This Shattered World
Page 32
Jubilee’s watching me as the silence stretches out between us, until finally she breaks it. “I didn’t tell them anything about you.” She sounds halfway queasy about it, irritated and confused, but I believe her.
I’m trying to cling to the anger and desperation that brought me here, but it’s growing harder to believe that Jubilee’s the enemy, even one held at bay by a grudging truce. “Why didn’t you?”
Her eyes dart toward mine, a brief glimmer of the lamp outside reflected there before she looks away sharply. “I don’t know.” Her fingers twist around the sheets, betraying the conflict behind her calm voice. “Because if your people listened to you, there might not be insurgents laying booby traps on our patrol routes. Because if you were arrested, maybe more of them would start.”
I want to put my hand over hers and ease that white-knuckled grip. My eloquence fails me; there aren’t words for the impossible strangeness of this, sitting on a soldier’s bed in the middle of the night, wishing I could touch her. But I just look at her hand, fixing my eyes there, not trusting myself to look at her face.
Strangely enough, my voice is steady when I speak. “That’s what scares me about dying. Knowing what will happen here afterward.” Her hand tightens, and I breathe out. The words come from somewhere deep and hidden—not even Sean has heard them before. “And I think I will die, sooner than I want to.”
She’s quiet so long, I begin to think she didn’t hear me. When she does speak, it’s a murmur. “So will I.”
I lift my head to find her watching me, her brown eyes intent on my face. The half-hidden empathy in her gaze ought to feel strange, coming from my enemy; the only strangeness is that it doesn’t. “Why doesn’t this Fury touch you?” I find myself asking. “Where are your dreams?”
Her eyes fall, tension seeping back in along her shoulders. A muscle in her jaw twitches before she speaks. “I don’t dream.”
“But you said everyone gets the Fury dreams sooner or later.”
“I don’t dream, Cormac. At all. Not once since—since my parents were killed on Verona. The doctors on the training base ran all kinds of tests on me, certain I just didn’t remember my dreams, but their machines proved I simply don’t.”
“Everybody dreams, Jubilee. You’d go mad if you didn’t.”
“Some of the soldiers have a theory.” Her voice is too light, and the smile she tugs into place doesn’t reach her eyes. “They think the reason I don’t dream is the same as the reason the Fury can’t take me. They mean it as a joke, but it’s as good a theory as any. They say I have no soul. That this place can’t break me because I have no heart to break.”
She’s only lit by the outside lamp that shines in through her broken window, but I can make out the shape of her face, her high cheekbones and the way her lips press together as she works to keep her composure. “Well now,” I murmur. “You know that’s not true. And I know that’s not true.”
She doesn’t answer right away, and she drops her eyes to the blanket, where our hands are inches apart. In the silence, I can hear the rain on the roof above us finally starting to die out. “You can’t know it’s not true,” she whispers, refusing to look at me. “What do you know of souls and hearts and how they break here? You don’t know me at all.”
“Oh, Jubilee.” My resolve shatters, and my hand slides toward hers. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t look up either, watching my fingers curling through hers. “Hearts and souls and how they break? That’s all Avon teaches anyone.”
But words won’t do.
It’s wrong, and stupid, and a million other things that flicker through my thoughts. My hand moves anyway, drawing her closer so I can trace my fingertips down her temple and along her cheekbone. A weight carried deep in my heart shifts when my fingers register the softness of her skin, still flushed warm with sleep; it’s a truth I couldn’t dare admit to myself, not when I first saw her at Molly’s, not when I treated her wounds, not when we spoke in the quiet of the Fianna’s caves. But if it’s all headed for an end anyway—if tomorrow is to bring war, and death, and chaos—then this truth, right here, is all I have. All either of us has.
She doesn’t move until my fingers reach her jawline; abruptly she lifts a hand, fingertips connecting with my wrist as though to pull it away. But she doesn’t. Her touch on my wrist is so warm, her heart beating so quickly that I can feel the flutter of her pulse in the contact of her thumb on my skin. She freezes there, watching me with those eyes. I can see her struggle despite the dim light; I feel it like my own. Because it is my own. Trodaire. Fianna. Fighters, both of us—tired of fighting.
“I do know you,” I whisper, and hear her breath catch in the darkness.
I lean forward, tilting my face toward hers, the warmth of her pulling me closer. She shifts too, chin lifting—tiny movements, little invitations and questions, each of us hesitant. But then my lips graze hers, and for an instant, everything else fades away into the rain and the quiet.
Then her hand at my wrist tightens and she’s shoving me back. “Get out,” she murmurs, those eyes suddenly shuttered. Only the flush remains, shifting toward anger, away from…away from me.
“What?” I resist her for a beat too long, trying to pull my scattered thoughts back into place.
“Cormac, go. Now.”
“Jubilee—”
Her other hand comes up, and it turns out she’s still gripping the gun, pushing the barrel into my chest and cutting off my words. Her hair’s mussed, and in her T-shirt she looks nothing like Stone-faced Chase, but her grip on the Gleidel doesn’t waver. “I said get out.”
I ease away slowly, keeping my hands where she can see them, and rise to my feet. “Please, Jubilee. We have to talk about what to do, for the ceasefire, for Avon.” I know what else I should say: I’m sorry. But I’m not. I’m confused as hell, but I can’t apologize; this is the first thing I’ve felt sure about in months.
“We?” She keeps the gun up, a barrier between us. “We don’t do anything. You go home, Cormac, and I stay here. There’s nothing more for you to do here. Go, and let me do my job.” Her voice is utterly cold, making it hard to imagine there was ever a spark of heat in her response to my touch.
I’m trying to cling to the anger and desperation that brought me here, but it’s growing harder to believe that Jubilee’s the enemy, even one held at bay by a grudging truce. “Why didn’t you?”
Her eyes dart toward mine, a brief glimmer of the lamp outside reflected there before she looks away sharply. “I don’t know.” Her fingers twist around the sheets, betraying the conflict behind her calm voice. “Because if your people listened to you, there might not be insurgents laying booby traps on our patrol routes. Because if you were arrested, maybe more of them would start.”
I want to put my hand over hers and ease that white-knuckled grip. My eloquence fails me; there aren’t words for the impossible strangeness of this, sitting on a soldier’s bed in the middle of the night, wishing I could touch her. But I just look at her hand, fixing my eyes there, not trusting myself to look at her face.
Strangely enough, my voice is steady when I speak. “That’s what scares me about dying. Knowing what will happen here afterward.” Her hand tightens, and I breathe out. The words come from somewhere deep and hidden—not even Sean has heard them before. “And I think I will die, sooner than I want to.”
She’s quiet so long, I begin to think she didn’t hear me. When she does speak, it’s a murmur. “So will I.”
I lift my head to find her watching me, her brown eyes intent on my face. The half-hidden empathy in her gaze ought to feel strange, coming from my enemy; the only strangeness is that it doesn’t. “Why doesn’t this Fury touch you?” I find myself asking. “Where are your dreams?”
Her eyes fall, tension seeping back in along her shoulders. A muscle in her jaw twitches before she speaks. “I don’t dream.”
“But you said everyone gets the Fury dreams sooner or later.”
“I don’t dream, Cormac. At all. Not once since—since my parents were killed on Verona. The doctors on the training base ran all kinds of tests on me, certain I just didn’t remember my dreams, but their machines proved I simply don’t.”
“Everybody dreams, Jubilee. You’d go mad if you didn’t.”
“Some of the soldiers have a theory.” Her voice is too light, and the smile she tugs into place doesn’t reach her eyes. “They think the reason I don’t dream is the same as the reason the Fury can’t take me. They mean it as a joke, but it’s as good a theory as any. They say I have no soul. That this place can’t break me because I have no heart to break.”
She’s only lit by the outside lamp that shines in through her broken window, but I can make out the shape of her face, her high cheekbones and the way her lips press together as she works to keep her composure. “Well now,” I murmur. “You know that’s not true. And I know that’s not true.”
She doesn’t answer right away, and she drops her eyes to the blanket, where our hands are inches apart. In the silence, I can hear the rain on the roof above us finally starting to die out. “You can’t know it’s not true,” she whispers, refusing to look at me. “What do you know of souls and hearts and how they break here? You don’t know me at all.”
“Oh, Jubilee.” My resolve shatters, and my hand slides toward hers. She doesn’t pull away, but she doesn’t look up either, watching my fingers curling through hers. “Hearts and souls and how they break? That’s all Avon teaches anyone.”
But words won’t do.
It’s wrong, and stupid, and a million other things that flicker through my thoughts. My hand moves anyway, drawing her closer so I can trace my fingertips down her temple and along her cheekbone. A weight carried deep in my heart shifts when my fingers register the softness of her skin, still flushed warm with sleep; it’s a truth I couldn’t dare admit to myself, not when I first saw her at Molly’s, not when I treated her wounds, not when we spoke in the quiet of the Fianna’s caves. But if it’s all headed for an end anyway—if tomorrow is to bring war, and death, and chaos—then this truth, right here, is all I have. All either of us has.
She doesn’t move until my fingers reach her jawline; abruptly she lifts a hand, fingertips connecting with my wrist as though to pull it away. But she doesn’t. Her touch on my wrist is so warm, her heart beating so quickly that I can feel the flutter of her pulse in the contact of her thumb on my skin. She freezes there, watching me with those eyes. I can see her struggle despite the dim light; I feel it like my own. Because it is my own. Trodaire. Fianna. Fighters, both of us—tired of fighting.
“I do know you,” I whisper, and hear her breath catch in the darkness.
I lean forward, tilting my face toward hers, the warmth of her pulling me closer. She shifts too, chin lifting—tiny movements, little invitations and questions, each of us hesitant. But then my lips graze hers, and for an instant, everything else fades away into the rain and the quiet.
Then her hand at my wrist tightens and she’s shoving me back. “Get out,” she murmurs, those eyes suddenly shuttered. Only the flush remains, shifting toward anger, away from…away from me.
“What?” I resist her for a beat too long, trying to pull my scattered thoughts back into place.
“Cormac, go. Now.”
“Jubilee—”
Her other hand comes up, and it turns out she’s still gripping the gun, pushing the barrel into my chest and cutting off my words. Her hair’s mussed, and in her T-shirt she looks nothing like Stone-faced Chase, but her grip on the Gleidel doesn’t waver. “I said get out.”
I ease away slowly, keeping my hands where she can see them, and rise to my feet. “Please, Jubilee. We have to talk about what to do, for the ceasefire, for Avon.” I know what else I should say: I’m sorry. But I’m not. I’m confused as hell, but I can’t apologize; this is the first thing I’ve felt sure about in months.
“We?” She keeps the gun up, a barrier between us. “We don’t do anything. You go home, Cormac, and I stay here. There’s nothing more for you to do here. Go, and let me do my job.” Her voice is utterly cold, making it hard to imagine there was ever a spark of heat in her response to my touch.
