Page 85 of Take You Home

Chester shakes his head, his eyes still locked on Memory JJ and Memory Chester. “The Council told him what to say. Or they gave him the broad strokes, at least‍—the quick-and-dirty guide to being a believable dissident.”

Obie narrows his eyes, considering the memoryscape. Theexplanation makes sense, but it doesn’t feel like the full story. Because there’s something about JJ’s words, about his tone, about his body language‍?—

Something that seems a bit too familiar. A bit too similar, Obie realizes, to Chester himself. “I think there’s more to it than that.”

Chester’s eyes flicker back to him. “What do you mean?”

“Sawyer said that you were more outspoken from the start, right? More likely to question orders, more critical of the bloodlines hierarchy.” Obie nods at Memory JJ. “So the Council had JJ say exactly what you were thinking‍—and explicitly show you the price of those views.”

Chester flinches, his eyes widening. “I‍—I didn’t even think about that. I just thought they chose JJ for my final exam to try and isolate us from each other, but‍—but‍?—‍”

He struggles to articulate his thoughts. Obie waits, lowering the volume on the memoryscape. He knows that Chester needs to work through this himself and reach his own conclusions, just like with the Teresa Roz situation, but‍?—

But it isn’t fun to watch Chester realize just how powerless he’s always been.

Eventually, Chester finds the words he’s looking for. “They wanted me to hear JJ’s voice every time I questioned my position in the hierarchy,” he says hollowly. “They‍—they wanted me to remember this moment every time I spoke out against the Council.”

Obie hesitates. “Did you?”

For a split second, Chester’s face crumples. He looks away.

In the memoryscape, Memory Chester reaches for a knife. Hastily, Obie pauses it. Neither of them needs to see that. “So that was before. Want to review what happened afterward?”

Chester left JJ half-conscious and bleeding on the interrogation table.

He couldn’t worry about that now. JJ had finally, finally,finallygiven Chester an address in a hoarse, dazed mumble, and Chester couldn’t waste any more time before getting it to his superiors.

The sooner the Council could confirm JJ’s intel, the sooner they could hopefully release him from the prison and undo whatever damage Sawyer and Naomi did to him. Chester needed that. Heneeded‍?—

He needed JJ to be safe. Safe and whole and never,everunder Chester’s knife again.

Nostrand was sitting outside the one-way mirror with a clipboard. Was this one of Chester’s graded interrogations? It had been at least two months since the last time Nostrand submitted a progress report to the Council.

Chester hated that this was going to be included in his file, but at least it would have a happy ending. “174 Marshall Street,” he said without preamble, stopping short just in front of Nostrand. “That’s where JJ was going. That’s where‍—where Solomon and Gutierrez are.”

Nostrand set his clipboard down next to him, pushing himself to his feet. “I’ll let Councilwoman Nasir know that it’s over.”

“And‍—‍” Chester’s hands kept twitching. Why did his hands keep twitching? “And the Council said they’ll show him clemency, right? That they won’t‍—won’t hurt him?”

“Write your post-interrogation report,” Nostrand said. “We’ll talk after that.”

Paperwork. Right. Chester’s job wasn’t over yet. “Okay,” he said, and he jogged off towards the computer as Nostrand pulled out his phone to text the Council.

“You…” Obie’s heart twists. “You look like you aged half a decade in that interrogation room, puppy.”

“Not so young anymore, right?” Chester says, a hint of bitterness creeping into the words. “And I do remember this next part, actually. Because Nostrand did something he’d never done before.”

Trepidation coils down Obie’s spine. “What? What’d he do?”

“He was actually a good mentor,” Chester says.

“Done,” Chester said, stepping away from the computer. “So with JJ‍?—‍”

“Wait,” Nostrand ordered, squinting over Chester’s shoulder at the screen. His mouth moved silently as he read the words, checking Chester’s work more carefully than usual, before he nodded once, flipped over his rubric, and put one last checkmark. “Sit down, Locke.”

Why did he want Chester to sit down? Chester was fine. He was‍?—

He sat down. Instantly, he wasn’t quite sure if he could stand up again, but he’d worry about that later. “I’m fine,” he said, twisting his fingers together to hide their trembling. “But JJ‍?—‍”