Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy (8 page)

* * *

Professor Moretti had asked me to stay after class. I
stood at his desk, hugging my books to my chest. He was flipping through a
stack of papers to find mine. I wished he'd just say whatever he had to say and
let me go. I knew I wasn't doing very well in school. I didn't really care. I
probably had a bright future as a professional assassin, and you didn't need a
high school education for that.
"Ah, there it is," said Professor Moretti, pulling my paper out of
the stack.
 
"I'll try to do better," I said.
"What?" said Professor
Moretti.
Then he
shook his head.
"Oh, no.
Amy, that's not why I
wanted to talk to
you
. I found your paper very
insightful."
"You did?" I was pleasantly surprised. I was still hung over from
drinking before bed last night, but it felt good to have done something well. I
didn't feel like I'd done much of anything right in weeks. I barely remembered
writing the paper. I did remember that it was about
 
Things
Fall Apart
, the book we'd been reading. Well, the book we'd been
assigned to read. I'd cobbled it together from reading a few chapters, class
discussions, and a judicious use of SparkNotes.
 
"You seem to have quite a large amount of empathy for Okonkwo," said
Professor Moretti.
"Well, his whole life gets destroyed, doesn't it?" I said. "It's
not his fault. It's the fault of the white missionaries. They just come in and
totally mess everything up."
Professor Moretti shrugged. "Some critics think that Okonkwo is a
classical tragic figure, like Odysseus or Hamlet. His tragic flaw could be seen
as his pride or his rashness. Some feel that Okonkwo brings his downfall upon
himself."
"I thought you said that my paper was insightful," I said. Why was he
pointing this out to me, anyway?
"I think it was. I think that most of my students have difficulty
identifying with an African character from the late 1800s. You seem to be able
to put yourself in his place quite readily. I think that qualifies as insight
into the work."
I nodded slowly. "So was it good or was it bad?"
"The paper is well-written. You shouldn't worry about that. I'm sure I'll
give it a high mark."
Then why was I talking to him? "Thanks," I said. "Is there . . .
anything else?"
"I just find it so interesting that a girl of your age and your experience
would so strongly be able to put yourself in Oknokwo's place."
"I didn't really do that," I said. "It's just obvious. I mean,
all Okonkwo can do is react. Everything just goes from bad to worse in that
book. I mean, isn't that why it's called
 
Things Fall Apart
?
Because
things fall apart in the book?"
"
The title is an allusion to Yeats poem. We discussed that in
class."
"Yeah," I said. "I've studied 'The Second Coming.'" Three
times this year, actually. In every English class I'd been enrolled in during
my senior year. "But, I mean, that's Yeats' point too. He thinks that the
world's coming to an end. Or that the era of Christianity is coming to an end.
And everything's falling apart."
"Do you agree that everything's falling apart?" asked Professor
Moretti. "That a rough beast is slouching toward
Bethlehem
to be born?"
"Of course not," I said.
"Perhaps slouching towards
Shiloh
?"
I jumped back as if I'd been burned.
Shiloh
was the place that Jason was born. Did Professor Moretti know?
"
Shiloh
?"
I
repeated, trying to sound nonchalant and clueless.
"What's happened to you in your life that you understand Okonkwo's plight,
Amy?" asked Professor Moretti.
"Nothing," I said. "I don't understand his plight. I don't know.
I guess he did have flaws. I mean, maybe he did bring the whole thing on
himself."
 
"Maybe he did," said Professor Moretti. He put my paper down on top
of the pile of other students' papers and stood up. "In
 
Things
Fall Apart
, the rough beast that changes the world of the Igbo is
the white missionaries. This school is funded by the Sons of the Rising Sun, as
I'm sure you're aware of. Do you know much about the Rising Sun legend?"
I swallowed. "Why are you talking to me about this?" I asked.
"Are you late for something, Amy?"
I shook my head. "It's lunch," I said.
He nodded. "That it is. I won't keep you too long. I promise." He
smiled.
"The Rising Sun?"
"
A little bit," I said. "But I don't see how it connects.
I mean, the Rising Sun isn't a 'rough beast' is he? He's not evil."
"Our legends tell us he would impose a completely new order on the
world," said Professor Moretti. "He would change everything. Is there
any way for change to happen without violence and bloodshed and revolution?
Aren't there some people who would see that as evil?"
"But it's a legend, right?" I said.
Professor Moretti shrugged again. "There have been reports," he said.
"Buzzing in our organization.
Signs and wonders.
A boy who can drive men insane and rise from the dead.
A boy and with him . . . a girl."
I swallowed again. Shit. He did know. "But that doesn't fit, does
it?" I said. "I mean, the Rising Sun was supposed to act alone,
right?"
"You know more than a bit about this legend, don't you?"
"No," I said. "No, I don't know anything. And I really was
supposed to meet someone for lunch."
Professor Moretti nodded.
"Mr. Black, then?
The
two of you seem quite close."
Damn it, damn it, damn it. He had to know.
First George
Churchill.
Now this.
Jason and I were going to
get ourselves killed. Of course, George had seemed scared.
 
"The reports," I said. "Officially, I thought that the
organization didn't think that the boy in those reports was anything
special."
"Well," said Moretti, "wouldn't it be odd if things were falling
apart in the organization?
If the center couldn't hold?"
"
So this boy, then," I said, "if you saw him, you might
think that he could be, well, dangerous. To things he perceived as
threats." I was treading a pretty fine line, here. After all, Professor
Moretti did work for the Sons.
Directly.
And I was all
but admitting who I was. Still, if the word about Jason had travelled this far,
maybe I could still scare him.
Maybe.
Professor Moretti raised his eyebrows.
"Noted, Amy.
Noted."
He smiled. "I wouldn't think he had
anything to fear. Not from me. Go to lunch."

* * *

I couldn’t find Jason in the cafeteria. I tried
calling his cell phone, but he didn't pick up. Instead, I just sent him a text
message, telling him we needed to talk as soon as possible. Palomino and Chance
were sitting at our regular table. I got some food and sat down with them.
 
"Where's Jason?" asked Chance.
"I don't know," I said. "I haven't seen him since our last
class. He's not answering his phone."
"Are you two fighting?" Chance asked. "Because last night when I
got back, he didn't seem like he was in a great mood."
"We're not fighting," I said.
 
"You can tell us," said Palomino. "We were fighting, you know.
It's okay to fight."
"We're not fighting," I said.
"Is it about your drinking?" asked Palomino.
"Yeah, are you drunk right now?" Chance asked.
"I'm not gonna drink anymore," I muttered.
"We're just trying to help," said Chance.
I got up. "I'm not really hungry," I said and walked off. Chance and
Mina were calling after me, but I didn't pay attention.
Instead, I left the cafeteria and went for a walk. I had a lot of things to
think about. Outside it was warm. The leaves on the trees were green. The grass
was growing. It was late spring. I could hear birds calling to each other.
Could see insects crawling along the sidewalks.
It was a
beautiful day. And everything was going to hell in my life. Fast.
 
I wandered between the ancient buildings of the Sol Solis
school
,
gazing at my feet if I passed anyone. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I
didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't even want to smile at anyone.
 
It was bad that Professor Moretti seemed to know who Jason and I were. Even if
he said that we didn't have anything to fear from him. What did that mean,
anyway? How had he figured it out? Was it really because of my stupid essay?
Was that enough to arouse his suspicions? I guess, despite the fact that Jason
and I had changed our names, we still did seem suspicious. We appeared right
after the incident in
Shiloh
. We were
together. And Jeremy and Amy were maybe too close to our real names. What was
Professor Moretti going to do? Would he tell someone? Would he try to hurt us?
Even if he didn't do anything, I didn't like the idea of his knowing who we
were. It meant he had power over us. If we didn't need to get into that library
so bad, I would have told Jason that we just needed to leave. Of course, it
wasn't like we had anywhere to go. We were fugitives from the Sons and probably
from the authorities too. Maybe there were wanted posters up in
Georgia
, with
my picture on it. I was a murderer after all.
 
That was what the dreams were trying to tell me, weren't they? I was always
dreaming about doing horrible things. Clearly, I hadn't worked through my guilt
over killing my brothers and Lilith.
But hell.
Was
that the kind of thing you worked through? Did you forgive yourself for stuff
like that? Was there even a way to forgive
yourself
for something so horrible?
 
Did I even deserve to be forgiven?
Why had I done it?
 
I'd done it for Jason. I'd done it for me. They were going to kill Jason—Noah
and Gordon. They'd captured me. They'd pursued me in their car. They'd forced
me to wreck. They weren't exactly nice brothers. But that didn't mean they should
be killed, did it?
My parents had always told me that life was about choices, and the best thing
you could do was to make the most constructive choices possible. Anything
destructive, they'd said, should be avoided at all costs. And I'd destroyed my brothers.
And Lilith too.
With Lilith, it seemed like a clear
case of self-defense, though. She'd had a knife to my throat when I did it.
 
Still.
Even if I'd been defending myself.
Even
if I'd been defending Jason.
I couldn't accept the fact that I'd done
what I'd done. It had been bad enough when I'd had to deal with the fact that
Jason killed people to defend me. This was something that I just couldn't deal
with. I didn't know how.
 
The worst part of it was that sometimes I wondered about Jason himself. My
family had been convinced he was so evil that he deserved to die. His own
mother had prophesied that he'd enslave the human race. His own father thought
that Jason was a monster that he'd created. And my brothers had shown me all
these interviews with people who said that Jason had killed people.
And that while he'd been doing it, he'd been smiling.
Jason said it wasn't true. I believed him.
 
Didn't I?
I had to believe him, didn't I, because if I didn't, what did I have left? I'd
done everything, sacrificed everything for Jason. If I didn't believe in him,
what did that mean my life was?
A farce?
A waste?
 
Besides, I knew Jason better than I'd ever known someone. Hadn't I held him
when he'd cried? Hadn't I slept in the crook of his arms, feeling him hold me,
listening to him murmur that he'd do anything to keep me safe? If I'd
sacrificed for Jason, he'd sacrificed for me too. Every time he did something
to save me, he lost a piece of his innocence, and he didn't have much left. I'd
wanted to spare him that. I'd wanted to take care of myself. But if we kept
this up, would there be anything left of either of us, or would our souls
disappear into calluses? Would we rub them so raw that eventually the only
protection we'd have would be not to feel?
In some ways, Professor Moretti was right. I did feel like Okonkwo's life had
been stolen from him. And I felt like my life had been stolen from me too.
 
But the truth was that things were never going to be the way they used to be. I
was never going to be normal girl, going to school, just thinking about school
dances or what to do with my hair. And if I were honest with myself, I didn't
even want to go back to that kind of naiveté. Ignorance might be bliss, but
knowledge, however painful, was always preferable.

* * *

By the time I got back to my dorm after classes that
afternoon, I was starting to get worried about Jason. He hadn't called me back,
and he hadn't been in any of the afternoon classes that we had together. I
didn't know what had happened, but I hoped Professor Moretti didn't have
something to do with it. He'd said that Jason didn't have anything to fear from
him, but now, as near as I could tell, Jason was missing. As I made my way up
the stairs to my dorm room, I tried calling him one last time. It went to
voicemail, as it had all day. Where
 
was
 
he?
I burst into my room and flounced on my bed. I was worried.
 
"Hey," said Palomino.
"Hey," I said.
 
"Why'd you run off at lunch?" she asked.
"I've got a lot on my mind," I said.
"Like what?" asked
Palomino.
"Because
I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with this baby, and I'm not being
rude."
I sat up and surveyed her. "That's debatable," I said.
She threw a pillow at me. "Come on," she said. "What's going on?
You can tell me."
"I haven't seen Jason since English," I said. "I've been calling
him nonstop and he's not answering."
"He's probably hanging out with his brother," she said.
I stood up. "What?"
"I was going to tell you at lunch, but you ran off," she said.
"I met Jason's brother this morning. His name's Jude or something?"
Jude. Crap. I crossed the room to Palomino. "Where did you see him?"
"Outside the dorm this morning," she said. "He asked me if I
knew Jason."
"And you said yes?" I was incredulous. "Didn't you ever think there
was a
 
reason
 
Jason
and I are going under assumed names?"
"Jesus. Don't yell at me. He's Jason's brother," she said.
"Who tried to
 
kill him
 
the last time we saw him!" I
exclaimed.
 
"Oh wait," she said. "Maybe I do remember something about
that."
"So help me, Palomino, if anything happens to Jason because of you—"
"Calm down," said Palomino. "I didn't tell him anything. I just
said that I knew who Jason was, but I didn't know where he was."
"You didn't tell him anything?
Nothing at all?"