The Recoil Trilogy 3 Book Boxed Set: Including Recoil, Refuse and Rebel

by Joanne Macgregor

  “Yeah. Because I escaped. With your help, I got away scot-free. I didn’t have to go through what he did. I wish I could have saved him.”

  “You did,” I point out.

  “Yeah, but not soon enough.”

  Yeah. Not soon enough.

  Zonia sends Quinn to return the rifle to the locker. Most of the rebels prefer to have the shotgun when they stand guard duty. Only Neil and I use the rifle. Me, because I stand an excellent chance of hitting rats with it while they are still at a safe distance, and he because, I suspect, he wants to miss.

  Zonia and her new BFF approach me with expectant faces.

  “Well?” she asks me. “It’s obviously doable.”

  “But not by me. I don’t know how to say this in words that you’ll understand: I am not going to assassinate the president. There is nothing you can say that will change my mind.”

  “You think so?” she says lightly. “That’s a pity. A damned shame.”

  Her words make it sound like she’s accepted my refusal, but I don’t trust this sudden capitulation.

  “Well, I was obviously deeply mistaken in you,” Zonia says. “I thought you snipers were selected for your courage and nerve, not just your skill.”

  “I’m not scared to do it!”

  “Then why won’t you?” says Connor, turning those cold eyes, that masklike face on me.

  “Because it’s wrong. On principle. You should both know that.”

  “It’s bizarre to hear an effing sniper say it’s wrong to shoot someone. It’d be funny if it weren’t so hypocritical,” says Connor.

  “I won’t shoot someone in cold blood — that’s the freaking reason why I left ASTA.”

  “But there are circumstances in which you would be prepared to shoot?” says Zonia. She is toying with an old, dry pine cone, cracking back the scales and peeling them off, one by one.

  I nod. “Of course. If, say, we were under attack, I’d be prepared to return fire in self-defense.”

  “Mmmm, yes, I see. To defend yourself, or perhaps Quinn, or your friends amongst the rebels here,” she nods thoughtfully. “Or … your family?”

  “My family?” Where did that come from?

  “Yes. Say, for example, your brother — Robin, isn’t that his name? — was in danger, then would you be prepared to shoot? To keep him safe?”

  I stand perfectly still, hyperaware of the icy pit that is my stomach.

  “Robin?” I ask.

  “Yes. I heard all about him. Poor Nicky, I think she hoped to meet him one day.” Crack. She peels another scale off and tosses it away. “From what she told me, he’s been getting into all sorts of things he shouldn’t. Hacking is such a dangerous game. It’s so easy to get caught. A tip-off on the See-Say line is all it would take.” Her voice is light, almost playful.

  “You wouldn’t!” I say. My voice is breathy with fear.

  “Believe me, there is nothing I wouldn’t do.”

  I appeal to Connor. “You can’t think this is right? Blackmailing me through my brother, someone who’s never done anyone any harm?”

  But his eyes are implacable in his dead face. “Tomorrow, after breakfast, you will go up that mountain. And you will not come down until Hawke is terminated.”

  Chapter 43

  Piggy in the middle

  The next morning blows in on a cold snap of strong, gusting winds and driving rain. Saved by the weather. No way can they expect me to pull off a million-dollar shot in these conditions. Besides, Hawke will probably stay indoors by the fire all day anyway. I’m relieved at the respite, but I know it’s temporary. Tomorrow is Sunday — Hawke’s last day at the retreat, and the pressure will be all on me.

  Everyone except the surveillance team hangs around camp, edgy and irritable. I head for the showers, wishing that by some miracle hot water would come out of the pipes to unwind the knot of tension in my back and neck. But the water is icy.

  I’m just coming out of the shower when there’s a double rap on the corrugated steel door. I wrap my towel around me and take a hesitant step towards the door.

  “Jinx? You in there?” A voice calls sharply. Connor.

  “Yeah.”

  I stay where I am, shivering in the chilly air, my wet hair trickling a puddle onto the cold floor at my feet.

  “The forecast for tomorrow is cloudy, but no rain or wind. Hawke’s sure to be out on the grounds. Be ready to leave at dawn.”

  “Wait! Connor, please.”

  I run, dripping and barefooted, past the showers and toilet cubicles out of the door and slam right into Quinn.

  “Did you hear? Did you see that?”

  “I see this,” he says, his voice rough and deep.

  He’s looking down between us. The towel has come loose. One end is wedged precariously between our bodies, the other hangs down into the mud. The whole top half of my body is bare, and very little covers the bottom. I can feel a cold breeze and splashes of rain on my butt.

  “Oh!” Heat rushes into my face as I squirm against him, trying to retrieve the wayward end of the towel without exposing the rest of myself.

  Quinn groans at the wriggling full body contact. “Did you know you blush here, too?” he asks, running his hands down the sides of my neck, over my chest, and lower, around the curves of my boobs.

  “I…” Wait, what did he ask? I can’t think, can’t breathe.

  And then I don’t have to. His mouth closes over mine, and we’re kissing, and instead of oxygen, I’m breathing him in. He holds me up with a strong arm tight around my waist, pulling me against his length. His mouth slants across mine, driving out all thought, all fear, all doubt. My hands steal behind his head, tug at the hair on his neck. My chest is crushed against his, but still one big, warm hand edges in and cups a breast. I’m gasping. I need air, I need Quinn, I need more. Now. My teeth tug at his bottom lip. He shudders and kisses me deeper. There’s a desperation in our mouths, in our exploring hands. As if our bodies know that time is running out.

  The sarcastic clearing of a throat nearby snaps my head back. Connor is standing a few yards away, watching us.

  “Quinn, your brother,” I whisper fiercely.

  He turns around, and I snatch the towel before it drops, wrapping it securely back around me while hiding behind the protection of Quinn’s broad shoulders.

  “Can I have a word, little bro?” Connor asks.

  “Right now?” I’m glad to hear the irritation in Quinn’s voice.

  “Sorry. But I’m not doing so well today — I could use a shoulder …?”

  “Of course, yeah. I’m there,” Quinn says, rubbing both those beautiful hands over his face as if to scrub away the lingering trace of our kiss. Of me. “Jinxy — later, yeah?” he says to me.

  “Yeah, later.” But I say it to his back, because he’s already walking away, following his brother.

  I stand shivering and barefooted in the mud and watch them go. This feels like how it’s going to be from here on out — Quinn reconnecting with his damaged brother, out of love and concern. And guilt.

  And me left standing alone.

  I’m about to turn and head back into the restroom when Connor turns and looks over his shoulder at me. If that hollow, immobile face was still capable of smiling, it would be grinning widely now. The dark eyes are not blank — they’re gloating.

  Connor sticks by his brother’s side all morning, and it’s not until afternoon, when I spy Connor leaving their two-man tent, that I have a chance to confront Quinn with what Zonia said yesterday.

  I stick my head inside the opening. Quinn is lying on his back, one arm behind his head, staring at the roof of the tent. His other hand rests on his chest, holding a small piece of blue paper.

  “Can I come in?” I’m not confident enough to just climb inside anymore.

  “Jinx! Of course, come here.” There is pure delight and welcome in his voice. There is.

  “Can I talk to you about something?”

  “Since when
do you need an invitation?”

  He tosses aside the paper and pulls me to his side, to my favorite spot in the world — tucked under his arm, with my head on his chest.

  I get to the point immediately. “They’ve threatened to turn in Robin unless I shoot Hawke.”

  “They? Who?”

  “Zonia. And Connor.”

  “They said that? Connor said that?”

  “Not in as many words, but the threat was clear.”

  “Nah, d’ya think you could’ve misunderstood, Jinxy? They were probably just joking, or maybe trying to scare you. But they would never do that, especially Connor. No way.” He tucks a stray curl of hair behind my ear, and traces a finger down my neck. It’s distracting, but there are things we need to discuss.

  “You said he’d changed.”

  “Not that much.” His chest shakes under me as he laughs gently. “We’re the good guys, Jinxy.”

  Maybe. Though I’m beginning to wonder if purely good guys actually exist. “But bottom line, if I stay here, if I’m a rebel, then sooner or later they’re going to make me shoot Hawke. And it’s wrong.”

  No response.

  “Well, what do you think I should do?”

  “My brother and I have been chatting today, and it’s made me think. Connor seems to think that there’s more to Hawke, that he’s deeply corrupt and up to something really bad, and that the country would be better off without him.”

  “Do you agree?”

  “Of course. Connor’s dead right about Hawke needing to go, about this nation needing a change of government.”

  “So you think I should shoot him?” I can’t believe this.

  Quinn pauses. “Connor thinks we should, and he’s in with Resistance High Command. He’s been in this since the beginning, he knows lots. I respect his opinion.”

  Connor this and Connor that!

  “I know you love your brother and admire him, but what do you think, Quinn?”

  I know I’m making him piggy-in-the-middle, that in asking him to nail his colors to the mast, I’m asking him to choose between Connor and me. Super — more guilt.

  I feel again like I did that day of the mission at ASTA when I had to make an impossible choice, one which would lose me Quinn either way. If I go ahead and kill Hawke, I become the very stone-cold killer that I don’t want to be, I become the thing that Quinn has always hated, I betray myself and become as bad as the people I want to defeat. But if I don’t, the rebels will believe I’m betraying them, and perhaps they’ll turn Robin in. Perhaps they’ll turn me out.

  If they did, would Quinn come with me — turn his back on his broken brother, and his family and the rebel cause just so I wouldn’t be alone? And would I — should I — even want him to? It would put him in enormous danger to be out there with one of the sector’s most wanted fugitives. He’d be safer staying here, or wherever Zonia and Connor plan on taking the group after tomorrow.

  “Time to take a stand for what you believe, Quinn. Do you think I should assassinate the president? Yes or no?”

  It takes him only a moment to answer. “No. Of course not. It would be wrong, it’s against everything I believe.”

  I sigh. There are actual tears of relief in my eyes.

  “But I also think you and I are in a minority about that, and Zonia’s going to put a lot of pressure on you, on us, because she’s had the order from High Command. And time is ticking down on Hawke’s stay at the retreat.”

  “And so?”

  “I’ll talk to Connor tonight, make him see sense. Whatever they did to him at that place has twisted him up inside, he’s not himself. I’ll bring him round.”

  But I don’t think so. I know some of what went on in that room and can guess at the rest. I think about the hell of my single torture session and try to imagine what it must have done to Connor to endure that for almost three days, in addition to having to suffer starvation and dehydration. It’s unimaginable. No wonder he hates me. And he does — I’ve seen it in the icy darkness of his eyes and the severe set of his mouth when he looks at me. And he hates them — ASTA, the government and President Hawke — with the fiery passion of a newly converted zealot.

  I don’t think he’s going to change his mind anytime soon, let alone before tomorrow morning. Not so as to spare the scruples of the girl who got him captured, and not to save the life of the man who, ultimately, was responsible for having him tortured.

  I want to tell Quinn about my theory that Zonia’s planning to burn us, but his breathing slows and deepens, and his hand slips off my arm. It’ll have to wait until later. In the meantime, I’m not above snooping. Moving slowly and carefully, so as not to wake him, I reach over and retrieve the blue paper. As soon as I unfold it, I see it’s a letter to Quinn, from his mother. Although I know I should respect his privacy, I begin reading, my heart sinking lower with every word.

  Dearest Quinn,

  Thank you, thank you for saving Connor! In this mad world, family is the only thing that matters. It’s the only thing we have. I couldn’t bear to lose one of my children, and we came so close. I suppose your brother must be in a very bad way after those bastards had their go at him. You’ve always been so strong, Quinn, you need to help him. Promise me you’ll stay with him and look after him. And promise me you’ll try to stay safe and not go looking for trouble. I’m relying on you.

  May the road rise up to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face, and until we meet again, may God hold you in the palm of His hand.

  All my love,

  Mum

  Ah, crap.

  Chapter 44

  Countdown

  I nap alongside Quinn until Connor comes to prize his brother away from my clutches again.

  “Rise and shine, sunshine, it’s suppertime.”

  After we’ve eaten and the light is beginning to fade, Connor calls for silence.

  “Listen up, you lot. Zonia would like a word.”

  She tells us to get a good night’s sleep and to strike camp before dawn tomorrow.

  “Another transport will be here by seven am, and I want us rolling out as soon as possible after that.” She eyes me where I stand apart from the others. “We’ll send the van back for you and Quinn.”

  Sure she will.

  “Who’s standing guard duty tonight?”

  “I’m on from six ‘til twelve,” says Quinn.

  “And I’m on from midnight until six am,” says Neil.

  “Quinn, do you want the rifle or the shotgun?”

  He shrugs. He’s never bought into the idea that any of them could hit a rat anyway.

  “Well then, we may as well take the shotgun back now and get the rifle. Neil prefers it, and we’ll need it first thing in the morning anyway. Darius — would you get it?” Zonia hands him the keys to the van. “Jinx, make sure you get to bed early — we need your eyes sharp and your hands steady tomorrow.”

  She’s obviously decided to pay no attention to my flat refusal to cooperate. What will she do at dawn? Have Connor and Darius drag me up the mountain, then hold a gun to my head? It’s not beyond her. Nothing is.

  And what would Quinn do if they tried — defend me against his own brother? What if the situation turned violent, if either Quinn or Connor got hurt, or worse? And do I even have the right to ask Quinn to side with me, if that means breaking his mother’s heart and abandoning his brother?

  What am I going to do? My old nemesis of a question is back with a vengeance. I wipe my sweaty hands against my denims.

  Back at home, above the oven where Mom bakes us brownies, there’s an old, round, wooden clock which Dad always swore came from Atlanta’s original Union Station — from back before General Sherman rode into town — and had been passed down through the generations until he inherited it. It’s as big as a manhole cover, and you can hear it ticking loudly when the T.V. is off. Right now, my heart beats hard in my chest, like the second hand of that clock, counting down the
seconds to Zonia and Connor’s deadline.

  Quinn cricks his neck and stalks off to the guard tree. I follow slowly. I hear the thud of metal striking wood before I reach him. Quinn is sitting against the tree trunk, rifle laid beside him, tossing his knives. I pause, heart clenching when I see the expression on his face. It’s bleak. There’s no good decision for him either, I realize, no choice that won’t hurt someone he loves. I’m about to join him when I see that Connor, approaching from the opposite direction, has beaten me to it. He crouches down on his haunches beside Quinn and talks earnestly, occasionally touching his brother’s shoulder as if for emphasis. I watch them forlornly. Quinn doesn’t quit tossing the knives, but he doesn’t stop listening, either. And Connor doesn’t stop talking.

  Restless, anxious, desperate not to think, not to have to make a decision, I return to camp. It’s almost deserted.

  “Where are all the girls?” I ask Mark.

  He nods his head in the direction of the shower blocks. “Washing dishes,” he says.

  “All of them?”

  That’s a first. It’s not like it’s generally a preferred activity.

  Mark shrugs. Maybe I should join them, volunteer my help. There will probably be extra work packing up supplies and equipment before the departure in the morning.

  Oh my God — the morning. The dread inside grows colder, heavier.

  I can hear the clatter of mugs and plates in the basins as I draw near to the restrooms. The door is ajar, and I stretch out a hand to pull it open but stop in my tracks when I hear my own name being spoken. The girls inside are gossiping loudly. About me.

  “… can’t understand why they allow her to stay.” I think that’s Kirsty.

  “They won’t — after tomorrow.” That satisfied voice is definitely Evyan’s. “They only need her for her shooting skills. Once the mission is over, she’ll be out on her ass.”