Unbroken

I took her hand in mine and squeezed, just a little. “I know,” I said. “But, Isabel, you know we cannot go back there. We just can’t. It’s too dangerous, and all that we can offer them is a pyre or a grave. There are people who need our help to stay alive, and that is where we must turn our efforts.”

“We could use him,” she said.

I knew who she was talking about, but it was something I didn’t want to bring up—not here, not in front of Esmeralda, who was tightly coiled in the corner, watching us with her bright, odd eyes. She was, I thought, jealous. Jealous of the two of us, together, sharing this small grace. Perhaps she’d even been jealous of the fact that I’d taken her with me on the trip to Hemmington. I had no way of knowing; she’d never admit it, if so.

But I didn’t trust her, and couldn’t help that fact. Telling her there was a Djinn captive in a bottle was something far too dangerous. The temptation would be irresistible for her—either to torment the Djinn, or to use him for her own benefit. She had a bad history of that kind of behavior, after all.

No, far better I keep Rashid as a secret, for now. I might have need of him—or Isabel might, though I couldn’t trust his forbearance with her for long. He wasn’t a creature of patience.

“Hey,” Luis said, and I glanced up at him. Iz did not. “Let’s talk outside a minute, Cass.” I nodded, hugged Iz once more, and stood to follow him out of the van. He slammed the grimy back door and turned the handle to secure it, then walked away. Not far, but far enough that it was clear he didn’t want to be overheard.

Then he turned on me and said, “You almost got her killed.”

“I know,” I said. “I’m sorry. I never intended—”

“You may not intend it, but you can’t say you couldn’t anticipate it. I’m not letting her out of my sight again. Or you. No more splitting up, no matter what.”

“You needed time to—”

“To heal? Yeah. And you’re covered in cuts and bruises and from the way you’re leaning, you’ve got a cracked rib going on there, too. So you tell me, how are we protecting each other, exactly? How can we?” He swallowed hard and put his heavy, warm hands on my shoulders. “We have to look out for each other, because we need each other more than ever. So don’t try to protect me by putting me in the rear, okay? And I won’t do it for you. We look after the girls, and we watch each other’s backs.” He paused, and smiled a little. “God, you’re beautiful.”

I laughed out loud, because it was blackly comical—I was dirty, covered in bruises. My hair still had the shredded remains of leaves from the night in the woods. I’d been coated in dust in Hemmington, which at least had served to mask the nightmarish remains of blood and other less identifiable substances from the abattoir of that destroyed market. “No,” I said. “Not now, and perhaps not ever. But I think you are just surprised to see me standing.”

“Hell, girl, I’m surprised either of us is breathing. And you are beautiful. Always.” He kissed me so tenderly that it stilled everything for a moment, all the pain and fear and worry and time ticking away. And then he made me smile by saying, “Okay, I’m not saying you couldn’t get an upgrade with a shower and shampoo, maybe a change of clothes. I would personally love to see you in a towel right now.”

“You’re insane,” I said.

“Yeah, well, some people cope with certain death by getting a little bit horny. Why, are you saying you wouldn’t like that right now?”Oddly enough, even after everything—or, perhaps because of it—the idea had a certain bizarre appeal. I was overwhelmingly aware of time passing, of the situation worsening around us, but the fantasy that somehow this could stop just for an hour, perhaps two—that we could find some beautiful, quiet space for the two of us and live that fantasy out, in private—seemed breathtakingly lovely.

And impossible, of course. But I was starting to realize that today, and every day after, would be a study in the impossible. Each minute we both still lived was an improbable gift.

“If you can find a motel,” I said softly, with my lips close to his ear, “and find a way to keep the girls safe and elsewhere, then I will be happy to show you how I feel about your suggestions. Though I fear now is not the time.”

“I know,” Luis said, and pressed his lips to the sensitive skin beneath my ear, waking shivers. “But I figured the thought might keep us both focused for a while.”

It was certainly having a focusing effect upon me, but just then a sharp, shrill tune came from Luis’s pocket, and he pulled back and fumbled for it with evident surprise. “Thought all the grids were down,” he said as he checked the screen of his phone. “Back up, I guess. For now.”

“Who is it?”

He shook his head and pressed the button to accept the call. “Rocha,” he said. “Who is this?” I couldn’t hear the response, but I could see his face—still and frozen halfway to a frown. “What?”

I mouthed the obvious question again, but he looked away from me, frown slowly deepening. When I started to speak aloud, he held up his hand, palm out, to stop me.

“Yeah, I hear you,” he said. “You can’t be serious. It’s me, Cassiel, my niece—we aren’t exactly the infantry. You want an extraction, you’re going to have to send in reinforcements. Lots of them.”

Another pause. He turned completely away from me and lowered his voice. I picked out words that were disturbing, in or out of context—suicide, dangerous, impossible—but then he ended the conversation as suddenly as he’d started it, and shoved the phone back into his pocket. He stayed turned away from me for a few more seconds, hands fisted, and then slowly faced me.

“So,” he said. “I guess you heard something about that.”

“A suicide mission,” I said calmly. “Impossible. You used the word dangerous, but clearly that was superfluous, given the rest of it.”

He grinned, but it was a small, tightly controlled expression, and above it his eyes remained serious. “They’ve got a small group of Wardens trapped, and they need an Earth Warden to go get them. They’re Fire and Weather, can’t do it on their own. So I guess we’re drafted.”

“Where are they?”

He pointed down. “They’re trapped in a collapsed mine shaft,” he said. “And it’s deep. But since there are six of them, and we’re losing manpower all the time, I guess HQ doesn’t feel like writing them off quite yet. They want our—and I’m quoting here—best efforts at rescue.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How far down?”

“Honestly? Nobody’s sure. You know those miners in Chile they rescued a couple of years ago? Not quite that far, but farther than any sane person should have ended up. I’m guessing a Djinn shoved them in there and slammed the door.”

“And could still be guarding it,” I said. “Perhaps.”

“Yeah, maybe so. Which is why I don’t want Iz and Esmeralda along for the ride on this one. We take them all the way to Seattle, get them settled and safe, and then we go on to the rescue.”

“We just agreed we wouldn’t split up.”

“You want to drag two kids down hundreds of feet into gas-filled tunnels where any little spark could blow us all up? I’m pretty sure Esmeralda wouldn’t go anyway, which would split us up to begin with. And I don’t want Iz down there. Call me crazy, but I think we’ve done enough to her for one day.” By we he meant, of course, me. I’d done enough to her for the day. And he was entirely right. “We’re going to need help, especially if there’s a Djinn involved.”

I cocked an eyebrow. “Will you trust me in this?”

“Don’t I always?” he asked. “What am I trusting you about, specifically?”

“I’d rather not say right now.”

His head tilted a little to the side as he regarded me, and although the trust I’d requested was there, so was a healthy dose of doubt. I didn’t blame him. I’d have felt the same, really. “But you’re going to say before we’re half a mile underground and getting hammered by a pissed-off insane Djinn, right? And it’d be real handy if you had, say, a Weather Warden in your back pocket who could manufacture breathable air, because I’m thinking the lack of that will be a little challenging.”

“Trust me,” I said again.

He dragged a gentle finger down the side of my face. “Oh,” he said. “Cassiel, if I trust anybody today, it’s you. I got no choice, do I?”

In truth, I wasn’t sure that made me feel very much better.

“Excuse me,” said a new, and very tentative, voice. I turned, and there was a woman standing a few feet away, with her hand clasping that of a small boy of about six years old. She was pretty, and the uncertain voice