Marked

Chapter Thirty

"I know but I had to try." She said against his chest. "I thought it was the only way to save you all."

"I know, Rachel. I know."

"So much happened between me leaving the ship and arriving here."

"You can tell me about it."

Her eyes darted to the ceiling and then combed hastily through the room.

"He might be listening." She breathed. Hector nodded his agreement and went to the television set in the other room.

She followed after him and sank down into the couch while he messed with the TV screen. The screen sprung to life with a short jingle and Hector rubbed his faced while he tried to figure out how to operate the damned thing.

Finally, he found a button that turned the volume up, the entire room becoming engulfed in the meaningless commentary of some type of sports broadcast. He could tell from the looks of the uniforms that this hadn't been filmed recently.

Returning to the couch, he sat across from her, watching as she wrung her hands together over and over again. It was a sign that she was nervous so he reached out to steady her hands with his own.

"We can talk now but do it quietly. ," He murmured. "What happened to your mother? Where is she?"

"She was with me until we crashed into the city's shield wall. We landed in the woods and that's where they found us--and..." She swallowed and when she spoke again her voice was much lower. "She led them away from me but not before she gave me this."

Reaching into her shirt, she pulled out a tiny oval-shaped disc that shone under the light streaming in through the windows.

She closed her hand over it again with a white-knuckled grip.

"What is it?" He whispered.

"The key to stopping him." Her red hair obscured half of her face, spilling over her shoulders and sweeping her collarbones. Moving closer, she rested her cheek against his own, her warm breath at his ear. His fingers brushed back strands of her hair as he listened intently. "When the time comes, I'll have to transfer Corina from him and into me using this."

Her lips grazed his ear and he sucked in a breath.

"I'm sorry." She said, pulling away, her cheeks flushing. "I'm not trying to...I just-I don't want us to be heard."

Though he found her blush endearing, it was her words and not her kiss that made his breath catch in his throat. He wanted to shake her and ask her what she was thinking, risking her life that way. But seeing her looking up at him with her big, blue eyes, with her chin set with determination and her shoulder squared bravely, all he wanted to do was kiss her.

Allowing himself this one minute of distraction, he reached up to cup her face. Their eyes met, hers looking at him as if he had all the answers in the world, his contemplating her with admiration. It still shocked him how proud she made him to every time she stood up for something she believed in. He couldn't think of anything more attractive or more beautiful.

Leaning in closer, he brushed his mouth across hers in a simple, short kiss. With his left hand he held the back of her head while her mouth molded against his, her body soft and pliable between his arms.

He promised himself only one more moment of drinking in her breath, just one more moment and then he'd come back to reality.

"And how does it work?" He reluctantly whispered against her mouth and finally pulled away.

Her cheeks were red again and she cleared her throat before speaking.

"He's got one just like this in the back if his neck. It connects him to Corina and allows him to operate the marked ones. I need to get close to him which means we'll have to play nice for a while. You'll have to play nice." She emphasized.

It looked like punching a few more walls would be in his near future.

How else was he supposed to be around that piece of shit without killing him?

"I can handle that but happens once he trusts you?"

"I have to cut the one he has out of his neck and install this one into mine. It might kill him...my mom said it could even kill me if I don't do it right but it's our only option. How else do we save...everyone?"

"Okay," He said. "Okay, we have a plan. That's good. We can do this." He squeezed her hand. "We can do this."

Rachel smiled but it didn't reach her eyes.

"Hector, there's... something else you should know..."

Concern furrowed his eyebrows. When her eyes went down to her lap, he knew he had to brace himself for whatever blow was coming.

"I saw Juan on my way here...he-he was..." She trailed. Anger and panic coursed through his veins. His jaw clenched and he struggled to breathe evenly.

She didn't even have to finish the rest of her sentence for him to confirm what he already knew —that Juan, his little brother, had been Marked.

Hector curled is hands into fists and placed his head between his hands, trying to calm the roaring in his mind.

He could see his father clearly in his mind's eye, as if he were right there, standing next to him under the shade of the old guava tree.

Son, if anything happens to me, you have to make sure to protect them.

So far he'd done a shitty job. He'd protected no one and now Juan was Marked, something Hector wasn't even sure someone could come back from.

Let's say they succeeded in taking down Nicolas. Ruth had said there was no way to remove the Mark, only to shut Corina off by infecting her with a virus—a virus that he and Aaron had been tasked with swiping from the capital when they went in to rescue the bunker people and Rachel.

There was no telling what side effects would be left behind. What if frying Corina fried everyone else's brain? What if the person that was Juan was now lost forever?

The thought of losing his brother, the only brother he had left, was enough to bring tears to the front of his eyes. He couldn't remember the last time he'd cried but he wasn't about to do it now. With his body unwilling to grant him that release, he tried to focus on what he knew to be true.

They had a real shot here at taking Nicolas down, he only had to focus if he wanted to succeed. He had to. For Juan.

So he did the only thing he could do—he pushed his feelings aside to be dealt with at a later time and promised himself that someday, somehow, he'd make Nicolas pay for what he'd done to Juan.

"I'm so sorry." Rachel said.

Hector drew in a deep breath and looked at her again. She was studying him with big, blue eyes that were filled with tears that were close to falling. In his moment of grief, he'd forgotten that Rachel loved Juan too. Needing to be strong for her, he swiped his thumb over her cheek and smiled.

"We're going to fix this. It's going to be okay. I mean it, Rachel, it's going to be ok."

Rachel nodded and her tears subsided as she clung onto his words.

What he didn't tell her, the part that he kept secretly to himself, was that when the time came, it'd be him that commanded Corina and not her.

Just in case that was something you could never come back from either.

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A/N I thought I'd try something a little different and give you a little taste of what goes on in Hector's mind. What did you think? Did I do him justice? Tell me below in the comments!