Page 167 of The Pansy Paradox
She took his hand, and together, they left the showcase home behind.
Chapter 74
Jack
King’s End, Minnesota
Saturday, July 15
Jack ignores Mortimer’s calls and increasingly terse text messages. He ignores the reminder that Mort is his response team lead, and as such, Jack needs to check in with him. With this last, Jack rolls his eyes.
“Pulling rank, buddy?”
But tendrils of anxiety infiltrate the back of his mind. He doesn’t want anyone searching for him—or Pansy and Henry—before sunset. So he fires off a terse message of his own.
Almost there. Need silence.
It does the trick. The quiet is blissful, if uncanny. He’ll need to time things perfectly and keep an eye on the sun’s trajectory. But he already knows the location, around the back of the showcase home, near that egress window. That space, too, is quiet and uncanny.
Then that anxiety rears up, more of a roar, almost tangible, as if it could shake him by the scruff of the neck. It’s a full-fledged warning cry. Forget about the blood, the incantation, it urges. His bags are still in the rental, and what he should do is get behind the wheel and start driving. North first, jump on I-94 and then I-90 straight back to Seattle. The route plays out in his head, including stops for fuel and caffeine.
Jack shakes the suggestions from his mind. These visions occur from time to time, generally when he’s under stress. At the Academy, he entertained several scenarios that involved sneaking off Joint Base Lewis-McChord and making a run for Puget Sound. What he, along with Pansy and Mort, would do there was anyone’s guess. Then Pansy’s nose would start to bleed, and he’d abandoned the idea.
Pansy. That’s why he can’t run away. The reminder on his phone pings, but he’s already stepping from the framed-in structure and toward the showcase home. The sky is in that liminal space between the golden hour glow and twilight. The air, too, is sweeter, more seductive, and, for the housing development, almost pleasant.
He kneels, soaks the small patch of earth in front of him with blood, and watches as the soil sucks it down, greedy, greedy, greedy. With that pilfered kitchen knife, he slices his own palm, the sting angry and outraged. From all his research, from all his talks with his mentor—his uncle George—Jack knows that this is the crucial step the Enclave so often dismisses.
You have to want it badly enough to sacrifice your own blood as well; the more immediate, the more violent, the better.
And there’s nothing Jack wants more than for Pansy to be safely returned.
Their combined blood bubbles and churns. The wind whips up, ruffling his hair and his umbrella’s canopy. Static fills his mouth. Will this work? It must work. He chants the incantation again, louder, with authority he doesn’t feel.
He chants and he chants, bleeds and bleeds. A creaking catches his attention. The sound of hinges not often used, followed by the clatter of a screen door.
And there, on the back porch of the showcase home, is Pansy.
Chapter 75
Pansy
King’s End, Minnesota
Saturday, July 15
“Pansy!”
Someone calls my name, someone who sounds like Jack, his voice filled with anguish and relief. I’ve made it down the porch steps, the ground rough beneath my bare feet, when a blur comes tearing for me.
I flinch before realizing it is Jack, sprinting across the desiccated lawn. He captures me in his embrace, pinning my arms to my sides, his exhales rough and ragged against my ear.
“It worked. It really worked. You’re here, you’re really here. I can’t believe it worked, but it did.”
Then Henry is at my side, prying me from Jack’s arms without much success.
“Agent Ling, please. I need you to listen. This is crucial. Pansy’s life may be in?—”
But Jack isn’t listening. He cups my face, one palm tacky against my skin. I wince, the pressure against my injured cheekbone prompting a spike of pain. Only then does Jack ease up.
