It was sent before he could change his mind and delete it.
He sat glaring down into the empty tank, railing at himself for letting his anger drive his actions. She would slaughter him for wandering away from strict business and she would be right to do so. These were troubled times. He didn’t have the luxury of indulging his personal wants.
Marlow did not respond.
This was a Hawks versus Spanners game, which was probably the reason Marlow was prowling the concourse, on the lookout for fire starters. When the Captain moved to the front of his box, the reaction from the capacity crowd was instant. The boos and hissing started immediately.
Many of the people in the crowd had their hands raised and their thumbs turned down.
David Sekar settled into his chair as if it was a perfectly normal game.
Jonah looked from him to the people all around him, who were leaning over the edge of the boxes and standing up in front of their seats, waving at him, still hissing and booing, their thumbs down.
“Can’t he see what is happening?” he murmured. The hot throbbing was settling into his temples and he rubbed them.
“Oh, he can see just fine,” Veda said dryly. “He just chooses to ignore it. That will not last.”
The players tumbled and rolled with gymnastic control out into the tank. Normally that brought a cheer from the crowd and lots of clapping and calling.
The boos went on. It was as if no one could see the tank at all.
Jonah’s heart picked up speed. “Something’s wrong.” He clutched the board in his hand.
The stomping and clapping started softly, then leapt in volume within seconds. It seemed to move like a virus around the arena, growing louder and louder.
Jonah scanned the faces of everyone in the arena. There was anger there. Worse, there was determination. They weren’t going to let this go.
He glanced at Veda. She was just barely containing her smile. “And so it begins…” she breathed, running her gaze around the arena.
Fear touched him. “What have you done?” he demanded.
Veda raised a brow. “Me? Nothing. The Bridge did this. That’s what you told everyone yesterday, in no uncertain terms.”
He sank into his chair, dismayed, then jerked upright once more as a gray object skimmed past his field of vision, moving in a high arc. He turned to follow it.
The gray thing thudded against the side of the Captain’s box and seemed to hang there for a moment before it slid down the short wall and dropped into the crowd below.
It was an oversized personal chip, one of the tokens that were given to adults on their Emergence, representing the miniature chip in their wrist and the new adult coding that was now theirs.
Including food rations.
Jonah ducked backward, almost tipping over his chair, as another chip whizzed past his face.
The Captain flinched as it skimmed over the top of the box wall and clattered up against the legs of the chairs. The dark haired woman who often sat behind him was tugging on his arm, trying to make him get to his feet.
Suddenly, there were dozens, possibly hundreds of the gray disks being hurled at the captain’s box. It was a terrible confetti.
From the six arena gates that gave access to the seating area, dozens of Marlow’s black guards streamed out into the crowd, climbing the steps upward and downward to try to control the crowd. She must have mobilized every single one of her guards.
Jonah gripped the edge of the box and looked down as the guards moved into the crowd. He watched as one of them grabbed the upper arm of a spectator as he flung a gray disk upward toward the Captain’s box.
The fan pushed back as the guard tried to haul him out of the row of seats. The guard staggered, then surged back. The fan swung his fist and connected.
The guard rocked back on his heels.
Instantly, a second guard on the steps above rushed down and grappled with the fan.
Abruptly, people were sucked into the melee and all Jonah could see was a thick core of writhing, fighting bodies.
He looked up. Fights were starting all over the arena. Marlow’s men were completely outnumbered. She would be overwhelmed.
Jonah hurried out onto the concourse and looked wildly from left to right. Where would she be?
Many were running out onto the concourse, just like him. Some were trying to get away. Just not all of them. A thick cluster of men emerged from the next gate.
“There! That’s the Spanners bastard!” one of them shouted.
Jonah frowned.
As the group turned and ran toward him, he realized they were talking about him. Were they blaming him for this?
Then they were upon him. A fist smacked into his stomach, making him wheeze and stirring his still-simmering temper. He curled his fingers inward to make fists. “Right….”
He never would be able to recall exactly what happened in the next few seconds. It felt as though years passed as he punched and shoved, kicked and rammed his elbows into any soft tissue he could reach. These were most likely patricians, only he had stopped caring who they were.
He vented all the tightly held fury and frustration of the last few weeks, holding his own against…he didn’t know how many. They were in front of him, they were fighting him and that was enough.
He fought back until there were no more bodies. The last few spun out of his reach, depriving him of the pleasure of bringing them to their knees. Instead they staggered and fell by themselves.
“Jonah!”
He looked up, blinking. He dropped his fist.
Marlow was standing over the last of them, her bo sticks in her fists. She stepped over the bodies, transferring one of the sticks to the other hand and rested her hand against his chest.
Her touch was light. He could feel the impact strumming through his body.
“You look tired….” he whispered. This was the first time he had been close to her in week. There were dark shadows under her eyes and she was pale. Even her wonderful, full soft lips were drained of color. “What happened to you?” he added.
Marlow’s gaze was rapidly scanning him. “Are you hurt?”
“I hurt whenever you’re not near.”
Ghostly pain touched her face. “You have to go,” she whispered. “Now.” She turned her head to look around the concourse for witnesses. “If you don’t I’ll have to arrest you.”
He shook his head. “No. No more. This all this is my fault. I have to stop it.”
“You were an excuse, Jonah,” Marlow said fiercely. “I need you out there where you can be useful. Go!” She pushed him, not hard.
Jonah stared at her. “Is that all I am? A tool?”
Her face shifted. Her lips opened. She didn’t speak.
“You’re just like Veda,” he added, pouring as much scorn into the words as he could.
There was more shouting along the concourse, where it curved out of sight. The fighting was not done yet.
Marlow pushed him again. “Go,” she snapped and ran toward the trouble.
Chapter Nine
The Aventine was completely deserted as Jonah strode through it on his way back to the Capitol. The sound of fighting, screams and violence would have pulled anyone with curiosity toward the arena, while sending the more sensible people as far from it as possible.
Even the Capitol, when he reached it, was quiet. There were more people moving about, here. They glanced at Jonah, startled, then moved hurriedly away.
It took two tries to punch in the right code on the spatula controls. His hand was shaking too badly. There was blood on the back of it and the knuckles had been split open. He hadn’t noticed either until now.
The spatula rose sluggishly up to the level of his apartment and he pressed his thumb against the lock. His arm felt heavy. All his limbs were aching. So was his face. And his back.
The door finally opened and he stepped through with silent gratitude and a deep, gusty sigh. Now he could think. Now he could process w
hat had just happened.
Everyone jumped to their feet as soon as he walked in, except Roger and he pushed his chair forward anxiously.
“Stars above,” Peter muttered. “Look at you.”
Agatha hurried forward. “We saw what happened. Oh, Jonah!” She hugged him, making him wince. Then she picked up his hand. “Come here. Come on. We need to get the blood off.”
Siegel patted the stool he had pulled out for him and Jonah sank onto it thankfully. He was starting to shake. “How bad is it?” he asked.
“I’m surprised you didn’t frighten people into hysterics if you walked back here,” Roger said.
Jonah recalled the startled looks he had received and the way people had scurried away. “I think I did.”
Peter held out a shot glass. “Here. It’s the strong stuff.”
Jonah drank it gratefully.
Agatha bathed his face and neck, tsking and tutting as she found more and more cuts and incipient bruises. They all seemed to start hurting and throbbing only after she discovered them, as though she was drawing Jonah’s attention to them.
Her calm brown eyes met his as she freshened the water once more. “What happened, Jonah?” she asked gently.
“I thought you all watched.”
“What happened to you, Jonah. What put that look in your eyes?”
Jonah glanced around the room. They were all watching him with grave expressions. He swallowed. “I found out just how much of a commodity I am.”
No one moved.
“I think the only people on this ship who consider me human are the people looking at me right now.”
“Oh, Jonah,” Agatha breathed. “That can’t be true!”
He cupped her face and tried to smile at her. “I think it just might be.” He let it go. “Years of work…and it seems I’ve made no impression at all.”
Roger leaned his elbows on his knees and wove his fingers together. “You’re being cryptic again.”
Peter nodded. “Do you want to spell that out for us stupid people?”
Jonah snorted. Peter was as far from being stupid as a human could get.
Then Siegel raised his hand. “Me, too,” he said quietly.
So Jonah told them. He left nothing out. He trusted them and he was done with hiding and secrecy.
By the time he was finished, Agatha was wringing her hands. “I hate her!” she cried. “If that’s what she is like, no wonder they tried to beat her up and break her arm!”
Jonah put his hand over her twining fingers, making them halt. “No, Agatha. You don’t hate people. That’s not like you.”
“But she hurt you! I will never forgive her for that.”
“I let it happen,” Jonah amended gently. “She was just doing her job. Always. That is all she has ever done. If anyone is to blame for this, it is me.”
Peter sighed. “Well, I didn’t think you were capable of falling in love, Jonah. Although I do admit it’s just your style to fall for a woman who is wildly unsuitable and totally beyond your reach.”
“Thanks, I think,” Jonah said dryly. His heart squeezed. “When did I ever mention the word love?”
Peter just looked at him.
So did Roger.
Jonah cleared his throat.
The door alert beeped, sending out Jonah’s personal signal. Someone wanted to see him.
He looked at everyone else, puzzled.
“It’s your code,” Peter said. “You’d better answer it.”
Jonah got stiffly to his feet. Everything was hurting, now. He let the door slide aside.
Marlow looked up at him from under the hood she was wearing. Her eyes were haunted. “I’m not like Veda,” she said softly.
Jonah drew in an unsteady breath. “You’re here….”
She glanced to either side. “Yes.”
He drew her in and let the door shut.
Marlow let the hood fall back, revealing her face. She looked at everyone, startled, then nodded stiffly.
“Hi,” Roger offered.
Jonah cleared his throat. “What are you doing here?”
Marlow reached her hand up to his face, yet didn’t touch it. “You look terrible.”
“Marlow….” Why was she here? The question beat at him.
She touched his lip where it was split. “Does that hurt?”
“I’m not in any pain at all,” he said truthfully. He couldn’t feel a thing except for the strained beat of his heart and the heated, tense throbbing of his body.
She wound her arms around his neck, reached up and kissed him.
Jonah didn’t remember pulling her up against him. He just grew aware of her in his arms, her body pliant and hot against him. She wasn’t fighting him off. She wasn’t stiff with tension and denial.
She was kissing him.
He groaned and buried his face in the long loose strands of her hair and closed his eyes.
“I thought they would kill you,” she breathed. “Oh, Jonah!”
He lifted her and carried her into the little room that was his and shut the door.
* * * * *
Marlow stretched hard, then relaxed back on the mattress. She turned her head to look at the time readout on the bureau across the room. There was no window to use to judge the level of light out in the district, which would give her a rough idea.
Jonah’s hand stopped tracing her hip bone. “Do you need to get back home? To Erron?”
Marlow shook her head. “He knows where I am.” In the last few weeks, she and Erron had grown closer. There was not much she didn’t tell him now. He had been right when he’d said that the night Taniel left was his Emergence. Erron was just as much an adult now as she was. His formal Emergence would be in three months’ time. He had already said he would remain in the house with her and commute to the Palatine each day.
Jonah looked startled. “Does he…mind?”
Marlow shook her head. “I think he’s pleased, although he’d die before he’d tell me. He likes that his conservative mother has an impulsive side.”
Jonah kissed her. “Not so impulsive, if you stopped off to check with your son first.”
Marlow sighed. “I did say I would be back for breakfast, though.”
Jonah lifted himself up off his elbow and sat up. There were bruises starting to form on his back. She had seen at least one of the patricians hit him with the pipe length they had wrenched from the stair rails in the arena. If Jonah had not stayed on his feet, if he hadn’t kept fighting, it could have been very bad.
She slid her hand over his flesh. “This changes things, Jonah.”
He resettled himself on the bed so he was looking at her. “I hope so.” His voice was warm.
“I mean last night does.”
He tilted his head, his eyes narrowing. “You’re talking about the arena.” He sighed. “Of course you are.”
She didn’t like the odd note in his voice. She sat up, too. “I don’t think you understand all of it.”
“I get it,” he said. “You want me out there, a spy among the Spanners, so you can keep the peace.”
“No, Jonah. I said that to get you out of the arena. I knew it would make you angry. You needed adrenaline to walk out under your own steam. You were covered in blood. I didn’t know if you had the strength to do it and I couldn’t help you—not any more than I had already.”
Jonah scowled. “You manipulated me. Why?”
“Not all the civil guards at the arena were mine. Nearly half of them were Red Guard, in civil uniforms. If they had found you as I did, you would be writhing under interrogation lights right now.”
He studied her, his gaze roving over her face. “I should have trusted you.”
Marlow smiled. “I didn’t give you any reason to. The Red Guards….that’s what changes things. They’re determined to stop this and they don’t know about you. I can’t tell them, either.” She looked at him.
“Because their lieutenant is with the Palatine faction and you don’t kn
ow how far his allegiance has spread through the ranks.” He grimaced.
She nodded. “You need to start withdrawing from the Spanners, Jonah. I don’t know how, but you must find a way. Tell Veda you don’t like what happened at the game last night.”
“The riot. Call it what it is,” Jonah said shortly.
“The Bridge is calling it fan exuberance and they will deny until the Endurance reaches Destination that it was anything else. They have to—they’re trying to keep a lid on this.”
“Exuberance?” He sounded amazed. “They really believe dismissing what happened last night will keep everything contained? It’ll just piss people off more. What does the Captain think he’s doing?”
He had said it to himself. Marlow stiffened anyway. “He’s doing the best he can under the circumstances. You don’t know everything, Jonah. No one does.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” Jonah considered her for a moment. “Would you…could you get away for the day? Meet Erron for breakfast and not go to work?”
“It’s my scheduled rotation day,” she said. “That’s why I told Erron I’d be there for breakfast. Why?”
“There’re some people I’d like you to meet.”
Caution touched her. “Spanners people?”
“They’re completely neutral,” he said. “If they have a loyalty at all, it lies with the Endurance itself and its longevity and well-being.”
She shook her head. “We shouldn’t be seen together, Jonah.”
His jaw flexed in reaction and she put her hand on his arm. “I’m sorry.”
“Just for today,” he said firmly. “We’ll use an enclosed cab, you can wear the hood you wore here. Where we’re going, no one will care, anyway. Just this one day, Marlow. That’s all I’m asking. Then I can go back to being public enemy number one.” His mouth turned down.
“I don’t like it any more than you do,” she said.
Jonah’s eyes were calm as he studied her. “If you say so,” he said gently. Then he drew her toward him, his big hands stroking her flesh. “When do you need to be home?”
“Not right away.”
“Good.”
* * * * *
Marlow agreed to meet Jonah in the alley just off the Esquilino market, where he had first kissed her. She used the train to get back home.
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