Fox Forever (Jenna Fox Chronicles 3)

“No trick, Miesha,” he says and steps closer, hobbling on a crutch. “I’ve been a prisoner. Your friend rescued me.”

Hearing his voice, her knees buckle. I grab her around the waist and she straightens her legs. Her whole body stiffens like she’s forcing strength back into it. She steps away from me and walks silently toward Karden until they’re face-to-face. They stare at each other for the longest time, a space of time that makes the rest of us grow uncomfortable, like they’re both taking in the lines and toll sixteen hard years apart has brought. Finally, they whisper words to each other that none of us can hear. My fear that there would be nothing left between them vanishes. He reaches up, touching her face, and she melts into him.

The rest of us step away to the other side of the bonfire, giving them space, the moment too intimate even if it’s in the middle of a courtyard, but even through the crackle and hiss of the fire I hear Miesha’s sobs, something I’ve never heard from her before. And just that quick, suddenly the Favor is not about me trying to find a life, not about justice or a resistance, or anything large and global, it’s about something as basic as air and gravity, something as basic as the love between two people.

I look up and see Raine’s face in the window of Xavier’s home. Waiting. I see the fear in her eyes. Meeting Miesha is different from meeting Karden. She loved her adoptive mother and for her entire life had been told that her birth mother was an animal. I can’t make Raine wait through this any longer.

I walk back over to where Miesha and Karden are standing and I tug on her arm, turning her to face me. “There’s someone else you need to meet,” I say softly.

I intend to walk her inside the building but when we turn, Raine is already standing in the doorway. Miesha spots her. I hold her tight, waiting for her to breathe again, fearful that this final shock might make her collapse completely, but something else happens instead. She takes a deep breath, visibly becomes stronger right before my eyes, her chin lifting, pulling away from me, seeing the utter terror in Raine’s eyes just as I do, and for h

er child’s sake she keeps it together, becoming the steel-strong mother who plunged her arms through a window and into a burning building trying to save her baby so long ago.

“Her name is Raine now,” I say.

Miesha nods. “Raine,” she whispers to herself. She swallows. “Let’s go inside and meet, Raine.”

* * *

The four of us, me, Raine, Karden, and Miesha, sit in Xavier’s modest living room for an hour. At first I talk, telling Miesha about the Favor, then Karden talks about his time in prison, the Secretary taunting him with stories of his wife and child that nearly broke him. Miesha keeps it together, the only clue that a storm rages within her is whenever the Secretary’s name is mentioned and the knuckles of her fist whiten. Finally Miesha asks Raine if she remembers anything about her and Karden.

Raine shakes her head.

“No, of course you wouldn’t,” Miesha says apologetically. “You were too young.” For the first time her voice cracks. She takes a shallow clattering breath. “And your adoptive mother? She was good to you?”

“Yes,” Raine whispers.

The creases fanning out from the corners of Miesha’s eyes deepen and her lower lip trembles. I watch the sixteen years that she missed with her own child race through her eyes, precious years that she can never get back and for the first time I think it’s possible for her sixteen lost years to be far more than the 260 that were lost to me.

Miesha bites her lip to stop its trembling, and her head tilts to the side slightly. “May I—” She blinks, trying to force back tears, but one trickles from the corner of her eye anyway. “May I hold you?” she asks.

Raine nods, and Miesha leans forward, holding her daughter for the first time since she was a baby cradled in her arms, her shoulders shaking, her eyes squeezing shut. Raine’s eyes close too, her lashes wet. I watch her fingers curl into Miesha’s sweater, at last gripping the mother she searched for in her late-night walks.

I look at Karden, and even for someone as wiry and tough and self-disciplined as he is, someone who has survived years of isolation and who knows what else, this proves too much for even him and he looks away, tears flowing down his cheeks.

Xavier appears in the doorway and knocks softly on the wall. “Sorry,” he whispers. “But their car is here. It’s not safe for them to linger too long.”

Time. It seems there’s always too much. Or not enough. But we know we have to deal with what we have.

Miesha seems to understand this too. We explain to her where we’re going. A safe house in New York. It’s a good town to get lost in for a while. And we need to get good and lost, at least until the money can start helping us, opening some doors and closing others. Plus, there’s someone else there, someone who needs a Favor. Xavier’s promised me it’s nothing of the magnitude of this last Favor, just enough to keep me “out of trouble,” as he describes it. Karden will be staying here and recovering until he’s better able to travel. It’s not safe for him to stay in Boston either.

We walk outside and Xavier points to a narrow place between two buildings where a truck is wedged, almost hidden from view. The plumbing truck. “One last thing before you go. We need to do something with them. Did you decide?”

I think I decided almost the minute I saw them. I just needed to be able to do it myself. I finally understood Jenna’s long-ago actions in that moment, knowing why she threw our copies in the pond. Until we face an impossible decision ourselves, we don’t ever really know for sure what we would do. I know now. A life gets one chance, maybe two if we’re lucky, but a hundred chances reduces what is precious to a product—a product whose only purpose for existence is to replace that which is lost.

Not everything can be replaced. Kara’s gone. If anything’s left, it’s only her shell, the one Gatsbro tried unsuccessfully to fill and use for his own greedy purposes. No one will have that chance again.

One by one, I disconnect the cubes from their battery docks and pass them to Xavier, and others who quietly offer their help, and they take them to the bonfire. Cube after cube labeled with LOCKE or with KARA, a hundred Lockes, a hundred Karas, one by one, gone. No more wandering through an endless, timeless void. No more searching for doors that don’t exist. Finally, I come to the last cube, but it’s labeled differently from the rest.

Gerald Gatsbro.

My blood runs cold and I hesitate. Xavier waits, his hand outstretched, ready to carry it off with the others. I stare at the cube, a second chance to give Gatsbro what he deserves. I’m inclined to keep it, walk away to one of the many abandoned buildings that surround us and tuck it away into a dark corner. Leave it there. Let it sit for centuries. Or longer.

Raine appears at the rear of the truck. “Locke, are you okay?”

I inhale sharply, focusing on her face, her eyes bright, ready to leave her past behind. I look back at the cube, my last chance for revenge for everything he did to me and especially to Kara. “Yes,” I answer. “I’m fine.” I disconnect Gatsbro’s cube and hand it to Xavier.

The copies are finally all gone, their journey over, and now only one Locke remains, the Locke reaching for Raine’s hand, ready to begin a new journey.