ColorBlind (Book #2 of S.H.A.D.E.) ✔

Shade of Jade

22.

My lungs are burning when we finally reach Copper and Jade.

The sight of them at odds throws me off. Copper has a gun pointed at her spine, her arm twisted behind her back, forcing her to show him to where the technology is being stored.

Her face is so different, and it really knocks the breath right out of me that she is not the broken girl I met in the basement. The girl in front of me has sharp eyes that cut through everything she looks at, and her chin does not quiver, but is absolutely set, stern in her resolutions. This is a different shade to Jade I never thought existed.

And Copper's face is just the opposite, full of uncertainty, but she can't see that from in front of him, and the chaos that is written in the hollows of his cheeks and bruises under his eyes skitters away into the recesses of his composure the second he spots us running down the hall. A tug at his lips is reserved for me, but I know he's hurting.

He cared about Jade -- cares about Jade. Those feelings don't fade in a couple of hours, I know that. I respect that. I just wish he wasn't hurting so bad. She was what he had when he had nothing, before me. And even that was a lie.

"Are you hurt?" Copper asks me as we finally reach them.

I nod, giving him a look.

"I should ask you that."

"It's fine."

"She tell you yet?" Onyx asks, glaring at Jade.

"Just in here, or so she says." Copper nods his chin to the door just ahead, at the end of the hall.

"I'm right here. No need to speak like I'm not," Jade says, and her strong voice once again throws me through a loop.

I shake my head in disbelief. "You're really something. I actually believed you, back in the basement. I busted my ass trying to save you."

"You wanted to save yourself, don't antagonize me."

I curl my hands into fists. "You tried everything you could to keep me down there so they could erase me again, erase Copper again!"

Copper pales and I feel sorry for saying it out loud.

"Did you ever care?" he asks her.

For an instance, Jade's face softens, her eyes casting down at her feet. "What does it matter now?"

"Why did you do this?" Copper's voice becomes angry, hurt. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"Gray's in my head. The Demons are in my head. How could I have?"

"Still--" I begin, but she lets out a bitter laugh.

"Still? Still what? What do any of you know about what I've been through? I was stolen from my family, I was taken by S.H.A.D.E. just for daring to love their best Sync. They were going to murder me to make a point! But Gray came, and I thought I had an ally, finally someone on my side, but he drugged and kidnapped me -- stuck me in the basement under the watch of Demons. But they didn't just watch me, they--" her voice cuts off as it reaches a fever-pitch. "Well, what do you all care? Huh? I'm just the bad guy here, right? Even if my family is under their surveillance, even if they'll kill them if I don't do what they say. I don't even know my family, but I guess I just had this hope that what they said was real-- that once you were all captured, they'd let me go back to them, that they'd hide me from S.H.A.D.E. and I can live happily ever after..." her voice lowers almost to a whisper, like a crescendo dying down. 

I am speechless. I don't know what to say.

She looks at Copper, turning her head to him so that their eyes meet. His hold has loosened on her. "I said I loved you once. You never said it back, but I didn't mind. I had someone to love. It's different now. Now, I don't love anything. I have no more heart to give.  I'm a heartless monster, and I've been changed. Is that what you want to hear?"

Copper's face doesn't crumble, but his hand lets go of her arm and he lowers the gun.

"Go."

She blinks at him. "What?"

"Go on, there's an exit just over there. Leave."

She stares at him, then at me and Onyx, her eyes wide. "I- where would I go?"

"Wherever you want. We're gonna kill Gray. You'll be free."

"Free?" Jade snorts, and then she starts to laugh, low in her chest at first, suppressed, and then her face contorts into a picture of madness, eyes wide and manical, mouth spread open to let the belting sound out louder and louder, teeth flashing. "Free?" she gasps at him. Her hand moves fast, pulling out a gun that was concealed inside her jacket, still laughing so hard her eyes are watering over so that tears fall down her face.

Copper raises his gun again, pushing me behind him. Onyx points his at her too.

"You are so naive, Will. You think killing one will make you free? There will be another to replace them -- always. You're thinking you can wipe them all out? Are you insane? They will follow you to the ends of the earth, to the end of your days, leaving a trail of everything you love and stand for ripped to shreds behind them. You will never be free so long as you live, and neither will your family, unless--" she pushes her gun to her temple, still laughing, and shoots.

I look away as her body hits the floor.