Finding Sage (The Rogue Book 1) (24 page)

43.

In a dingy storage room with a lone hanging light bulb, Gamble leaned against the wall, waiting for his mysterious recruiter’s friend to meet them.  He eyed the strange boy suspiciously, again second-guessing his decision to trust him.  The boy’s shifty eyes and navy blue hair was enough to make anyone do a double take, but Gamble was desperate.  He reminded himself that the boy had seen his intention to kill himself, before he ever began the act himself, a fact than in and of itself petrified him.

He had considered suicide many times since his first kill.  He had tried his hardest to think up some avenue of escape from his tragic lot in life.  He had been unsuccessful, and had thought of killing himself.  With a noose.  With a gun.  With a knife.  Yet, even in all of his ponderings, he had always assumed that there would be some part of him, some remaining instinct of self-preservation that would be enough to stop him from ever doing the deed.  Whether it be called cowardice, bravery, hesitation, or fear, he assumed he would never be able to do it.  When Jax burst through his door, he knew that wasn’t true.

He really would have killed himself.

The thought sent shivers down his spine.  He didn’t have to think on this for long, however, because the door opened and a man walked in, closing the door behind him.  He looked normal enough, unlike the boy who had brought him here.  He eyed the man with skepticism as he lowered his hood, but tried to remain optimistic, hopeful that this man really could offer him an escape.  Still, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off about this.

The man looked Gamble up and down and appeared pleased.  He offered his hand in a gesture of friendliness.

“My name is Grayson,” he said.

“Call me Gamble.”

He didn’t shake his hand.

Grayson retracted his hand awkwardly and cleared his throat.

“I suppose I should be frank with you, Gamble.  What I’m going to be asking of you is not easy, and is probably not what you’re looking for,” Grayson said.

Gamble raised his eyebrows expectantly.  He was trying to maintain an appearance of cynicism, lest he appear weak.  There was still a part of him that suspected this was a trick of the U.N. to test his allegiance; it wouldn’t be the first such test they had pulled on a soldier.  However, the blue-haired boy would definitely be a new one, and it was very unlikely that they would employ a rogue to help.  The rogues that the U.N. did keep were skilled assassins, not bait for loyalty tests.

Grayson continued.

“I have infiltrated the United Nations as an agent,” Grayson said.  Gamble wanted to back away and leave, but something in Grayson’s tone convinced him to stay.  “Actually, it’s more accurate to say I’m an agent who has had a change of heart.  Several months ago, I was using my access as an agent to see what the U.N. had planned for the next few years.  I was in New York at the time, and my superior officer had fallen asleep.  I used his credentials and found a top secret plan.  It combined the profiles of two rogues.  Some of the data in the file was not available for me to see, but I did get names, as well as the result.  They have developed technology to combine the powers of multiple rogues into one.  With these two rogues, they will have the ability to instantly kill every rogue on the planet.”

Gamble was sick.  So sick he thought he might throw up.  The blood bath he had partaken in was one thing, but to instantly kill every single one of them?  At that point, the true horror of the situation became all too real to him.  They were hunting, slaughtering these people, and for what?  Because they were skilled?  Because they had powers and abilities they didn’t understand?  He could not go on supporting this.  Even if it cost him his life, he could not go on.  There was no turning back now.

“What do we need to do?” Gamble asked.

Grayson’s face was grim.  Whatever it was they needed to do, Gamble could tell it pained Grayson to even suggest it.

“We have to kill Silas Knight.”

44.

Silas followed Sage into a small one-room cabin surrounded by palm trees just a mile or so off of the beach.  Sage requested that Alice and Lilly remain outside for a few minutes.  Silas initially objected, but the mysterious man had insisted that it was necessary, so he reluctantly left them outside. 

Inside, the cabin was a modest but intriguing place.  It was about forty feet from wall to wall, with a small cot in the corner and an entire wall of waist-height shelves, which looked like a very long desk.  It was cluttered with numerous books and papers, evidence of a disorganized genius.  The titles of the books ranged from “1984” to “The Silver Chair.”  One book, whose title he couldn’t make out, was worn and leather-bound and the sides of the pages shone a faded gold tone.  The papers that cluttered the shelving were nearly devoid of any white anymore.  They had been written and scribbled on, in all sorts of languages, some of which Silas didn’t even recognize the alphabet. 

The cabin was made entirely of wood and one small light bulb hung from the ceiling.  The walls looked damp and  streaked as though suffering from occasional water leakage.  There was no evidence of food in the cabin.  No remnants of food.  No stove.  No oven.  No microwave.  Nothing that even slightly resembled a kitchen.

He was sure that Sage of all people could have built a better house for himself.  Why didn’t he?  Was it that he was unable?  That he could not build for himself what others could with the same resources?  Or perhaps it was that it was not important to him.  Perhaps he was so busy planning how to save the rest of the world that where he slept was of little importance.  Perhaps the mission to save them had led him to an obsession, a drive that could not be interrupted by the petty things that a larger house required.  Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.  Silas wanted to believe.  He wanted to believe so very badly.

Sage leaned against the far wall and ran his large hands over the faint scar on his face, as if to remind himself that it was still there.  He seemed content with the recognition that it was and looked up at Silas.  It was not a look of expectation or of criticism, but a look of concern.  Compassion.  Empathy.  Pity.  His eyebrows joined in the middle the way a parent looks at a troubled youth.  It made Silas uneasy.  After all, his power had only been growing.  What did this man know that he didn’t?

“Why did you want to see me?” Silas asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

“A better question is why did you come?” he responded.

This response took Silas off guard.  He opened his mouth to answer and closed it again.  He thought about it for a moment, then answered, shrugging as he spoke.

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

It was true.  He had felt like he was just spinning his wheels for a very long time.  That never really bothered him; after all, isn’t that what everyone’s life is like?  It never bothered him, that is, until he was responsible for someone else.  Then his mind was riddled with all sorts of questions, but mostly one, that kept coming back like a stubborn boomerang: what’s the point?  What’s the point of fighting?  What’s the point of living when your fate is to be chased for the duration of your miserable life?  Why try?  Why live?  Why believe?

“You were desperate,” said Sage.  It wasn’t a question.  Silas nodded.  “People turn to faith when they become desperate,” Sage continued.  “Sometimes they think this makes them weak.  In reality, it makes them strong.  The one who thinks he has everything figured out, who thinks he stands, seldom takes the time to see how lost he truly is.”

Silas half-squinted.  He didn’t understand what Sage was getting at. Everything about the man seemed, well, weird.  Yet there was something about him that drew Silas to him.  He still couldn’t put his finger on it, but he felt like he was getting closer.

“Faith in what?” Silas asked.

“Now that’s the question, isn’t it?”

He was now frustrated.  Why were Alice and Lilly left outside?  So he could be confused by the old man’s riddle-speech alone?

“You got here by jumping out of a plane and using a parachute,” Sage said.  “How did you know it would go off?”

“What does that have to do with anything?!” Silas barked, raising his voice. 

Sage said nothing, but merely looked at Silas with an eyebrow raised.  When he saw Sage was not going to respond to anger, he sighed and answered his question.

“I didn’t.”

“So why did you jump?”

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”

“You could have tried an emergency landing.  Why did you jump?”

“Well why wouldn’t I have?  Vanessa gave the parachutes to us and I trust her.”

Sage smiled.

“Exactly.  You trusted her and you put your life in her hands.”

“I still don’t—“

“Yes you do,” Sage said.  “You’re understanding it right now.  Faith isn’t about some fluffy idea or some unreachable destination.  It’s about life.  Your life.  You can say you believe in something; that you believe in a destination.  In an ideal, even.  But to surrender your life, that takes faith indeed.”

“What are you getting at?”

The old man rubbed his brow, as if he was searching for the proper words.  Silas got the feeling, however, that he didn’t need to search for them.  He was being modest.

“She came back.”

“What?”

“Your mother.  She came back and found your father.  They looked for you, tried to find you again, but you were too good at disappearing.  They were never able to find you.”

Silas’ eyes grew wide and he clenched his jaw.

“How could you possibly know that?”

“Eli hasn’t been very informative, has he?”

Silas didn’t respond.  The truth was that he hadn’t been.  Eli had said very little about Sage, other than what he stood for.

“I would say I’m like you,” he continued.  “But to be honest, that’s not much of a comparison.  You see into minds.  I can see into lives.  Tell you what they’ll do tomorrow.  Tell you what kind of car they’ll drive in five years.  Tell you what kind of grandparent they will be.”

Silas pondered this.  It was disturbing to him, the idea that someone could tell the future.  Not because such abilities were impossible in his world, but because with it came the idea that the future was set. 

“You see the future?”

“No,” Sage said.  “I see possibilities.  I see the future as it will proceed if I do not intervene.  When I do, I see the future as it will then happen.  So I intervene.  I tweak.  Until the future is as it should be.”

That made him feel a little better.  Until he thought about some scenarios.

“Did you know Ishmael was going to die?”

“Yes.”

“What about when we got attacked at the train station?”

“Yes.”

“And Indiana?”

“Yes.”

“THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT?!?!”

Silas barely recognized his own voice in the pure rage spewing from his throat.  He wanted to scream, to tell Sage how much pain he had endured in his lifetime, all of the terrible things that had happened to them, just in the time since he met his few friends.  Yet somehow, the words could not come to him.  He looked at the hurt expression on Sage’s face and he immediately drew back.

“I—I’m sorry.  I didn’t mean—”

He couldn’t find the words to continue.  He realized, however, that the old man’s sorrow was not because his feelings were hurt.  It was rather the look of a necessary pain.  As if he felt their pain every bit as strong as Silas did.

“There’s so much I wish I could tell you, Silas,” he said sorrowfully.  “But some things you just can’t know.”

“Tell me something.  About one of those times.  Just one thing.”

Sage sighed.

“Okay.  The train station.”

“Yeah, go on.”

“They had been watching you from the moment you arrived at the warehouse.  They were hoping to gain some intelligence on how you operate.  But when you left, that was all over.  They were going to kill all of you when you got back to the warehouse.  However, the commanding officer was feeling slightly ill and as a result was impatient.  He executed the command early.  If he hadn’t, Eli never would have noticed the tracer bullets that were also in Ishmael’s body.  You all would have been killed.”

The recognition of what happened left Silas momentarily without words.  He wanted to ask for more, to know why Ishmael had to die.  Why he had to be separated from his father.  Why Lilly had to be in prison.  But he didn’t.  He had enough proof.  Sage knew what he was doing.  He still had one question lingering in his mind, however.

“I still don’t understand.  Why did you call me here?”

“Do you not yet understand?”

“Understand what?”

“Think about it.”

Silas thought.  He thought about the reasons he wanted to see Sage from the beginning.  He had a lot of questions.  About his ability, his family, the future, but none of that seemed relevant now.  He only had one question.

“Can I trust you?”

“Yes, you can.”

Then it started to make sense.  All of this mumbo-jumbo about faith and life…Sage had a job for Silas. 

“Well, here I am.  Where are you sending me?”

“New York.  You are going to play a very important part, Silas.  But there’s something you must understand.”

“I’m listening.”

“The part that you have played so far has been a violent and bloody one.  You have followed after the ways of Eli.  Eli has been a good friend, but he has lost himself in his futile attempts to find his own way.  Thankfully, he is finding his way out of that now, but you must understand that the bloodshed you and your friends have left will only make things more difficult for yourselves.  It only confirms what The Wreath says about you: that you are primed as terrorists, destined biologically to be bloodthirsty.  That is not true, of course, but your violent ways feed into that.”

“Then what do I do?  They’re attacking me and my daughter and my friends from every angle.  What else am I supposed to do?”

“Speak.”

Silas wasn’t sure he heard him right.

“What?”

“Speak.  This is not a war that will be won with guns, knives, and bombs, Silas.  There is one thing that they fear from you more than anything else.  That you will be heard.  That is the role that you are to play.  Protect your family.  Protect your friends.  But do not lash out in violence.  Only do not be silenced.  Don’t worry about your loved ones. I will make sure they are safe.”

Silas wanted to argue, to tell him that this wouldn’t work, it couldn’t work.  But he simply nodded.

“There’s something else you must know.”

“Yes?”

“Salah has chosen to sacrifice himself.  He was taken by the soldiers.”

Silas tried to find words, but they caught in his throat.  His chest felt heavy, as if weighed down with an anvil.  He slid against the wall and down to a sitting position. 

“I swear to you that your friends: Lilly, Alice, Eli, Salah, and Tariq, they will all be safe.  But I haven’t told you everything.  There’s a price you will have to pay.  Something you have to do in order to do what I’m asking you to.”

“I’ll do anything.  Just tell me what it is.”

Sage smiled.

“I will.  The first thing is you have to go to New York.”

“How are we supposed to get there?”

“It’s time you met Alaric.”