The Ring Bearer (3 page)

“No, but I think he came very close. I wouldn’t advise letting them meet again. I’m not entirely sure what pissed him off so much. I never thought of him as the heroic type.” Belus nodded in agreement. “I better go talk to Cori.” Danato headed for the door.

“Are you sure you should be the one to talk to her?” Danato paused. He knew that Belus was asking in earnest, but he hated that he thought he needed to ask.

“This is beyond the territory of a duty roster, Belus. I am still the warden of this prison.”

“I only mean that she didn’t come to you with this prior to doing it. She didn’t trust you to back her up.”

“She didn’t come to you either,” Danato managed to say it without sounding petty, but it was still a pejorative statement either way.

“I wouldn’t expect her to,” Belus said. “She knows I won’t bend the rules to suit her.” Danato glared back at him. Belus held up his hands in surrender before he could offer another scathing remark. “I’m not picking a fight, Danato. It just seems to me that since Cori’s time jumping encounter, she’s been rather guarded with you. She may be reluctant in her honesty if she thinks it will piss you off. She needs a little compassion.”

“Good God, Belus. Are you instructing me on compassion? Do you really think you are a better choice to offer her that?”
“No, of course not, but I can keep my opinions out of the conversation and get the answers we need. I’m not nearly as emotionally invested in her as you are.”

“Aren’t you?” Danato asked with unintentional ridicule. The statement stalled Belus’s resolve.

“Just tell me that you can get her to tell you everything: the motive, the key, Jill, everything. If she’s made the wrong conclusions about this, she just let three of the most dangerous entities we house, out into the world. I don’t care about your feelings, or her ego, just get the information.”

Danato wanted to wring his neck for the condescension, but he was right. Cori’s insistence on keeping secrets and dealing with problems herself had been reinforced by her concern that he would not listen to her or trust her when the time came. If Belus walked up to her and demanded the truth, she would tell him, not because she respected him more, but because she knew he wouldn’t judge her. Belus would listen to everything without the emotionally charged reactions he usually offered.

Danato remembered thinking that Belus would have to adjust how he treated Cori in order to earn her trust, but it seemed he was now taking a lesson from him. He would have to stop reacting to her like she was a misbehaving child. At the moment, she was a trusted employee, who just did something really stupid. He would have to treat her as such.

“I’ll get it out of her,” he said and left Belus to figure out how to get out of this mess by the book so Cori wasn’t carted back to America.

3

Cori sat on the bed of her prison cell, with her knees tucked to her chest. It was poetic justice—if poetic justice meant being bitch slapped by irony. It was the same cell that Vince spent his part-time hours in as a man. The room had no evidence of her deceased lover. She imagined that it might still smell like him, but it didn’t. It was just a cell. A place she used to visit. Like her memories of him, it was no longer a part of her life. She had once loved him so much, but now she barely thought of him. That seemed so sad to her.

She had spent the remainder of the night in the cell, but she hadn’t really slept. She kept waiting for Danato to pop in and slam his hands against the cell door demanding an explanation. She dreaded it at first, but after she saw the sun peek through the high windows, she started to hope for it.

She hoped someone would come see her. She needed to expurgate General Clark’s version of her actions. She needed them all to understand that Efrat and the others weren’t criminals, they were victims. She needed to plateau the antagonism she had created so she could start negotiations on the elemental’s behalf. 

When she finally heard the sound of footsteps in the hall she jumped up to greet her visitor. She was more than disappointed to see Clark. Even his face, smiling as it was, felt like an instant threat to her life. She wanted to kill him.

She, who had capitulated to help her former murderer, out of veneration for life, wanted to close her hands around Clark’s throat and watch the life drain from his eyes. She knew it was probably Jill’s residual memories that prompted such a strong reaction to him, but she wasn’t sure it mattered. In that moment, she wanted him dead, regardless of whose idea it was.

Cori stood at the door gripping the bars so she didn’t reach out and grab his throat. Clark gave her porch lion guards the nod and they shuffled off to give them privacy. Before they were out of earshot he spoke loud enough to be heard. “I hope you slept well, Mrs. Pierce.”

“I slept just fine,” she lied. “My conscious doesn’t keep me awake at night. What about you, General?”

He grimaced. “I haven’t had the chance to sleep yet. I’ve been dealing with the backlash of your meddling.” Clark donned a smirk. Much like his smile, it made her want to back away in defense, but her ego refused to offer him the satisfaction of domination. “But to answer your question, I sleep well at night also.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but he moved abruptly to the door and gripped her arms through the bars. The pinch behind her elbows made her wince, but she didn’t try to back away. For the moment, she was in pain, but she was safe behind the bars.

“I’m not usually the type of man that people don’t take seriously, Mrs. Pierce.”

“Don’t worry it’s not personal, I’m not the type of woman to take any authority figure seriously.” He pinched harder and she cringed.

“I thought we had an understanding. What prompted you to go back on our agreement?”

“You shouldn’t have threatened their lives. I can’t abide watching you kill anyone else.”

“Tell me what you know. What did Jill tell you?”

“I know everything,” she hissed trying to pull his elbows away, but his grip had jammed her between him and the bars she was gripping. “I know how you forced Jill to steroid your volunteers until their powers were so strong they couldn’t even touch anyone. You destroyed four…five lives because you were in such a damned hurry.”

“And yet, Mrs. Pierce, you seem to have no trouble touching them.” Cori felt her body sweat instantly from the accusation. “Why is that?”

His face was close enough she could smell the cough drop on his breath. “I’m just special I guess.”

Clark’s eyes went cold and his grip on her elbows released enough to offer her blood flow. “Cori,” he said her name so quietly that it made her breath hasten with concern. “I saw your rings glowing. I felt what you did to me after that global winter struck. You froze my hands.”

“That had nothing to do with me, it was just the globe.”

He smiled broadly. “Then why are the bars you’re gripping so tight, covered in ice?”

Cori looked down and found her hands and the bars she was hanging onto, encased in ice. She panicked trying to remove her hands, but she was stuck. Clark removed his grasp, since it was no longer necessary. “Interesting,” he said looking her over, “very interesting.”

He didn’t offer any more threats or ask any questions. He walked away happy and content with the answers she had already given him.   

4

With a little concentration, Cori managed to melt the ice with some of Garr’s absorbed power, before the guards returned. Almost as soon as they were in position, Danato approached the cell and nodded them off again. They conferred non-verbally and decided to offer him space to have a semi-private conversation instead of getting their skulls bashed in. Smart men.

“Danato.” Cori brought her arms through the bars to offer him the connection that he undoubtedly wanted after watching her being torn away from him, but she couldn’t quite reach him. When it was clear that he was keeping the space between them open, she let down her reach and landed her head harshly against the bars. “Danato, I’m so sorry.”

“Let’s skip all that for now,” he said flatly without the anger or embitterment she expected from him. “I need to know what happened.”

“General Clark…” she started where they had left off at the house.

“Starting with the key you took from my center desk drawer,” Cori’s mouth fell open as she realized how far back she needed to take this story to keep him satisfied with her loyalty. He crossed his arms waiting for her response.

“Danato, I didn’t…” She started, but he interrupted assuming that she was going to deny the accusation, which she was, but only partially.

“The key Cori,” he said like she was a simpleton. The derision was more than a little painful. “When did you find it? When did you open my drawer?” He paused to swallow. “What did you read?”

Cori nodded and held up a surrendering hand, before she spoke. She considered telling him that she just found the key like he assumed, but she was certain that the truth would only come back to haunt her if she didn’t admit it here and now. “I wasn’t the one who found the key. I never even paid attention to the locked drawer. I got the key from Efrat.” She could see his eyes narrow just at the mention of his name. She was a long way from convincing him to offer asylum. “He slipped it in my mouth when he kissed me.” She bit back her lips hoping to shunt away the memory of his lips on hers.

“Why didn’t you tell me about it?” She could tell he was trying to keep his emotions out of the conversation, but she could still hear a hint of accusation in his tone.

“Efrat…it doesn’t matter what he said. He made me doubt your intentions in regards to their containment.” His jaw shifted like he wanted to speak, but he didn’t. She was impressed with his restraint, but she felt more nervous waiting for the explosion than just getting it out of the way. “I didn’t believe him, Danato. He was just another ex-con claiming innocence.”

“But you kept the key.”

“Yes, I kept the key.” She paused trying to remember the thought process that led to that conclusion. “I was upset, confused, blah, blah, blah…I wanted the truth. At that time, I didn’t think you would give it to me. So much of you, is still hidden from me.”

His eyes danced over her, like he wanted to respond to that. “You broke into my office to read the elemental files?”

“I wasn’t aware that your office was off limits to me.” As soon as she said it, his eyes blazed. She lowered her gaze trying to make up for her derision. “Yes, I did.”

“When?”

She took in a breath and looked down. “I…”

“When?” His face went dark and his eyes narrowed.

“I slipped out during the party.” She braced herself for his volume, but it didn’t come.

“You slipped out during the party,” his voice was soft and laden with disbelief. “The party that I put on as a present for you? You used that particular occasion to spy on me?”

“Danato…”

“Did you plan this with Efrat? Have you been planning this with Efrat?”

“No, nothing—aside from the inconvenient timing of my curiosity—nothing was planned about last night. I had every intention of saying my goodbyes and coming straight home.”

“What changed Cori?” Danato’s volume was more scolding than angry, but she was relieved that he had not gone completely stone on her. “That’s the question that has me, Ethan, and Belus pondering in circles. What the fuck happened between you donned in crimson, dancing the night away, and you spattered in crimson, releasing the most dangerous prisoners in this facility.”

“They are not the danger in this,” Cori pleaded hoping to get a start on her negotiations.

“They are!” Danato bellowed. “They’ve been here for six years. They’ve killed a dozen of my men in that time.”

Cori cringed at his volume as she always did, but she refused to let this meeting be about him telling her his estimations of the elementals. She already knew how he felt about them, but he didn’t know as much as she did. “Jillian Frank knew them before they had powers. They weren’t born with these abilities. They were a human weapons project gone wrong. Clark put them all here to hide them. They weren’t viable for field use, and I doubt any of them would have helped him after the hell they were put through once they got they’re so called super powers.”

“How the fuck do you know all this?”

“I know they killed your people, but they were trying to escape.” Cori paused wondering if that was accurate to say since Efrat suggested it was impossible. “Or maybe they just stopped caring about living and dying. At any rate, Efrat never saw any difference between the monster holding him captive, and the monster renting the room out to him so he could do it. He was just fighting whoever was keeping him contained.”

Danato shook his head and shrugged trying to assimilate her words and find his own. “Why didn’t you come to me with this information the minute Jill told you?”

Cori flinched at her lie of omission, but pushed onward. Her growing issues with her rings could be dealt with later. Danato already had enough reasons to be mad at her. “After I found out who Jill was, I followed her upstairs. I wasn’t able to stop her from killing the two guards, but I was able to stop her from killing Hirem. Once she was unarmed I was about to talk her out of her irrational decision.”