Recruits (Keeper of the Water Book 2) (14 page)

“I’m sorry but Anne’s right,” she says softly. “The water cannot heal everything, no matter how much we may want it to.”

Jane places a gentle hand on Anne’s cheek.

“This is all
Cassie’s
fault,” I growl but only loud enough for the two to hear me.

“I should’ve known,” Anne whispers, the faintest of smiles spreading over her lips. I expect more of a fiery response from her but get the exact opposite. “Don’t try to fight Cassie.”

“But she’s the one who – ”

“
Recruit
,” Anne says more firmly. “I am your Mentor, at least for these last moments. I want you to listen to me.
Don’t…fight…against…Cassie
. She will destroy you, as she’s done to me. Jane will be your new mentor, she will show you how to remain peaceful when your heart is full of anger.”

“How can I let her get away with this?” I ask.

“My life does not matter –
nobody’s
life matters except the Keeper’s. You are an Amazon and must remember that more than anything else,” Anne says before lowering her voice. “But the best way to get back at Cassie is to get a recruit she won’t like. After today, there’s a few more openings.”

“I don’t know anything about the best women to recruit. I’ve lived too far away from civilization for the last twenty-five years of my life,” I say. “How can I do this without you?”

“You are a smart woman, a brave woman,” Anne says, “just like somebody else I was going to recruit before I came to get you. Now I want
you
to recruit her. Not only will it be a small amount of revenge against the swine who killed me, it will also drive Cassie and her clan crazy. If they were appalled by a pirate like me and a native like you becoming Amazons, wait until you bring a former slave into the group.”

Anne chuckles and a line of blood escapes the side of her mouth. She’s fading fast and I have the sinking feeling that every breath she takes could be her last.

“Who’s the slave woman? Where do I find her?” I ask.

“At the big house in Richmond,” Anne whispers. “Her name is Mary, you shouldn’t wait too long to get her…”

With that, Anne’s eyes glaze over and she stops breathing. All of the sadness and fear and desperation is sucked out of me, replaced with a hollow feeling in my chest. From the moment Cassie hesitated to shoot the soldier, I knew this moment was going to happen but it still leaves me in shock.

I can’t believe she’s gone. Though I’ve only spent a few days getting to know her, Anne has been in my life for many years. And considering where my life suddenly seems headed, Anne might be the most important person I ever met. I didn’t even have a chance to thank her.

“We need to leave, get far from here right away,” Cassie says coldly. “Who knows how many more soldiers heard the battle and are coming here now.”

“She’s right,” Catherine says.

I look away from Anne’s sightless eyes and glance over my shoulder, where the two women of the Queen Clan gather the rest of the tribe. In the distance, I hear the sound of approaching soldiers. We can’t go through another fight like this and risk losing more of our dwindling numbers but the thought of leaving Anne behind lights a fire of anguish in my heart.

Tears flow from my eyes. Not even Jane’s comforting touch makes me feel better. All I can think about is Anne leaving me to deal with the Queen Clan all by myself.

I gently shake her shoulder, ignoring my irrationality.

“Please wake up… wake up…”

“Wake up, Nia.”

I grab the hand gently shaking my shoulder and twist roughly. The sound of
squealing
tires snaps me back to reality and I stop myself before punching Jack. He grimaces in pain so I let go of his right hand. He grabs the steering wheel and jerks it to the right, barely swerving out of the way of oncoming traffic. The blaring of several horns fades into the distance behind us once we’re safely back in our lane.

What a way to wake up from a haunting memory, huh? It takes nearly a minute for my heart to stop racing. Jack clutches the wheel with both hands, knuckles turning white, eyes wide as he stares straight ahead. When I’m fully aware of where I am – that I’m back in the present – I spin around and check the backseat. Celeste and Cassie are both asleep, heads resting against windows, neither of them stirring despite our brush with death.

Not that either of them is exactly a stranger to danger. My eyes linger on Cassie for a long moment. An explosion of anger erupts within me and I feel a strong urge to attack her, to make her pay for what she did to my mentor. She might not have killed Anne but as far as I’m concerned, she’s more responsible for her death than the soldier who pulled the trigger. I could put an end to her right now…

But the thought of hurting her sends a jarring tingle throughout my body. The feeling forces me to remind myself that
this
Cassie isn’t the
old
Cassie, that
this
Cassie is just a scared teenager who has no idea what’s going on now and no recollection of the evils she committed in the past. I wish it wasn’t so difficult for me to distinguish between the two…

“You’re going to have to teach me that arm twisting move,” Jack jokes, finally moving his arm in tiny circles to deal with the pain.

I nearly broke his arm –
and
nearly caused us to crash in the process – but he’s somehow able to make light of the situation. Still, I’m not in much of a joking mood having just remembered so much misery from my former life. I don’t know if I can ever look at Cassie the same way again though I’m beginning to understand better why Celeste wants to keep the past a secret.

I may have just remembered Anne but her loss hits me hard, despite it happening more than a hundred years ago. I’ve had decades to get over her death but the wound is suddenly fresh in my mind. But with Jack now glancing in my direction, I can’t act
too
upset and start him asking me questions I don’t want to answer.

The sky isn’t the velvety black I remember seeing after leaving the rest stop, more like a deep shade of purple.

“How long was I asleep?” I mumble.

“Hours, at least three or four states,” Jack says.

Now that my memory has come back so vividly, I don’t know whether to be excited or worried for the next time I fall asleep.

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask Jack, who doesn’t seem quite as pale as the last time I saw him. “Want me to drive for a while?”

He holds up a small can of Energy Surge. “Don’t think I’d be able to sleep for hours, even if I tried,” Jack says.

“What about your wound?” I ask.

I reach over to check the bloody gash in his side but Jack recoils before I can touch him.

“It’s fine, really, I feel much better,” Jack says, though his reluctance to show me probably means the gash is even worse.

“Are you lying to me?” I ask, sounding more accusatory than I’d meant. “Sorry, just want to make sure you’re okay.”

At times Jack seemed like he wanted to be rid of us so I don’t want to give him any more reason to kick us out. But a grin appears on his face as he concentrates on the highway in front of us.

“You sure are grumpy when you wake up,” he jokes. “But seriously, I’m alright. Maybe just a little sore from sitting in one spot for so long.”

I know exactly what he means. Every muscle in my body feels like a tightened bungee cord in need of a good stretch. I’m tall as it is and squeezing myself in the front seat of Jack’s tiny car doesn’t make for a comfortable ride, especially since I’ve been scrunched up in the same position for half the night. I try to stretch out my arms and legs but run out of space well before I can fully extend.

“Don’t worry, I’ll pull over at the next rest stop. Hopefully we’re far enough away so we won’t attract attention again,” Jack says. “And since my fight is coming up so soon, maybe I can get in a little training session. You could show me that arm-twisting move. I’ve never known a girl with such an ironclad grip before.”

Is this his way of telling me that he knows there’s something different about me? Or am I just being paranoid? Either way, if I stay in this funk he’ll only become more suspicious. I plaster a fake smile across my face and try for the whole girly/fake routine that Cassie’s so good at.

“Guess I don’t know my own strength sometimes,” I say, my voice raising an octave. “And you
don’t
want to fight with me. I won’t take it easy on you.”

“I would certainly hope not,” he says, still looking straight ahead while wearing the slightest of grins.

I’m starting to wonder if he’s flirting with me
or
if he thinks I’m flirting with him. The more time that passes, the less he reminds me of my father… or should I say Percy Fawcett, who wasn’t my
real
father anyway. Is there a part of me that
hopes
Jack is flirting with me?

What the hell is wrong with me? I think about John for the first time in hours. The thought of his death takes my breath away. I’ve never had a panic attack before and have to force myself to slowly breathe in and out, concentrate on that only. But it’s hard not to think about my lost love, or about my lost father, or about my lost mentor. Agonizing loss seems to be following me; apparently it has been for a long time.

I fight the urge to sigh and instead enjoy the silence that doesn’t require me to act less miserable than I feel. Unfortunately, that silence doesn’t last long.

“So, who’s Mary?” Jack asks.

The question takes me off guard, especially as I recall the last thing I was dreaming about. The name Mary was the last thing Anne ever said to me. I can’t stop from looking at him suspiciously, wondering once again if he knows more than he’s letting on.

“You were talking in your sleep,” he explains.

“Oh, I didn’t know I do that,” I say, feeling my face burning. I suddenly worry just
how much
I might have said. “I hope I didn’t bother you too much?”

Jack chuckles. “You seem to talk more in your sleep than when you’re awake.”

I try – unsuccessfully – to swallow the lump rising in my throat.

“What else was I saying?” I ask, afraid of the answer.

“It’s kind of embarrassing,” Jack says, making the hollow pit in my stomach even deeper. “But you were talking about how cute the guy is who came to your rescue and gave you a ride.”

My face blushes a shade of red so bright that Jack
must
be able to see it through my olive complexion.

“I
was
?”

He starts to laugh even harder. I can’t believe it took me this long to realize he’s teasing me.

“On second thought, maybe I
will
show you that arm-twisting move again,” I say.

“You
did
look very serious when you were sleeping though. I’ve never seen someone so deep in concentration with their eyes closed,” Jack says. I wish he was still joking but I know he’s not. “You didn’t start talking until the end, though it actually sounded more like a groan. That’s when I woke you up and almost had my arm ripped off in the process. What was your nightmare about?”

“I, uh… I don’t remember,” I answer, a weak attempt at lying. More and more I’m wishing that were a skill I could’ve mastered.

“Then who’s Mary?” he wonders.

Again my natural instinct is to deny knowing anything about Mary. That might not be such a lie in this case since my dream cut off before I learned anything else about her. My mouth opens to issue a denial but two words escape my lips that prove more surprising to me than Jack.

“Mary Bowser,” I say.

“Never heard of her,” Jack responds.

A minute ago, I might’ve had the same thought. But it’s like a light bulb turned on in the darkness of my mind, revealing thoughts and memories of Mary Bowser as though she’s been there all along.

“I did a history paper on her recently,” I say after a pause too long to be anything less than suspicious. Jack looks at me accordingly so I shrug. “I guess the thought of her has been on my mind recently.”

“I see,” he says. “Tell me more about her.”

I can’t tell if he’s calling my bluff or simply looking for something else to talk about.

“I don’t want to bore you with a history lesson about the Civil War,” I say.

“Because I’m a fighter I’d be bored learning about history?” he asks, offended.

“No, I didn’t mean it like that, I just – ”

He smiles again at making me upset. This time, I don’t stop myself from punching him in the arm. I hit harder than most girls – actually, harder than most professional boxers – but his arm is rock solid and he barely flinches.

“Sorry, you’re such an easy mark,” he says before gesturing to the radio. “But this thing is broken and the three of you have been snoozing for hours. I wouldn’t mind being distracted from that terrible noise my engine is making, especially since I can’t afford to have it fixed. If this Mary chick is interesting enough to dream about, I’m sure her story could pass a little time till we find a place to stop.”

The noise his engine makes
is
annoying once you focus on it, somewhere between a rattle and a high-pitched whine. I glance into the backseat, wondering how much Celeste would appreciate me talking about the past. But she hasn’t moved a muscle, still fast asleep. Cassie’s eyes are also closed though she has shifted into a different sleeping position. Since both of them are still asleep, there’s no reason I can’t tell Jack about Mary, at least the parts of her story he could discover by opening a history book or doing a simple Internet search.

“Mary Bowser was an amazing woman who lived an amazing life. She was born a slave in the late 1830s but was eventually freed and moved to the north, where she received a proper education not afforded to many black women at the time. But instead of living life for herself after years of servitude, she wanted to help other slaves. To do that, she had to face a freed slaves’ worst nightmare. She left the freedom of America’s North and volunteered to not just return to the slave South, but the very capital of the Confederacy.

“Posing as a slave, she worked her way into the Confederate White House, the home of President Jefferson Davis. She risked her life every single day as a spy for the North and successfully stole military secrets that helped the Union win the war and ultimately end slavery in our country.”

“Wow, she sounds pretty incredible,” Jack says. “But I never even heard of her. Why wasn’t she treated like a bigger hero?”

I feign melancholy to the best of my ability. “Because Mary never made it back to the North. By the end, Davis and the Confederates were on to her. When they tried apprehending her, Mary set fire to their White House.”

I close my eyes for only a moment but it’s long enough to remember details that aren’t in any history books…