Jagger gets the hint, stands up, and leaves back hunched over, head down.
I’ve lost my appetite, so I place the tray on the floor outside my door.
I lock my door, crawl under the sheets, and try to sleep even though it’s early in the evening, but I wind up tossing and turning for hours, my body aching. I give up and sneak out to the training room where I spend the entire night working my frustrations out on the track. When I tire of running, I find a couple of sparring dummies in one of the weapons closets, drag them out, placing them at equal distances apart, pick up the Pugio blade that still has spots of Kedua’s blood on it, and use it to slice up the dummies, all the while picturing Artemis as one and Quin as the other.
Chapter 19
The plans for getting into Nuceira have been made without me.
Even Jagger is left out of the preparations, so I’ve no way of knowing exactly what Artemis has in mind. I sit by my door daily, hoping to hear anything about the trip since I’m not allowed to leave, and the housing complex has been jammed with people for the last several days. I’m finally lucky today as I overhear someone walking past advise the guard outside my door that they’re leaving for Nuceira early in the morning. I crack open my door to get a better listen, pressing my face against the small opening.
“Braxton has ordered twenty guards to begin preparations for leaving from the south platform before first light. He wants you to stay here and make sure she doesn’t leave.” The man points to my door. “He doesn’t want her to move from that room until we get back, understood?”
“Yes, sir,” the guard says, standing a little straighter.
The man walks away just as Jagger approaches with my lunch tray. I quietly close the door and go sit down on my bed. A few moments later my door opens, Jagger walking inside. The guard closes the door. Jagger places the tray on the dresser instead of handing it to me. He lifts the silver cover from the plate and hands me what is hiding under it - a Levin gun.
“I’ll bring you a change of clothes at dinner time,” he says, as I stare at the gun. “We’ll leave through the service doors at the bottom of the rear stairs. I’ll have a transport car waiting to take us to the southern platform.”
“How long have you known?”
“Since last week when I overheard Braxton telling his second in command that you and Kedua are to be kept here while Artemis monitors the incursion from the Overseer’s office in the city. I figured your main goal has been to get to Lehen using Artemis, so let’s use him.”
I smile as he leaves the room. Jagger’s made some mistakes, but all in all he’s a valuable ally.
Dinnertime rolls around a few hours later, but no Jagger.
I begin to pace the room wondering what might have happened as the hours tick by slowly. I eventually tire and resign myself to go to bed as it appears he’s not coming.
At some point later on, my door bangs open, startling me out of a fitful sleep. Artemis’s head guard, Braxton, marches into my room, the light from the hallway cascading onto his grimaced face.
“Here,” he says, as he throws articles of clothing at me, “put these on and be downstairs in five minutes.” He goes back out the door, slamming it loudly as he leaves.
I turn on the light by the side of my bed and look at the items that have been given to me: black form-fitting pants, a long sleeve shirt, and a belt with a holster for the Levin gun. The material is thin, which will allow the Quantum Stream on my arm to be visible even through the dark color. I get up and dig around the dresser drawers, looking for a thicker top to wear underneath, which I eventually find, slipping it on. Before I don the pants, I strap the knife onto my inner thigh with a brown leather sheath, grab the pair of boots that I’ve been wearing, and make my way downstairs. As I reach the bottom step, I spot Jagger talking to Braxton. They are both wearing a similar outfit to mine, but are carrying more weapons.
“Your friend here is very persuasive,” Braxton says to me, as I join them.
“What Artemis doesn’t know won’t hurt him,” Jagger says authoritatively.
The three of us, along with two other guards, pile into a small transport car. I become cold quickly as the weather is freezing and the material of the clothing is not retaining heat. We move about the platform then onto the city proper. I watch as tall metal skyscrapers go whizzing by. We wander through the city and exit onto the southern platform where a lone shuttle rail juts out of the station.
The transport car slows down as we approach the interior of the structure, then stops alongside the shuttle that currently sits idling. As I exit the vehicle I see more than two dozen guards and Regulators step onboard. We join them in the lounge section towards the front, leaving the station moments after our arrival.
It’ll take us a full day to reach Nuceira. Our shuttle changes tracks once we reach the station just outside the Boroughs. The windows of the shuttle change from the hard landscape of the Boroughs to a lush evergreen forest as we begin our journey south. We eat a small meal after four hours into our trip.
“How’d you get Braxton to agree to this?” I ask Jagger, as we sit next to each other munching on our sandwiches.
“I’ll tell you later when there aren’t so many people around,” he replies.
After eating, I get up to go wander down the shuttle, Jagger right behind me. The first two compartments we enter are sleeping quarters, ten
