Survivors of PEACE Page 18

  “Aren’t they getting a little out of hand?” Zira asked.

  Alma shook her head. “They’re just making themselves heard.”

  Zira gave her a skeptical look. It still felt strange to see demonstrations like this, even just on the news. She kept waiting for armed officers to show up and for the tumult that would inevitably ensue once they tried to silence the marchers.

  “You missed the worst of it,” Alma said. “You should have seen the chaos right after we took over. It was all we could do just to keep things under control. Some of them were looting stores and setting fires and throwing rocks at each other. We had to enforce a curfew for a while.”

  Jared gave her a sidelong glance. “You had to have known that sort of thing might happen.”

  “We did. Just not on that scale.” She ate a few more bites of her eggs before speaking again. “Maybe I’m a terrible person for thinking this, but sometimes I wonder if we should have waited just a little while longer.”

  “Waited for what?” Zira asked.

  “To attack the compound. Things would have gotten worse, but maybe that’s what people needed. If Ryku had done just a little more damage, maybe everyone would have been more willing to accept us and what we’re trying to accomplish.”

  She finished her food and stacked some of the dirty dishes from the coffee table on top of her plate before heading to the sink. “I should get to work,” she called from the kitchen. “Make yourselves at home while I’m gone. And get some rest.”

  As she grabbed her bag and walked out the front door, Zira couldn’t help wondering if she was right. If the rebels had waited, maybe things would be easier now, but at what cost? More people would have been arrested, more would have been killed. She and Tripp might have been caught. Ryku might have discovered the radicals were far more numerous than he ever realized and eradicated them before they could do anything. And Jared likely wouldn’t have survived his imprisonment much longer.

  She glanced over at him as he leaned against the arm of the couch and scooped the last of his eggs into his mouth. Even doing something as casual as eating breakfast in the living room, he looked strong enough to crush bones with his bare hands. Her stomach twisted at the thought of him sitting in a cell, weakened by whatever torture Ryku had put him through. She’d already lost Aubreigh, and just the idea of losing Jared too made the space between her lungs ache.

  Maybe the rebels hadn’t done everything right, but she was grateful they’d chosen to attack the compound when they did. Even if it meant there were people who hated them now.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  After breakfast, Jared and Zira both headed to the rooms Alma had assigned them to get some much-needed rest. Jared took care to open his door quietly, not wanting to wake Tripp. When he stepped inside, though, he found the man awake on an air mattress that had been inflated opposite the room’s twin size bed. He sat with his knees bent up in front of him and his arms stretched out on top of them. One hand was curled into a tight fist while the other dangled loose above his foot. He didn’t even look up when Jared came in.

  “I thought you’d be sleeping,” he said as he closed the door behind him.

  Tripp shook his head and continued to stare down at the space between his knees. “Couldn’t sleep. I…um…” He turned his fist over and slowly uncurled his fingers. On his shaking palm lay several round, white pills.

  Jared froze. He wasn’t exactly sure how to proceed, but he had to get those pills away from Tripp.

  The man’s eyes went from Jared’s face to the pills, and then back to the floor. “I need you to get rid of these for me.”

  “Okay.” He took a step forward and reached a hand out.

  Before he could take the pills, however, Tripp snapped his fist shut and looked up at him again. “Without telling Zira or Alma.”

  Jared hesitated, reluctant to hide something he knew Zira would want to know. But the most important thing was that Tripp didn’t relapse, assuming he hadn’t done so already. He looked at his eyes, checking to see if his pupils were constricted. They seemed normal, but it was hard to tell in the dim light that came from behind closed curtains. His voice sounded a little more flat and mellow than usual, but not extremely so. Then again, maybe this was a different class of drug altogether, and the symptoms associated with being high were completely different.

  He needed to tell someone—someone who knew more than he did—but first, he needed to confiscate those pills. So even though he wasn’t sure he really meant it, he said, “Okay. I won’t tell them.”

  Tripp placed the pills in his open palm.

  Before the man could second guess his decision, Jared left the room and went down the hall to the bathroom, where he flushed the drugs down the toilet. When he returned to the room, Tripp was still sitting against the wall, but now he held his head in his hands with the heels of his palms pressed against his eye sockets.

  “You want to talk about it?”

  He snorted. “No, but I probably should.”

  Jared sat on the bed facing him and waited a few seconds for him to continue. As the silence stretched on, he tried to figure out what he should say. This wasn’t exactly his area of expertise. What if he just made everything worse?

  At last, Tripp spoke. “I feel like such an idiot.”

  “Did you take any of them?”

  “A couple. Just enough to take the edge off.” He stretched his legs out and tilted his head back against the wall, still not looking Jared in the eye. “I promised Alma I’d try. I couldn’t promise that I’d never use again, because that’s what I promised last time, and look how it turned out. Look how it turned out this time. I’m so stupid.”

  Jared still didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to give unsolicited advice, especially since he didn’t know what advice to give. He could listen, though. If Tripp needed to talk, maybe it was better to just keep him talking. He opted for a question. “How did you get the pills?”

  Tripp sighed. “When I left the room to find someone to discharge us, I came across this other patient in there looking for painkillers. Good actor, but when you’ve done that yourself a time or two, it’s easier to see through it. I followed him to the hospital pharmacy when he went to fill his prescription and bought the pills off him afterward.” He shook his head and looked over at Jared. “I don’t want to go back to how I was before you and Zira found me. I really don’t. But when things get out of control and there’s nothing I can do about the situation, it’s just easier to not have to deal with any of it.”

  That feeling of powerlessness and uncertainty was something Jared had grown very familiar with. “After I left the compound, I tried to get as far away as I possibly could, but it never seemed far enough. I knew Ryku wanted me dead, and I knew the rebels did, too…or arrested, at least. I was alone, and I didn’t have the safety of the compound walls to go home to anymore. It was terrifying. I can understand why someone would want to escape that feeling however they could.”

  “But you didn’t. Not like me.”

  “We all slip once in a while,” Jared said, remembering an endless list of his own mistakes. “You made the right choice in the end.”

  “I guess.”

  “You have other people who can help you with this stuff, you know. Not that I’m not willing to, but…well, I did try to kill you once.”

  “You know, sometimes I almost forget about that.”

  “I’m just saying you’re not alone. Zira, Alma, the rest of the team, me—we’ll help however we can.”

  “I know. I should probably tell Zira, right?” He grimaced a little at the idea.

  “That’s your call, but I think she’d want to know.”

  Tripp sighed. “She’ll probably kill me if I don’t tell her. Rita, too.”

  “Well, Rita would make a much better counselor than me. They didn’t teach us any of this stuff in ‘assassin school’ either.”

  He laughed and stood up, already going through his CL for
Rita’s contact information. “For an amateur, you didn’t do half bad.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Over the weekend, Zira, Tripp, Jared, and Nova worked with the employee services manager at the National Security Department to find new living arrangements. To Zira’s relief, it didn’t take long, and by Sunday afternoon, they were provided a new home closer to work. Considering they only had to move the four mattresses and a secondhand refrigerator they’d purchased earlier that afternoon, it didn’t take much time to settle in. Their previous house and everything in it had been completely consumed by the fire, but the entire SIO office had banded together to donate clothes, bedding, and some food, all of which Alma brought by later that evening.

  Zira dragged her mattress over to a spot under the window in her new room, then stepped back to look at all the empty space. Replace the mattress with a sleeping bag and it might have resembled some of the places she and Tripp had stayed in during their time running transports for the rebellion, except cleaner. Much cleaner.

  She went back out to the open kitchen and living room area, where Tripp and Jared were putting groceries in the fridge. She and Nova had their own rooms while Jared and Tripp were sharing the third. Tripp had told her about his minor relapse, and in light of that, she was relieved he wasn’t going to be in there alone. She didn’t think he would actually try to sneak out and buy heroin or any other drug again, but she wasn’t completely sure he wouldn’t, either. She hated to imagine what might have happened if Jared hadn’t been there or if Tripp hadn’t confided in him.

  Nova joined them a few minutes later. All in all, she seemed to be coping well with everything that had transpired over the last few days. She kept to herself and didn’t say much, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary for her. When Zira had asked her how she was doing, she’d just shrugged as if wondering why Zira was even concerned. But she’d spent a year doing transports for the rebellion, too, so maybe she was as accustomed to inconsistent living arrangements as Zira, Tripp, and Jared were.

  Tripp poked around in the fridge while muttering to himself about what to cook for dinner, but ultimately, they settled on peanut butter sandwiches, which they ate standing in the kitchen or sitting on the countertops. Zira had just finished hers when someone knocked on the door. She went to answer it while Nova, never one to appreciate unexpected company, slunk back to her room.

  “Rita,” Zira said cheerfully when she saw the older woman standing outside. “I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Well, here I am. Are you going to invite me in, or what?”

  “Yeah, of course. Come in.”

  She stepped inside and thrust a big canvas bag into Zira’s arms. “Here. A housewarming gift. I have two more boxes in the car. Ah! You there.” She pointed to Jared, who had wandered out of the kitchen to see what was happening. “You look like a strapping young man. Go out to my car and get the big boxes out of the back, will you?”

  Jared nodded and headed outside. Tripp trailed just behind him but stopped in the entryway to greet Rita. They embraced, and when they parted, she patted his arm and looked him over from head to toe like a concerned grandmother.

  “What are you doing here?” Tripp asked.

  Rita clicked her tongue. “I can’t just stop by to say hello?”

  Jared came back inside carrying two large cardboard boxes stacked on top of each other. “Where should I put these?”

  “Oh, thank you, sir. The kitchen would be best. It’s just some pots and pans and canned vegetables, things to make sure you’re all getting a proper meal.” She gave Tripp a sidelong glance. “I expect you to put it to good use. You’ve always been too skinny.”

  Zira suspected another reason she’d brought the items was to ensure Tripp was able to keep up with his culinary hobby, which had proven to be helpful in managing his addiction and taking his mind off his cravings. “Thank you so much,” she said. She excused herself and followed Jared into the kitchen with the canvas bag in tow, which she set down next to his boxes. Together, they began sorting the contents into cupboards.

  A few seconds later, Tripp led Rita through the kitchen and dining area to the small patio out back, leaving Jared and Zira alone in the kitchen.

  “Nice of her to bring all this,” said Jared.

  “She probably just wanted an excuse to check in on Tripp. You were great with him the other day, by the way.”

  “I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “I’m glad you were. I’m glad someone was.” Even if it hadn’t been her. “I should have been paying more attention. All the signs were there. His life was in danger, he blamed Ryku, and we were in a hospital with thousands of drugs just sitting around.”

  “They weren’t exactly just sitting around.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “You can’t blame yourself. We all thought he was okay. He’s been doing so well.”

  Zira leaned back against the counter and folded her arms. “He did well for six years. And then he relapsed. He almost died, and I wasn’t there. I’m here now, but this happened anyway.”

  Jared walked over to the counter and mirrored her pose. She could feel his body heat against her skin, his arm just centimeters away from hers. She stared down at the floor and did her best to ignore the nostalgic sentimentality creeping into her chest. It was the last thing she needed right now.

  But she didn’t reposition herself to put more distance between them, either.

  “He gave up most of the pills,” Jared said. “A few months ago, he wouldn’t have done that. The fact that you’re here now to support him now makes a difference.”

  Her first inclination had been to focus only on the negative—that Tripp had felt the need to turn to drugs to cope, as he’d done before. But Jared had a point. There was a bright silver lining to the whole situation.

  “I’m just relieved he’s okay,” she said, turning to look up at him. “Thank you.”

  He shrugged. “He’s my friend, too.”

  They stood there without speaking for a while longer, until Jared broke eye contact and went back to putting away pots and pans. Zira stayed where she was and watched him for a few seconds. A curious mixture of respect and appreciation began to bloom inside her chest. He was a good man. A good man who genuinely tried to do the right thing, even if he didn’t always know how.

  Without being able to pinpoint exactly when it had happened or what had created the change, she realized she had simply stopped caring about all the past conflict and misunderstanding between them. It was time to move forward. She was glad he’d stuck around long enough for her to figure that out.

  * * *

  When they all returned to work on Monday morning, Dodge and Salim requested a full play-by-play of the house fire and their escape from the burning structure. Tripp was happy to oblige them while Zira and Nova filled in a few details here and there, but Jared remained silent and excused himself from the conversation at the first opportunity. By Tuesday, the police and fire departments had released their official reports about the cause of the fire, which was indeed a Molotov cocktail that had been thrown through one of the upstairs windows in Zira’s room. However, they had almost no information about the arsonist or even whether there had been more than one. This wasn’t surprising to Zira, though she did hope whoever it had been wouldn’t attempt the same thing twice.

  That same day, Angela Yang issued a formal apology for her role in the events that had allowed the PRM to get their hands on Project munitions. She explained her choices as objectively as possible without making excuses for herself or blaming Chase, but the statement did little to dispel public outrage, and it definitely didn’t help Yang’s position in the presidential race. Thankfully, it didn’t further escalate tensions between the public and the government, either.

  In the meantime, Cedric and the other undercover SIO agents continued to send regular updates back to the office. The news was the same everywhere, and it wasn’t
good. More and more people were joining the PRM each day, and a substantial portion of those were throwing in with the True PRM, the more extreme half of the movement who wanted to see Ryku released and returned to a position of leadership. Alma blamed this influx on public perception of the Republic as a group of incompetent nobodies just playing at government. Some of the news that had come out recently only served to reinforce that position, the missing munitions being a prime example. The only thing they could do to change it was to find the weapons before the PRM used them, but the clock was ticking.

  When Cedric sent in his latest report the following week, that sense of urgency only grew.

  Zira read over his message a second time and marked the most important parts before forwarding it on to Alma. According to his information, members of PRM leadership were preparing for something big, but he didn’t have any details about what that might be. It seemed to involve PRM cells from all over the country, though—a conjecture that had been previously expressed by two of SIO’s other undercover agents.

  And then there was this section from the end of the report, which Zira puzzled over for the second time as she reread it. Three days ago, Mallory came to speak with some of the higher-ranking PRM leaders in our area. I saw her briefly as she was leaving. Her facial features did not match those of the woman we identified from the Project’s records. However, I was able to confirm that this woman does go by the name Mallory and that she used to be a member of the Project. It’s possible someone else has assumed the identity of the real Mallory, or that the Project’s records were incorrect or intentionally altered to mislead us.

  Or all of the above. Zira frowned as she typed a response to Cedric, directing him to log in to SIO’s network remotely and use the facial composite program to construct a likeness of the woman he’d seen. It wouldn’t be perfect—those images never were—but hopefully comparing it to Project records would help them figure out who Mallory really was.