A Lonely Road

Sting of Betrayal

Jace looked back at Kaelie and there were three bodies on the floor in front of her and they turned to dust in front of his eyes. New Hunters. "You know, Ben, now would be a really good time for you to use that fucking gun," she snarled, and then groaned as she took a heavy blow to her ribs. She fell to one knee and Jace could see the rest of the Hunters swarming her, and then she was buried in a pile of arms and legs and the sound of flesh hitting flesh made Jace's skin crawl.

"Hey," he shouted, without thinking, and seven heads snapped to his, Kaelie lay crumpled on the floor. One Hunter advanced on him, but he was heavier and wider than Jace, and Jace swung around behind him and plunged Kaelie's knife into the soft spot at the base of his skull. He went down, and his body crystallized, and now the rest had moved to attack him, and Jace knew it was just to get him out of the way so they could finish what Ms. Rose had told them to do.

He saw Kaelie get up from the corner of his eye, her hair tangled, matted with dried blood. She stumbled to Ben's discarded gun, and pointed it at him. "Move," she mouthed, and he dove to the side, tumbling down the steps painfully as Kaelie tore through the Hunters in a hail of bullets. Jace pulled himself back up to where she was and then they were running again, bursting onto the roof of the lab, and the hot Arizona air dried Jace's sweaty face.

He turned to Kaelie to ask her what they were going to do now, how they were going to get down, but the words died in his throat at the expression on her face. Her face had paled under the dried blood and filth, and her shoulders drooped. He followed her gaze and his mouth dried. Michael, Sarah, and Lilith were there, waiting like they said they'd be, but they weren't alone.

They were restrained by the same guards that had been with Ms. Rose to take Jace, and another, smaller guard. Jace wanted to scream when he recognized her as the girl he'd run into when he was looking for Kaelie. She seemed to catch his eye, and her blue eyes were regretful, but she held to Lilith tightly.

"Man, our luck really is the worst," Kaelie muttered to herself, and Jace couldn't help but agree. Every turn they made lead to more blood and death, and he was really beginning to wonder if they would ever be able to get away from the Illusion. He was bone weary and exhausted, any adrenaline and stamina he had had before was fading.

They were on a rooftop, covered in gravel and plants, a little rooftop garden that would never look out of place in downtown Pheonix, the lab disguised as an office building had to be the only reason that the Illusion was still operating out of it without the U.N having caught on. The scene in front of him only seemed to get stranger. The attack in the stairwell was meant to distract them, to slow Kaelie down so that Ms. Rose could beat her up here, knowing the other three would wait for Kaelie as long as they could.

They'd taken too long. There was a round white table set in the gravel, near the south end of the roof, a bottle of wine and two glasses sat in the middle. There were rose petals on the table, and Jace saw the bare heads of flower stems on the rose bush behind Sarah. Serna Rose sat in one chair, regal, hair smoothed back into place from the explosion that had freed Jace, she looked immaculate, her facial expression impenetrable.

"Kaelie," she said finally as Kaelie neared the table. "Good of you to finally join us, dear." Her mouth was painted red, and Jace watched Kaelie's face twist in disdain.

"Serna," Kaelie responded, and Ms. Rose's eyes widened at Kaelie's form of address. "Little melodramatic, with all this, don't you think?"

Ms. Rose disregarded Kaelie's question and gestured at the chair in front of her. "Have a seat, Kaelie."

Kaelie raised an eyebrow, but she released Jace's hand, and stepped towards the table, carefully pulling the chair out and sitting gingerly. "You got out quicker than I thought you would," she said, and Ms. Rose gave a smile that Jace thought was distinctly snakelike.

"Did you think I was just going to stay in there, Kaelie? We still haven't finished our discussion," she said. She reached a pale hand to the bottle of wine, produced a wine opener from the other, and pulled the cork slowly. She poured two glasses, slid one to Kaelie.

"No, thanks," Kaelie said. "And, incidentally, I recall that my nose is the result of me ending our conversation, or was that just for fun?"

"Motivational, that's all. I am sorry to have marred your beauty, however. You are truly one of my more astounding creations." Ms. Rose still had her lips pursed into a smirk and Jace was once again distinctly reminded of Kaelie, the way she did that when she knew something she wasn't saying.

Kaelie scoffed at her words. "Oh, Serna. I wouldn't say that. Seeing as how I've never done anything you wanted." Kaelie ran one of her fingers around the rim of her glass, an eerie ringing filled the air. She stopped.

"So, Kaelie, would you like to change your answer as to my question? Look around. I don't think you have much room for that stubborn streak of yours," she said.

Kaelie shrugged. "Oh you mean, that whole plan where I take charge of your crappy Hunter army and help you and the president take over the smaller countries. Then we move on to the bigger ones. Go U.S.A and all that, right?"

Serna nodded, and sipped from her wine. "Yeah, look, that's gonna be a no from me. I don't want any part of this. I didn't want to kill for you before, and you had me and my friends locked up. What makes you think I'm going to kill for you now?"

"We have a bond Kaelie. You cannot turn me down that easily," Ms. Rose said, her tone matter of fact.

"Wanna bet?" Kaelie asked in a hard voice.

"Kaelie, what is she talking about?" Sarah asked and Jace wasn't the only one left in the dark and confused.

"You never said anything, Kaelie?" she asked and Kaelie just sighed.

"It wasn't important. Never changed who I was, what I believed in. You think this is going to affect them? Think they're gonna turn on me, and I'll be so devastated that I would hurt people that you deem disposable?" Kaelie asked. "Go ahead. Drop the bomb you think you've got. You don't know these people like I do. We are family. We stick together. Go on then."

Jace looked at Michael, and saw his own confusion mirrored in his face. "What does she mean Kaelie, what's going on?" he asked.

"I'm her mother, Jace. I carried Kaelie after her DNA was constructed in my lab, by your mother."

"Well damn, I saw that coming a mile away," Lilith said, blowing air through her teeth. Ms. Rose's jaw clenched, and Jace had to hand it to them, Kaelie and the rest of them, they knew how to get under someone's skin, how to derail even the most carefully laid plans, it was like they rehearsed it.

"Not quite as game changing as I thought it would be, to be honest with you, Serna," Michael remarked.

"Yeah, I think there was a lot lost in the delivery, if you ask me," Sarah said and Ms. Rose's face was nearly purple in her anger. Jace laughed out loud, despite the tension, and he wondered if he was getting a little crazy after everything that had happened.

"So, mommy dearest," Kaelie started, her mother's smirk on her lips as she watched Ms. Rose squirm. "Not quite the effect you were going for, was it?"

Jace saw movement out of corner of his eye and he turned his head as slightly as he could. He looked at Kaelie again, trying to keep his discovery off his face. Ms. Rose did not seem to notice anything, and the cool demeanor she'd had when he and Kaelie had burst on to the rooftop was gone. She was angry, her control had slipped, and Jace could see Kaelie using it against her, could see the similarities between Kaelie and her psuedo-mother. Even injured and battered, Kaelie sat straight and tall, she looked regal, and her lips were pulled back into a cold smile as she regarded her mother.