“It’s just adrenaline,” he says.
“What?”
“The shaking. It’s your body coming down from the adrenaline it used in running away.”
He says it calmly, like there’s nothing out of the ordinary about spending time nearly crying after having been shot at by guys with machine guns, or your family disappearing, or any of the other stuff that has happened to me so far tonight.
“There should be something to eat in the glove compartment,” Jack adds. “You’ll feel better if you eat.”
There are sandwiches there. Turkey and cheese, which is fine, but I still don’t bite down on it.
“If you’d rather have something else, I can find somewhere to stop,” Jack says.
I shake my head. “It’s not the sandwich.” I look out of the window for a moment, watching the outside world go past. Like everything else this evening, it’s flashing by too fast. “It’s everything. I mean, I came home today thinking everything would be… you know,
normal
. Instead, everything’s turned upside down, and I still don’t know why.”
I turn back to Jack then. He’s concentrating on the road, but I get the feeling that’s at least partly just an excuse. “I saw the goons back at your place. My family’s missing, and I can’t contact them. Do you want to give me a reason why I shouldn’t make you turn this car around and drop me at either my house or Grayson’s?”
Though how exactly I would make him do anything, I don’t know.
Jack shakes his head. “Your home isn’t safe. Nor is Grayson’s.”
“I can deal with it. I’ll take my chances.”
He looks at me then. Looks at me with the full depth of those clear blue eyes of his. “Listen, Celes-”
“Don’t call me that,” I tell him. “Only people I trust get to call me that.”
“Then I’m
going
to call you that, because you need to start trusting me if you want to live. Now just listen. You can’t go back. Until we manage to fade you completely, we can’t even risk you setting foot in your town. I can’t let you.”
“Let me?” He makes it sound like I’m a kid, not seventeen. He’s not
that
much older than me.
“Let you,” Jack repeats. “I might not understand my orders sometimes, Celes, but right now, my instructions from the Underground are clear. I’m to guard you with my life. Now, I don’t plan on giving up my life just because you want to go home, or because you won’t listen.” He runs a hand through his hair. “Until this is over, you have to stay put with me.”
“And everything will make sense when we get to this Underground?” I can’t keep the sarcasm out of my voice. It all sounds a bit too James Bond for me. “You haven’t even told me exactly who they are, and what they do.”
Jack is watching the road again. “When we get to the Underground, you will be briefed as to what is going on. As for elaborating on what we’re part of, it’s classified. Sorry.”
“Classified?”
Jack shrugs. “We work in secrecy to keep many people safe, and if we breach that secrecy, their lives would be forfeited. Can you understand that?” His tone softens a little then. “I’m sorry, I can’t tell you more. It’s how we work, and it really would be bad if things went wrong. People would get hurt. People like your family.”
Meaning that I don’t get to know anything. I sigh, looking round for some sign of where we are. We’ve left town a fair way behind now, but we could be going almost anywhere.
“How long is it going to take to get there?” I ask. At least that way, I’ll have some idea of where it could be.
“If you eat and go to sleep, we’ll get there faster. If not, it’s going to be a long ride.” Jack smiles then. “Not that I’m not enjoying your company, but believe me, traveling hundreds of miles by car isn’t exactly fun, even in something that can eat up the miles.”
Not the precise answer I was hoping for, but it will have to do. I do eat, getting through the sandwich I’m holding and the one left in the glove compartment with a speed that comes from hunger. They aren’t bad at all.
Jack looks over. “You realize those were supposed to last us both the whole trip?”
“Sorry, I thought-”
“That’s ok,” Jack says, waving it away. “It’ll be an excuse for us to get out and stretch our legs at some dive along the way.”
I have to smile at that. His accent isn’t made for words like ‘dive’. He doesn’t talk much after that, though, just powering the car on through the night at speeds that have very little to do with the speed limits. He only slows occasionally, usually just in time to avoid going past a cop car at a hundred and twenty.
We’ve been driving for more than a couple of hours when he points up at a sign. “There we go.”
“What?” I jerk to full wakefulness, having fallen into that kind of half-sleep you get on long journeys. “Where?”
“A nice little out of the way stop to eat. I love discovering these places.”
He pulls off at the next exit, where there’s a tiny diner and gas station. It doesn’t look like much as we park. In fact, it looks like the kind of place that is only a week or two from closing down. Jack gets out of the car and goes around to the trunk, taking out a duffle bag before we head in.
The diner is practically empty. There are three guys over in the corner, dressed like truckers, but other than that, it’s dead. A waitress who is obviously used to the quiet hurries over and shows us to a table, then says that she’ll get menus.
“Which way are the restrooms?” I ask, before she can go.
“Just through the back beside the counter, honey.”
I stand, and Jack puts a hand on my arm. “What?” I demand. “Does the whole never leaving my side routine extend to this too?”
Jack shakes his head, and holds out the duffle bag. “I just thought you might want this.”
I take it with me, discovering once I’m in there that it contains toiletries as well as a change of clothes. There are jeans and a nice chiffon blouse that is nicer than most of the stuff I wear at home. That’s a little surprising. Guys that young don’t normally know how to pack for women.
I clean up a little and change, rooting through the bag as I put everything away, trying to find a spot for everything when my hand closes around something that shouldn’t be in there. A gun. It’s the twin of the one Jack had back at the loft, being small, sleek, and deadly-looking. Did he put it in there by mistake? No, that doesn’t sound like what I’ve seen of Jack. I put it back hurriedly. For now, it’s enough to know where it is.
I head back out into the diner, ready to eat at last, and find that things have changed a lot since I left. Jack isn’t at his table, but instead has his back to the wall, held there by two of the truckers while the third goes through his pockets. He doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it, but he does give me a level look as I come in.
I know what I have to do. Reaching into the duffle bag, I pull out the pistol, taking off the safety, leveling it at the guy going through Jack’s stuff and trying to make my voice as even as possible.
“Back off, all of you. Do it now, or I’ll shoot.”
The trucker going through Jack’s pockets stops, turning to face me. He starts walking forward, and I aim the gun at his leg.
“Stop,” I order.
“Yeah right,” the man says. “With that angelic face, I bet you’re too scared to even hold a gun.”
He takes another step and I pull the trigger automatically. He goes down, clutching his leg. “Dammit, I didn’t think you would-”
“Tell those guys to get away from my friend right now or I’ll shoot off something more important to you.”
He hesitates, and I shoot him in the other leg. He cries out in pain.
“Now!” I command.
His buddies move away from Jack without being told. Then Jack does the one thing I don’t expect. He takes out a wad of cash and hands it to the guy on the floor.
“Thanks. You can go clean up now.”
Before my mouth can even drop open, he has a hand on my arm, leading me out to the car. “Time to go, Celes.”
We’re almost to the Aston when I finally get enough composure back to speak. “What was that about?”
Jack nods, taking the gun from me smoothly. “Sorry, but I had to do that.”
“Had to do…” I get it then. “It was all a set up. You had me shoot someone.”
“The gun was loaded with blanks. Alphonse back there just has natural theatrical talents.”
“It was still some sick game-”
“This
isn’t
a game, Celes.” Jack’s expression is earnest then. “I had to know how much I could trust you. You had a gun, and I was obviously distracted. You could have run off. You could have shot me. You didn’t.”
I can almost understand it. “So this was all just a test?”
“I live my life pretty close to the edge,” Jack says with a smile. “All faders do. In that kind of world, multiple choice wasn’t exactly going to cut it. The good news is that you passed. Not that I imagine that matters to you right now. You’re still too upset with me.”
That’s a pretty good summary of my feelings right then. I don’t know whether to hate him more or less right then for being able to predict that much about me.
“So I passed by being willing to help you?” I demand.
“That and being calm when things got tense. Oh, and you obviously knew what you were doing with the pistol. That could be useful too.”
“Useful how?”
Jack shrugs. “Having skills like that are the only way you’re going to get any real answers from the Underground.”
FOUR
T
his time, there’s a faint glow of light on the horizon as I open my eyes. My head’s resting on something that turns out to be Jack’s shoulder, which doesn’t seem to make any difference to his driving, but does make me jerk awake far quicker.
“Sorry,” I say.
He shrugs. “It’s fine.”
“Why is it that I keep falling asleep around you?”
“Must be my riveting company,” Jack suggests. He has a point there. We hardly spoke after he started to suggest that I might be somehow dangerous, and a long drive with no conversation isn’t exactly the best way to stay awake. “Still, we’re here now.”
‘Here’ turns out to be a patch of desert, with an old road running through it. Not the kind of place you find anywhere near home. But then, given how long we’ve been driving, and the speeds Jack has been driving at, we
aren’t
anywhere near home.
We are near what looks to be an old aircraft hangar. The kind of place that was probably the heart of a busy airfield once, but now is just something to attract rust. It’s the kind of place that, even if you saw it from a way away, you wouldn’t come any closer to have a look around. It just wouldn’t be worth the effort.
“This is where we’re going?” I ask, and Jack smiles at the surprise in my tone.
“What were you expecting?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Something with more razor wire and guards, I guess.”
“We have that inside. Out here, it would just attract attention.”
That makes sense. After all, I guess nothing says ‘secret government base’ quite like a bunch of soldiers hanging around outside glaring at anyone who gets too close. This place doesn’t look secret. It just looks… dead, like a one building version of the kind of ghost town that was doing fine until the desert claimed it.