by J D Morganne
“Bait?”
“Jaxon,” he told her. “My name’s not bait.”
“Didn’t mean offense. I’m gonna bring you a nice, big Roundabowl. Big meatballs.” She demonstrated by holding her hands under her breasts. Grinning, she walked away. All Jaxon wondered was why anyone would serve a ball of meat.
“That girl. What’s that face for?” Nano juggled his cashews from hand-to-hand.
“What animals do you get meat from?”
Nano shrugged. “Wild venison. Chicken. We like beans. That’s what those meatballs is made from. Purple corn and beans. Tricked me with that the first time.”
“Not those pigs?”
“Them pigs out there?” Nano gestured to a sleeping few huddled in a row in the middle of the path downhill. “We don’t eat pig. If Aria heard you say that…”
Jaxon was uncomfortable talking about Aria to him. He didn’t understand her and Nano’s relationship. As if speaking about Aria had put a sour taste in both their mouths, they didn’t say another word until Eshauna set a heaping bowl of brown rice, topped with meatballs, in front of him. Garlic would’ve overwhelmed his senses, if not for the sautéed onions, which smelled like soy sauce and wine. Diced avocado divided the meatballs. Beside it, she placed a smaller serving bowl of sweet, simmering orange sauce.
“How much?” Nano said, leaning back and searching through his pockets with no intention on paying. He was a different person now, his tone stern, all jokes aside.
“On the house,” Eshauna said with a wave, no longer interested in either of them. She set down a stein of icy water. It hadn’t been on the table five seconds before Jaxon snatched it and gulped half. It went icy down his throat.
The rice bowl was a different story. Spicy peppers permeated sweet almond butter. He had given in to eating those pears, and his stomach fought him over this meal, too. He stuck his finger in the middle and the smoke formed a hazy cloud.
“Hot?” Eshauna asked, with a satisfied grin. She took the smaller bowl and poured the sauce over his rice and meatballs. “Thought you’d appreciate that.”
This wasn’t the food Jaxon knew—hot on the outside, grossly chilled inside. All of it was smoky, mouthwatering.
“Ahem.” Eshauna waited for him to take the fork and napkin she held out. When he did, she said, “I’ll get you some more water.” She snatched his glass, still rankled by his rejection, and left him and Nano in peace.
Nano sat back, with his leg up on the seat and his eyes out the window. Jaxon followed his glance past a slew of abandoned homes, further into the city. He fixated his gaze on mountains below, the starlit houses slanting into the distance. There was nowhere in Jerus anyone could look and not see beauty.
Jaxon lifted the scuffed, wooden fork and looked up to make sure no one was watching, but Nano kept peeking in his direction. Not only him. Most of the chatter had died down, but Jaxon didn’t want to assume they had all joined to watch him eat. The food didn’t look any more appetizing than the crap he ate at home. The pungent sauce Eshauna had smothered the rice in spiraled steam toward the ceiling.
He didn’t know what was in this food, where she had gone to make it or what it would do to him, but he bit it anyway. It was piping hot, not enough to make him stop chewing, not enough to counter the wet, tangy and spicy juices infusing on his tongue. Every flavor demanded dominance over the other. Jaxon tried to stay cavalier, but he was close to biting his finger.
“Right?” Nano startled him.
Jaxon dropped his fork mid-bite.
“Bait, you are enjoying the hell outta that.”
“Leave him alone,” Eshauna said. “Let the man eat in peace.”
Jaxon hadn’t realized she was back, or that his worst fear had come to life. The diner had gone silent for him. Most eyes were on him, and those that weren’t were too head-deep in their own food to care.
“You ain’t got food like this?” Nano inquired, a mouthful of apple pie. He chewed like it was a piece of old candy he had gotten stuck in his teeth.
“We sacrifice many cravings for the good of everyone.” Jaxon snatched his fork and talked between stuffing his face. “Wooks. Shocolate…” he swallowed. “That kind of stuff.” He wiped his mouth with his hand.
“What kind of food y’all got there?”
Jaxon leaned over his bowl. It didn’t matter if he told him. He wasn’t in Obedience and the way things were going now, he didn’t think he’d be home any time soon. “Prepackaged.” He sucked down another mouthful, barely chewing.
“What does that mean?” Eshauna pushed Nano’s leg to sit. She leaned forward with her elbows on the table and scooped a chunk of Nano’s pie onto her fingers. “It’s already cooked?” She licked her fingers.
“They come in containers or packages and’re self-heating.”
“Oh, like the bakery?” She rocked her now wet hand back and forth to whatever image she’d created in her mind.
“Not like a bakery,” Nano said. “Like a store you can go in and buy stuff that’s cooked, right? And take it home and heat it up and it’s already cooked so you… eat it. Right?”
“Like leftovers,” someone random offered.
A man three tables away tried to wrap his head around it, too. “Like when we fry up those chips and put’em in brown bags and sell’em?”
“Chips?” Jaxon raised his eyebrow.
There was a collective silence, a dark gloom that settled over the diner like someone had died.
Nano frowned. He averted his attention to his pie, then Jaxon’s food, back to his pie. He shook his head at it like he wanted to apologize to it. “I’ve never been prouder, at this very moment, to be Earthen. And you so brave, saying it like that, like-like-like it’s nothin’.”
Eshauna swallowed, rolling her eyes. “Here we go.” She sucked sticky apple from her teeth and scooted from the table.
“I’d like to thank my mama, the Great Emiir Yahid Beck V,” Nano continued.
“Take that shit outside.” Eshauna walked off, but Nano had everyone else’s attention. He made sure to keep it by hopping on the table.
Chewing and swallowing at the same time, Jaxon pulled his bowl away from Nano’s shoes.
“For doing the wet stuff with my dad,” Nano went on.
“In a storage closet,” Beck added, from the doorway.
“On the job.” Nano pointed at her and then waved her over. Aria wasn’t with her. “So that we can indulge and ravish all this awesomeness before us. Someone, cue violin.”
Beck hummed a low melody, as she washed her hands.
“You know, we often take these things for granted.” Nano turned to address everyone. “Farmin’, gardenin’, tradin’… and eating all these things, spared from the poison our ancestors were forced to ingest. While people less fortunate than us suffer, day-by-day, on prepackaged, self-heating, microwaved food.” He snatched Jaxon’s fork in the middle of him biting and held it above him like a staff. “This one’s for you, Jax, my man. This one’s for you.” He wiped invisible tears from his eye.
Everyone erupted in applause.
“That was beautiful,” Eshauna joked, giggling.
“Enough,” Beck said, almost too quiet for Jaxon to hear.
Everyone else must’ve heard, though, because they were silent in an instant, back to their evening before Beck’s “divine” presence. Nano liked to claim he was a god, but Jaxon was beginning to understand how Beck’s authority worked—silent until she needed to speak. And when she spoke, the world listened. She snatched the fork from Nano and sat across from Jaxon.
She looked like the younger sibling, sitting next to Nano, with none of the bulky, boxy features he had. And even if she didn’t have Aria’s gratifying beauty, she was damned pretty, classically pretty. Jaxon couldn’t help but listen when she spoke too, though almost every word out of her mouth made him want to teach her a thing or two.
It wasn’t long before Eshauna was standing over them again. She set down another stei
n of water, which Beck pushed out of her way.
“Loving night, Emiir,” Eshauna said. “What can”—
“We don’t need anything else,” Beck said, brusquely. She tapped her pumpkin-orange fingernails on the table.
Jaxon was sure now she didn’t have the ability to be kind.
She didn’t say another word until Eshauna was back behind the counter. Beck glared askance at her for a long time before finally turning her attention to Jaxon and his dish. She tucked stray curls into her hat. “Finally eating?”
“You’re here.” Jaxon took his fork from her and sat back. He couldn’t help, but prepare himself for the worst news. Negativity had a tendency of following Beck. “What’s that mean?”
She shrugged. “I thought you’d be long gone.”
He smirked. “No, you didn’t.” She’d known he was stuck before he had.
The smile she formed was slow. Every portion of her face animated with it. “I didn’t,” she admitted. “I thought you might understand better.”
“I don’t understand anything.” He dropped his fork and sat back, anxious to hear everything she had to say.
“I, uh, spoke with Cayman,” Beck said to Nano.
Jaxon heard that name before. “Don’t exclude me.” He didn’t mean for it to sound like a warning, but it came out that way. If he was going to be stuck there, he wanted to know all they knew.
“I’m talking to you too, stupid. Eat and listen.”
Hell, he didn’t have enough in his bowl to scoop. “Who’s Cayman?”
“He”— Nano started.
“Was Jerus’s Emiir,” Beck cut him off. “When men could lead. A long time ago and apparently, he wants to meet with you for whatever reason.”
“You’re Emiir,” Jaxon said, still not understanding. He knew the Wars had spawned the Treaty of Divii with Alasta. Cayman was a new name, a new stranger he had to decide was dangerous or safe. If he was Alasta’s Emiir, that meant those Torchers were his men.
“Of Jerus,” Beck said. “We’ll meet with him when you’re better.”
When he was better? Meeting when he felt better, meant he would have to be there to meet. He couldn’t stomach a prolonged stay there but couldn’t help the feeling that they were purposely keeping him there. Which meant he was a prisoner. “I’m good now.”
Beck looked him over, staring in his eyes for a long time before, glancing at his mouth. Jaxon couldn’t help but wonder if she was recalling him vomiting on her. He wondered if that would haunt her like it was haunting him. He swallowed his humiliation, but before he could say anything more, Beck met his eyes again.
“You’re misunderstanding me,” she said. “You’re not strong enough to travel yet. Not by yourself anyway and I’m not sending my best Lions into hell’s pit.”
Her fallible schemes irked his tranquil core. “I can travel alone.”
“Yeah, you did great proving that.”
“Nobody asked for your help.”
Beck shot her eyebrows up high and leaned forward. “I’ve been exhausted for the past couple days because of you. Shut your damn mouth and listen.”
Jaxon sat back, thumped his leg, itching to divulge how useless she was.
She arched her shoulders high before dropping them. “You’re too cute to be this annoying. Why are you in a rush? You can’t even walk on your own.”
“Have you been listening? I have to get home.”
Beck groaned, then laughed. “Why? They left you for dead.” There was silence while Beck let this truth soak into him. Then she said, “We’ll meet with Cayman. After I find out what they want with you, you’re free to go.”
Jaxon didn’t want to meet with Cayman. He didn’t know him. Didn’t she know anything? She was a leader. Couldn’t she open a Door, any Door? Couldn’t she tell this Cayman guy what she had told the Torchers, that they had no business with him? They were wrong, like she told them, he had crossed from their side. They were the danger, not him.
“Can’t you do something?” He searched around as panic built in his chest. He knew he couldn’t find the answer in the blank stares of onlookers or colorful socks or napkins. He didn’t find it in Nano or Beck either. “Look, I’ll do anything, okay?”
Beck slouched with an exasperated sigh.
“I’ll do anything.”
She might’ve felt sorry for him, but it was gone in a flash. “I don’t have access to any Door.”
“Edie Garden does,” Nano said, gazing over his shoulder and scratching the curly blond hairs on his chin.
“Now, why would you”— Beck leaned back to look her brother in his eyes. She was smiling, but her lip twitched. Nano had said something Jaxon wasn’t supposed to hear. “Goodbye, Anga.”
“Ain’t gotta tell me but once.” He snatched his plate. “Takin’ my pie. Don’t ask for none.” He jumped over her and skipped off.
Jaxon suspected he would stay within earshot. “You told me about Edie Garden. Where is it?”
“Off limits.”
“But there’s a Door there?”
“It’s off-limits.”
“How is it”— Jaxon caught himself raising his voice and composed himself. “You’re a commander. Can’t you negotiate?”
“Who do you think you are? Negotiate what? You? You were garbage to your Door and you’ve shown your use here.”
Queen Farah would’ve washed her mouth out with hot coals. She would’ve made her kneel on a bed of rice and beg Kamiaka for forgiveness for a tongue like that.
Jaxon’s head was hot. Enough to explode. His fingertips tingled with a need to release. “You’ve shown yours, too.”
The scowl Beck made was the stuff of nightmares. “What did you… say to me?”
Jaxon cringed but held his ground. “You’re not much help.”
“I beg to fucking differ. My brother saved your life. Twice! Aria mended you. Bongani clothed you. Eshauna fed you. I let you sleep in a place more sacred than your god when those Torchers would peel that pale skin from your flesh and puree you for their dogs. You little ingrate.”
He had thanked her. He’d extended his kindness to a level beyond its means. “I’m”—
“I’ve already decided. You’ll heal before we do anything else. It’s an order. You’re good at following those, right, Soldier?”
She waited for an answer, but Jaxon had nothing left to say. He had nothing to say on his ride back to the house. Nothing to say when he carried himself to his room, where his bag was waiting. Nothing when he realized he was never getting out of there. He had been deluding himself and focused on the wrong thing.
Even if he healed and they allowed him to leave, he had nowhere to go. Unless. There was Edie Garden. Now, only a name, but if it held any merit, he could rest upon a new hope. There was someplace beyond Jerus.
Part II
L E A R N
16
BANG.
Beck’s pendulum light fixture bumped against the wall and rocked back and forth on its thick wires.
A commotion outside her door shook the walls and floor. It was nearly eight in the morning, too early for a party. Not too early for Nano’s ritual chasing of Bucky around the house. Bucky’s squeals wafted through Beck’s door. He must’ve stolen food from Nano’s plate again. It was a mystery how he managed to reach the table, especially when Nano never turned away from his food that long.
Another bang came like thunder. Then, what Beck hated the most— the scraping of stools on hardwood. She threw her comforter and pillows off her bed, stomped around her floor and thrust open the door. “Is this life?” she screamed, still shaking off the trembles of being awakened suddenly.
“Nano.” Aria traipsed into the bathroom.
“This is a madhouse.” Beck locked gazes with one of her Lions, dressed his immaculate best and standing outside her bedroom door. Another was on the other side of her doorway, equally eager to appease. The robot had done it again. They were back. That stupid soldier kept hiring her Li
ons to “guard” her.
“We’re paid for, Emiir,” one said, his young smile reaching for his eyes.
Beck couldn’t believe they were following a stranger’s orders. “I don’t care if the snowball paid you all his pocket change.” It was the same thing she had told them the morning before. She had done a kick-ass job protecting herself before Jaxon. She didn’t need anyone— kids!— following her every move, like Nano did. And unlike Jaxon, she could drown in her reclusion and die happy. “Leave me alone.”
Stupid, stupid Robot, she thought. Where he came from, soldiers were everywhere. He was used to them being his bumper, but Beck didn’t want them in her home. She’d built The Den for them, which was close enough to her house that if anything happened it wouldn’t take them much time to get to her.
Beck admitted Jaxon had intimidated her before, a stranger the sun had never touched, but he was growing more superfluous by the day. The months had shown her two things: he was as docile as they came, and he was in desperate need of a leader. He had taken it upon himself to make extra money picking up jobs in Tiyeert. But he wasted most of his rusies on these so-called guards for Beck and those stupid lanterns that stayed lit all night in the front yard. Twice she had kicked down the flaming tiki-torches. Twice he had stuck them up.
“Ka,” Beck nodded toward the end of the hall, the living room, where the front door was waiting for them to get the hell out.
The Lions raced each other out the front door. Though, she took some solace in the fact they wanted to protect her, they were young recruits, still in training. They had a lot to learn.
Nano crashed to the floor, squeezing Bucky who squealed and thrashed his feet to get loose. Aria must’ve heard the crash because she came storming from the bathroom, still in her underwear and robe. She leapt into the front room, where Nano and Bucky were in a full wrestling match. In a rage, she slapped at the back of Nano’s head.
“He ate my cake.” Nano tried to shield himself from her blows, while still grasping Bucky. “He ate my cake, Baby.”
