djinn wars 02 - taken (21 page)

Evony sighed and stirred some more milk into her coffee. “No, I’m not ‘switching sides.’ It doesn’t work that way. And of course I want to find Natila. The problem is, we don’t know where they’re holding her.”

No, we didn’t. I had my suspicions; by then we’d been in Los Alamos for almost two weeks, and I’d gotten a lot more familiar with the town. However, there were two places where I wasn’t allowed to wander freely: the labs and the justice center. Either Jace and Natila were secreted somewhere in the labs so they could be experimented on more conveniently, or there were holding cells someplace in the justice center. It made sense that they’d have some sort of facility for keeping prisoners there. Just because it made sense, though, didn’t mean I’d been able to confirm the existence of those cells for myself.

I nodded somberly, and after that Evony excused herself so she could go finish getting ready for work. She didn’t really have set hours the way I did with tutoring the kids, but lately she’d been spending up to eight hours a day at the motor pool. Just the day before, she’d earned brownie points with Captain Margolis because she was able to accurately troubleshoot and fix an issue with one of the traction-control sensors on his Hummer.

And I — well, I was doing okay with the tutoring. My fears about the kids giving me trouble had all been in my mind; even Matt more or less behaved himself, and things hummed along smoothly enough. Really, I thought they were glad of the structure those hours of schooling provided, which gave them something to focus on other than the way their world had changed forever.

The whole time, however, I could feel myself getting more and more tense as each day passed and I was no closer to finding Jace. I almost wished Miles Odekirk would summon me for another bout of questioning, simply because there was always the chance that he might let something slip, but he didn’t appear to require any more information from me.

But then I finally had something go right. I stopped by the justice center to see Julia and make a requisition for more supplies for the children…and was escorted directly to her desk so I couldn’t go roaming about…and found her almost buried in paperwork and more than a little exasperated. Apparently the commander liked to flex his muscle by issuing memo after memo and demanding daily reports from the people he had working immediately under him…namely, Julia.

“Do you want some help?” I asked her. “I mean, I’m only putting in about three hours a day with the kids, plus a little more here and there to keep up with the grading. But most of the time my afternoons are free.”

She tucked a piece of hair behind her ear and sat back in her chair. Even though I knew she had to be dying to have someone pick up some of the load, she still asked, “Do you have any office experience?”

“Well, not per se, but I spent a summer doing filing and stuff for the law office where my friend Elena’s dad was a partner. And I’m pretty good with Word and Excel.”

A nod, but she was quiet for a moment longer, obviously considering whether it was safe for her to take me up on my offer. At last she said, sounding hesitant, “We handle some sensitive material here. That means you have to be discreet. Can you manage that?”

Her tone was neutral, but I understood what she was really asking.

Can I trust you?

The correct answer was that no, she couldn’t, because I was only offering to help so I could spend more time in the justice center and as a result, I hoped, finally track down whether or not Jasreel and Natila were being held there. And I had to ignore the pang of guilt that went through me at that thought, because I did like Julia a lot, despite the way she still seemed so closed off about the life she’d left behind in Albuquerque.

Problem was, I liked her, but I loved Jace. There really wasn’t much of a contest.

I faced her and nodded, my expression as open as I could make it. “Yes, I can manage that. Really, I want to help. You shouldn’t be so buried all the time. It’s not fair.”

Something in the set of her shoulders seemed to relax slightly. “Thanks, Jessica. Truth is, I could use an assistant. So…let’s give it a try. Can you start each day at one? That’ll give you time to get lunch before you come over here.”

“That’ll be perfect,” I replied, trying not to sound too excited. If I got to spend part of every day at the justice center, surely I’d dig up something eventually.

“All right. You can start tomorrow.” That seemed to be the end of the discussion, as she gave me a quick smile and turned back to her computer.

And that was how I began my tenure in the commander’s office. He really did seem determined to chew his way through every ream of paper left behind in the justice center, whether by generating reports or by coming up with flyer after flyer to be distributed throughout the community — telling people what to do if they smelled a gas leak, mandating which parts of the forest surrounding the town could be used for firewood, assigning waste details and clean-up crews and so much more.

The tasks Julia gave me to do were busywork, but I didn’t mind too much. For one thing, after I’d been there for three days, I did make the all-important discovery that there really were holding cells in the justice center’s basement. They were listed on the directory, and since I was now allowed to move around the building, distributing flyers and collecting reports, it wasn’t that hard for me to sidle past the listing by the elevator one day and take a quick peek. All right, so that was one suspicion confirmed. It didn’t get me any closer to actually getting inside, though; none of the errands Julia sent me on went to that part of the building — by design, I was sure.

Still, it was better than nothing, and I began devising plots that would allow me entry to the holding cells. Problem was, I knew none of those plans would work. I’d be stopped before I got within fifty feet of the tiny jail. And although Evony was glad I’d made that much progress, she told me to be careful.

“You’re not going to help anyone if you do something stupid and get yourself caught,
chica,
” she said, and I could only agree with that morose sentiment. Well, I supposed my being caught trying to get close to the djinn would help Miles Odekirk, since it would confirm his suspicions about me. But that wasn’t really the end result I was aiming for.

My patience finally paid off, however. After I’d been assisting Julia for a little more than a week, an afternoon came when she asked if I could take over for her at the desk for a few hours.

“Sure,” I said automatically, and asked, “Um…why?”

She seemed tense, but then she smiled a little. “I need to cover for Nancy for a few hours. She’s not feeling well, and her relief is up in the forest, cutting wood.”

“Oh.” Nancy was the hard-faced woman who’d first escorted Evony and me here to the justice center, and it didn’t exactly take Sherlock Holmes to deduce that her job probably included pulling guard duty at the holding cells. And so Julia would be acting as her backup? Interesting.

I had to wonder whether she’d done this before, whether she’d spoken with Jace and Natila at all. The thought sent a flare of anger through me, just because Julia knew I’d been with Jace and most likely would have wanted to hear something about how he was faring. Or maybe not — maybe I’d done such a good job of convincing her I’d firmly thrown in my lot with the humans that she’d assumed I didn’t care about his current condition.

Either way, the important thing was that sometimes Julia had to play guard, or at least was trusted enough to do so. It might be an angle I could exploit in the future, if I could only figure out how.

“Just for a couple of hours,” she reassured me. “Then Tony will be back. And maybe we could grab something to eat afterward?”

It was her way of softening the request, which would keep me in the office way past the time I usually left at around four-thirty or five. I didn’t mind; we’d eaten together a few times, but always in a group that included Evony and maybe Shawn or Dan or even Nora Almeida, if she could find someone to watch Laurel, and after all that, Julia still hadn’t contributed much that was personal to the conversation. If it was just the two of us at dinner, maybe I could get a little more out of her.

“That sounds great,” I said, smiling, and she thanked me and disappeared soon afterward, going downstairs so she could take over for Nancy.

The commander wasn’t in that afternoon; he’d gone off for yet another of his visits to the lab. What exactly he did while he was there, I had no idea. Were he and Miles Odekirk concocting new ways to utilize the djinn-suppressing technology the scientist had invented, or merely discussing strategies for using what they already had? Who knew? I still had no idea how many of those boxes existed, although I had a feeling there had to be at least two, or they would never have felt safe taking one away from Los Alamos to trap Natila and then Jace. That would have left the entire colony of survivors unprotected.

I settled myself at the desk, figuring it would be fairly quiet since Captain Margolis was out and we were getting past the end of most people’s workdays. That was one holdover from the time before — Los Alamos seemed to run squarely from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon, except for the three restaurants, which stayed open until nine. Well, Pajarito’s sometimes was open later than that, especially on Friday and Saturday nights. Again, people wanted to cling to that schedule, for that shred of normality that dictated you worked during the week and then went out on Friday and Saturday nights.

And then there was his voice in my mind, that voice I’d secretly feared I would never hear again.

Beloved
.

The pen I was holding fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. I sat stock still at the desk, then ventured,
Jace?

Yes, Jessica. I am here.

Tears sprang to my eyes, but I knew I couldn’t let them fall. That was far too risky, as someone could still come up to the office, even as late in the day as it was.
Oh, God, Jace — I was so worried —

I know, beloved. But I am all right.

You’re sure?

Yes. Confined, but alive. As is Natila.

A relieved breath pushed out of me with a
whoosh,
and then I bent over to pick up the pen I had dropped.
So how is it you’re talking with me only just now? I’ve been working in this building for a week —

The device they have controlling the two of us is usually set at a level much higher than it is at the moment. When it’s operating at full strength, it is difficult to breathe, let alone reach out to you the way I am now.

God. I clutched the edge of the task chair where I sat, the burlap-style material rough under my fingertips. The memory of how he’d been gasping for breath when they took him away was never too far from my mind, and it rose again now. To think that they’d perpetually kept him in that state for weeks was enough to set my stomach roiling.

That’s…horrible,
I managed at last.

It is unpleasant, true. But the woman who has come to watch me —

Julia,
I supplied.

Yes, Julia. She has lowered it slightly. At the current level, it still interferes with the majority of my powers, but I can breathe…and I can reach out to you, beloved, since you are not so far away.
A pause, and then he asked,
But are you well? They haven’t hurt you?

No,
I replied at once.
I’ve convinced them that I had a change of heart, that I don’t want anything to do with you. And so I’ve been living here pretty normally, more or less. Evony and I have a house together and everything.

He didn’t ask who Evony was, and I assumed that was because he already knew. A long pause, followed by,
And have you?

Have I what?

Had a change of heart?

Of course not! I lied so I could stay here and figure out a way to free you. I would never give up on you, Jace. Never.

Another of those hesitations. Then I felt a — well, it was hard to describe, but it almost seemed as if a wave of warmth passed over my body, as if Jace had somehow managed to gather up the energy of his love for me and send it outward, rising through the floors of the building so that it could warm me and comfort me. I shut my eyes and breathed in, fancying I could almost detect the delectable scent of his skin. In that moment, I realized how much I truly had missed him. I’d pushed away the longing and the need because I had to function on a daily basis, but feeling him again now, I knew I would do whatever it took to get him out of that damn cell and away to someplace safe.

I have to get you out of there. Can you tell me something about the place where they’re keeping you?

Beloved, I don’t want you to risk yourself.

But I
want
to risk myself. They have no right to keep you there. Fine if they want to go hunting the bad djinn, the ones who are out there killing off everyone else they can find, but —