No longer did I have a choice but to leave. Making my expression blank, I turned to my allies. In a casual tone, I asked them, "Care for a vodka?"
Should they catch wind of my plans, they would try to stop me. Already Paul had disabled the vehicles. I recalled being outraged, until he'd explained that Fauna or the Archangel might be tempted to sneak away, weakening the sphere, and therefore our entire alliance.
Within the hour, I would steal out on a pale horse--as Death had done so many times over the last two thousand years.
Once I'd collected the Empress's icon, I would return to my castle and settle into my new alliance.
Though I would be traveling beyond Paul's sphere of clarity, his powers against the Empress might hold. If not . . .
Hatred pulls the strings.
32
The Empress
"Hi, honey, your husbands are home," Joules called, as the three walked into our new digs.
I glared at him from the stove. "That never gets old, Tower. Truly."
For weeks, he'd made that crack whenever they returned from their shifts. For just as long, I'd bitten back retorts, feeling like one of Richter's volcanoes set to blow.
Yet now things were finally going to change . . . .
My roomies always looked exhausted after spending sixteen hours at a time in the trench. Sometimes Joules fell asleep at the table. Kentarch's outline would waver, his powers sapped from getting them out of whatever wormhole they'd crawled into that day. But tonight, the guys seemed even more fatigued than usual.
Jack crossed to me, leaning in to give me a quick kiss. "Missed this pretty face."
I mustered a smile. His lingering looks and stray comments had finally convinced me that he was still attracted to me.
He wanted me; I wanted him. But we had a ghost between us.
Though he and I shared that pallet, we never touched as we both needed. The tension between us filled this tin can.
As we'd lain together, we'd talked for hours. One night, wondering if he'd ever make a move, I'd teased him.
"Aren't you strung tight? Remember telling me that out on the road?" Imitating his voice, I said, "I been strung tight for days, bebe."
He exhaled. "I've done some growing up since then. You called me selfish, and I was. I would've done anything to sleep with you and make you mine."
"And now?"
He tucked my hair behind my ear. "Now I'd give anything for you and Tee to be happy and safe."
I gazed at him, taking in his proud, tired face, smudged with engine grease, and I sighed. Since I'd first met Jack, he'd not only become a man; he'd become a great one.
After pulling off helmets, coats, and gloves, the three sat at our rickety dining table. I'd served them pasta with a sauce of canned tomatoes. I'd grown fresh ones from the seeds, then chopped them up for garnish.
What had taken me hours to prepare would take them seconds to polish off. We'd all regained weight since our arrival.
"Were you safe down there?" I asked, sitting with them.
Jack and Kentarch had grown even closer, depending on each other in that lethal maze. Even prickly Joules had been bonding with non-Gabriel males.
Jack said, "Always." As predicted, they were killing it at salvage. Despite the danger, he relished the work, considered it one new puzzle after another, and the man loved puzzles.
Already he'd moved us from the worst tin can to the best double one on the ground floor, closer to Jubilee's amenities--which I could never use. He still didn't want me to explore the settlement without him.
I passed my days doing domestic chores, which I sucked at. I did the dishes. In a bucket. I did the laundry. In the same bucket.
And when I wasn't trying to hail Circe and Matthew for help--they never answered--
I spent hours wondering why Aric hadn't loved me enough to break free of Paul.
Every second convinced me: He isn't coming for you, Evie. Our last phone call had cemented that realization in my mind.
Between bites of tomato, Jack said, "We went to the BOL today." Bug-out location. They'd been using the Chariot's teleportation to smuggle supplies back to that cave. "It's filling up all right. And we've topped off the Beast's tank too."
Not so easy a feat. All vehicles that hadn't been cannibalized for Ciborium parts were parked in a guarded lot.
As much as Jack liked it here, he still believed in preparing to bug out. The Beast was a bug-out machine.
"'All right'?" Joules snorted. "Jackie boy's got a nose for finding booty." Side-eye at me. "Never seen anything like it. Everybody's talking about the Cajun ace."
Kentarch raised a brow. "His sourcing sense is unparalleled. He's sounded the horn more than anyone."
Whenever a salvager found more than his crew could offload, he'd invite everyone to come take a share. That all-hands-on-deck horn reminded me of the cannibal miners' shift-change signal.
Jack grinned. "I sound it so folks doan suspect we're a bunch of selfish smugglers. Plus, it keeps all the prying eyes in one spot while we go plunder even more."
A total Finn ploy. Don't look at this hand . . . God, I missed the Magician. Every day that I sat in here, I had too much time to think about all we'd lost. I wasn't ready to lose more.
"We're closing in on a medical frigate," Jack said. "I got a good feeling about it. Medicine's like gold now."
"Enough about our exciting careers." Joules smirked at me. "What'd you get into today? My dirty socks?"
"Yeah. I used them to dry your plate."
His smirk faded.
"Plank! Plank! Plank!" echoed throughout Jubilee. Again? This was the fourth execution since we'd gotten here.
I stiffened in my seat when the victim screamed that he'd been set up. They always said that. Where there's smoke . . . ?
The guys kept eating, not even reacting--though they'd been breaking the law routinely.
Joules shoved pasta into his piehole. "Lorraine came by our shift today. Gave us another pep talk." Had he sounded braggy?
If I heard another word about saintly Lorraine . . . My roomies were half infatuated with the ethereal woman. Whenever she spoke to the troops, they'd fanboy for hours.
Apparently she'd been studying to be a psychologist pre-Flash, planning to help the world one case at a time. Now she considered herself a "protectress of the earth."
Evie called, wants her shtick back.
My short-lived excitement over a female leader had waned even more. Yes, I was suspicious of shrinks after my stint in a mental ward--but it was more than that. My current helplessness made it impossible not to envy her power. To resent it.
I was becoming a wreck here--just like the ships all around us. Why were my talents wasted?
Inside this tin can, I relived what it'd felt like to be aflame with power. The Empress didn't get collared or contained.
Except for when living in a container? "I'll bet Lorraine pep-talked you. She needs all of you down there, risking your lives." Though the Ciborium refused to share in those risks, they got eighty percent of the salvage! "You're like mice nibbling at cheese in a trap. Sooner or later, you will get caught. You will die. Her house always wins, and she knows it."
Joules's face turned red as he blustered: "She's got a dream of rebuilding society! No one is forcing us down there."
"Something isn't right about her and the Ciborium." Lorraine and her crew might not be cannibals or mad scientists, but greed was a form of evil too. In my mind, that made them my enemies. "We need to be on our guard."
"Stop being an eejit. You're up the duff and barmy to boot, and you're never around her. Why should we listen to you?"
I slitted my eyes. "One day, Joules. One day . . ."
"Hey, now, you two." Jack pushed away his half-eaten plate. "I thought we were managing here. We got a plan. Let's stick to it." Since he'd returned from the dead, his patience seemed to have no end. But his reasonable tone was driving me up the metal walls.
When would he demo
nstrate frustration? When would he make demands about our relationship? Instead, he'd kept us fed and gotten us a better place. Whenever I had nightmares about my escape from the castle, he would stroke my hair. He'd diligently sourced for baby things.
He slept with his hand over my growing belly, confident he'd feel Tee kicking soon and scared to miss it.
Jack might be controlling his emotions, but mine were about to spill over. I'd figured that if I could keep from screaming when my mom had been dying, I could handle myself in any situation--even this tin-can solitary. But no longer . . . "Down on this level, I can hear people talking." Today I'd heard a woman's sobs.
After deliberating, I'd pulled a hoodie over my hair and headed out to investigate. I'd gotten attention from male Jubileans, but nothing too bad. No one had nabbed me or anything.
I'd found a crying woman in a black veil and worn snow gear.
"What's happened?" I gently asked.
She sniffled. "My wedding day. To three strange men."
Finally! Proof that Jubilee wasn't utopia. "Is the Ciborium forcing you to marry?"