Broken Skies

Is Jace safety or threat? A switch flips and my body chooses a response, an answer. One I can’t handle. Ice shoots through my veins and my heart pounds in my ears. Short gasping breaths in through my nose are all that I can manage. My eyes can’t blink, they just watch the twisted anger on my brother’s face. When my arms start shaking, Jace steps back with his hand over his mouth, shaking his head. He reaches out a hand, but I flinch and his face falls. I can’t reassure him. I can’t do anything but stand there frozen and hope this passes soon. My eyes close, unable to watch the emotions trailing across Jace’s face. Still anger, but mostly horror and shame. Tears trail down my cheeks and I don’t know who they’re for, me or Jace.

“Jax.” My eyes shoot open and Lir is standing in front of me, his green eyes direct and honest. He reaches out a hand and I want to flinch away, save Jace this pain, but I can’t. My body and my heart know Lir. To them he’s safety and assurance. At some point he’s filled the gaping hole left when my brother was taken and he can calm me. Gentle reassurance flows from him, quenching the fire and washing away the fear. When Lir’s hand reaches my cheek, I lean into it and the choking gasp from Jace breaks my heart.

The panic fades and we start off again, Jace in front of me and Lir and Rym bringing up the rear. The whole exchange took no more than five minutes. Five minutes that have uprooted my life and everything I thought I knew. Five minutes that have destroyed Jace more than anything the E’rikon could have done to him and it’s all my fault.

The silence, already uncomfortable before, is painful now, cutting into me like a knife and giving my brain free reign to replay Jace’s horrified face in my head over and over again. I reach out for him, but Jace pulls his hand away from me and angles his body away.

There’s no going back from this. My chin falls to my chest in defeat. Lir’s hand searches out mine and I grasp it like the lifeline it is. I’m selfish and I’m horrible, but I need that hand no matter how much it hurts Jace. I can’t do this alone.

TWENTY NINE

We end up in a large lobby area, a glass wall separating us from the street. Through the glass, it’s clear that there is chaos outside. There’s no fighting where I can see, but smoke or dust fills the air and another distant explosion rattles the glass and rumbles under our feet. Not distant enough.

“I need to find Trel and…” Rym presses his lips together and glances at me. “…try to stop this.”

Lir steps in front of him. “This is not your fault, Cousin. There is no way we could have known.”

Jace tilts his head to the side and looks back and forth between them with narrowed eyes. “What are—”

“So what now?” I ask.

“Now…” Lir’s gaze goes from the window and back to me, a pained expression on his face. “You and your brother should wait here. There’s—”

“Wait here?” Jace throws his arms up. “There are bombs going off out there. We need to get out of here.”

Lir shakes his head. “This building will be safe. It’s on the outskirts of the city and the humans have no reason to target it. No tactical value, it’s only a research facility and—”

“Research? That’s what you’re calling it these days?” Jace steps forward and jams one finger into Lir’s shoulder. “Back where I come from they call that torture, erk.”

Lir whirls to face my brother, his posture vibrating with rage. “And where I come from we call the killing of helpless civilians murder. But you would know all about murder, wouldn’t you?” Without taking his eyes from my brother he points one finger toward the window. “I realize that you would not recognize our skyline, or rather, what it missing from it, but I do. The building that stands right there,” he jabs his finger against the glass, “is gone. My family’s building. I pray for your sake they were not inside.”

Jace snorts, but he won’t meet Lir’s eyes and his voice is strained. “Why? What are you going to do?”

Rym takes a small step backwards.

Lir’s eyes slide closed and he takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When he opens them again, nothing but coldness lingers in his gaze. The heat of his anger rolls through the link to me in contradiction with the icy stoicism he wears on his face. “What I must.” He turns briskly. “Rym. Let’s go.”

“Lir.” I step forward.

With curt shake of his head, he steps out of my reach. “I ca

His face blurs behind the moisture building in my eyes. A single tear falls and tracks down my cheek. After a moment’s hesitation, Lir moves forward, wipes it away with one finger, and then cups my cheek with his hand. “I will keep you safe however I can.” He leans forward and gently presses his lips to mine.

I don’t want gentle. I use both hands to pull him closer, pressing my lips so hard to his that it’s almost painful. His mouth tilts and opens and I slide my tongue past his lips with a whimper. He groans and moves his other hand up until he has one on either side of my face. There’s so much I need to say, but there’s no time to say it. I’m sorry. I need you. Thank you. Please don’t leave me.

I love you.

The hitch in his breath is the only clue I have that something changes in that moment. I open my eyes at the sound, my lips still pressed against his, and he looks back at me in surprise. The emerald green orbs of his eyes glowing with something I can’t name. It’s only there for a moment before he closes his eyes again and pulls away from me.

“Jax… I…”

I don’t want to hear this, so I cut him off. “It’s okay. Go. We can talk later.”

I fall back against the wall with a huff and watch him walk out the doors. Lir and Rym disappear around a corner in the distance and I close my eyes and take a deep breath, sliding down the wall until I’m sitting. I may never see him again.

Jace speaks up beside me. “Jax…”

“Just don’t. I know what you’re going to say and I will not defend him to you.” I send a glare his way. “I shouldn’t need to.”

“You’re right.” He sighs. “But I can’t help that my gut reaction is not to trust any of them.”

“You don’t have to, just trust me.”

His hand moves across the floor and he twines his fingers with mine. “I do…” The next words come out in a whisper and his voice breaks. “I never thought I’d see you again. It kills me that I wasn’t there to protect you.”

“You’ve been the strong one for a while. It’s my turn now.”

Jace smiles at me and squeezes my hand. “Thanks, Sis.”

Then the world explodes around us.

The walls don’t just rattle, they crack and shatter. Chunks of debris rain down from above and I’m thrown backwards with the force of the explosion, skidding to a stop twenty feet away with a burning pain in my side, a five inch shard of glass sticking out just below my ribs.

Coughing, I fumble at the glass, my fingertip fumbling for a grip against the blood that coats it. The feel of the skin parting registers before the pain as my right palm splits against the edge. I pull my hand back with a hiss, the blood welling around the cut and trailing down my wrist. Not too deep, my fingers still bend and I’ve got feeling in it so no nerves or tendons were severed. Raising it above my head I rip at the gown with my other hand, yanking on a torn edge until a swath of cloth pulls away. I wrap my palm as tightly as I can, then grit my teeth and use the padding my bandage provided to grab the glass and pull it out, a pained gasp erupting from my mouth.

My back hits the wall and I lean back and catalog the rest of my body. Sore and obviously bruised, but not critically injured. At least I don’t think so. I blink the dust out of my burning eyes and take in the room around me.