She clenched her hands into fists to prevent herself from reaching for him and said, “Watkins is moving up the bombing of the school. According to Neena, he’s going to do it tonight.”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “Start from the beginning, and tell me everything Neena told you.”
She did—well, everything except for one secret she’d promised to keep from Jorge—and when she finished, he looked her dead in the eye and said, “You’ve been doing this double-life thing for years, so I’m guessing you’re good at telling whether someone is lying to you or not. What’s your professional opinion on Neena? Imagine you had a team’s life in your hands, would you still trust her and use her information?”
Sabrina had already given this a lot of thought. “Yes, I think she’s telling the truth. Her eccentricities are genuine and I get the feeling that most people think she’s lying because of them, when in reality she’s being herself. It’s kind of a brilliant cover, if you ask me. I wish I could just be myself and say whatever I wished, but then have people dismiss it out of hand because of my behavior. It’d be a hell of a lot easier than having to live two lives.”
He uncrossed his arms. “About that, what made a human take an undercover job with the Fed League for two years? How long have you even known the Feiru existed?”
She hadn’t meant to draw attention to her earlier revelations, but now that she had, she wouldn’t try to brush them aside. “I sort of discovered your existence by acciden
t.”
He gave her a look and she decided they had enough time for her to tell him more. She hadn’t told anyone outside of the Feiru Liaison office this story before, but if she wanted any sort of trust between them, she needed to stop worrying about what her superiors might do to her. Especially since her identity was already compromised.
She took a deep breath and said, “During my first year at university in Brazil, I was returning from a late night at the library. It was a clear, warm night, but all of a sudden I heard loud splashes of water, as if there was a downpour. I went toward the sound and came upon a young man surrounded by streams of water dancing around him, and occasionally one of the water streams would hit the ground. Like any human, all I could do was stare. The young man was standing in the open, and there was no logical reason I could think of for the displays of water—no fountain, no hoses, nothing.
“I didn’t get to stare long, however, before I heard something like a gun go off. The young man went down, and the water instantly splashed against the ground to form a big puddle. As I tried to move away from the growing lake at my feet, arms grabbed my shoulders and spun me around. The woman was wearing a police-like uniform, but something about it was off.”
Jorge said, “She was a Feiru enforcer.”
Sabrina nodded. “Yes. I later learned they’d gotten a tip and had come to take care of the problem before someone could record the display of elemental magic with a camcorder or a video on their cell phone. The man was taken into custody, as was I.”
“And what did they do with you?”
Despite everything she’d seen, and everything she’d experienced in her current occupation, that night was still the most important in her life because from that day onward, she’d never been able to be truly honest with anyone. Keeping it a secret from all of her friends and family, including her sister, had nearly torn her apart.
But with Jorge, she could finally break her silence, and maybe start to heal her fractured psyche. After all, he was a Feiru, and talking about the enforcer procedures wouldn’t violate any of the agreements she’d signed. She might get in trouble with her boss back at the Feiru Liaison office, but she could handle that.
Besides, it was more than wanting to tell someone; she needed to tell someone. “At first, nothing. They kept me locked up and wouldn’t tell me why. I couldn’t even make a call to my sister to let her know I was alive. The thought of her and my friends thinking I was dead was one of the lowest points of my life.”
Jorge took a step closer to her and briefly touched her arm. “They must’ve let you out eventually, or you wouldn’t be standing here in front of me.”
He was looking at her, his face almost soft like it had been in the old days, and she wanted him to touch her again. “They would occasionally question me to try to find out what I knew. Eventually, a Feiru lawyer came and explained my options to me—I could either spend the rest of my life in a special type of relocation center, or I could agree to work with the Feiru Liaison office as a type of spy. Since I could still see my sister occasionally with the latter option as long as I didn’t tell her anything related to the Feiru or my new job, I chose that one.”
Jorge was less than a foot in front of her now. She had to look up to see his face, but his expression was unreadable. This close, she could smell the unique masculine scent that was Jorge, but he didn’t touch her or reach for her. Instead, he asked, “How old were you when this happened?”
“It happened a little over five years ago, when I was eighteen.”
He lifted a hand and cupped her cheek. Her heart rate picked up and she barely resisted turning her head into his touch, afraid she might scare him away. Right now, she wanted comfort. Talking about her past and how bad luck had changed the course of her life forever was taking a toll on her emotions.
In addition to that, the strain of never sharing why she’d been forced to leave university had finally been eased, but if she wasn’t careful, she might start to cry.
Jorge’s voice was low when he said, “So, you understand what it’s like to live a life not of your choosing.”
She nodded, and he lifted his other hand to trace her cheek, the touch sending shivers down her spine. She searched his eyes and she said, “No one deserves to be forced into doing something the way you or I have. Do you believe me now, when I say I never would’ve shared your shadow-shifting secret if I’d known it would end up harming you?”
He nodded. “But in a way, it worked out for the best. If I’d never been forced to work for the Collector, you never would’ve told me your secret, and I never would’ve been able to do this.”
He lowered his head and kissed her.
Chapter Eleven
Jorge knew he should be focusing on Watkins and finishing this job, but as Sabrina told him about how she’d been snatched at eighteen and forced to live a life not of her choosing, the last of his doubt about her dissolved. She may have had better conditions than he’d had with the Collector, but at least he’d been twenty-five when it’d happened to him. Sabrina had barely been an adult, and yet she’d taken her new circumstances and ran with them. An average human might’ve resented their new life, but instead, Sabrina had worked hard, resulting in the smart and talented woman in front of him.
Deep down, knowing she understood what it was like to do things you didn’t want to do, made him want her more than ever. Out of everyone, Sabrina might understand and forgive the awful acts he’d committed to protect his sister.
And once he realized that, a loneliness he’d been denying all along finally came rushing forth. He wanted her, and he wanted her now.