Hostage

by Rachel Manija Brown

  Deliberately, Kerry opened her mouth, drew a deep breath, and said, “Yeah, I believe you.” Take that, Father.

  “So how long will your father let him stall?”

  Kerry had spent her entire life learning to school her face, but Mia must have seen something in her expression, because she shot to her feet.

  “He’s going to kill Ross.” Her voice thinned with horror. “I’ve got to rescue him. I should have gone the first time!” She kicked a bag of bolts, sending them spilling across the floor. “I have to talk to . . . Or I could go myself . . . I have maps . . . but I’ve never been out in the desert. I can talk to Dad—“

  Mia stopped short, and her gaze slid away. “No, I can’t. He has to abide by the council’s . . .”

  Kerry watched, unable to think of a thing to say. Mia picked up a screwdriver, apparently at random, and set it down carefully on the edge of the table. It rolled off and clattered to the floor.

  Mia’s intent gaze turned on Kerry. “Dad won’t be able to talk them into letting you go. Not even if I came with you. You’ll have to tell me the way.”

  “You’re serious?” Kerry couldn’t believe it. “You’re really going to head out into the desert by yourself?”

  “I hope not by myself. But if I have to, I will.”

  “You’re crazy. Your best team couldn’t get Ross out. And if they had, Father would have had half the army after them in seconds.”

  Mia crossed her arms. “Okay, fine. But I have to try. Even if Ross and I get killed out in the desert, that’s better than our heads ending up on your walls.”

  Kerry rubbed her aching eyes. Nothing seemed real anymore. “You’ll get yourself killed before you even see Ross.”

  Mia’s pacing took on a new purposefulness. “Compass . . . crossbow . . . Did Ross have anything with him when he was captured?”

  “Just ordinary prospecting stuff. They confiscated his weapons.”

  Mia beamed. “Did they? Did they confiscate a little piece of solid pipe?” She pulled a chunk of metal from a holster on her belt. “Like this?”

  “You have one, too? We thought that was scrap metal.”

  One side of Mia’s mouth curled up. With a snap of her wrist, she flicked the bar. It snicked out into a club.

  “Wow,” Kerry said before she could stop herself.

  “Designed and made it myself,” Mia said. “If he’s got that, he’s got a weapon. He can’t take on an army with it, but it’s better than nothing.”

  Can’t take on an army . . . The reward for failure is death.

  Kerry’s stomach churned. Santiago—Ross—even Bankar, ordered to the rescue of someone she loathed. People would keep dying until Father got what he wanted.

  And Kerry knew how to fix that.

  After all her worries, her solution was right here. Right now. And it would fix everyone’s problems.

  “You don’t have to go.” Kerry’s heart thumped so hard that she crossed her arms over her chest as if to hold it in. Now she knew exactly what to do. “I’ll get him back for you.”

  Mia let the bar drop with a clank, then her face reddened. “Don’t joke. I’m serious.”

  “So am I.”

  Mia sat down on the floor, and beckoned Kerry to sit across from her. “So, what you’re saying is, if I let you escape, you’ll let Ross go.”

  Kerry looked straight into Mia’s eyes, willing her sincerity to show. “I will. I swear it.”

  Mia rubbed her forehead, then spoke as if to herself. “I know what Jennie would say about this: ‘She’s manipulating you. Once she’s gone, she has no reason to let Ross go.’”

  Kerry held her breath. One wrong word, and this moment would evaporate like water in the sun. One right word, and she could be free.

  Father’s voice came to her mind: What motivates her? And then Min Soo’s sweet tones: You can do much more with people’s loved ones than merely hold them hostage.

  “I do have a reason,” said Kerry. “Ross is stubborn. You’re right—he’ll keep resisting until Father gives up and kills him. Nobody crosses Father. Nobody. The first person he executed was his older brother. But he trusts me, and he respects intelligence. I’ll tell him I made a deal with you. He’d have to respect that, if I give you my word as crown princess of Gold Point. And I do.”

  Mia’s eyes shone bright; she was on the verge of tears. Yes, this was the right tack to take.

  Kerry let her genuine belief in her words infuse her voice. “Even if Father could convince him to cooperate—and I don’t think he can—Ross would never be happy in Gold Point. He hates being locked up. It’s like keeping a hawk in a cage. Just looking at him made me feel trapped. I wish we’d never taken him. Mia, I will let him go because I want to.”

  Mia chewed on her lower lip, her gaze darting wildly from Kerry to her club to Ross’s shirt, still hanging off the back of the chair. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this. It’s treason. Though maybe it wouldn’t be if I went with you, so I was still guarding you. Technically.”

  Kerry was nearly overwhelmed with the temptation to agree. Mia had already sold herself on that idea. But if Pru spotted them, Mia would be captured immediately. And killing or torturing her would be just another stick for Father to use on Ross.

  “You can’t come.” Kerry had to say it, though she dreaded ruining her own chances. “Father would see you, and you’d be captured. You don’t want to end up a hostage yourself. If I go, it has to be alone.”

  Mia sucked in a deep breath, then held out a shaking hand in the “deal” sign. “I let you go, and you let Ross go. Deal?”

  Kerry covered Mia’s hand with her own. “Deal. You won’t regret it.”

  If I get back home, and Santiago’s alive, the deal’s on. But if he’s dead, I don’t owe Ross anything but death.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine. Las Anclas.

  Jennie

  Jennie sloshed the dishes into the tub of soapy water. A couple of tiny bubbles floated up, catching light from the window. She used to love those when she was little. Remembering that made her sad.

  Everything made her sad. Dr. Lee insisted it was a good thing to acknowledge her feelings—it was the beginning of healing—but she hated feeling sad, and then thinking about how sad she felt.

  Slosh! Impatiently she scrubbed chili sauce off a plate, then plunked it into the clear water pan. Where were Tonio and Yolanda, who also had kitchen patrol this week? She was completely alone.

  Yeah, wasn’t that the truth.

  “Want a hand?”

  Jennie spun around, dropping a plate.

  Pastor Carlotta stood in the doorway. “The door was open.”

  Jennie recognized a parental conspiracy. Well, she couldn’t blame them.

  “Sure,” Jennie said. “Except, can you stand that long?”

  Pastor Carlotta limped into the kitchen, then leaned her cane against the kitchen table. “Gets stronger every day.” During the battle she’d been on the firefighting team, where she’d taken an arrow in the knee.

  She leaned her hip against the sink and began drying dishes, as if she walked into people’s houses and helped them wash up every day. She probably did, Jennie reflected, and wondered if she was training Benjy Plum, her pastoral student, in Dishwashing While Ministering.

  “Your parents asked me to talk to you,” Pastor Carlotta said as she began to stack the dry plates. “But if you would rather work in silence, that’s up to you.”

  “Being silent hasn’t done me much good,” Jennie admitted, and braced herself. She’d always liked Pastor Carlotta, who was a tall, comfortable sort of person, her fly-away gray hair catching the morning light at services, reminding Jennie of a halo. She hated the thought that Pastor Carlotta was going to make her feel guilty for skipping church for the past few weeks.

  Slosh, clink, rub, rub. Pastor Carlotta stacked a couple more plates, then said, “This is not going to be a conversation about church attendance, unless you want to talk about it.”

&
nbsp; “I don’t, really.”

  Pastor Carlotta nodded, and began hanging cups on their hooks. “I will say I missed you at the Blessing of the Animals last month. I remember when it used to be one of your favorite holidays.”

  “I wanted to come,” Jennie said. She took a deep breath, then said, “But I couldn’t. It seems hypocritical to treat animals like kings that one day, when some of those pigs and sheep and cows will be slaughtered a week later so their meat can be put up for winter.” She gave an extra hard scrub at a pot with beans stuck at the bottom, sending a splash of sudsy water into her shirt. “I couldn’t look at them, and remember that.”

  Pastor Carlotta nodded soberly. “You’d be surprised how many people have had similar conversations with me, especially since the battle. Or maybe you wouldn’t. That day made us all face death in a way most of us had never had to, before.”

  “So why do we bless animals, then turn around and kill them? Does that really mark their souls for special treatment? Do they even have souls?”

  Pastor Carlotta hung up the last cup. “Blessings are our way of respecting other forms of life. Life in the world requires us to eat, and what we eat are things that used to live. That’s nature. Everything, us included, has to die. That, too, is nature. What we can do is limit suffering. The butchers take pride in making it quick. Blessing the animals is supposed to remind us to respect them all year long, not just before we eat them, until the time comes for our souls to join the others beyond the boundaries of life.”

  “But we don’t have proof that anybody’s souls do anything,” Jennie said, handing her the pot to rinse and dry. “I know, this is where faith comes in.”

  “Like I said, others are also wrestling with these questions. There’s an informal group—interfaith, actually—that began meeting at Jack’s on Monday nights, to talk about these issues. You’d be welcome to drop in.”

  “Thanks. I’ll think about it.” Quickly, Jennie added, “So what do you think about Voske’s daughter?”

  Pastor Carlotta set the last pan on the stove, then hung the dish cloth on the rack before she spoke. “I feel some sympathy for that girl, raised as she’s been. I’d like to think that while she’s among us, she might be exposed to a different kind of life.” She smiled a little. “Though some of our fellow townspeople might disagree about the definition of ‘different.’”

  “Thanks.”

  Pastor Carlotta picked up her cane, asked Jennie to give her greetings to her parents, and left.

  Jennie’s kitchen chores were done—and so were Tonio’s and Yolanda’s—but time still seemed to press on her. She changed into the workout clothes she’d been avoiding for a week, and went out for a run, hoping to clear her head.

  Twenty steps past her house, Mia came charging round a corner, nearly smacking into her. “Mia! What’s going on?”

  Mia looked around in an amazingly shifty way. As Jennie stared in surprise, she muttered, “Came to find you. Let’s go to my place.”

  “Princess Voske isn’t there, is she?” Jennie didn’t feel ready to face Kerry.

  “No. Back in her cell for the night.” Mia tugged Jennie’s arm. “Come on.”

  Mia didn’t speak until she’d shut the door to her cottage. The windows were already closed, and the stuffy air stank of machine oil and cleaning solvent. “There’s something you should know. The council is going to execute Kerry if Voske refuses to do a hostage exchange.”

  “Good riddance,” Jennie said, but immediately felt guilty. “I don’t mean that. Anyway, he’ll do the hostage exchange. She’s his daughter. Of course he’ll want her back.”

  Mia shook her head. “Voske doesn’t negotiate. It’s his policy. The council already knew that the day you brought Kerry here. They’re making the offer, just in case, but they know he won’t take it.”

  Jennie’s stomach lurched. She hadn’t rescued Ross, she’d just brought that girl to her death.

  “Did you think I could talk Mr. Preston into letting her go?” Jennie asked doubtfully.

  Mia shook her head. “Dad already tried. Mr. Preston was the one who talked a majority of the council into voting to kill her. It was four to three. I was there.”

  Jennie had never felt so helpless in her life. This was worse than thinking about the battle. Execution was nothing more than deliberate, legal murder. Jennie hadn’t chosen it, but she was responsible for it. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

  “I have a plan,” Mia said. “But I need help.”

  “What kind of plan?” What sort of machine could Mia build that would fix this mess?

  Jennie noticed what Mia was fingering on her table: a backpack. “Mia?” she said warningly.

  “Not for me,” Mia said, her eyes wide behind her glasses. “For Kerry. She’s promised that if I can get her out, she’ll let Ross go. She’s the only person who can do it.”

  Hope twisted Jennie’s heart, followed by a rush of anger. “Kerry is a liar and a manipulator. Yuki told me about the offer she started to make to Paco. You can’t believe a word she says.”

  “I believe what she told me about Voske’s plans for Ross. Jennie, Ross is going to be as dead as Kerry will be if we don’t do anything. I totally believe that.”

  Jennie wasn’t inclined to believe anything Kerry said, but as Mia described their conversation, she couldn’t help finding it plausible. Much more plausible, Jennie had to admit, than the conviction that Jennie had clung to so hard, that a hostage exchange would bring Ross back, because she’d failed to.

  Jennie felt as if the words were dragged out of her. “What do you want me to do?”

  Mia let out a long sigh of relief. “Just two things. One, unless you have a better idea, help me talk Yuki into loaning Kogatana to Kerry.”

  “He’ll never do it,” Jennie said immediately. “He protects that rat like his own life.”

  “Second thing. I need you to come up with a plan for actually getting Kerry and Kogatana, and also she’ll need a horse, out of Las Anclas. Without anyone figuring out that we’re the ones who did it.”

  Jennie laughed bitterly. “Oh. Just that. Why don’t we build her wings and fly her home?”

  Mia answered Jennie’s sarcasm with fervent seriousness. “This is exactly the sort of thing you’re good at. I know you can do it.”

  Jennie felt even more bitter. “If I was good, we all wouldn’t be in this situation.”

  “But you can fix it. I know you can.” Mia was looking at Jennie the way she’d looked ever since they were little, hopeful and expectant.

  Jennie pushed aside some engine parts and sat on Mia’s bed. “Maybe. Possibly. But I don’t believe Kerry would lift a finger for Ross. She’ll run home, then come back with an army, like the council says. She changed her tune pretty quick, but right after we captured her, she threatened to kill us all and torture little kids to death. That’s the real Kerry.”

  Mia unscrewed a metal plate from an engine, then screwed it back on, her forehead creased. “I believe you, Jennie. But I’ve seen something different. Maybe there’s more than one real Kerry.”

  “You seriously think she’ll let Ross go.” Jennie couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice.

  “I know you think I’m gullible.” Mia’s face reddened. “Stupid little Mia, everyone knows she’s great with numbers, but she doesn’t understand a thing about real life!”

  Jennie was taken aback. “That’s not what I meant.”

  Mia slumped down, her angry blush fading. “Everyone treats me like I’m a kid. You’re only six months older than me, but people do whatever you ask them to. Everybody trusts you.”

  “I wish they didn’t,” Jennie blurted out.

  Mia let out a watery giggle. “Too late! I still do. I told you all my treasonous plotting. You could go to the council right now and have me arrested.”

  “You know I’d never do such a thing.”

  “Yeah. I know. So, will you at least talk to Kerry?” Mia’s expression was com
pletely guileless.

  That expression was trust. Faith. The last time someone had looked at her that way, it had been the kids she’d taken on the mission to blow up Voske’s ammunition. And Jennie had sent them away by themselves so she could stay to help Sera. And hadn’t saved her.

  She might have to start all over again in trying to figure out what faith meant, but at least she could choose not to abandon Mia. “I’ll talk to her. Set it up.”

  *

  Jennie found Mia, Yuki, Kogatana, and Kerry waiting in Ross’s room. Kerry sat in Ross’s single chair, rigid with tension, but Jennie had no sympathy for her. If she tried to manipulate anyone by pretending to care about him, Jennie was going to punch her out, powers or no powers.

  “Go on, Kerry,” Mia said. “Convince her!”

  Kerry clenched her fists, setting her manacles jingling. “Father doesn’t negotiate. The only way to save Ross’s life is for me to return home before Father gets tired of waiting for Ross to cooperate. He’ll be so glad to see me that he’ll give me anything I want, and I’ll ask him to let Ross go.”

  She has to be playing us.

  Jennie let her disbelief show, “And then what? After you free Ross, I mean. Come back here leading an army?”

  “You’re going to get the army if you don’t let me go,” Kerry retorted. Finally, the arrogant princess was showing. “Father already sent a rescue team. Next time he’ll come himself. He’s just waiting for the perfect moment to strike. ”

  Jennie could believe that. “Fine. But why should I believe you’ll let Ross go?”

  “Eight citizens of Gold Point died because of me.” Kerry’s steady gaze reminded Jennie for a brief, disturbing moment of Mia’s. “If Ross doesn’t give Father what he wants, he’ll lose patience, and that will be Ross’s death warrant. I won’t pretend that he and I are friends. But I don’t want him to die, too, when I could have saved him.”

  Maybe the princess was lying. Probably she was. But lying didn’t warrant being killed in cold blood.

  Capturing Kerry had been wrong in Ma and Pa’s eyes. While Jennie still thought it had saved Ross’s life, standing by to let Mr. Preston execute Kerry would be wrong in her own eyes. She already had Sera’s death on her conscience. Kerry’s death would double the burden.