Page 16

The Plot Thickens

Jameson

Jameson blew out a cloud of smoke, savoring the scent of the tobacco and the burn in his lungs, trying to ignore the shouts coming from inside the fort.

He sighed and dropped his cigarette, crushing it with the toe of his boot before turning to head back inside and face the beast.

He couldn’t help but smirk.

The smile made his jaw ache.

The Arryvian had some decent strength behind that blow, and it had bruised the side of his face, penance for his misdeeds.

Good for her. Sullivan had it out for her, and Jameson wasn’t sure why, but it stank of fish. Or shit. Both. Not that he smelled much better. The guilt had weighed heavy on him since the beginning. What they were doing, what he was now a part of. It was wrong. At first, he could convince himself that he was doing his duty. Patriotic and all that shit. It wasn’t his place to question orders, he just did what he was told. But that was the coward’s way out, and he was many things, but not a fucking coward.

He’d requested that shift on purpose.

It was just lucky she had been conscious otherwise he would have had to carry her out.

As it was, his half-baked plan had accidently enhanced her much better formulated one, all the way down to the kitchen door he’d left unlocked.

She was a smart cookie.

The other soldiers were taking their punishment, trying not to flinch at the spittle flecking their cheeks as the captain scolded them.

The uncanny manner in which Sullivan reprimanded his men made goosebumps crawl up Jameson’s arms.

So coldly measured, even though Jameson could sense the fury hidden beneath Sullivan’s flexing jaw.

Bill had made the mistake of questioning Sullivan, asking what they were even doing with the Arryvian.

Jameson had already been gifted an earful earlier that morning when he’d been found inside her cell.

She’d been unwilling to lock him in, but he had no such qualms and had shut the door after she’d made her escape.

Sullivan whirled as he entered and pinned him with a hard stare, then pointed a finger at him, sharp as a blade.

“You’re going to get her back.”

“Yes, sir.”

The lie came blithely to his lips, as did his nod of contrite deference.

He had no idea how far Sullivan would go to get…whatever it was he wanted from her, but he vowed not to help him achieve that goal.

Not anymore.

“Take Bill and Henry with you and scour the area.

Leave no rock unturned.

I want her back by midnight or there’ll be hell to pay.”

The threat laced between his teeth like a viper, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.

“Maybe if we knew your reasons, sir?”

Bill had the balls to ask what they were all wondering, though it took some nerve to question Sullivan again.

Why was the girl so important? Sure, she could somehow bleed plants, but that wouldn’t do them much good.

It wasn’t like they could just bleed her dry for a few leaves.

“That’s above your pay grade, lieutenant,”

Sullivan said.

The man reminded Jameson of a dog he’d once had.

A bully of a mutt with an underbite that made his teeth stick up past his lip.

The damn dog never stopped barking till the day he died.

It was always “that’s above your paygrade”

or “none of your concern”

or “don’t bother yourself with things over your head.”

It seemed to Jameson that Sullivan just liked to feel powerful.

And Jameson had a real problem with that.

“Now go find her.”

The trio saluted the captain and left the fort, braving the heat of the day.

Jameson pulled his hat low over his brow to shade his eyes.

“You sure you didn’t see nothin’?”

Bill asked, glaring at Jameson over a nose that had been broken one too many times.

“Sure,”

Jameson shrugged.

“I saw a flash of silver before she bashed my face with her plate,”

he replied.

“She’s as good as dead out there,”

Henry said, staring out at the dunes.

There were a few houses speckling the countryside, but the likelihood of any civilians taking her in seemed nil to none.

Not with the markings on her face.

Ever since the governor had implemented travel papers for foreigners, the locals had hunkered down and kept their heads low.

Whispers of political unrest had tickled their ears and that sort of affair was messy and expensive.

Better the civilians stayed out of it as best they could.

“Well, let’s go take a look, shall we?”

Jameson said with a smile, smacking Henry on the back before he strolled down the sandy hillside, gaining distance from the other two, watching the ground for her footprints.

They weren’t hard to find.

As nonchalantly as possible, he scuffed his boot over them as he walked—he’d grabbed a new set from his closet after the tongue lashing from Sullivan.

When not long after, he spotted the discarded boots, the ones he’d encouraged her to take, on the ground, he double-checked no one was looking and quickly moved them, even going so far as to point the toes in different directions before announcing his “discovery.”

“She must have headed this way,”

Jameson said, waving an arch in the air that indicated an area he hoped was the opposite of where she’d actually fled to.

“I’ll cover the ground to the right, Bill, you take up the other side, and, Henry, you take the middle.”

Jameson hoped that by “searching”

the area closest to where he actually found the boots, his team wouldn’t find any further evidence as to where she’d gone.

After several hours, the team returned empty-handed, and, predictably, Sullivan’s face turned a shade of red that rivaled the rocky plateaus lining the horizon.

They received a lashing.

Naturally.

A real one this time, though the bored way Sullivan thrashed the whip still made him shudder.

He hadn’t been beaten since the early training days when he and Samuel had been caught sneaking out together past curfew.

To this day, he didn’t know if the punishments had come because he’d broken the rules or because he’d been locking lips with the commandant’s son.

Whatever the reason, he hadn’t regretted it. Just like he didn’t regret this now. He’d never been one to hold onto regrets.

Fate had dealt the Arryvian a cruel hand, and demons could drag him kicking and screaming to the fiery pits below before he’d be party to it again.

Cal had done it right, treating her well and cordially, but the more he thought about it, Jameson wasn’t so sure Cal hadn’t been lied to.

He was still amazed she’d lasted as long as she did.

And a little proud too.

She was kind at heart.

He could see it.

He just wished the desert would see it too, and she’d be able to survive.

It was late in the evening, the moonlight sliding through the slatted window like an old friend, when Jameson decided to sneak around.

He still had some unbruised flesh that could bear another lashing.

He lowered himself from his bunk, landing silently on stockinged feet.

A quiet thrill slid through his blood.

Just like old times.

He prowled like a sandcat through the quiet bunks, the other soldiers sleeping soundly, only their snores to carry him on his way.

While he slunk through the halls, he dug around in his pocket for the hair pins he’d snagged as a keepsake from a lovely woman with chestnut hair.

He’d planned to see her again once this mission was over.

That was before he’d learned what this super top-secret operation was.

Now he doubted he’d be back anytime soon to taste those cherry lips.

He was quite glad that many of the guards were still recovering from their drunken revelry the previous night.

Sullivan couldn’t whip them all.

The captain, as it happened, was retired to his private chambers, probably sleeping on a fine feather bed after an exclusive feast made just for him.

At least that’s what the others said.

He didn’t eat with them, so it was safe to assume he was enjoying the special treatment his new station provided.

It didn’t bother Jameson at all.

It meant he could break into his office and glean some intel from whatever documentation Sullivan kept on the girl.

Jameson rounded the corner of the hall and was greeted by a long corridor with doors lining either side.

Two doors down was the captain’s office, where Jameson had seen him scribbling in a little red journal a time or two.

One peek at that would likely fill in a lot of gaps.

He pulled out the twin hair pins and knelt in front of the knob, glancing down the corridor before focusing on the feeling of the pins within the lock.

It was a piece of cake.

A shame, really.

He would’ve enjoyed a challenge.

He and Cal had practiced picking locks on each other’s doors many times to sneak out and go shooting together or, in their younger years, mosey on over to the brothel.

He could almost do it blindfolded, but Cal was better.

He was better at basically everything, the bastard.

The door swung inward with a slight squeak and Jameson slipped inside and closed it silently behind him.

The room smelled strongly of musk and tobacco.

And whatever cologne Sullivan liked—the place reeked of it.

A desk was tucked against the right wall with a cushioned chair.

Papers and folders sat in piles on top, a quill and inkwell nested next to them.

The other wall to the left held a tall bookshelf with titles ranging from interrogation tactics to cooking pastries.

It seemed whoever had sent them out here intended the mission to take a while, if they’d bothered stocking a bookshelf.

A trunk sat against the corner beside the shelf with another chair and a luminar hanging from a chain on the wall, which Jameson lit.

He started with the desk.

The pages looked to be typical reports.

Finances and supply statements, the daily activity log, names of all the guards and soldiers stationed here, and density of the nearby oritium deposits.

Yet nothing about the Arryvian woman. Strange.

He rifled through the stacked folders and found more of the same.

Interestingly enough, the reports seemed to focus on the oritium only.

If he didn’t know better, and was looking only at the reports, he’d believe their sole purpose here was to scout out resources.

That didn’t make any sense at all.

Carefully placing everything back the way it was when he’d entered, he opened the drawers and peered inside, seeing nothing of note, until he reached the last drawer, which held fast as he tugged on the handle.

Quickly debating whether he had the time, Jameson crouched and dug the hair pins into the lock until he heard the click.

Carefully, holding his breath, he slid the drawer open.

There, tucked beneath a circular paperweight denoting his new rank, and some travel chits, was the red journal.

He couldn’t help the smirk that tugged at his lips.

“Jameson, you clever bastard, you’ve done it again,”

he whispered.

He peeled open the journal.

Inside the front page was a letter sealed with a red stamp and the letter “C.”

He didn’t dare break the seal, so he turned the page and began skimming.

Brow furrowed, Jameson quickly read through the first page or so, confusion tugging the corners of his mouth down.

This did not sound at all like Sullivan.

It took him a few more moments to realize that the beginning was a word-for-word copy of Callum’s notes, taken meticulously while on the ship and transcribed here.

Flipping past those sections, he found where Sullivan took over the interrogation, the lines fastidious and orderly, as if from a stamp.

A line caught his eye, “Operation successful.

Subject transfer to off-site approved.”

Operation? Jameson hurried on, but the operation was not mentioned again.

Instead, the journal was filled with observations on the Arryvian woman, always referred to as the “subject,”

and what seemed to be the different interrogation techniques Sullivan had employed to try and get her to crack.

Verbal abuse, physical and mental discomfort, tactics to revisit.

It was fairly impressive, in a completely disturbing sort of way.

“Come on, you snakey fucker, give me something…”

Jameson muttered to himself as he flipped onward, feeling the urgency pushing at him.

He’d been in here too long already.

But Sullivan was careful, and nothing in this journal gave Jameson much of anything to go on.

Just before he closed the journal, a section on things that he couldn’t make sense of at all caught his eye.

Who gave a shit if the “subject adjusted well to the food?”

With a hiss of frustration, Jameson went back, looking for what he had missed.

Ah, there: “The introduction of dampstone into the sustenance provided to the subject has been approved and implemented, initial results of edibility pending.”

A sound out the window pulled Jameson back to the present, and he replaced the journal with as much care as he could while moving as fast as lightning.

A few moments later, and he was strolling down the hallway, whistling slightly under his breath.

His illegal activities had given him no real answers beyond that the captain was clearly hiding something.

And Jameson intended to find out what.