Word and Breath (6 page)

“Do you have plans for lunch?”

Riana shifted her eyes from the text she was studying and blinked up into Jenson’s face. “What?”

Jenson’s mouth gave a faint twitch. “Lunch plans. Do you have them?”

The question was so unexpected that Riana took a few seconds to process it. “Just the usual. Sandwich and apple in the break room.”

“Then how about you have lunch with me? There’s a new bistro down the street I’ve been wanting to try.”

Riana’s lower lip fell open. “You’re asking me to lunch?”

“I believe so.”

“Why?” She regretted the bald, incredulous demand after she voiced it, particularly when she heard his amused reply.

“Being friendly?”

Her suspicious nature waged a brief struggle with her sense of humor, but her humor came out on top. She snickered at his ironic reply. “All right. I suppose. But I’ll have you know I find the whole thing very strange.”

Jenson’s attractive, mobile face twisted into a half-smirk. “No wonder you don’t go out to lunch very often—if you put everyone through the wringer who asks you.”

She’d put Mikel through the wringer too.

“Twelve-thirty?” she suggested, ignoring the stray thought.

“Sounds good.”

Jenson returned to his desk, and Riana turned back to the text she was reading.

She couldn’t concentrate. She couldn’t believe Jenson was interested in her sexually—he’d never shown any interest before and he was too old for her anyway. There must be something else prompting his unexpected invitation.

Maybe he was acting on gratitude because she’d covered up the “wordless” anomaly she’d found last week.

Or maybe it was something else.

Riana knew some people thought she was paranoid, but she’d had good reason to be suspicious and slow to trust other people. All too often they’d just stab you in the back.

Her parents had trusted friends, and they’d died because of it. She’d trusted Connor, and he’d vanished off the face of the earth.

So she was sure Jenson must have an ulterior motive for this lunch date.

She wished she knew what it was so she could be better prepared.

***

She still hadn’t figured it out when twelve-thirty rolled around.

She felt very weird—particularly knowing the eyes of most of their colleagues were on them—as Jenson casually strolled over to her cubicle.

“Ready?” he asked with a smile.

She nodded, grabbed her bag, and walked with him to the exit, trying not to squirm as she felt the office’s collective gaze on their retreating forms.

When Jenson put a hand on the small of her back to guide her out the door first, Riana couldn’t help but jerk her head over to stare at him.

His mouth twitched slightly, but he didn’t move his hand. It felt strange on her lower back, and she didn’t like the feeling at all.

“I figured I should support the obvious explanation for our going to lunch together,” Jenson murmured, speaking low even though they were the only ones in the hallway. “Rather than have them speculate about something else.”

At least this confirmed her suspicions that he had other motives for asking her to lunch.

She wanted to demand he tell her as they left the building and were surrounded by the hot, familiar smell of the city. It was late October but still felt like it should be summer. She held the question back, however.

Partly because she figured he’d tell her when he thought best. And partly because she was kind of scared to find out.

Irrationally, she felt a coil of anxiety tighten in her gut—a vague dread without apparent cause.

She tried not to dwell on it. Instead, she set herself to enjoying the treat of going out to eat, as they took a table in the café and ordered their salads and soup. She got to go out to eat for dinner too. It was definitely a red-letter day.

Jenson had already declared he was going to pay for their lunches, which allowed Riana to indulge without guilt.

He didn’t appear to be in a hurry to get to the point. He chatted pleasantly about the setting, making clever commentary on the other people in the restaurant. He asked her a little about her childhood, which Riana answered with a guarded precision she’d developed over the years. He laughed at her as she visibly enjoyed the food, sighing over the marinated strawberries on the salad and moaning as she tasted the crab bisque.

Jannie was a pretty good cook, but she wasn’t particularly adventurous in cuisine. Riana, however jaded about human nature, wasn’t afraid to enjoy the simple pleasures of food.

She didn’t even care that Jenson laughed at her—since there was both irony and fondness in his expression.

She scowled at him, of course, but she was pretty sure he knew she wasn’t genuinely offended.

He let her finish her meal before he moved into the real purpose of their lunch date.

Riana saw the shift in his expression as he put down his soup spoon neatly on his saucer. She took a long sip of her water and felt that knot of anxious dread—briefly diverted by the food—return as a weight in her stomach.

“So,” she said, the word half-question and half-segue.

“So,” Jenson repeated. He cleared his throat and, for the first time, looked vaguely reluctant. “I wanted to thank you—for helping me out last week.”

He didn’t need to explain what he was referring to. “You’re welcome. I think.” The nervousness fluttered up into her chest, and she clasped her hands in her lap to keep them still.

“I’d like to give you an explanation—since I assume you want to know what’s going on now that you got pulled into it.”

Jenson’s dark blue eyes held hers, and she was the one who looked away first.

She glanced over to the counter at the generic business people on their lunch break paying for sandwiches. “I don’t know if I want to know or not.”

“I can understand that. But I’m going to tell you anyway.”

Something about the blunt challenge in his voice made her suck in her breath and stare back at him. He still looked vaguely reluctant, but he also looked confrontational. As if he were daring her to hear what he had to say.

One part of Riana’s mind wanted to act like a petulant child and defy him—getting up and leaving before he could say anything more. That was an unworthy part of herself, though. She wasn’t a child. And she could at least hear him out, since he clearly believed it was important.

She didn’t have to make any decisions yet. A truth she used to soothe the frightened twisting in her belly.

“The anomaly you found—the word ‘wordless’ in unexpected contexts—is part of a written code used by the Front.”

As simple as that. As obvious. As life-changing.

Riana bit her lip and stared at Jenson blindly.

“I asked you not to report it because it would do significant damage to the Front’s message system if the Union became of aware of it.”

They were on the corner of the patio, seated close together in a curved booth like lovers. He was speaking too low for anyone else to hear.

But Riana felt like the words had just been screamed at her. Her mouth was dry, so she took another sip of water.

Jenson paused, letting her process what he’d said.

She had no idea what to say. “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you helped me. Because you deserve to know.” He paused for a beat. “And because I want to bring you in.”

That was what she’d been afraid of. What her instincts had told her was the end of this conversation. “And if I don’t want to be brought in?”

“Sometimes our personal preferences can’t matter when we look at the big picture.” He pushed his long fingers through his dark hair. “I think you need to be part of this.”

“What gives you the right to decide for me?”

“I’m not going to decide for you. I’m just giving you all the information and letting you decide for yourself.”

“You’ve already gotten me involved. You’ve already put me in danger.”

Jenson nodded, for the first time glancing down. “I know that. That’s part of the price of what we’re doing. In telling you more, I’m going to put you in even further danger.”

Riana’s cheeks were flushing with emotion, even as it felt like the blood drained from her face. “What makes you think you can even trust me? What if I turn around and go to the authorities?”

“It’s a risk,” he replied with a half-shrug. “But I don’t think you’re going to do that. You kept faith with me last week. You resent the Union as much as I do. They killed your parents. And did worse to your grandfather. Although you won’t admit it, I know you want to see justice in this world. That’s what we’re working for. You won’t betray us.”

He was right—an annoying fact and one that put her at a disadvantage. “What makes you think you know me so well?”

“I’ve been watching you for years, Riana. Since you were fourteen and started working in the office. You aren’t as private as you’d like to believe. You hate injustice. You have a generous spirit—although no longer an open one. And you believe in something
good
. Your parents—”

“I don’t want to talk about my parents.”

“All right. We don’t have to. But at least acknowledge that I’ve had the time to get to know certain truths about you. You’re trying to live a life without any purpose, and you’re never going to be satisfied that way. You need this, Riana.” He reached out and put a hand on her forearm. “You
need
it. Let me bring you in.”

His eyes were mesmerizing, and his voice pierced through long-held defenses.

She recognized the truth in his words.

That recognition just made her angry, though. She’d worked too hard to build a life for herself and her sister to let Jenson and his quixotic sense of social justice tear it all apart in one conversation.

“I don’t want it,” she said, her voice low and rough. “It won’t do any good. This purpose, as you put it, won’t change anything about our world. All I want is to mind my own business and have people leave me alone.”

“But they won’t leave you alone. No matter how hard you try, you can’t live an isolated life. What happens to other people matters to you—and you’re lying to yourself when you insist it doesn’t.”

His calm voice grated on her nerves. “I’ve managed to do just fine on my own all this time. Your empty moralizing isn’t going to convince me otherwise. Besides, I don’t see the benefit to you in this. It’s risking the safety of your movement by entrusting it to yet another person—and I’m not going to give you anything you don’t already have.”

“Yes, you are.” He reached out to touch her arm again. “You have gifts you’ve never tapped, Riana, and don’t try to persuade me you don’t. Besides, you’re a Reader, and you love the written word. The Front is the only part of society left that understands and values the power of the word.”

Something about his statement spoke to her, and it wasn’t just the eloquence of his rhetoric.

The rising fear overwhelmed any other feeling, however. “I don’t want this, Jenson. I never asked for this, and it’s not fair of you to drag me into it.”

Jenson tightened his lips for a minute, as if she’d annoyed him, but he didn’t show his reaction in any other way.

Riana sat in silence, panting and glaring at him.

Until finally he reached into his pocket, pulled out his wallet, and retrieved enough currency to pay for their meals. Leaving it on the table, he said, “Walk with me, Riana.”

She just stared at him suspiciously. “Where are we going?”

“Just onto the street. I want to show you something.”

She didn’t trust him. She knew he’d try to get to her in any way he could, but she didn’t think she was in imminent danger from him.

So Riana slowly got up and fell in stride with him as they left the café. They walked wordlessly to the corner of the block.

Jenson just stood there, so Riana looked around. It was just a normal city corner—two busy streets intersecting, offices, stores, restaurants lining the block, traffic signals herding the cars and pedestrians into a semblance of order.

After several people had pushed past her to cross the street, Riana let out a ragged breath. “What am I supposed to be looking at?”

Jenson was half a head taller than her, but he didn’t look down at her. His eyes were fixed on a small produce stand across the street—a few bins of vegetables out in front and more inside the storefront. “That business has been in the owner’s family for four generations. The current owner barely scrapes by, but she refuses to give the family business up.”

Riana saw a tiny woman with white hair come out with a basket and start picking through the bin of apples. “Okay. I realize that’s rare—a nice kind of throwback to the past. But it’s not going to melt my heart with some kind of sentimental impulse and get me to change my mind.”