Redemption (Enigma Black Trilogy Book #3) (18 page)

Ian placed his hand on the concrete ledge mere inches away from mine, and it was all I could do to keep from grabbing onto it. “When I woke up and couldn’t find you, I figured you were probably up here,” he said, putting a thankful end to the miserable silence between us.

“You know me too well.” For the first time since he appeared on the roof, I took my gaze completely away from the view of the world and looked directly into his eyes.

“I wish I knew you better,” he said. “Just when I think I may have you all figured out, when I think I know exactly what you’re thinking, how you’re feeling, what you desire, something happens that makes me realize that I actually have no idea at all. And it frustrates the hell out of me.” He ran his hand through his thick hair, pushing it away from his face as he turned his gaze toward the city and the steadily setting sun. “It’s odd how something so beautiful can exist in a world that embraces such evil.”

“It exists to give us hope,” I said. “Without little reminders that beauty still exists in this world, we would be inclined to give up and let evil reign, but these small yet meaningful reminders keep us charging forward. They give us a reason to fight for the next day.”

“I never had anything worth fighting for, not a single thing, until I met you. That’s how I know with certainty what my feelings for you truly are. Celaine, I know I love you. There’s no other explanation for it; I wouldn’t want there to be because I don’t want to love anyone else but you. And it kills me to think that you may feel nothing for me or that you will never think of me the same way. Because, to me, you are the only beauty that still exists in this world, and the only hope I have for myself.”

My eyes began to water, the tears falling shortly thereafter. “Ian, I—”

“Please. Don’t.” He wiped a tear away from my cheek, allowing his hand to linger on my face. “Look, I’m sorry I got upset with you earlier.”

“It’s okay, Ian.” I placed my hand over his to keep it against my skin. “You have every right to be upset with me.” He moved to speak, but I beat him to it. “I just can’t—I can’t tell you what you want to hear right now.”

“I know,” he whispered, bringing his face closer to mine. “I’ve laid everything out on the table for you, and I honestly don’t want you to say anything right now. All I ask is that you digest it, take it all in. Then, when you know without a doubt what or who it is your heart really wants, then you can give me an answer. No matter what that answer may be.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

“Now, how much time do you think you’ll need? A week? Two weeks?”

“What?” I asked, my voice cracking.

Ian laughed. “Wow, you should have seen the look on your face. You were positively terrified.” He leaned forward and kissed my forehead. “Okay, since next week is too soon for an answer, how about before my eightieth birthday, then?”

“I think I can manage that. Although I’m beginning to question how much time we have left to make any kind of meaningful decisions.”

“What do you mean?”

“Brooks made an announcement while you were sleeping.”

“An announcement? What kind of announcement? Why didn’t you wake me?”

“I thought you should rest. Besides, it didn’t last long, just enough for Brooks to declare us traitors to our country and issue a bounty on our heads.”

“A bounty? Christ, Celaine, you didn’t think that was important enough to wake me up?” He threw his hands up in the air and slammed them back down on the concrete ledge.

“And then what? What would we have done? Would we have stayed? Left in broad daylight?”

“What kind of bounty are we talking about here?”

“Oh, not much,” I said, sarcastically. “Just complete amnesty for anyone who turns us in—and then there was the promise of financial security thrown in there, too.”

“Shit.” Ian’s eyes widened. “You don’t really believe there isn’t anyone down there seriously considering this bounty right now, do you?”

“Of course not. I know there are at least a few of them down there, but do you believe Brooks would keep his word and just hand one of his detractors a get-out-of-jail-free card?”

“Why wouldn’t he? What’s one rebel—a handful of them, even? If he gets us out of the deal, that’s all he cares about. Not to mention, he has to live up to his promise because the public will catch wind if he reneges, and then he’ll have even more of a headache to deal with. Plus, if he’s shown giving amnesty to a rebel who has jumped ship and is now siding with him, then he’ll come up smelling like a rose all the way around. He’ll gain more support and the rebels will lose the momentum they desperately need.”

“Maybe we should leave,” I said. “If we did, we’d be taking away the carrot that our presence is all but dangling in front of their faces.”

Ian nodded. “It’s something to think about. How much of a danger do you think our being here is to them?”

“Brooks knows we’re a danger to him even without being backed by a group, but with one—”

“We’re pretty much unstoppable,” Ian said, finishing my thought.

The door to the rooftop creaked open, prompting Ian and I both to whip our heads in its direction. At the top of the stairwell stood Drake. “Marshall wishes to speak with the two of you,” he said meekly.

“Tell him we’ll be right down,” Ian called back to him.

Drake nodded and took a step back within the confines of the stairwell, then made his way downstairs, leaving us alone on the rooftop again.

“Maybe this won’t be a decision we’ll have to make,” Ian said. “It kind of sounds like Marshall has already decided it for us.”

“I think what he wants to talk about has more to do with him than us.”

“Depending on what he says, I think we need to start coming up with alternate plans of our own.”

“All I’m saying is we need to consider Brooks’ offer,” Max said, unmoved by the unspoken disgust written on the faces of the others in the room.

“Have you completely lost your mind?” Jill asked. “Listen to yourself, Max, you’re basically telling us that we should abandon Marshall and everyone else and run to Brooks with our tails tucked between our legs.”

“No, what’s crazy is failing to see when you’ve been beaten. With the sheer numbers we lost at the address and the delay in communication between our groups, there’s no way we’re going to rebuild. Marshall is kidding himself if he thinks otherwise.” Max paced the cracked concrete floor of the basement, occasionally stealing glances up at the decaying wooden staircase to ensure that the five of them were still alone. “Crazy is getting yourself killed for no reason, when you could have had everything you’ve ever wanted if you would have just abandoned your pride.”

“Everything we’ve ever wanted?” Jarvis, the oldest rebel in their group, repeated. “If everything you’ve ever wanted for yourself was to be under Brooks’ thumb for the rest of your life, then I guess that deal of his does sound pretty tempting, but for me, everything I’ve ever wanted was stolen from me by Brooks and his men, and I’ll be damned if I’m going to kiss his ass now.”

“I agree,” Tyson, another long-term rebel, said. “Though it is tempting, I don’t trust the man to hold up his end of the deal, not to mention I have serious problems with turning Celaine and Ian over to Brooks after they saved our lives the other night. Sorry, man, but I’m out, too.”

“Well?” Max asked. “What about you, Carl? Are you abandoning me here, too?”

“You know I respect you and everything we’ve been through,” Carl said. “You’re like a brother to me. But when that guy—Ian—burst into the warehouse to pull us out of the fire without any consideration for his own safety, when he could have just as easily turned around and left us there to die, I just can’t lead him to the slaughter like that.”

“Fine,” Max said, fuming, his feet falling heavily against the concrete. “Suit yourselves.” He threw his hands up in an exaggerated gesture and slumped down in an empty chair. “When they come for us, and they will; when they murder your friends in cold blood and burn this place to the ground to get to those two, don’t come running to me. Because the last thing you’ll hear before they shoot and kill you, too, is me saying I told you so.”

We followed Drake down a flight of stairs to Marshall’s room hidden away on the first floor. When we reached his room, we found the door ajar as if inviting us to walk in. After exchanging glances with each other, we decided it best—if not polite—to knock on the door’s wooden exterior anyway.

“Come in, please,” Marshall said from somewhere inside the room.

Drake excused himself as Ian opened the door and stepped inside the room. I walked in shortly behind him, taking in the familiar sight of the drab, beige wallpaper and the same stock image photographs of the Capitol that were in our room. The only difference between the two was the size. Marshall’s room was significantly smaller than any of the other rooms—a fact that strangely made me respect him even more. I closed the door behind me, sensing the importance of the meeting and the confidential nature of the words that would be spoken in this room.

Marshall rolled his chair back just enough to turn around to face us and not much more as there was only a three-foot space between the foot of the twin bed in his room and the desk itself. “I’d tell you to have a seat, but as you can see that’s really not an option,” he said with the same comforting smile he always seemed to have stretched across his face. Ian and I situated ourselves in the room, finding a spot where we could stand next to each other so that we could both face him as he spoke. “I know you’ve had a rough couple of days, and I apologize for ruining what little peace you may have found this evening, but there are a few things I feel you should know.”

Ian and I nodded collectively, each of us sensing a solemnness in Marshall’s voice that hadn’t been present before. “I hate to admit it, lord knows I never will to anyone else, but I fear we’re fighting a losing battle. Brooks has us backed into a corner. We have limited communication with anyone else outside the city, we’re swiftly running out of supplies, and the toll our numbers took at the address was enough to scare even our most staunch supporters.”

“So are you saying we should all just give up and let Brooks win, that we shouldn’t have any hope for the future anymore?” I asked. The blood ran hot through my veins as a surge of anger overtook me. Every fiber of my being refused to just back down without putting up a fight. It wasn’t in my nature. “What are we supposed to do now, lie down and die? I thought you were stronger than that, Marshall. You’re their leader. They look up to you.”

“I know they do. Don’t think I’m not grappling with demons of my own. It was because of me so many lives were lost at the address. And it’s going to be because of me we lose many more, which is why I was inclined to seriously consider giving Brooks something I know he wants.”

“Yeah, what’s that?” Ian asked hesitantly, his body stiffening as though preparing to defend himself.

“Me,” Marshall said matter-of-factly, like there were no other possibilities staring him in the face. “Brooks has had it out for me since the formation of the rebellion, and the thought had occurred to me to turn myself in to him, to plead for the others so they could go home to their families and salvage something of a life from this mess. But I know that will never happen. They all wear targets on their backs that will follow them wherever they go, no matter what they do from here on out.” He looked down at his feet as if the weight of everyone else’s crosses was forcing his head down, consequently rendering him unable to hold it up any longer. “And that’s why we must fight. That’s why we will fight. It’s our reason to fight.”

“What’s the plan, then?” Ian asked. “What can we do?” He looked over at me and smiled, though I could sense he really didn’t want me anywhere near another altercation with Brooks.

“Through communications between our groups here and those that still remain across the country, we’ve been able to gather together a small army, not nearly enough to make a dent in the soldiers, but enough to give Brooks quite a headache on his hands. They’ll be coming to town—little by little—over the next three weeks and will be received at an old distribution warehouse about a mile from here. There we will rendezvous with them and firm up everyone’s marching orders with a plan to storm the Capitol and fight for our lives, our families, our principles, and everything in between. Whatever your reasons are to keep fighting, I suppose then and there would be the time and place to bring them and hold them in your heart as you battle, knowing that you did all you possibly could have done to defend them.”

“I’d rather die fighting for my life and the lives of those I love than cowering in a corner having given up altogether,” Ian said. He grabbed my hand and weaved his fingers through mine.

Marshall smiled. “I thought you’d say that. You two truly are the superheroes you were made out to be, despite what the true intentions of your creation may or may not have been. Our plan is rudimentary at best right now, but there will also be a group here and elsewhere who will attack the soldiers guarding the power grids to try and attempt to restore power to enough people for them to see an untainted version of what’s really going on.”

“How?” I asked. “Is our attack going to be filmed?”

Marshall smiled. “All of our attacks have been filmed, my dear, we’ve just had all our attempts to air them thwarted by Brooks or those working for him.”

“Cameron,” I said, his name leaving a bitter taste in my mouth. Marshall glanced up at me, confused. “He works for The Epicenter—that’s what they call the place we came from.”

“Fitting,” Marshall said, laughing. “It’s probably where everything with Brooks started. The place that made the very earth beneath our feet give out from underneath us.”

His observation struck a chord with me, unknowingly lifting the veil I’d happily kept over my eyes for the last year. “Cameron—” I began, trying to regain the composure in my voice without betraying the slew of thoughts streaming through my head. “Cameron is the one who keeps interfering with the rebellion’s broadcasts.”