Page 38 of The Quiet
That’s all she needed. He could walk toward her, offer a quick and formal good morning, and the spell would be broken. She’d turn from this tree, see the rest of her team still sleeping in camp, and it would be the end of this long and tumultuous nightmare.
They’d all sit and eat breakfast before Jade went into the woods to Listen, bringing back any revelations to the group as Alex remained still huddled in his pitiful bundle of blankets. They’d speak of little else, all too familiar with each other from years of travel to warrant any real questions or discussion.
The forest looked the same.
Ella sighed, turning and looking back into camp. The reality was far different.
Jackson had fallen asleep last and had settled in surprisingly close to both she and Kay, arms and legs splayed out so it almost looked like he was prepared to throw his arms around their shoulders and pull them in for a hug. Kay might as well have been in a coffin with his hands resting on his stomach and his head perfectly tilted up to the sky. Ella had woken up from a restless sleep and found it comical when Jackson had thrown his arm over Kay’s chest, finding it less comical when she woke up next to find his arm tucked around her waist. After she slipped free, it was too late to sleep again.
Kay awoke to her bustling as she dug through rations in her pack. Jackson was up next, sitting up so that he was right next to Kay who distinctly noticed his presence and shifted off to the side.
Jackson estimated that they were only a couple of days away from the Spirit of Life, a spiraling white tower that they now realized sat on a peak overlooking much of The Quiet. There they’d have the vantage point of tracking down any other forts or movement.
Jackson spoke little during their travels. Ella was intently aware that he was instead listening to she and Kay’s conversations with each other. She shared little in her discussions with Kay, feeling as if every word was being analyzed. Kay seemed to catch on and eventually spoke less and less in open conversation, and focused his musing more discreetly.
Ella’s suspicion of Jackson felt natural to her, but Kay seemed to think of him as being a very real threat and didn’t seem to handle the mantle of being her protector with much calmness of mind. Ella initially had been oblivious that he’d assumed the role at all, gripped by her stubborn defensiveness as she focused on littlemore than pushing through the long hikes when her better sense told her she should be lying in a medical ward.
Kay notoriously had little regard for strategy in the swings of a moral crisis. Ella appreciated him for that. He was something of a lifeline back to idealism when she found herself lost in the throws of the dark practicalities of life. Kay and Alex had frequently engaged in heated moral debate, Alex trying to pull Crow in to back his machiavellian philosophies. When that happened, Ella would jump in to balance things out, backing Kay’s humanism with her own. Alone, she was never so optimistic, but she thrived off of that idealism, unsure how a ROSE might interpret it. She sensed early that an argument was coming, mainly because Kay wasn’t lecturing them and she could see him running in argumentative circles in his own head.
“What would be proof for you that Peter is dead?” Kay asked Jackson at last as they stopped after several hours of hiking.
Jackson was drinking out of a canteen, and didn’t rush to answer the question as he offered them a drink. He offered everything, almost perhaps out of reflex considering they each had their own canteens. It certainly wasn’t out of a sense of camaraderie as Ella was convinced he disliked them both.
Ella knew Kay well enough to know that it was more than just a question, but a challenge, one that made her increasingly nervous as she was unable to fight. Kay had said the ROSE had done unspeakable things. If Kay was right, then what that meant to Ella was that Jackson had embraced in himself the animal most people in civilized society denied. She guessed it was a tool he could draw on any moment without indication or warning. He’d hunted Strike. She and Kay, especially in their current states, were negligible threats perhaps with little use.
Ella wondered briefly why he’d entertained letting them come at all. He didn’t need to trick her to take Amnesia if he’d been desperate, especially as her fighting strength had so greatly diminished. All she had now was the knife tucked slenderly against her ribs, her constant companion in the nights lately.
“I’m not sure,” Jackson said, using his wrist to wipe off a drop of water from his chin, “kind of how you aren’t sure what clues you’re looking for with Crow. Our best chances are finding people here and investigating what we can.”
“Why wouldn’t Peter be dead?” Kay asked as if Jackson hadn’t picked up on the challenging nature of his initial question. Kay rolled his pack off his shoulders and it hit the ground with a thud.
Jackson’s eyes flickered to the pack, and all three of them must have recognized the drop of the proverbial gauntlet.
Kay wanted to discuss this now. Right now.
“I’d say the ROSE were pretty thorough, wouldn’t you?” Kay challenged.
Jackson’s expression gave no indication that he sensed Kay’s mood, but his words confirmed it. “Strike kept herds of people in gated cities and fed off of them, turning them into empty shells. People who couldn’t escape would end up worshiping the Strike. They developed an intense dependency on each other.”
“And that was your rationale for killing thousands of people?” Kay said with an edge that made Ella straighten in anticipation of Jackson’s reaction. She was leaning on a nearby tree, easingsteadily off of it as she came to Kay’s side with some sense that she might need to wedge herself between them.
“I’m guessing you’re saying this on the basis that every human life is priceless?” Jackson replied, eyes focused on the canteen as he closed it back up and put it back into the pack he carried.
“Yes,” Kay defended as if the question itself were meant to mock him.
Ella wondered what it was that drove Kay to confront Jackson now. There wasn’t much utility or logic in it, but perhaps all of the anticipation had simply been enough and Kay needed to know where he stood.
“Back at the beach the other day, you were ready to take my life,” Jackson said, easing the pack slowly off of his back and setting it gently near a tree.
Ella eased around so that she was only a few steps from getting in between them, her eyes moving steadily back and forth as she continued to hang back near the closest tree.
“I thought you were going to hurt Ella,” Kay reasoned, gesturing over to her. “She was already wounded. I was trying to protect someone and you’d killed several people already.”
“And what do you think we were trying to protect?” Jackson replied, and without the slightest change in inflection said. “You’re too blind to even appreciate what it was that we gave the world and instead you’d like the luxury of believing it wasn’t necessary.”
Ella caught the faintest signs of anger in a man who’d lost everything and had little reason to hold back now. Her hand slid slowly from her bullet wound, hanging down by her side. She imagined how much it would hurt to throw herself between them and hoped that Kay would curb his anger. His next words only added oil to the flames.
“You didn’t try to save anyone!” Kay raised his voice with a heavy handed accusation that challenged Jackson to convince him otherwise. “You locked the city walls and set them on fire! Who deserved to die like that?”
