CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT


Stirley and I threw out ideas into the night, but I retired to Jace's bed
around two in the morning. Stirley was still working, but I told him that he
could crash in my room. I doubted that he'd ever walk up the stairs and I was
proven right when I heard Jace return and the door opened and closed not long
after that. I didn't hear the computer's working buzz any longer and a car left
back down the driveway.


I was alone in the cabin with Jace's blankets to keep my thoughts away from a
past that was threatening suffocation.


I didn't think Stirley was going to return, but I lacked the sentiment to
remove myself back to my own room.


I stayed put and never slept.


Alone, he agonizes. That mere sentence haunted me. It came back around again
and again. There was a reason, but I couldn't pinpoint it. Not yet, but to be
truthful, I had a bit more on my mind that I rather wanted to just push to the
back.


Three nightmares the previous night kept bringing it to the front and I
didn't think I'd ever be free from Marcus again.


If he didn't have a possessive hold on my body, he had proclaimed his
emotional hold again.


I closed my eyes, a slight ache blossomed behind my eyes, and I never noticed
when the bedroom door opened.


When the bed dipped underneath Jace's weight, that's when I bolted upright
and realized my thoughts of Marcus had taken more time away than I had first
thought. I'd been pushing Marcus away too much to realize how close he
inevitably was.


Jace had returned and sat, watching me, before his gaze shut off and he stood
to reach for a shirt. His movements weren't slow or abrupt, but something told
me he had been injured. He never hissed in pain. He looked the same as usual,
but I asked, throatily, "What happened?"


"I got shot." Jace casually remarked and left for the bathroom. Instead of
using the one downstairs, like normal, he walked to mine and I found him there a
moment later, stripped to the waist and prodding an irate wound that seeped
blood and blackness with no reaction or grimace on his face.


He gave nothing away and worked proficiently and professionally.


"At least you bleed like the rest of us." I remarked and moved to take the
tweezers from his fingers.


"What are you doing?" He asked, but moved back so I could inspect his wound
in better light.


"Blood doesn't scare me. This wouldn't be the first gunshot wound that I've
tendered to."


And with that, Jace let me work. It was a clean shot, straight through his
shoulder, but that meant no bullet to fester and cause infection and no bullet
to remove from inside of him.


"I didn't see any fragments." Jace watched in the mirror.


"Nope." And I didn't find any so I removed the tweezers and held some gauze
to his shoulder. Jace didn't have to be told anything. He automatically held
pressure to the gauze and watched as I readied the antibiotics.


"Where did these come from?" I asked, absent-mindedly.


When I turned back, Jace shook his head. "You need to suture it."


"What?"


"I got the stuff already." He gestured towards two glass containers that held
a very fine string.


"What's that?"


"The first is a string that'll dissolve. You need to do the inside suture
with that."


"What is it?"


"You really want to know?" Jace asked with a faint grin.


"Um…what is it?"


"It's thread made out of cat gut." Jace chuckled as he saw my lack of
expression. "You need to do the outer suture with the other stuff."


"What's that?" But I didn't know if I wanted to know.


"It's just silk thread. You just sew it up."


I turned and looked at him, really looked at him. I saw the faint lines of
exhaustion around his eyes, but I also saw a glint of pure motivation. I knew
that was what kept him on his feet while I had prodded and what kept his voice
calm, flat, as he instructed me on how to clean him up.


I'd never sutured before. I'd taken care of gunshot wounds. I had applied the
pressure, cleaned up the wound, and instructed people to take their antibiotics,
but I'd never done this.


"You should go to the hospital for this."


"We don't have time for that. If you can't do it, I will." Jace informed me
and I knew he would.


"You do bleed, right? You do feel pain?" I joked, half-heartedly.


Jace left and returned with a chair. He straddled it, wrapped his arms around
the back tightly, and tipped his head to the side, exposing his wound in the
most direct line of light.


"Okay." I breathed out, once, and then reached for the needle that was
already entwined with the cat gut.


"Gloves." Jace remarked.


My hands veered automatically and reached for the bright blue gloves. I
nodded, to myself, and reached for the needle.


My hands never shook, not once, but that wasn't what had caused me pause. I
remembered my whispered confession to Jace, that I had this dream to be a nurse
and I reflected, as I sutured my first wound, that I could do it. I doubted that
I'd be happy with just being the nurse, though. Jace was right, I wasn't a team
player. I might need to be a doctor instead.


It didn't take long before I was wiping the extra blood away and Jace stood
to inspect the angry pink tissue that was held in tact, stubbornly, from the
silk thread.


"You did good." He commented. He reached for his antibiotics and swallowed
two pills.


"If I ask how that happened, would you tell me?"


Jace grinned a shadow of a grin and commented as he put everything back in a
container, "I went to my meet, but I wasn't the only one there."


"Besides your contact."


"Besides my contact."


"What were you meeting about?"


Jace didn't answer me, he asked instead, "Does Marcus have a child?"


Shocked, I reeled as the answer came to me.


Alone, he agonizes.


"It's not Lily." I said firmly, fully believing it now. "It's not Lily,
because she wouldn't agonize. Those theologians that wrote what Stirley printed
off said that Job agonized alone. He didn't understand why God took everything
away from him. He 'agonized alone.' It's not Lily. She wouldn't agonize. She
would understand. Lily doesn't have the decoder."


"Does he have a kid?"


"Yes." I breathed out. "And he's Job. Ben, his name is Ben. Marcus adopted
him. He lives in a residential home, it's a lockdown home. Some of the kids try
to escape, but…Ben has autism and Marcus thought it was better that he live in a
home and work with therapists on a daily basis. Marcus thought that…"


Jace grimaced and reflected dryly, "So Ben is Marcus' shining star."


"The one good thing he's done, just like…"


"Just like Lily was Galverson's one good thing he had done." Jace nodded and
finished cleaning all the counters. He looked at me, gently prodded me out of
the bathroom, and bent to methodically wipe everything, every tile on the floor
and even underneath the toilet.


"What are you doing?"


"We have to move."


"What? Why?"


"Stirley's in the hospital. Marcus is going to have his men there within the
hour. They'll be coming here by morning. We have to go."


"So he can lie. Why are we moving?"


"He's already lying about how he found this place. He's not going to lie
about the actual cabin. We keep as close to the truth as we can." Jace informed
me and led me to his bedroom.


"But…why did you clean the bathroom? Are we wiping everything down?"


"I am. You're not. You just need to pack your bag and get ready to move. Pack
all the computer stuff away, the printer, all the papers. Everything."


Jace grimaced, the first grimace I saw, as he lifted his arms to pull a black
long-sleeve shirt over his head.


"The fire's still going." Jace told me.


He stripped out of his jeans and pulled on another pair that were camouflage
with Mossy Oak pattern. He handed his bloodied shirt and jeans to me and
instructed, "Build the fire up and put these clothes on there."


"You're going to burn your clothes?"


"Yeah. Put gasoline on them and throw them in the fire. They need to burn
quickly so that they're only ashes when Marcus gets here."


"Are you serious? Clothes take forever to burn."


"That's what the gasoline is for. Load them up and throw them in. Shut the
glass doors immediately because the flames will—"


Explode. "I know."


I did and then I packed my clothes, packed everything else, and waited on the
porch as Jace finished cleaning everything of our prints or hair follicles. It
was amazing to watch, but he had a complete system down that ensured no inch
went uncovered and uncleaned.


It took me an extra hour and thirty minutes before he appeared in the doorway
and said briefly as he passed by for the car, "Let's go."


I gathered the papers in my lap together and followed behind, leaving the
rocking chair to rock slowly alone in my wake.


In the car, I asked, "Where are we going?"


"Oscar has a cabin on his woods. It's secluded enough so that we should be
safe there, at least for awhile."


"How long are we going to be there?"


"You're staying there until I get back."


"Where are you going?"


Jace threw me a disbelieving look and I sat up, shook my head firmly, and
proclaimed, "No way. You're not going for Ben without me. I've met Ben. I know
him and he's nine years old. He doesn't deserve this."


"Neither did Job." Jace said wryly. "And look what God did to him."


"And it's not fair. He's a child that Marcus adopted. He looks at Marcus like
he's…"


"A god?" Jace shook his head. "I already know this. The name popped out of a
registrar. That's what my meet was about. He worships Mallon and Marcus calls
him every day, sometimes twice a day. The staff speak reverently how devoted a
father he is when he's actually calling to get the names of his agents that Ben
is guarding for him."


"You can't just go in and interrogate him. He's not going to understand…"


"I'm going and I'm searching his room. That's all I have to do. He's not
going to keep his book in a locked storage unit where the staff has to
continuously take it out. He's going to have right in his bedside stand, where
it's within reach and he can grab it quickly when his 'God Father' calls
him."


"If you take the book, Ben's not going to understand. He's going to think
that he's done something wrong. He's going to worry about getting punished. He
doesn't think like we think."


"Isn't that the whole point of Job? That we, humans, can't fathom God's
wisdom?" Jace bit out. "Don't start, Maya. I've read the stuff too. I know what
those theologians write about, but I'm not Satan and I'm not trying to thrust a
separation between God and his believers. I just want a book that Marcus is
using a child's love to protect. Of everyone here, Marcus should be identified
as the Devil, himself."


"So what does that make Ben? He's innocent."


"Maybe Ben is really god. Wasn't that another facet of Job? That Job was the
nearest semblance of godliness that a mere human could achieve and Satan was
telling God that Job only believed in him because he was awarded all those
benefits."


I leaned back and said, sadly, "The papers say that God was proving a point
to Satan. Job believed because he believed, not because he was rewarded. He
still believed in the end."


"And no matter how you twist it, Ben will believe in his father, no matter
the end." Jace murmured and drove through the trees. "You're right. Ben's the
innocent and he's the closest of any of us to being godly. He'll make it through
this trial and he'll still love his father."


"He's going to agonize alone." I whispered to myself and looked out the
windows. Even the trees seemed to wilt in understanding of the injustice of
Ben's plight.


Jace didn't say anything more and as we turned down a back road that wound
further into the woods than we'd ever traveled, I mourned, "There has to be
another way."


Jace pulled the car to briefly highlight another small log cabin as he
replied, briskly, "Then figure it out because we have to get there before Marcus
realizes we've figured it out."


As we parked, I didn't move to get out and neither did Jace. He breathed out,
a momentary break of compassion as he reflected, "This isn't about Ben. This
isn't about getting the Decoder or even trying to save Cassie's freedom. This is
about you. Marcus sprung a trap that we have to play. I need the Decoder and
Marcus is hoping to get you as a reward. If you can think of a better way to get
this book, then I'm all for it, but you can't come. I work better alone. I can
get in and get out with no problem. Marcus won't know you're there, but if you
come…"


"If I come, Ben will give me the book." I whipped my eyes to his, endearing.
"I'll lie and tell him that Marcus sent me for the book. He'll give it to me
because he'll trust me."


"Unless Marcus told him not to trust you."


"But isn't that what this is really about? Marcus does trust me. This is a
test for me. He's hoping that I'll go to him and that he just gave me a way to
get away from you."


Jace didn't reply and the cabin's frontdoor swung open to emit Oscar as he
approached. Jace got out and each took most of the bags, leaving me with only
two to carry inside.


It was a similar cabin to the one that we had just vacated except there was
no second floor and only one bedroom to the right. The kitchen stood with the
living room and only a table constituted where a dining room might've been. The
fireplace stood prominent, just like the last cabin, and it stood where a
television entertainment center might've stood if we were in those times.


We weren't. We had broken off from the world into our own timeline and our
own world.


We had the option of television, computers, any other electrical device that
would've proved our lives as luxurious and convenient, but that wasn't the world
I grew up with and Jace hadn't either.


The cabin felt like another home, just like the last had, and even the home
that Jace had torched.


Oscar knelt and started a fire while Jace unloaded his weapons on the kitchen
table.


"Abagail cooked a bunch of food. It's all in the fridge for you." Oscar told
me as he moved to lumber over his leader's shoulders.


I felt dismissed as the two conversed quietly, above the layout of Jace's
cold ruthless weapons.


I watched, as I had as a child, and I saw Oscar slip out a file and place it
in front of Jace, on the table with their backs as a barrier for my naked
eye.


Jace flipped it open and they talked some more in low, murmured voices, that
merely hinted at actual syllables.


Jace nodded a final time and Oscar left with a respectful nod towards me.


I waited and Jace sighed, looked at me, and surrendered, "You can come with
me."


I was wise enough to not question the abrupt change, but I knew it had
something to do with what Oscar had given him.


"When do we leave?"


"We eat and sleep. We leave at four in the morning."


"That'll get us there…" At noon.


"I want to hit it when they're not expecting us."


"Marcus will have people on the staff. They're going to be watching."


Jace sat in front of me, on the floor, with his back against the couch. He
spoke, "And you're going to know most of them, but there'll be one or two that
you won't know. They'll be Marcus' safeguard, but he'll want to give you the
opportunity to reach out for him if you want to."


"I could use that."


"What do you mean?"


"I'll defect to their team. I'll tell them that you're going after Ben.
They'll leave him alone with me and they'll go to get you. Marcus won't be able
to pass that up. He'll want you captured."


"Mallon won't be there." Jace said confidently.


"What do you mean? Of course, he'll be there."


"No, he really won't." Jace sighed and stood up, "But he'll be coming. And
that's what we need to happen." He extended a hand and said, "Come on. Let's get
some sleep. We're going to need it."


"What do you mean that you need Marcus to come?"


"Nothing. We'll do it your way. You can talk to Ben, get the book from him,
and I'll distract his staff. I'll lead them on a merry chase." Jace smirked, a
slight note of cockiness blended too well with the gun that he placed on the
bedside stand.


Neither of us commented how no one offered to take the couch.


After Jace left to lock the door and check the windows, he set an alarm and
slipped underneath the covers.


We slept beside each other and I only woke to one nightmare. Jace woke also
and shifted to lay a hand over my waist.


It was dark again when I said clearly, "He prays to Ben's picture every
day."


"What are you talking about?" Jace shifted to his side, but kept his arm
where it rested.


I turned my face on the pillow and met his eyes. "He has a picture of Ben in
his sanctuary. He used to go in there everyday and pray to him, pray for
him."


Jace didn't say anything for a moment and then he said, softly, almost too
quiet to hear, "Praying is the easy part."


"What do you mean?"


"You pray when you can't fix something, when you're helpless and there's
nothing left to do except pray."


"I've never been religious, but Krein called me a Christian freak." I smiled
sadly to myself. Jace wouldn't see the faint somber gratitude. "I prayed when I
was with Marcus."


"What do you mean?"


"I was fat, you know. When I was younger. I didn't have a lot of
self-esteem."


"So you got it by surviving Marcus?" Jace chuckled briefly.


"Ever been in a relationship that you're too scared to leave? You've lied so
much that it takes you five years to realize that you've been lying to
yourself?"


Jace didn't say anything.


"I have." I murmured.


"And that's why you prayed."


"That's why I prayed, but that's not why Marcus prays."


"Mallon doesn't pray." Jace said it, matter-of-factly. "He doesn't have it in
him to pray."


"It's funny."


"What is?" Jace shifted towards me. He leaned up on his elbow.


I met his gaze and said simply, "I always know what I'm praying for, but I
never know who I'm praying to."


An unnamed emotion flashed within him, but he didn't say anything. He merely
laid back down, closed his eyes, and kept his hand on my waist as I fell asleep
to dream dreams.


I dreamt of a child's laughter that raced past our window with a white hand
outstretched to fly across the ocean's width. As the child raced down the hills,
her billowing white robe flapping behind her and her golden hair messily free,
she lifted her hands higher, her feet floated above the water and I realized
that the child had turned into a dove with the eyes of an innocent.


I woke, startled, and her eyes flashed before me again.


They were grey like pewter.