Witness [A First Contact Romance]

36. The Last Supper

Lumeia

-17 (L.D.)

The year following Aeryn's capture was the true calm before the storm. Every day, Jace felt the charge in the air, could see the clouds swirling on the horizon, drawing closer.

That was the thing about life changing forever. Even when he could see it coming, there was no preparing for when it actually hit, whether it came swift as lightning, or built over time.

Nothing about what happened to Aeryn sat right with Jace even after all the time he had to think about it. Not only had Vehru let them keep their memories about what Petrin said–part of her denial that she took memories–but her refutation of the allegations, while just fine by the standards of normal humans, seemed entirely unimpressive for a seven-hundred year old world-conquering commander.

Couldn't Vehru have done a better job of convincing them? At twenty years old, they were kids by many people's standards. To someone as old as Vehru, they must have seemed like babies. And this was the best she could do with them?

Jace didn't buy any of it. Not anything Vehru said, not even that Petrin's people had managed to kidnap the Witnesses in the first place. The rebels had access to an Aerolux–something that made zero sense still–but shit soldiers that Jace could mow down so easily? The entire thing seemed like a suicide mission for Petrin and everyone involved, despite the fact that the rebel had seemed genuinely saddened to set off the explosive.

The unsettling feeling had never gone away.

Back then, when Jace went after Aeryn, he had known he was walking into a setup. He just hadn't cared as long as it meant finding her. After she'd first gone missing, he'd returned to the battlefield in the city where they'd just been fighting and ended up finding the corpse of a rebel who he now knew to be Joon. The rebel's dead hand had clutched the distinctly smaller disc of a bioengineer's hand mod. Trin had asked him over the earpiece to wait before he investigated Joon's home, but Jace wasn't waiting for anyone or anything. Not even supplies. He'd gotten his hands on plenty while in town and also went through just as much trying to make it out of the chaotic city alive.

The real trouble had started at Joon's house, because Jace's communications went down. He'd figured an SOS must have been sent like it had been for Aeryn, except no captors came for him. Instead, he found an address on Joon's desk that had led him to Aeryn.

Commander Vehru had been furious that Jace went to Aeryn without returning to the nearest base or town to report his findings. She'd said that if he'd called for help, they could have taken survivors and Jace and Aeryn wouldn't have nearly died. While Jace had told her that it had taken him less time to make it to Aeryn than it would have to get help, that hadn't been the entire story. Jace just didn't trust Vehru. He couldn't take chances with Aeryn.

It had been enough to nearly get himself sent home, which, thanks to Aeryn, he now knew meant he'd lose his memories. Which, of course, meant he'd lose her too. So, no. Jace was not going home.