of the corner of his eye; the man gave no outward sign of it, but Ben had learned to how to tell when someone was watching him. “So, you and I have a lot in common now…”
Was that an overture?
Ben knew about the other man"s attempt to extract information from Isara – not so different from his own attempt to do the same – but he would have assumed that Harry was the kind of guy who liked to leave his mistakes buried. Should he say something? Make his feelings known. He had to figure that Melissa had told her father all about his outburst in Larani"s office.
The girl was standing in the grass now with a drink cradled in both hands, bathed in the light of one of the lanterns. Her young friend was with her, the kid with the short dark hair and the winning smile.
“Isara,” Ben said.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Harry leaning over the side of his wheelchair with a stern expression that probably made his kids hop to attention. “Normally, I"m the kind of guy who says that a prisoner"s rights are sacrosanct,” he began. “But that woman isn"t human!”
Setting his elbow on the arm of his chair, Ben curled his fingers into a fist and put his chin on top of it. “Tell that to Larani Tal,” he said. “Normally, I would agree with you, Harry, but these aren"t normal circumstances, are they?”
“Still…I wonder…”
Ben leaned back and folded his hands over the back of his head, shutting his eyes and breathing deeply. “You wonder if we made the right choice?” he asked. “I"d be lying if I said it doesn"t keep me up at night.”
“So, why did you do it?”
Why indeed? Ben had gone over it a hundred times in the two months since Larani had revoked his access and told him in no uncertain terms that she had no further need of his services. Best he could figure, he wanted to save the world. “Why did you?” he asked in response…
The other man slumped over as if he couldn"t bear the weight of his own shame. “Because she…” Harry"s voice was hoarse, his words so soft you might have thought you"d imagined them. “She…”
“She pretended to be Jena,” Ben said. “And she pushed your buttons.”
“Yeah.”
“Don"t feel bad; she pulled that crap on all of us.”
Harry doubled over, pressing a fist to his mouth and coughing up a storm. “So, you really are done?” he asked. “After everything we"ve been through, you"re just gonna walk away from the team?”
A frown tugged at the corners of Ben"s mouth. “Afraid so,” he said, getting out of the chair. “There"s nothing left for me here anymore. Good night, Harry.”
- Writer
