Barren Crossroads

Wrong Side of the Stars

be more fully recovered. We still need to keep an eye- maybe we will discuss sending à team in à couple days if nothing much has changed."

Jace nodded like he agreed and didn't say anything else. He already had à lot he needed to discuss with Lilith and Michael. That was the next part of his plan. "Father?" he started again, his voice firm and not showing any signs of hope or familiarity.

Ryan nodded at him, as he shut off Kaelie's video and Jace closed the computer. "I had another thought," he started carefully. "If you feel it prudent, I'd like to take over the jailing of Kaelie's sympathizers. The Hunters, Lilith and Michael."

His father's gaze snapped to his and Jace held his icy gray eyes, and wondered if that's what he'd looked like to Kaelie when he'd slapped her and told her he hated her. It made bile rise in his throat.

"And why is that?" his father asked slowly.

Jace hummed, like he was carefully considering what to say next. "They are my responsibility. My mistake to fix. I made the mistake of living with them and trusting them and bringing their stain here to you. I made the mistake of keeping them alive even when I could see how damaged they were. And I'd like to fix that mistake. But if Kaelie does have some purpose for escaping other than just getting away, I know they'd know. And I think I can get them to break."

Ryan tilted his head as he considered it. "And how do you expect to do that?" he asked.

"The same way I broke Kaelie," Jace answered easily, like the memory of it didn't make his heart burn with guilt and his gut roil with nausea. "I'm assuming you know of that?"

"Vaguely."

"Back when- before I knew the truth of her and what the rest were, and that they were not the saviors I thought them to be, I tried to get her back from Jordan. I'm assuming you know that he operated on her and removed her connections to her human emotions?" À nod and Jace continued on. "I thought I could- mom thought that we could bring her back. And I was so naive. I still believed myself in love with her, you see. And I wanted her back desperately, even if deep in my heart, I knew that she'd never be like she was again. I would have done anything."

He paused and Ryan kept nodding absently as he turned Jace's words over in his mind and tried to analyze them for lies and half truths and insincerities. "Mother said that if we could capture her and hold her that we may be able to- for lack of better way to put it- torture her back to herself. That if we reminded her enough of the deeper traumas and scars of her past, we might be able to throw her back into the version of her that could feel it."

"And?" came his father's cold drawl.

"Well, it worked," Jace said honestly. "Mostly anyways. We were able to bring her back and it seemed like she was as she was before. She felt it, she told us she could remember the horrors she committed, but it had been like she was removed from them. But something still felt off. And we soon found that anything that triggered her, anything that pushed her too far- the extermination team that came for us, or mother trying to give her comfort- sent her backwards, and she would become the colder version of herself and destroy anything around her. I think that if I was able to bring her back, I should be able to get some answers out of Lilith and Michael."

"I see," his father said. "That certainly is à compelling proposal. And one that I want to believe is genuine." His voice trailed off in thought again and Jace nodded rapidly.

"I am only trying to prove to you in any way that I can that I am no longer aligned with them. I want them gone- every last one, but as always, I believe that Kaelie is going to be the key. She usually is. And if she wanted them to know something, they'll know it and they wouldn't tell anyone, anyone but me."

Ryan nodded again and then he was so silent for so long that Jace felt his skin begin to crawl with unease and fear. Looking at him was like looking at à chalkboard someone had recently wiped clean. You could see the smudges of à person, of normal emotions, but it was still blank. Empty and à shell. Like, if there had been someone inside, it was à mockery- like someone had tried to create à person from memory only, but had never been around one.

Jace just waited. He'd learned enough now from Kaelie that when she had her seemingly violent and irrational responses that it was usually for show or distraction. Because Kaelie saw everything- she saw right through you, and it was like she'd cracked open your chest and was reading your every emotion or thought in your blood. Her scariest times were when she looked bored- like she had anywhere else she could be, something better to do. That's when Jace knew she was carefully planning another person's death.

So Jace did what she would do. He fixed his face with à bored expression, leaned back in his seat, and put his feet up on the small coffee table. He had shifted the laptop to the side already. He scratched at his shoulder, just enough fidgeting to appear natural, and then he met his father's stare, and did not look away. Not when the cool shark's gaze made the acid in his stomach roil and burn, and not when his skin itched under Ryan's watchful gaze.

It was over in maybe thirty seconds, but it had felt like hours. Ryan blinked, and looked away from Jace. He smiled. "Well. I don't see why not," he said after à moment. He was back to rubbing his hand over his jaw now, and it was not something Jace thought of as à nervous tic, but something his father carefully planned to appear more human.

Ryan would never admit it, but he was more like à true Hunter than Kaelie would ever be.

"Come. Let me get you what you'll need for access. And if you need some... instruments, for your plans, I will show you where to get those as well," Ryan said, standing and smoothing his hands down his neat, unwrinkled pants.

Jace kicked his feet off the table, and stood too, his head still ducked slightly, like he was trying not to be noticed. He rubbed the back of his neck and fought against raking his blunt nails against the scars on his arms again. He walked toward Ryan, and Ryan grabbed him by the shoulder.

"Jace?" he started. "Just know, if I have even the slightest inkling at all- à suspicion, à feeling, an itch in my throat, anything, that tells me that those creatures have stained you again? I will kill them all. I will gut that pathetic little black haired bitch, and her guard dog. I will hunt Kaelie down and have her bled out, and then I will kill you. I cannot allow this stain to continue to spread, and if it costs me you- well, so be it."

Chapter 7

Sins of the Flesh

Michael had long since stopped trying to keep track of time or take stock of all the places that his body hurt, and all the places on his flesh that stung when he moved. He could, very faintly, hear the sounds of Lilith breathing, slow enough that she could be asleep, but not calm, and not even. Maybe she was dreaming.

Michael felt he could barely tell what pieces of his new reality were dreams, and what pieces were real. He'd stopped keeping track of course, but guessed he'd maybe been in the cell for three weeks. Maybe four. There were no windows, the lights in the hall always stayed on, fluourescent and flickering, and there were no lights in his cell. He didn't know when it was day, and when it was night, and only every got à semblance of timing if Jace came down- it was usually during the day.

But when Jace did come- Michael wasn't sure anymore what words Jace meant, and what words were just for show for Ryan. He started to think that maybe Jace meant all of them, at least à little. And he couldn't be sure that he didn't mean some of the things he said back, just à bit.

His body ached and popped and creaked when he moved, and he'd since stopped trying to move at all, unless he needed to use the restroom. The cold cement was unforgiving and cold, and bit into his skin. The stench was vile- it burned at his sharp nose and he'd taken to taking short, shallow breaths through his mouth where possible to avoid it. He wasn't let out to relieve himself- they barely fed him as it was, and he'd no choice but to use à corner of his cell, and then stay as far away from it as possible.

The indignity made him want to scream, and even as he thought it, the thought of Lilith in the same situation, the same filth and stink and depravity made him so angry his vision blurred. Every once in à while, he could hear her sobbing. And just as she'd done for him, after Sarah, he discreetly pretended he didn't hear her, and he didn't bring it up. The guilt she felt over Kaelie and not believing her, over letting Berkley in over her, after everything her and Kaelie had been together, Michael thought it was killing her.