by Kit Rocha
The uncertainty drove Jade from the bed while the others still slept. It drove her to her rooms, where she bathed and dressed, and to the quarters Dallas had given Deacon. She was starting to suspect head of security meant personal bodyguard, but it was hard not to feel secure with Deacon's silent presence towering behind her.
Mad might be irritated she hadn't woken him to accompany her, but today she needed Deacon's watchful silence. Besides, Deacon knew where they were going.
Jade had only visited the houses she'd built in One twice—once to approve of the first construction, and a second time to arrange payment for expansion. They'd been stark then, surrounded by bare earth and filled with quiet, sad girls struggling to comprehend their reversal in fortune.
They'd changed. Jade's heart leapt into her throat and settled there as a lump when Deacon pulled down the drive. The outside walls had been painted in bright blues and golds. Someone had planted fruit trees along the walkway and built a fence around a huge garden, with freshly turned earth and a sea of green seedlings peeking hopefully up from the dirt.
Best of all were the children. A playground sat between two of the buildings, full of screaming, gleeful toddlers racing around on stumpy little legs. Scarlet might think Jade's father's treatment of her had been harsh, but her mother had always been the exception—a woman allowed to keep her baby and raise the child as her own.
The usual reality of an accidental pregnancy was having a patron turn you out on the street—or summon a doctor to take care of the matter, whether you wished it or not. Women who wanted a choice had to find a way out of Two, and faced a hard, hopeless life once they had.
I did this.
This was what she needed to see. The sharp pain in her heart eased even further when Avery ran around the side of the house, hunched over and chasing a group of tiny, screaming kids.
No, not screaming. Laughing, and Jade had to cover her face for a moment and will herself not to cry with the sheer, giddy relief of it.
I did this. I can do so much more.
She wiped her eyes and checked her makeup in the mirror. "You can go inside and get breakfast, if you want."
"I've eaten."
It might have been a lie or the truth, but his implacable expression held the real answer. Deacon would go inside when she went inside, and not before. Considering how much she'd worried her lovers, accepting the presence of a bodyguard with good grace seemed the least of her obligations.
Jade slipped from the car and crossed the grass to Avery. "You look like you're outnumbered. Do you need reinforcements?"
She was out of breath, more from laughing than running, Jade suspected. "I'm fine, I'm fine. It's…" Her laughter died, and Avery shoved her hands into the pockets of her flowing slacks. "It's good to see them here instead of back in Two."
"It is," Jade agreed, watching two girls of only nine or ten years pump their legs, racing to see who could swing higher. Unlike the toddlers, they weren't born to refugees from Two. They were refugees, probably two or three years into their training. Still young enough to smile and laugh and run and rediscover what it meant to be a child.
"Miss Rios is inside."
It took Jade a moment to make the connection. "You mean Maricela? Or Isabela?"
"Maricela, of course. She's come to give you a tour of the houses." Avery tilted her head. "And, I suspect, just to see you. She seems awfully curious about you, though it's not surprising, seeing as how her favorite cousin is in love with you."
The word was enough to send heat rushing to Jade's cheeks. Love. They'd been saying it all along, because it was an easy word for O'Kanes. Mad loved everyone who came into the circle of his regard, with a heart so big and fearless he never seemed diminished. Scarlet was the same, even if her circle was smaller, her heart fiercer.
But loving wasn't the same as being in love. There were nuanced differences, shades of emotion that blurred when you lived as hard and open as the O'Kanes. She and Scarlet and Mad and Dylan trusted each other. They wanted each other. They needed each other.
When did love become in love? Jade's training certainly hadn't covered that.
Avery's eyes widened, and she rocked back on her heels as the corners of her mouth curved up in an almost-smile. "Sorry. Was that a secret?"
Jade laughed and bumped her shoulder against hers, even as her cheeks grew hotter. "Don't try innocent with me. You're incorrigible. You've always been incorrigible."
"Me? Never."
"Hush." Jade brushed a kiss to Avery's cheek. "Let me deal with my duties, and you can tease me until I can't blush any harder."
She left Avery with her charges and followed the path to the front door. Even though she'd paid for every brick and shingle and stick of furniture, it felt almost intrusive to slip inside. "Hello?"
Maricela popped her head around the end of the hall, followed by three women dressed in white robes fluttering around her. She waved them off and held out her hands. "Jade! It's lovely to see you again. Please, come in."
"Maricela." It wasn't hard to see why Mad adored his youngest cousin. She shone as brightly as he did, but with none of his pain lurking in her huge brown eyes. Jade clasped the younger woman's hands before embracing her. "It's good to see you, too."
"Did you come alone?"
"This time, yes." And she regretted it now. It was so easy to imagine Dylan surrounded again with babbling, happy children, or Mad bouncing a squealing toddler in his arms. And Scarlet would have understood how dear Avery's laughter was, how great a triumph.
Maybe this was the line between love and in love. When everything that gave you joy felt like a dream until you shared it with the people who made that joy possible. Who made it real.
I did this, but I don't have to do it alone anymore.
Maricela didn't notice. "Before we begin, there's someone who wants to speak with you. She stayed in this morning just to see you."
"Of course."
Jade followed Maricela to a cozy sitting room. The furniture clustered around the fireplace was mismatched but plush and comfortable, and shelves full of books and games lined two walls.
The girl perched on one chair was familiar. Astrid had to be twelve by now, maybe even thirteen. Her long black hair shone as if she'd just finished brushing it her one hundred strokes, and her hands rested in her lap, her fingers laced together. So still and proper, and Jade wanted fervently to see her running with the other girls, her clothes and hair askew.
Instead, she inclined her head in perfect Rose House fashion. "Lady Jade."
"Astrid." Jade sat next to the girl. "Please. Just call me Jade."
"All right." But she didn't, just adjusted her skirt nervously. "I heard that you're—well, that you're in charge of Sector Two now."
"I'm taking care of the people who lived there. Which includes you, Astrid." Jade covered the girl's hands with her own. "If there's something troubling you…"
She tensed but didn't pull away. "It's just…" She trailed off, then finished in a rush. "No one's told us anything, you know? About how long we'll be here, and when we can go home and get back to our training. And I thought—since you're there now—"
Panic sent the blood pounding through Jade's veins, a panic she couldn't even explain. But a lifetime of practice kept her expression smooth, her voice soft. "Nobody's going back to training, sweetheart."
Astrid blinked, and her dark brows drew over her eyes. "I don't understand."
How could she? Astrid had come to them at six, offered up by a desperate mother she probably barely remembered. The trainers had been her parents, the fellow initiates her sisters. She'd lost the only home she'd ever known.
Of course she wanted it back.
Understanding didn't ease the queasy churn in Jade's stomach. "Things have changed in Two. You will go back to some sort of training, but only after you decide what you want to do with your life."
Astrid's look of confused frustration grew. "But...why? I'm almost ready to find a patron."
So young. Too young—and not wrong. If Eden had spared Two, Astrid would have been entering her final years of training. She'd be serving at dinners and parties, performing in dances and entertainments. She'd be put on display until some man decided he wanted to own her.
And for every Gordon who clumsily made truffles to win a smile, there were dozens of Gareths, who wanted only to indulge their whims and sate their lust, oblivious to the spirits they were shattering.
Astrid didn't know any of it. She only knew the dream of beautiful dresses and important dinner parties and earning enough to retire in wealth and comfort. "The patrons are gone. But you're clever and educated, Astrid. There are crafts and trades—"
"What about the parlor girls?" Astrid asked flatly. "That's what happens if you don't find a patron, right? Men will pay for a night. They'll pay more than you can make throwing pots or spinning yarn."
Jade swallowed bile and forced herself to separate. Somewhere, her stomach still roiled, and her heart beat too fast—but a body was simply part of who she was. She had been trained to ignore it and she did so now, keeping her voice gentle and level. "You don't need to worry about making money yet. You're young, and a lot can change, even in a year, Astrid."
Her tiny, thin shoulders squared. "I'm not a child."
"I know." Jade cupped Astrid's cheek and braced herself for the words she had to say. "I'll strike a bargain with you. You live here until you're sixteen. You think about all the things you might want to do. And if you still want to finish your training, I'll help you find somewhere safe, where you'll make good money."
Astrid eyed her with suspicion. "Three more years?"
"Three more years," Jade agreed. "The kind of man you should be letting into your bed won't touch you before then, in any case."
"I'll be behind on my training."
"You were a Rose, Astrid." It hurt to smile, but Jade managed. "You'll be ahead of everyone else they've ever met. You have my promise."
"Okay." She held out her hand. "I agree."
Jade shook the girl's hand and tried to tell herself this promise would never amount to anything. If they survived this war, Astrid would learn how many opportunities the world held. She'd receive her first smile from a handsome farm boy and develop her first crush and come to know that selling her body was a choice she didn't have to make.
She might still make it. And Jade could live with that, but only if she knew it was a choice.
But when Astrid thanked her and slipped from the sitting room, Jade lost her grip on her false calm. The physical sensations from her body roared back, so much worse for being neglected. And the panic—oh, she knew the source of the panic. The dull, hollow thud of her heart as she sat in Dylan's lap and begged him to tell her it didn't matter, that she could know.
How many years did it take before you could trust your choices were your own? Even with a mother whispering to her of a wider world, was Jade so different than Astrid? Want and need, training and desire... They were hopelessly tangled together, a snarl made worse by the pressures of survival.
Astrid would have those three years. But other girls wouldn't. They would come to Jade, girls who were old enough to sell their bodies, who wanted the money or the security or the independence of it now.
And Jade would have to help them. What was the alternative? To send them into the sectors, into a brewing war, to make their way on their own? Let them fall under the influence of whatever entrepreneurial asshole saw opportunity in selling well-trained, sheltered young women?
Forbid them, as if there was shame in exchanging your skills for money? As if Jade's success in doing so hadn't built the house she was sitting in and provided the food they ate and the beds they slept in?
And yet. There might not be shame, but that didn't mean Jade wanted to be the one who vetted their clients and arranged their assignations. The uncertainty would always be there for her, even if from the outside choice was as simple as Dylan made it sound. Jade could never view Sector Two from the outside.
You don't have to do it alone.
It was the only thought that could cut through her panic. So she repeated it to herself as her heart rate slowed, steadied. She rubbed her thumb over her O'Kane ink and knew, with absolute certainty, that Scarlet and Dylan and Mad weren't the only ones who'd have her back.
Sector leaders ruled alone because that was how it had always been done. But she was an O'Kane. Two would never be independent in the way it once had been, because Jade had made her vows to Dallas and Lex, and she intended to keep them. But those promises went both ways.
A soft knock sounded on the door. "Jade?"
Jade smoothed her expression and rose as Maricela opened the door. That painful splinter was still there, a sharp sting in her chest, but she'd have time to deal with it later. She had to tour the houses, and then spend a grueling morning and afternoon in Two.
Jade swore she could feel Eden pressing down on them all. Everyone was working faster, harder, longer. As if they could stock enough supplies, prepare enough hospitals, make any sort of plan to counteract the raw truth of rebellion.
When Eden found out, the bombs would fall again.
But they had to try. So Jade fixed her smile in place and let Mad's sweet, earnest cousin lead her through the houses. She took each success, each victory, each smiling face into her heart to combat the pain. She needed to go back to Four smiling and whole, because she knew how Avery felt.
Scarlet was already worried. If she saw Jade bending, even a little, she'd be certain her lover was about to break.
Chapter Twenty-One
There was a beauty to an elegantly designed circuit board that rivaled anything found in nature. The fact that even thinking such a thing was blasphemy according to the Prophet was probably the reason Mad had fallen in love with tech during his rebellious teen years.
It was the art of it that intrigued him most. The way insignificant pieces could be combined to create function that so far surpassed their individual uses as to be barely fathomable. But you couldn't just smash the components together at random. You had to understand every strength and weakness, the potential for friction and electrical noise, for too much heat or not enough space.
You had to understand the flow of power.
The broken tablets spread out in front of him didn't require much art. Their design had been fixed in place by pre-Flare engineers, women and men with training and certifications that Mad could only dream of. But it took patience to figure out which parts were broken and which could be salvaged, and it took skill to solder the delicate pieces into place.
It was his art, his meditation. Only so much more soothing, because when you reassembled all the pieces, there was no ambiguousness, no uncertainty. Tech was concrete and satisfying. Yes or no. On or off.
Fixed or still broken.
"Need some help?"
Scarlet's voice set off a sweet rush of warmth over his skin, and he couldn't stop his smile. Instead of knocking, she'd just come into his room like she belonged here. Finally. "I'm almost done, but I could use some company."
She circled the table, and he nearly swallowed his damn tongue when he glanced up. She was wearing one of his shirts, a soft black T-shirt that was so big on her the V-neck was slipping off her shoulder. "Dylan got held up at the hospital. Something about oxygen purifiers."
There was always something demanding Dylan's attention these days, which was a reality they'd all have to get used to. And he wasn't the only one. "Jade sent a note, too. She's dealing with another would-be pimp."
"So we're on our own tonight." Scarlet paused. "Is she all right?"
"I think so." Mad bent back over the magnifying glass, but he couldn't find the same beauty and elegance in the precise placement of circuits. Not when they had to compete with the curve of Scarlet's bare shoulder and music of her voice. "Deacon's with her. He'll protect her like she's a Rios—which means protecting her from herself, if he has to."
"Mmm." She lea
ned over him, careful not to block the light as she peered down at the board in his hand.
"You're going to get the same treatment, you know." He studied her profile. "Isabela's already demanding I bring you back for a proper visit."
Just before she turned her head, he caught her expression—half wince, half wrinkled nose. "That's not really my scene."
"You mean the kids? I can keep them from climbing on you. We'll just throw them at Dylan."
"No, it's—" Scarlet ran her hands through her hair and toyed with the plastic casing from one of the disassembled tablets. "You know who I am. Where I'm from. Hell, the O'Kanes seem fancy to me. And your cousin—I mean, he has an honest-to-Christ palace. It's too much."
Shit. He was usually better at reading people—but that was the problem with losing your comfortable distance. He was so tangled up with Dylan and Jade and Scarlet now that he was missing the obvious.
And what a goddamn thing to miss. They'd been dragging her from one extravagant childhood home to the next with an obliviousness that had to cut deep. Mad shoved back from his desk and rose to wrap his arms around her. "Where you're from is only a part of who you are."
"A big part." She shivered against his chest and traced her fingers slowly over his left shoulder. "Tell me about these."
He watched her fingertip swoop around the skulls, which faced each other over the blade of a sword, and actually looked at the tattoo that had decorated his shoulder for over half his life. It was the first he'd ever gotten, his family's emblem. By now, the sector treated it like the centuries-old crest of an ancient dynasty, but Mad's grandfather had designed it himself.
The Prophet had left little to chance when it came to his legacy.
"I got that one when I was sixteen," Mad said, twisting his arm so she could see the wings spreading out from behind the skulls to wrap around his arm. "Ace has touched it up some. I was angry when I got it. Angry at myself, because I was starting to doubt. I was trying too hard to prove I was committed to the family."
Her fingers slowed even further, turning her exploration into a caress. "You were doubting...because of your mom?"
