by Terina Adams
“The senate would’ve had both of them and their families killed plus half of either faction’s HQ wiped clean just to make sure,” Jax said. “They would also send out emissaries to village strongholds to monitor for any rebellion.”
“Real friendly world you’ve got there,” Nuke said.
“Dad could tell me what Carter wanted to hide.”
Jax’s gaze wandered my way. Do I really want to do it all again? That was the question in his eyes. Yes, if it gave us the clue we needed.
He slid up from the couch and passed me, heading for the kitchen. “Anyone else need something to eat?” he called over his shoulder.
“I thought we’d never get around to the serious stuff,” Patrick said, climbing out of his seat.
Nuke was on Patrick’s heels, which left Elva and me. Only a few times I’d been stuck alone in her company, and those had been some of the most uncomfortable moments of my life. On the verge of following the others into the kitchen, I stalled, not wanting it to look like I was using them as a shield between the two of us. Emotional transparency was great when the other person only had good words about you to reveal; otherwise, it sucked. Especially when whatever had to be said would be delivered with barbed words.
“If you cared for Jax just one bit, you’d stop bringing your dad into this.” A lip curl from her would’ve been perfect at this moment.
“It’s because I care that I mentioned it. He didn’t get what he wanted from Dominus, but my dad could give it to him.”
Looking like she’d eaten rotten fruit, her lip did curl. “Then you know little about Jax. He’d rather play Level Ten in Dominus than accept your father’s help.”
So Jax had not told her about his willingness to help my dad escape jail. And that it was only because of me he remained incarcerated.
“You want to help, go join your own faction. Give Jax some space.”
Was this the same woman who stood up for me before we entered the game a few hours ago? Her mercurial moods toward me made knowing where I stood with her like walking on fractured glass. It was her loyalty to Jax and fierce love for Holden that made me willing to be her friend, but her prejudice against me, formed from the start, was an obstacle she seemed unwilling to overcome. Despite her caustic attitude toward me, I admired her. She held more integrity than all of us. “Carter has an army. We only have each other. It’s best not to make enemies out of the few friends we have.”
“My trust is earned, not granted.”
“Haven’t I proved myself these last few months?”
“You’ve proven you are your father’s daughter.”
Was this about Harris? “Why did you bother to stick up for me back there if you don’t want me around?”
“Because you have a strange hold over Jax.” She slid forward in her seat. “But listen to me, girl. I’ll bring you down if you hurt him. That, I promise. You’re Persal. You’ll always be Persal. Nothing changes that.”
“You didn’t seem to hold any bias when you were dating Holden.”
Oops. I’d say by the sting in her expression that was not a good thing to say for nurturing a bond.
“I’ve learned a powerful lesson since then.”
“But I’m not like Holden.”
“Words are like paper—no substance underneath.”
“My enemy is the same as yours. I promise you that.”
“I learned long ago that promises are as short-lived as the breath wasted saying them.”
In one graceful glide, Elva swept from her seat and strode across the floor to join the rest in the kitchen, leaving me sucking in breaths like I’d gone a round with Mike Tyson. Verbally sparring with her was equivalent, as far as I was concerned.
I pressed back into my seat, ignoring my stomach’s ache with the smell of frying bacon filling up my nostrils, and wrapped my hands around my waist in a pseudo hug. The four Aris stood in the kitchen talking. Patrick laughed and playfully shoved Nuke in the arm. The ever-present tension Jax carried across his shoulders and the hard set of his jaw eased free. He smiled at Elva, pointing to something on the bench behind that he wanted her to hand him. Another session over, another mission completed alive, another moment the Aris party solidified their bond and trust in each other. Was it only Elva, or were the others wary of me after what I had done to Harris? Or maybe wary of me because I was Persal? Surely not Nuke and Patrick, neither having spent a lifetime burdened by factional prejudice. And what about Jax?
I stared at my feet, bare because I’d not bothered to slip back into my boots once I stripped off my white socks, and now curled them up on the couch with me. Where did I belong?
Chapter 8
I looked down over a world beautiful yet cruel, a place where the leaders locked themselves in their glass towers, morbidly afraid of their people. Loitering in the street was enough to have you arrested. Befriending or falling in love with the wrong person would get you killed. This was the world Jax grew up in; they were the rules he trusted.
In the distance was the Califax Dome, a majestic sight rising stories above the city surrounding it, gleaming glass and spires reflecting the orange glow of the sun, combined with the blue of the moon. I’d been close to the Dome, but from below ground and never in real life. Awe and loathing made for an uncomfortable partnership inside my head. Within the Dome’s stunning glass walls, policies were made to keep the people subjugated. Burying secrets was done to maintain power, not for the good of the people.
I looked over my shoulder when I heard Jax coming up behind me.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“Do you want me to lie?”
“There’s been too much of that. Let’s make a pact.” He held out his hand. “From now on, we speak the truth.”
I looked at his hand. “You sure you can keep to that?”
“Isn’t this what you’ve wanted all along?”
Yes, and look what I got. Did I really want to risk hearing how Jax truly felt about a Persal, the daughter of his family’s murderer? The truth is what everyone demands, but the reality is most people just want a truth they can live with.
There was nothing left of who I was, the life I had. Maybe I had the ability to make myself anew. But to make a home, I needed people I loved. At the moment, I lost the two most important people, which left one I cared about, Jax. I needed too much from him—and I wasn’t prepared to unpack the extent of everything I did need from him. I doubted I’d have the strength to accept the truth if he decided to walk away.
He quirked an eyebrow, glancing down at my hand still resting by my side. “What sorts of secrets do you plan on hiding?”
I palmed his hand with a wane smile. “You got yourself a deal.” Even though I planned to focus on hunting Holden down and finding Mum and Ajay, while Jax planned on stopping Carter.
He ran a finger across my brow, which made me jerk a fraction. “What’s this for?”
I shook my head as my reply, because too many words needed to be said as explanation, and I wasn’t sure if I would choose the right ones or say it the way it should be said.
It seemed I didn’t need to say anything; either that or ignoring my lack of answer made ignoring the tension thickening the air easier for him. “You need some tattoos. That’s the first thing. After that, I’ll head to Aris HQ.”
My stomach tightened at the name. The memories were fresh and all too willing to spew out on replay. You can never unsee something, never undo something, and that small truth could alter a part of you that would never be altered back. We surfaced from the game only a day ago, and here we were in another dimension. It had been me who kept us moving. If we did, I could stay ahead of the memories, maybe.
“If I had an Aris tattoo, would I be able to enter?”
“No. You can trick the people on the street, but you can’t trick the sensors.” He placed a hand over his chest. “It’s in here that can’t be hidden. The sensors will detect the fabric of your factional nature. Anyone can fake a tat
too.”
“I’ll be an anomaly, fooling most, but never really being what I want to be.”
“And what is that?”
“Free to choose my own path.”
“In my world, that can never happen.” He turned away, running his fingers through his hair, drawing my attention to the black band on his wrist. “Elva would’ve taken care of Nuke and Patrick’s tattoos by now. I think it’s best we get this over with.”
“Is that what you were looking for?” I pointed to the band.
“Yeah.” He held his arm out, inviting me to take a closer look.
“What did you call it?”
“It’s a cephulet. Think of it as a computer and smartphone rolled into one. It connects us to the biostream, which is our word for internet.”
“Where’s the screen?” It was a flat black band, which wrapped around his wrist like a leather bracelet.
Jax tapped his temple. “The cephulet acts like the silver dots in Dominus. It taps into your neural frequency and displays the screen in front of your eyes, much the same as in Dominus. Your brain waves are transformed into commands. All you have to do is think, and it does.”
“Does that mean you have a whole computer screen in front of your eyes all the time?”
“No. You can regulate what you see and at what time. You’d go crazy otherwise.”
“Can I get one of those?”
“It’s too dangerous. People need to be registered to wear one so their use of the biostream and all communications can be monitored. As I said, factions are not allowed to communicate with each other unless it’s within work channels. Some have managed to alter the cephulet, making it unreadable while still remaining connected to the biostream, but their successes have been short-lived. Carter and Nixon tried it for years. In the end, they gave up and used an old-fashioned prototype cephulet, which kept them outside the biostream but limited their application.”
“What happens if we get separated?”
“I’ll try to get you the prototype. They’re illegal, so they’re hard to come by now. I may be able to find one.”
“So black markets exist in your world?”
“Black markets will exist anywhere you make something illegal.”
A low tone hummed through the apartment. The alien sound amped me to high alert. My factional nature ceased its slow rolling path around my body and zapped to life.
“Delivery.” Jax moved past me, heading for the door.
“Already?”
Not long after we arrived, Jax turned on a wall screen and browsed through catalogues of clothes. He made me watch an animated woman stroll across the screen dressed in the latest fashion, proper fitting clothes at least and not the pathetic wisp of fabric that failed to cover my body in Dominus. Some clothes were as outlandish as the couture that paraded the catwalks back home. But I was happy to see the army-style cargo pants and jumpsuits also seemed popular over here as casual wear for the everyday person.
Once I made my choice, Jax told me to stand directly in front of the screen, and a green beam scanned me from head to feet, taking my measurements for an exact fit. This was the way people shopped, because apparently simple pleasures like sauntering the aisles of a retailer, feeling the fabric and trying on outfits, encouraged too much interchange between factions. There were a shops that catered for specific factions, but the habit of physically shopping was a quaint pastime for the wealthy and not the norm.
The face of a young guy appeared in a large screen to the left of the door. Much like Jax, Holden, and Elva, the guy looked like he’d been beamed directly from earth. He could be any delivery guy from back home.
I inched into the bedroom when Jax opened the door, shy of being spotted in case the guy had some telepathic way of seeing right into my mind or soul.
I peeked around the doorjamb when I heard the suction noise as the front door closed and Jax heading back into the apartment. He handed me the small package. “Go change.” For a brief moment, his eyes focused ahead, seeming to look straight over me, before he said, “I’ll give you five minutes.”
“What was that?”
His gaze refocused on me. “What?”
“Just then. It looked like you zoned out.”
“I’m checking the communication channels. I’m also running a biostream search, looking for a tag from Elva.”
I frowned as I gave a small shake of my head meaning, What the heck?
“We’ve got to be careful how we communicate. Elva may think it’s not safe to go directly through the coms channel and instead leave a tag in the biostream. It’s like a snippet of code we devised as a way of letting each other know there was a message to relay. It’s nonsensical to monitors, which are mostly bots.”
“And is there anything?”
“Not so far.”
“Is that good or bad?”
“It means you have to change out of your clothes so we can get going.”
“Where?”
Jax used his finger against my forehead to push me backward into his room. Once inside, he turned away, but as he was turning, his focus shifted to look at the screen only he could see.
I stared through the gap that was the door to his room, not seeing a way to close it. “Umm… I need a little privacy.”
He spun back with a blink to bring his eyes back into focus.
“That’s easy.” His smile was welcoming after the twenty-four hours we all had so far. He waved his hand chest-high at the left side of the open doorway. Without sound, a door slid out from a slit that appeared in the doorframe. Before the door closed, his gaze once again turned to his screen, shutting me out.
I’d chosen a simple, deep-green jumpsuit made of soft, lightweight fabric, which fit like a glove and easily stretched when pulled. I fingered the material, trying to determine if it was made from similar fabric as back home. The soft durability felt otherworldly. The jumpsuit had been the least outrageous outfit; plus, it gave me room to fight. I didn’t expect to be fighting—I hoped I wouldn’t be fighting—but since I spent the last few months battling in the streets of Califax, I couldn’t scrub the idea a warrior would appear from out of nowhere and attack. The shoes were also lightweight, boots with soles that could be from rubber but gave more when pressed.
I pulled my hair up using an accessory I found in the packaging, some fancy metal clasp that managed to hold all my long hair in a comfortable, loose bun, then surveyed myself in the mirror. I didn’t look any different, which meant I looked human. So had the guy at the door, which meant I had nothing to worry about.
I scanned the left side of the door for the mechanism that would open it, saw nothing obvious, so I headed for the right side. Much like glass doors at offices or shops back home, the door slid across in silence as I walked in front of it. Jax, looking out of his expansive window, spun when he heard me exit. His eyes wandered slowly up my body, and then he quirked an eyebrow. While his eyebrow went up, so did my heart rate and a thousand butterflies in my stomach while my steps slowed to a crawl. The sudden flight of the butterflies had been so unexpected it left my head spinning. I wanted to about-face and scurry back into his room, press my back against the shut door, calm my breath, and analyze what the hell I was supposed to do now. These were powerful, raw feelings, as open, honest, and frightening as the horror and terror I faced in Dominus. I wasn’t ready to be hammered by yet more intense emotions.
“Passable.”
The slow smile softened his features, and I heaved out my sharp inhale. “Is that good or bad?”
“There’s little difference between your kind of human and mine. Don’t worry about blending in. People don’t strike up a conversation with complete strangers like they do in your world, so you shouldn’t need to speak too much, if that’s got you worried.”
The moment of seconds ago passed. We were back to talking about necessary and safe topics, such as my predicament. “Comforting to know.”
“You’ll be fine. But we might just leave
your hair down for now.”
Instead of waiting for me to do it, Jax reached his hands behind my head and gently tugged the fastener out—quite a feat without hurting me, as my hair was bundled up in a messy bun. In order to deal with my hair, we were forced to stand close. Reaching forward as he did put us even closer.
Jax needed a shower—Christ, I probably needed a shower—but the smell of his sweat was too familiar for me to think it unpleasant. We both fought hard to be alive, to be here now. I found a safe spot to stare on his shirt, but I itched to look up. Just one look. So I did. Jax stopped what he was doing for a moment and looked down at me. We were caught in an awkward moment of forced intimacy.
Maybe I was fooling myself, reading more than what was there, lost in my own stupid girlie excitement that I saw the mirrored need in his eyes. I say maybe, because it was gone so quick. As if shaking himself out of a daze, his expression shifted back to the blank canvas I knew so well from a place of soft vulnerability of a moment ago. “There’s a lot we need to do to survive.” He backed away.
“Yeah, I know.” I caught the disappointment in my voice. Would he? We were in Califax for real. This wasn’t a game. The cost was perhaps too great. In his world, it was time to play by his rules. Time to learn what it really meant to be a faction member.
Jax handed me the metal clasp and motioned that I should bring some hair over my shoulders. “Make sure you keep behind your ears covered for now, or at least the right one. Keep your wrist covered for the same reason.”
“Will you do my tattoos?”
“No. I’m not great.”
I lifted his arm up between us. “But the detail on this is amazing.”
“It hurt like hell. With a professional, you won’t feel a thing.”
“But we’ll get caught. What if the tattooist reports me?”
“I know somewhere we can go.”
“Are we talking somewhere illegal?”
“He’s not sanctioned by the senate, if that’s what you mean by illegal.”
“This guy doesn’t know Carter, does he?”
“I’d never take that risk. Carter never used the sorts of people I will take you to see.”
