by Kit Rocha
"Are you sure?"
"Absolutely." She pressed her forehead to Avery's. "You're my sister in all the ways that matter. You're one of the only people left who knows my name. I'm selfish and I want you with me, but if you need to go, I'll fight for you. We'll find you someplace that feels right."
"Jyoti—" Avery fumbled for her hands and gripped them both tightly. "What if this part is a lie, too? Wanting to go? What if I don't really feel this way? How can I know?"
No easy answers came to her lips. Hadn't she whispered the same thing to Dylan? Indecision tore at her with every step now, because she'd chosen to answer the question for herself by avoiding it for as long as she could. "You don't know until you try," she replied gently. "That's what I'm doing. If something makes me feel better, it's real. If it doesn't... Avery, you can try again. You don't have to get it right the first time."
Avery stared at her, as if her words had been uttered in a completely foreign language. "I don't have to get it right the first time."
"No." Jade smiled. "And you won't, sweetheart. None of us do. But the stakes are a lot lower than they were back in Two."
"For me," she agreed. Her troubled expression melted into one of angry determination, and she'd never looked more like Lex than at that moment. "But that just makes me one of the lucky ones, doesn't it?"
"Maybe." There was such sudden, shining purpose in Avery's eyes that Jade whispered a silent plea for forgiveness to Lex. "I might have somewhere you can go. A place where you're needed."
Avery latched on to the words like a lifeline. "Where?"
"For a while now, I've been building homes in Sector One for the girls who escaped their patrons," she confessed. "That's where we're taking the survivors from the bombing. But some of the girls are so young, still children. The women in One, they try to help, but they can't understand where we come from or what we've been taught to endure."
For an endless moment, Avery said nothing. Then, "What is it like in One?"
"Not like they described it during training." The contradictions of One were more subtle than Four, but still hard to describe. She tried anyway. "Many of the people there have incredible faith, but it hasn't turned them cold, not like in Eden. Mostly they believe in love, compassion, and peace. They're not perfect, but they try. I've met the leader and his family. They're good people."
"Gideon." Avery pinned her with an appraising look. "Maddox is his cousin, that's what Dallas told me."
Jade couldn't help it. Her cheeks heated, and she almost squirmed. "This has nothing to do with Mad. I had the houses in One before we...became close. He didn't even know about them."
"Oh."
"No, I mean—" Honestly flustered for the first time in too long, Jade squeezed her eyes shut. "The girls in One need you. Which is a completely separate issue from the fact that I have…feelings. Complicated feelings."
Silence. Then Avery sighed softly. "How do you know it's real?"
"I don't," Jade admitted. "But it makes me feel better. With everything going on, maybe that's all that matters. Being with the people who make you strong."
The other woman's distress surged again. "But I'm still the only one who knows your name?"
"I..." What? Every excuse that formed on her tongue tasted like a lie, like cowardice. Scarlet, Mad, and Dylan had chipped away at her armor until it was as insubstantial as mist. She wasn't even afraid of setting it aside anymore, not when the door closed behind the four of them and she lost herself in warm skin and confident touches and enough pleasure to drown a lifetime of pain.
But she was still only setting it aside. As long as she held back that final part of herself, she could slide back into being Jade if things went wrong.
When things went wrong.
It was traitorous and fearful and weak in ways that scraped at her pride. And here was Avery, staring at her with such naked fear. She'd see through a gentle lie. If Jade wanted to give her hope, she'd have to give her truth. "I'm going to tell them. Even though it scares the hell out of me."
Avery nodded. "Because it's real."
"It feels real. And I think it's worth the risk to find out. I don't have to get it right the first time, either."
"Lex got it right." Avery dropped her gaze to the basket in her lap before setting it aside. "Dallas is trying, but the way he looks at me… He's so sure I'm going to shatter. It makes me feel like I can't bend, even a little, or he'll think I'm breaking."
Jade's lips curved up, because she could imagine it so easily. Dallas, the terrifying monster lurking in the nightmares of every councilman, became a blustering, nervous wreck when Lex's heart was on the line. "He knows the kinds of stories you've heard about him. And he knows how much your sister loves you. You probably scare him to death, even if he'd never admit it."
"Because I could hurt Lex." Avery swallowed—hard. "But I don't want to. I never want to. I have to get that much right, at least."
"Never is a long time, Avery." Jade stroked her friend's hair. "You might hurt her, and she might hurt you. But you love each other, so you'll keep trying. That's how you get it right."
"Okay." She took a deep breath. "I grew up in Two. I made it through training. I can do this."
"Of course you can. We're stronger than any of them will ever know." Just like all those girls huddling in One, scared and bruised but stronger than even they knew. If Jade accomplished nothing else as the sectors marched to war, she would find a way to protect the refugees from Two.
"Can I see it?" The determination was back, lighting Avery's eyes until she almost looked the way she had before the trainers at Rose House had broken her. "The place you've built in Sector One?"
"I'm going with Lex and Dallas when they meet the other sector leaders. You should tell Lex you want to come and help."
"Just...tell her?"
"Tell," Jade repeated with an encouraging smile. "Trust me, sweetheart. Telling is going to get you a lot farther than asking around here. Especially with your sister. She doesn't want you obedient. She wants you happy."
"Right." A hint of a smile tilted the corner of her mouth, then vanished. "I'm so used to trying to be both."
Which was why the girls in One needed Avery as much as she needed them. For all their shared training, Jade had never been groomed for obedience. By the time she was fourteen, Cerys had singled her out for a different sort of training. Cerys would never risk breaking her most promising spy, so she'd commanded that Jade be spared the worst of her training, and the head of Rose House had obeyed.
And while Jade was trained to mimic submission, she'd watched helplessly as the trainers broke Avery down into pieces so small that obedience came easier to her than breathing.
"You'll learn." Jade wrapped her in a hug and buried her face in Avery's hair. "I'm just so glad you'll be where I can see you. I've missed you so much."
Some of the tension finally eased from the girl's shoulders. "Me too, Jyoti. It's been too long."
Jade had missed something else, too—the sound of her name on another person's lips. It had been so many years since she'd heard it in anyone else's voice but Avery's. Just her mother's, whispered as she brushed Jade's hair at night. Murmured as she lay dying.
She could imagine how it might sound coming from Dylan. Precise and low, his deep voice curling around it. And Mad sometimes had the softest traces of an accent, as if English hadn't been his first language. He'd rumble her name against her ear and know, as so few people knew, how much power the name you were born with could have.
But Scarlet… She should have already told Scarlet. She'd lost months of that honeyed voice caressing every syllable. Of being known and loved—and of loving enough to trust. Scarlet had earned the truth a hundred times over. Never more than when she'd dragged Dylan and Mad into their lives, willing to fight to give Jade anything she wanted.
If Avery could fight through her grief to face an alien life in an unknown sector, Jade could take off her armor.
Maybe for good.
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Chapter Seventeen
Mad was as good at sucking cock as he was at eating pussy.
Not that Scarlet knew that firsthand, obviously. But watching him kneel in front of Dylan was just like watching him between Jade's thighs, or her own—eager mouth, hungry tongue, grasping hands. And the effect certainly seemed to be the same. Dylan groaned at every touch, his whole body trembling as he stared down at Mad.
Scarlet stared, too. Dylan's dick was still wet from fucking her, and she shivered as Mad licked away the evidence of every delicious orgasm. It wasn't enough to get Dylan off, to suck him hard and fast until he exploded in a rush. Mad had to make it slow, torturous.
So fucking good.
She leaned back against the pillows with Jade draped across her. Scarlet could feel her heart still pounding as she stroked her back, her fingers dipping down to her hips before running up to the base of her neck. Her breathing hitched as Mad finally took Dylan deep, and Scarlet smiled.
Not long now. His trembling had progressed to shaking, and he gave in and gripped the back of Mad's head as he thrust forward, fucking his mouth. Mad stared up at him, his eyes dark and welcoming, and Dylan lost it. He drove deep with a desperate growl that turned into a hoarse, relieved cry.
Mad stroked Dylan's hips until his body relaxed, then eased back with a satisfied smile. "That's what you get for teasing us all night."
"Lies." Dylan staggered to the bed and collapsed on it.
Scarlet reached for her cigarette case, lit one, and passed it to Dylan. "You always have to come last. What is that—a control thing?"
His normally neat hair was in disarray, and a lock fell over one eye, lending him a rakish look as he favored her with a lopsided grin. "Maybe I just like to make sure everyone's had a good time before I get mine."
Scarlet's heart hesitated, then resumed thumping hard enough to make her chest ache. That smile was dangerous—open, unguarded, an invitation to climb past the cold shell separating him from the rest of the world.
Mad had done it, and so had Jade. But Scarlet didn't know if she could.
She shrugged it off and lit another cigarette, taking a deep drag before handing it to Mad. "Has he always been this impossible?"
Mad stretched out beside her with a laugh. "Oh, this is the least impossible he's ever been."
"Christ help us."
Jade stretched slowly and rested her cheek on Dylan's chest. "Don't listen to them. They love it."
He buried his hands in her hair and hummed as his smile faded to an expression of pure contentment. "How could they not?"
Mad exhaled smoke toward the ceiling and passed the cigarette back to Scarlet. "He knows he's a dirty, sexy-as-fuck bastard. It's part of his charm."
"Mmm." Watching them together—Jade's dark curves pressed against the strong, paler lines of Dylan's body—held its own sort of charm. Physically, they were a study in contrasts. But beneath it all, they were so much alike. The rogue doctor and the sector spy.
Delicious.
Jade traced one finger in idle circles across Dylan's chest. She had that look, like she had something to say and was mentally anticipating the conversation, searching for just the right words. Like a chess match, where every move had to be planned in advance, with contingencies if the game happened to spin off in some wild direction.
Finally, she sighed. "I talked to Avery today."
Scarlet paused with the cigarette almost to her lips. "How is she?"
"Honestly?" Jade rolled onto her back and stared up into the shadows. "Better than I thought she'd be. And worse. Which shouldn't make sense…"
"She's been through a lot." Mad reached across Scarlet to rest his hand on Jade's stomach. "I've seen my share of women running from Two. Sometimes I think they have it worse than anyone. In the other sectors, it's easy to tell who the bad guys are."
"Gordon," Jade agreed softly. "She's grieving for him."
"For him?" Dylan asked. "Or for what he could have been if she'd met him somewhere else, under other circumstances?"
"I don't know. How do you even separate it when you've been—" She plucked the cigarette from Scarlet's hand, took a drag, and closed her eyes. "You don't know what they did to her because she was Lex's sister. I tried to help, just to be there so she knew someone cared about her, but after Cerys moved me to Orchid House, she was all alone. If Gordon was kind to her, even a little, how could she not love him?"
Scarlet sat up straighter. "Does it matter?" Dylan flashed her a sharp look, and she held up one hand. "It's not like she's still with him. He's gone, and she's free. So she's got time to figure it all out. And if what she figures out is that she really did love him, then that has to be okay. We don't get to take that away from her."
"I know," Jade said, her voice raw. She returned the cigarette and dropped her hand to cover Mad's. "I feel like a hypocrite. I get so angry when people assume I'm a victim...but maybe I'm just terrified. I was never in any danger of loving Gareth Woods."
"You mean well." Mad smiled and stroked her fingers. "So did I. But I was wrong, Jade. You're—"
"Jyoti."
Scarlet blinked. "What?"
"My name." Jade twisted out of their grip and rose to her knees, facing them. "I had this whole thing I was going to tell you... But I've never told anyone except Avery. I had to be Jade for so many years, and maybe that is who I am now. For the rest of the world, at least. But here, with you…" The frantic torrent of words fizzled out, and she stared at them, tense and uncertain. "Jyoti. My name is Jyoti."
Scarlet stared at her, shocked not by the revelation, but by the fact that she'd never considered it. Plenty of people in the sectors took new names—to hide, to escape their pasts, even to celebrate overcoming them—but it had never occurred to her that the woman in her bed might be one of them.
Dylan was the first to speak. He held his cigarette between two fingers and smoothed his thumb over his brow. "What does it mean?"
Jade wet her lips. "Light," she said finally. "My mother always told me I was her hope, so she named me after the lights in the temple she went to before the Flares. But when she took me back to the training house, she gave me a new name. Jade was supposed to be a—a persona. A game I played until I'd paid off my debt and could get out."
She looked so anxious that Scarlet wasn't surprised when Mad sat up and rubbed her shoulder encouragingly. "She gave you something to hold on to. Something they couldn't touch."
"Someone they couldn't touch," Jade agreed. "But then she died, and Cerys picked me to influence Woods…" She looked at Scarlet, eyes huge and pleading. "I should have told you. But I've been Jade for so long, I didn't think there was anything else left inside me. Not until you made it okay for me to want things for myself."
Something they couldn't touch. Something that Scarlet hadn't been able to touch, either. She took another, longer pull off her cigarette.
"I'm sorry." Jade's voice broke, and her eyes shone with tears she couldn't blink away. But when Mad tried to reach for her, she shrugged out of his arms, her gaze never leaving Scarlet's. "I'm sorry."
"It's not a thing, sweetheart." Scarlet kept her voice carefully even, and backed up the words with a smile. "I like your name. It's beautiful."
"Scarlet—" Jade took a shuddering breath and wiped her face. "Avery said something—that Dallas is always looking at her like she's about to break, and it makes her afraid to even bend. And I'm so bad at this. I don't know how to do any of this when it's not calculated. But if I bend…"
Scarlet's own pain at being shut out of this part of her life was nothing, less than nothing, compared to Jade's agony. So she passed the cigarette to Mad and opened her arms. "Come here."
Jade collapsed into her embrace, hiding her face against Scarlet's shoulder. "You touched her," she whispered hoarsely. "You didn't even know she was there, but you still touched her. Jyoti. Me."
The pressure in Scarlet's chest twisted, and her shame at her initial withdrawal only made it worse. "Shh, y
ou don't have to explain. It's okay. I'm here." Dylan and Mad watched as she pressed her lips to Jade's temple. "We all are."
Mad gave Scarlet a helpless look before scrubbing his hands over his face. She kept one arm around Jade and lifted the other to him. He curled against her side and gently wrapped them both in a hug.
Dylan stayed where he was, reclined beside them, but there was no distance in the detachment. He was separate but not removed, as if all the contact he needed was in being there, staring at them as they wound together.
"The hardest part of all this, of life," he murmured finally, "is learning how to keep going. Even when you fuck up, even when you fail everyone around you. You have to let them forgive you, and you have to forgive yourself."
"Love." The word came, unbidden, to Scarlet's lips, but she didn't have time to be surprised by her declaration. She was too busy being overwhelmed by the truth of it. "That's what it means, right? That you love yourself enough to let someone else do it, too."
"Maybe that's why I'm so bad at it," Mad said, his voice light. "All that Sector One guilt gets heavy sometimes. I'm trying to put some of it down."
"You're not in One anymore," Dylan reminded him.
"That's right." Scarlet caught Mad's chin and urged him to meet her gaze. "We live in Four, and that's forever, isn't it?"
He twisted to kiss her fingers. "O'Kane for life."
That was the true meaning behind everything, the core of who they all were. They might have come from different places, sector or city, but they had all made the choice to leave. And they were here now, right where they wanted to be.
Almost. Scarlet nipped at Mad's ear, then turned to Jade. "I think you and I need a bigger bed."
Jade smiled against her shoulder. "Maybe I'll buy that one from Gideon."
Mad scraped his fingernails lightly over Scarlet's hip. "You both know you're always welcome in mine."
"Mmm, that won't work in the long run. Unless you want us to move in."
His smile was slow and warm, and it melted something inside Scarlet—the last of her resistance, maybe. "I have plenty of room. And a nice shower. Might even be big enough for all of us."
