“Here, try eating this,” Marcus said, handing her an apple he had pulled from his other cargo pocket. “You really should try to eat something, and this may be as easy as anything else for you to get down.”
Jane bit into the apple and chewed slowly, concerned at first that she might cough or choke or shoot apple out of her nose, but nothing happened—other than a momentary dizzy spell at the almost overwhelming sweet sensation that flooded her mouth.
She walked with Marcus in silence, alternating sipping from her bottle of water and crunching on her apple. Finishing both as they walked into the infirmary, Jane threw the apple core and empty bottle into the trash and walked into the emergency care center with Marcus close behind her.
Passing through the sliding glass door into the waiting room, they were greeted by the backs of her dad’s and brother’s heads, neither noticing that anyone else had entered the room. Both men were peering through the glass window into another smaller room within which Jane could see her mom on a bed, being tended to by three doctors.
Neither her dad nor her brother had changed out of the filthy prison clothing they still wore. Jane quickly glanced at herself, and at her forearm that had been burned by the tracker, and was overwhelmed at the contrast between the death she had seen below and the life she could feel up here.
“How is she?” Jane asked hesitantly, bracing herself for an answer she was hoping not to hear.
Turning at the sound of his daughter’s voice, Jane’s dad walked over and wrapped his arms around her. Jane pressed her cheek into his chest and instantly felt better, even though his usual good smell was missing. She didn’t care.
“Well,” her dad said, “the doctor thinks she will be okay.”
A wave of relief washed over Jane, and she felt another hand on her shoulder.
“She’s really sick though. She has an infection and a high fever—and the doctor said her back is a mess, probably from the shuttle crash—but she’s stable.”
Jane slowly released her grip on her dad, pulling back slightly to look up at his face. Her brother had walked over too.
Jane grabbed Tate and felt him squeeze her tight enough that she was having trouble breathing. She still didn’t care.
“That was a completely crazy thing you did, sis,” Tate said, squeezing her even harder. “Brave, but completely crazy. When did you get it in your head that it would be a good idea to break into a prison?”
“Around the same time you decided it would be a good idea to get yourself thrown into a prison,” Jane replied, happy to have the strong arms of her brother holding her. “What happened to the ‘escape plan’ you said you had in church the other day—the one you said you would use if someone came looking for you?”
“Oh, that? I’m saving that for a special occasion,” Tate replied, releasing her from his grip and pulling back with a smile.
Jane took a step back. Her dad and brother seemed to finally notice Marcus, taking their eyes off her for the first time since they realized she was in the room with them.
“So where did you pick this guy up?” Jane’s dad asked, looking back at her with a curious fatherly I’m-not-so-sure-I-approve-of-your-choice-in-men kind of look. “You didn’t find a new boyfriend in prison, did you?” he added with a smirk.
Jane, embarrassed, looked back at Marcus quickly and then at her dad. “What? No! Wait. What are you talking about, Dad? This is Marcus—he works for you.”
Jane’s dad crossed his arms. “Oh, I think I’d remember hiring the guy who hauled me off to prison.”
Jane wheeled around, confused, and realizing what, she wasn’t so sure. Without thinking, her hand flew up and slapped Marcus across the face, sending his head jerking sideways.
Quickly Marcus raised his hand to massage his cheek. “We really have to work on a response from you that doesn’t involve me getting slapped, Jane,” Marcus said, wincing.
“You said you worked for my dad!” Jane said, pushing Marcus in the chest with both hands. Marcus retreated a step with his hands half up, more out of not wanting to be slapped again than because Jane had pushed him.
“I do work for your dad,” Marcus countered. “He just doesn’t know it yet,” he added sheepishly.
“You lied to me,” Jane said, pushing him again in the chest. She wished for a moment she had laser vision, as she would have liked nothing more than to burn a hole in his forehead with her gaze. “Why did you lie to me?”
“I had to tell you something. You were trying to break into a prison!”
Jane pushed Marcus again. “You couldn’t tell me the truth?”
“Fine, Jane, just ease up for a second.”
Jane stopped her attack and let Marcus back up a little.
“So the truth … the truth is I could have ended up in that prison,” Marcus said, quickly glancing over her shoulder, no doubt at her dad and brother, and then returned his gaze just as quickly to her. “Probably should have, actually.
“Years ago, I got in a fight. A kid from the city came nosing around our neighborhood with a bunch of his buddies. They ran into our gang, and we got into it. I broke his nose—actually, I fractured his skull … something you know a little about, Jane,” he added, nodding his head as if to point at her eye.
Jane cocked her eyebrow and crossed her arms, not wanting to give Marcus the satisfaction of knowing she was actually interested in hearing where he was going with his story.
“As it turned out, the kid I nearly killed was the mayor’s son. By midnight, I was locked in a processing center. By eight the next morning, I was standing before a judge, and five minutes later, I had been sentenced. There was no hearing. No trial. No jury. Nothing. I was given a choice … prison or the military, so I chose the military.”
“And?” Jane asked, trying to sound impatient.
“And, I hadn’t given that decision much thought until I was ordered to arrest you and bring you there,” Marcus added, looking over her shoulder at her dad and brother. “I had never seen the inside of the detainment facilities—almost nobody has, to my knowledge—but it reminded me that I could have ended up in there just a few years ago.”
Marcus looked back at Jane. “And I never liked working for Senator Biggs anyway—seems like the higher up you go in government security work, the worse your bosses get—and I especially knew I was working for the wrong guy when he put your dad and brother into the cells and had me put you in there too. Maybe being sentenced to die in prison was a punishment I deserved—I don’t know—but I’m sure none of you deserved it. So when I saw you running across the fields to save them—trying to break into a prison, of all things—I knew I had to help you.”
Jane’s arms were already hanging at her sides. “So … that was it?”
“Yes, that was it … and I didn’t have time to tell you all that when you were standing outside the prison doors with the alarms going off,” Marcus replied with a smile, perhaps realizing he was no longer in danger of being shoved or slapped.
“What?” Tate said from behind her. “You were hoping he was going to say he had fallen for the pretty blond girl and couldn’t help himself?”
Jane’s eyes went wide, and she whirled around to face her brother.
“No!” she said, feeling herself blush, and realizing her tone wasn’t as convincing as she had hoped.
“Well, you did look a lot better when I saw you on the plaza,” Marcus said.
Jane bristled and whipped back around to see the coy smile on Marcus’s face, then returned the scowl to hers. Even if she was mildly attracted to the man who had helped her break her family out of a prison, she wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of knowing it.
“I guess it’s too soon for jokes,” he added with an innocent smile.
Hearing a snicker behind her, Jane turned to face her dad and brother. Tate had his hand to his mouth, trying to contain his laughter as if he had just watched a buddy snap someone in the rear with a wet towel in the boys’ locker room. It wasn’t his most priestl
y moment, but apparently, even he couldn’t help but get a little juvenile enjoyment out of watching Jane react uncomfortably to the attention she was getting.
Jane tried to burn a hole in Tate’s forehead too. “I’m glad you’re finding this funny, you big jerk,” Jane said, pausing for a second and then looking at her dad, who still had his arms crossed and was maintaining his earlier serious expression, though he seemed to be getting some amusement out of the situation now too.
“It can’t be a good idea to call a priest a jerk,” Marcus quipped.
Jane whipped around, pointing her finger in his face. “And you should probably stop talking now. I have already shot two people in the face today. It’s not too late to make it three.”
“I appreciate your willingness to commit treason to help my daughter, Marcus … and us,” Jane’s dad interrupted, causing her to whip around to face him again, “but we’ll have to talk about your intentions when we have a little more time.”
“Yes, sir,” Marcus replied.
“Thank you, God,” Jane mumbled, relieved the conversation had moved past her.
“And I hate to put you on the spot,” Jane’s dad said, “but you need to make up your mind quickly about whether you want to go on this little adventure with us or not.
“I suspect there will be some people from the prison who need to go back down to the planet. Some are just too sick to take back in their current condition, so they’ll just have to come with us. But there will be a shuttle going down. If you want on it, you can go.”
“If it’s all the same to you, sir,” Marcus said, also taking a smiling glance at Jane, “I’ve made my decision … I’d like to stay.”
“That’s fine. We’ll talk more about that later. First, I need to go talk to all the people from the prison about their options, and I need to figure out what to do about the security detail you brought with you on your first visit. Evelyn has them chasing vapor up in the command center, and she is blocking their communications with their commanders, but they won’t be fooled for long.”
“Don’t worry about them, sir. I’ll take care of it.”
Jane’s dad looked at Marcus with a raised eyebrow and then looked at Jane. “So, you trust this guy?”
Jane desperately tried to think of a reason why, after everything, she should trust Marcus. She had nothing—no reason—he really hadn’t given her any. But something in her gut didn’t want to cut him loose. “Yes, I trust him.”
Marcus smiled at her.
“Fine, Marcus,” Jane’s dad replied. “Just make sure they go quietly.”
“Yes, sir, but honestly, they are the least of your worries right now. I am sure the president is ordering a fleet of shuttles of fully armed guards to seize control of your space station.”
“I’m aware of that. Evelyn intercepted the communications. She estimates we have less than two hours before they arrive. That should be plenty of time for us to get the people off Vista who need to leave—then we can go.”
“Dad,” Tate said, finally speaking up. “You know I have to be on that shuttle too.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me, Tate!” Jane’s dad said with surprise.
“No, I’m sorry. You know I’m not kidding. There are people down there who have lost hope. They are desperate. I can’t offer them much, but I was called to help them.”
“You were in that prison. You know what they do to people in there, and if you get caught again, you know what they want to do to you. You won’t just be killed, Tate, you’ll be dissected. They know who you are, and they’ll be looking for you. It doesn’t matter that you’re a priest—in fact, I’m betting that’ll make matters worse for you—you’ll have a target on your back. There’s no way I can—well, there’s just no way.”
Jane was listening to the exchange between her dad and brother, and she immediately thought of the mass graveyard high in the mountains, the millions of bodies, and then about the little girl in the forest and her father who had attacked her.
“Dad, Tate’s right,” Jane spoke up, surprised to hear herself siding with her brother when it clearly meant she may never see him again. “You have to let him go.”
Everyone turned to look at Jane, each with an equally stunned look on their faces.
“The people down there need him.”
Still, nobody said anything.
“But I need to go down there too,” Jane added, now turning to look at her brother. “I need to pick up my kids.”
Tate returned Jane’s smile.
“What?” Jane’s dad said with a note of certain confusion and probable anger in his voice.
“You have a kid?” Marcus whispered in Jane’s ear.
“Kids, Marcus, kids—still want that date?” Jane said, smiling to herself.
“Are you asking me out now?” Marcus asked.
Ignoring him, Jane continued. “Look, Dad, we don’t have time to discuss this. Tate has to go, and I have to go with him. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“No! No way. Jane, if those government shuttles get here before you do—I may have to leave you. I can’t choose my daughter over the safety of hundreds of people. You’re going to stay on Vista.”
“Look, Dad, this isn’t open for discussion!” Jane said, now getting flustered and wagging her finger in his face. “I will be back in time. You won’t have to leave me.”
Jane turned to face Marcus, still directing with her finger. “Go do what you need to do with the other agents and meet me on the shuttle in fifteen minutes. You’re coming with.”
She looked over her shoulder at Tate. “You too,” she added. “Fifteen minutes.”
Without bothering to get a reply from any of them, Jane stormed out of the room.
“Where are you going?” Jane’s brother called after her.
“I’m taking a shower. I’m sick of smelling myself,” she yelled down the hall over her shoulder. “Fifteen minutes!”
BENEVOLENT
Though everything was recycled on the space station, there was no way Jane was going to allow the horrifically disgusting prison clothes she had been wearing for days to be reused. They were tightly bound in a plastic bag and would either be left on Earth or purged out of an airlock toward some unfortunate sun, but in either case, she didn’t want to see them again.
Her shower was completely unsatisfying, given she had so little time and would have liked nothing more than to see if she could use all the hot water on Vista. Even the soap didn’t seem to clean off the stink of prison, but she was hoping that the smell was actually caught in her sinus, or seeping through the plastic bag, and not permanently penetrated into her skin.
With her hair still wet and her jeans and T-shirt sticking to her in places where she didn’t dry herself off as well as she now wished she had, Jane slipped on her shoes and sweatshirt and opened the door to her quarters on the shuttle, just as Marcus and Tate were boarding.
Tate had taken time to clean up too, dispensing with his own prison wear. He didn’t have on his traditional black attire and white collar, though. Apparently, even a well-equipped space station like Vista has its wardrobe limitations. He was dressed as casually as she was, which made Jane smile, remembering seemingly lighter days as a family long ago. Then she noticed his arm.
“What’s with the bandage, Tate?” Jane asked, referring to the white linen dressing wrapped around his left forearm.
“Oh, that?” he said, glancing down at the bandage. “That’s where they put the tracker in my arm. Since I’m going back, I had to have it removed in the clinic.”
Jane winced, remembering the feeling of having the tracker inserted, and she couldn’t help but pull up the sleeve of her sweatshirt to look at the cell number burned into her flesh.
“You’ll have to have yours removed too, Jane. Until then, Evelyn said she’s blocking the signal so they can’t use it to find you.”
“Good to know,” she said, sliding her sleeve back down and walking toward the cockpit. “L
et’s go, Evelyn. We have to make this fast.”
“Yes, Jane,” Evelyn said.
Jane felt the shuttle detach from Vista, and through the window, she watched as they fell away toward Earth.
The three of them took their seats, strapping themselves in tightly.
“The government has ordered shuttles to Vista, and we have a little time, as they are coordinating their actions across multiple bases. We don’t have the time for a controlled reentry, though,” Evelyn announced. “And we won’t be able to come down hundreds of miles away from Ironhead to avoid detection.”
“That’s fine, Evelyn,” Jane replied, tucking the earbud in her ear, which she had withdrawn from her pocket.
“Your brother told me about the kids, Jane,” Marcus said. “That’s really incredible—what you’re doing … you are sure you know what you’re doing?” he added, giving her a hard-time smile.
Jane looked over at Marcus. “Not at all,” she said, lightly shaking her head and returning her gaze to the rapidly reddening edges of the windshield as the shuttle punctured the edge of Earth’s atmosphere.
Jane looked over at her brother.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to say goodbye to Mom, Tate.”
“That’s okay, Jane,” Tate replied. “I’m fine just knowing that she’s safe with Dad. And I’ll feel better knowing you’re safe too, so we need to make this visit quick. When Evelyn sets the shuttle down, we’ll all head straight to the orphanage. It’s too early for the children to be awake yet, so I’m praying they’ll all still be in their beds. Once I know they are safe with you on the shuttle, I’ll disappear.”
“Only until we come back,” Jane added.
“Right, Jane, only until you come back,” Tate replied with a smile and a twinkle in his eye.
The shuttle was lurching from the turbulence of reentry, which seemed to be getting worse with each passing second. Jane felt like she was having to lock every muscle in her neck and shoulders to keep her head from bobbling off and rolling across the floor. No matter how safe her head tried to tell her she was, she couldn’t seem to convince her heart, which was pumping blood through her arteries like water through a fire hose. Breathe, Jane, breathe, she told herself, trying not to gouge her fingernails into the armrests.
Jane and the Exodus (Stargazer Series Book 1) Page 21
