"Hey, uh, hey guys?" Dominic pokes his head into the room. He's tugging nervously at the bottom of his frayed T-shirt. He obviously doesn't like interrupting their argument, but Maya waves for him to come in. "Sorry, I just—I have this feeling that something's wrong. Really wrong."
"No visions?" Ryan asks.
"No, it's not like that. I had a lot of trouble sleeping, but I didn't have any bad dreams. But then just around dawn, I just…have this itchy-crawly feeling. I tried to focus, tried to force a vision, but I haven't had one."
"What did you focus on?" Maya asks.
"Uh, the pack and the motel. Trying to see if anything was going to happen to us."
Maya tries to keep her voice calm and even. "You didn't try Jackie?"
"Oh—no, not exactly. I mean, I didn't focus on one specific person. I could try—"
There's a low whistle, and Kyra drops into the room through the hole in the roof. "Jackie is on her way," she says.
Maya feels a wave of relief that Jackie's all right, but then quickly realizes that her appearance probably doesn't bode well. "At this time of day?" she says, and Kyra just shrugs. The teenager comes jogging down the hall a minute later, and Maya can immediately tell that something is wrong. Jackie is pale and out of breath. "What is it?" Maya asks, taking a step toward her.
"Dad—" Jackie stops to take a breath. "You saw Dad last night? He helped you?"
"Yeah," Maya says, frowning. "Gabby got hit with a wolfsbane dart and he brought us the antidote. He saved her life."
Jackie sinks down onto the stairs and rakes both hands through her hair. "Oh God." Her voice trembles a little.
"What is it?" Maya asks again.
After a minute, Jackie takes a deep breath and manages to get a hold of herself. "Mitchell has accused Dad of treason for stealing from the militia and helping werewolves. So…nothing he didn't technically do, if he took the antidote and gave it to you. And by accused, I mean convicted." Her voice cracks again. "He's due to be executed at noon."
"Jesus, that doesn't give us much time," Maya says.
"Time to do what?" Ryan asks, arching his eyebrows.
"I don't know, anything," Maya says, growling at her brother.
"You want to waltz into the main square in broad daylight to try to get him out of the noose?" Ryan sounds skeptical. "It's a trap. An obvious trap. He isn't even trying to make it look like anything else. Which is insulting."
"Can you focus for a minute?" Maya asks.
"I am focused. It's a trap. Mitchell Donovan isn't going to hang his own son."
"I'll agree that it's a trap," Jackie says and looks up. "But he absolutely will murder his son if we don't stop him."
Maya sits down next to her. She reaches out and squeezes Jackie's hand. "We're not going to let that happen, Jackie."
"I think I can—with Solomon's help, I can make sure the hanging doesn't kill him," Jackie says. "But I don't know what to do afterwards. They'll think he's dead. How am I going to get him off the complex?"
"Well, let's start with Solomon," Maya says. "Maybe he'll have some ideas. Dominic, come with us. We'll probably need you," she adds, and Dominic nods but looks terrified at the idea of them depending on his magical talent.
Jackie takes a deep breath. "Thanks. I know—he's not your friend—but he's my father and I—"
"It's fine," Maya says. "Come on, let's go. Kyra, let the others know where we went, stay here with them. Double watch, even during the day." She's glad that nobody argues about the watches anymore. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
Jackie is on her feet and already at the door. Maya moves to go with her, but then looks at Ryan. "Are you coming?"
"I don't think I will," Ryan says.
"You son of a bitch," Jackie spits out, advancing on him. "I don't give a shit how nasty your breakup with my dad was, he's still my dad. I won't make you go to the complex or take any risks, but you're still one of the smartest people I know, so you're coming to Solomon's with us to help us figure this out. After everything I've done for you and yours over the past six months, you owe me at least that much."
Ryan stares her down for a long minute, then nods. "For you," he says. "Not for him."
"Sure. Whatever." Jackie turns and leaves the room abruptly. Dominic jogs after her.
Maya gives Ryan an exasperated look. "A little sensitivity towards her feelings would be appreciated."
"I've never been sensitive to anyone's feelings," Ryan says. "Why start now?" With that parting remark, he follows Jackie outside.
Chapter Fifteen
Nick is staring up at the ceiling of his cell feeling like an idiot when he hears a voice down the hallway. His daughter's voice. It's a little higher-pitched than normal, tight with worry and anger. "No, I told you, you're not coming. I don't want you to have to see him. He's a liar and a traitor and he's not our father, so just stay here."
Nick flinches despite himself. He doesn't care about the militia, doesn't care about his father or his brother or his wife. But to hear Jackie say that, to hear that tone of vicious venom in her voice, hurts more than a knife to the gut.
A minute later, he hears Jackie say, "Open up."
"You got two minutes," another voice says. "Hey, was that Valerie with you? I bet she's really upset, huh?"
"Yeah, whatever," Jackie says, and the door creaks open.
Nick manages to get to his feet before Jackie comes in and shuts the door behind her. He takes a deep breath and starts with, "Jackie, I know that—"
"No, you don't, so shut up, because we only have a few minutes here," Jackie says, so forcefully that Nick actually stops talking, startled. "Valerie will be able to keep Dalton occupied but that doesn't mean that nobody else will come by, and I'm not really supposed to be in here. Take your shirt off."
"What?" Nick asks, baffled.
"Take off your shirt; there's a harness for you to put on." Jackie takes a contraption out of her bag and shakes it. It gives a metallic rattle. "This strap here will go under your collar and we're gonna hook the noose to it so your neck won't break. Luckily for me, Mitchell has decided that I get to be the fucking executioner, because he thinks that's a great way to keep me in line. What a dick."
"Where did you get—"
"Oh my God!" Jackie flails at him, and Nick quickly strips his shirt off and lets Jackie show him how to put the harness on. "It would take too long to explain. Okay. That'll keep your neck from breaking but it won't do anything about the suffocation." She waits until Nick has his shirt back on, then holds out what looks like a leaf. "Okay. Listen to me very closely. Put this underneath your tongue. But do not, I repeat, do not bite down until I get the noose around your neck and we're ready to drop you. Solomon says it's fast-acting. Once we're about to drop you, chew and swallow. Don't just swallow. Chew it up first. They won't see, Mitchell is going to put a hood over you because he's afraid you're going to start a riot or something. It'll put you under and make it look like you're dead. Undetectable pulse, et cetera, slow you down enough that the prolonged oxygen deprivation won't cause brain damage. Understand?"
"Hold the leaf under my tongue, chew and swallow once you get the noose adjusted," Nick says.
"Yeah. Good. With any luck, you'll wake up a long way from here."
"Where?"
"I'm not sure yet, Solomon's probably; we're still working on that." Jackie looks over her shoulder. "I have to go. I don't have much time."
"Okay. I—" Nick reaches out and pulls his daughter into a tight embrace. "I'm really proud of you. Confused as hell, but proud."
Jackie clings to him, her fingers clutching at the back of Nick's shirt. In a bare whisper, she says, "Thanks, Dad."
She's gone without another word. Nick hears the cell door latch behind her. He puts the leaf underneath his tongue. It doesn't taste like anything, at least not on the outside. He has no idea what it is, but doesn't particularly care. Solomon knows his business. If he says this will make him appear dead, he'll take his word
on it. Besides that, he's sure that Ryan has to be behind his sudden salvation, and Ryan never does anything halfway. The werewolf has probably planned this out to the eighteenth contingency. Nick wishes that he had done it without getting Jackie involved, but then again, there probably wasn't any other way. Hopefully, his daughter's role is minimal.
It's been about fifteen more minutes when he hears footsteps outside, and then he hears Dalton say, "Sir." The door opens again, and Mitchell is standing there. Nick refuses to look at him.
"I'm sorry that it's come to this, Nick," Mitchell says solemnly.
At that moment, Nick regrets having the leaf in his mouth, because he really wants to ask if that's what Mitchell said to the Jacksons before he murdered them. But he can't say anything, so he continues to stare just over Mitchell's shoulder and keep his face expressionless.
"Nothing to say for yourself, hm?" Mitchell says, and Nick doesn't even blink. "Fine, then. Have it your way." He pulls Nick's hands around his back and puts them in handcuffs. Nick closes his eyes as he feels the steel close around his wrists but still says nothing. There are so many things that he wishes he could say that he knows he would probably regret saying later that he's almost glad the leaf in his mouth prevents him from talking.
He's well aware of how Mitchell makes a spectacle out of the executions. Everyone in town is required to attend, except for children under the age of ten and their immediate caretakers. He also knows that Mitchell is going to go the extra mile for this, both because of the seriousness of the offense and because of Nick's relationship with him.
The crowd is as loud as ever, jeering and yelling insults. Nobody throws anything, at least. Vegetables don't last long enough to go rotten in Cold Creek, and Mitchell doesn't allow for throwing of rocks or sticks because they could start a riot that way. He keeps his head down as they march him through the crowd and up onto the platform.
Mitchell starts giving a long-winded speech about how order must be maintained and exceptions could not be made for anybody. Nick closes his eyes and tries not to panic. If he's going to die, he's going to face it head on. He can look death in the eye and know that this is a good death. He made a choice and he knew it could result in this, and he has no regrets.
But at the same time, he wants so desperately to be able to talk to Jackie, to be able to find out what's been going on with his daughter. It seems like he doesn't know Jackie at all, but at the same time he feels like he somehow understands her. He understands that Jackie has been a lot more courageous than he has. Even now, she's able to stand there expressionless while she's waiting to either execute her own father or pull off the most foolhardy scheme in the universe.
He thinks about all of this while Mitchell rambles on, and Jackie puts the hood over his head with hands that are visibly trembling. He feels the noose tighten around his neck and shudders involuntarily, even as he hears a tiny metal click that signifies the harness being attached. He steps onto the trapdoor and feels it creak beneath him.
One last deep breath, and he bites down on the leaf.
The numbness starts instantly in his mouth, spreading down his throat and into his chest. He chews quickly and then swallows it down. By the time the world drops out from underneath him, he can barely feel a thing.
*~*~*
Jackie can't stop crying while she watches Mitchell press his fingers into Nick's throat. He's been lying cold and still on the table for several minutes, and even though Jackie knows that it's just a sham, Nick looks extremely dead, and it's getting to her. She supposes that's not a bad thing. Mitchell sees emotion as a weakness, and there's nothing wrong with Mitchell thinking that she's weak.
"I didn't think you had it in you," Mitchell finally says, pulling his hand back. "You kicked that trapdoor lever like you meant it."
"I did mean it," Jackie says raggedly. "Can I go home now, you piece of shit?"
"No, I don't think so," Mitchell says. "I think you need to take him down to the morgue. They're waiting for you."
Jackie nearly sobs from relief. It was the one thing she couldn't count on. She'd had to rely entirely on Ryan's estimation of Mitchell's character, on how deeply the old man's sadism really ran. It was a safe gamble, but it was still a gamble. She had wanted to ask for that duty, but Ryan had been right when he said it would only guarantee her not getting it. "Why do you hate me so much?" she asks, her throat raw and aching.
Mitchell smiles at her and reaches out to give her a pat on the cheek. "It's nothing personal, Jackie," he says, and turns and walks away.
Jackie has to take a few deep breaths to steady her nerves. She has a minute. Valerie is going to be sobbing on Leo to keep him busy. After a minute, Jackie manages to heft her father's unconscious body into the wheelbarrow provided for the purpose. She reaches out and tries to measure a pulse. Does she feel something faintly fluttering under his fingers? Despite Solomon's reassuring words, she's terrified that her father is going to wake up with brain damage from the prolonged oxygen deprivation.
But there's nothing she can do about it now. Two men have already wrestled Nick into a body bag, so she reaches out and zips it up. Then she starts wheeling it through the compound.
There are plenty of cameras on the compound, but Jackie knows that most of them aren't turned on during the day. They don't have enough electricity to keep all of them running all the time. Which means that as long as nobody sees her, it's safe to wheel her father into the supply warehouse and tuck him away behind the shelves. Everybody will be out in the square socializing for at least an hour. Executions are a big event.
Dominic is waiting there for her. Getting him into the compound was easy enough. He was a civilian, and not a high priority target, so it was easy for him to just walk through the gate using his magic to invoke the possibility that the guard wouldn't remember he was a witch. Jackie tosses a sheet over Nick. Dominic has assembled what they need while he waited. Some bags of potatoes to make it lumpy, a pillow or three to plump things up, and a special package to give it the right smell as it goes into the cremator. They had put it together in town—some pork ribs that Solomon had gotten from one of the townspeople who owed him a favor, and some human hair. Gabby had donated hers for the cause, snipping off the last few inches of her ponytail. Jackie had shuffled back onto the complex weighted down with iron, which she had tucked away into the storage warehouse. Nick weighed about a hundred eighty pounds. Nobody will weigh the bag, but a couple bags of potatoes won't cut it.
Once all of that is inside the body bag, she wheels it down to the morgue while Dominic waits with Nick's unconscious body to make sure nobody finds it. They're ready for her, but she didn't take too long. They have no idea. They're laughing as she approaches, sweating and out of breath. "Little help," she grunts.
"You don't want to throw him in there yourself?" one of the men asks.
"This son of a bitch is heavy," she says. They laugh again and move over to help her.
"Good show out there today," one of them says.
"That's my dad, asshole," Jackie says. "Eat a dick and go to hell."
They get 'Nick' tossed into the cremator with a grunt of effort, and Jackie huffs out a quick sigh of relief. That's one of the hardest things down. She flips off the other men when they make another obnoxious comment and heads back to the supply warehouse. Nick is still there under the sheet while Dominic paces anxiously. They wind the sheet around Nick's body, making sure that no part of him is visible. Then they lug it out behind the warehouse where the trash bins are.
It's a terrible idea, but it was literally the only thing they could come up with, when it came to getting Nick off the complex. The trash is taken out at sundown every day, hauled down to the dump. It won't be a great day for Nick, but he'll survive it. Dominic will stay with him to make sure they're not discovered. The possibility that nobody will bother to root through the trash is strong enough that he says it'll be easy. The Callaghans will fish them out of the trash later. Jackie's not happy with how d
angerous that will be for them, but after an hour of debate, it was the best solution they could come up with.
It takes three tries for them to heft her father up into the dumpster. Then she boosts Dominic up so he can crawl in too. They make sure that the body is covered with trash, and Dominic has a ratty old blanket to pull over himself.
"Dominic," Jackie whispers, trying to choke back the tears. "Thanks."
"I won't let anyone find him," Dominic says, reaching over the edge of the trash to squeeze her hand. "I promise, Jackie. He'll be safe with me."
Jackie nods and hastily wipes the tears off her face. "I'll see you tonight," she says, and hurries away. She ducks back into the warehouse to change into clothes that are less disgusting before heading back to HQ. Valerie is in Leo's office, her eyes red and cheeks tearstained. Jackie wonders how Leo feels about all this. He hasn't said much today. He thinks Leo loves his brother, but he obviously loves their father more. Or maybe he just loves killing most of all.
"Hey, Valerie," she says gently. "Come on, let's go."
Valerie snuffles a little and gets to her feet. "Okay. Th-thanks, Uncle Leo. For listening."
"Any time, honey," Leo says. "You okay, Jackie?"
"Do I fucking look okay?" Jackie asks him, and then marches out of the room without waiting for a reply. Valerie tags along behind her. Jackie takes her hand and gives it a tight squeeze, indicating that everything went to plan. They won't know for sure that Nick got out safely until that night. For now, they've done all they can do.
It takes about ten minutes to walk back to the house. Helen looks up as they come in through the front door, and her demeanor instantly goes even icier than usual. "What are you doing here?"
Jackie opens her mouth to ask what she means, before she realizes that she knows exactly what Helen means. She's Nick's daughter, but she's never been Helen's. Now that Nick is gone, why would Helen continue to let her stay?
It shouldn't hurt. She's never thought of Helen as her mother. But it does. It lodges right in her gut and makes tears sting at her eyes. She takes a deep breath and says, "I just came for some of my things. If that's okay."
The More Things Change Page 22
