"How many people did we lose?"
Jared remained silent, ignoring his father's question and staring blankly at his hands. The blood speckled across them stood out like grotesque freckles and he felt an overwhelming urge to sprint to a bathroom and scrub it all off until his blood was pooling at the surface instead.
It'd only been 3 hours since they'd attacked the S.I.S and already news articles were erupting across the internet. They'd known taking the fight public would be risky, that the S.I.S would control of the media, but none of the rebels thought they'd have to face that problem. Seth Azemar was meant to have died today. It was meant to be over.
He heard Evans clear his throat.
"There might still be some stragglers who escaped into the city," he said. "But only 10 people who were out in the carpark have returned. We've lost more than half our men."
The silence that followed was loaded. Jared could feel the pressure pushing against his ears until it was broken by a crash. He looked up to find a lamp smashed on the ground, and Brenton pacing beside it, his hands clenching and unclenching repetitively.
Jared could see Brenton's fury churning below the surface and for a moment he stared. That was how he was supposed to be feeling. His anger should be pumping off him, virulent and toxic. He should want to destroy Leah for what she did, but all his mind could process was the way she'd looked at him as he'd held his gun to that redhead's temple. Her eyes had been like green flames, and he'd felt himself burning in them.
"It was a complete disaster," Brenton muttered through gritted teeth. "We're lucky any of us got out of there alive! They had no idea we were coming. We took out their defences and alarm systems. So how did it go SO BLOODY WRONG?"
It took Jared a moment to realise that Brenton was staring at him, his gaze cold and merciless.
"I don't know," Jared said sharply. "I didn't know Leah could do that."
Evans' head jerk towards him, along with the other ten men in the room. They knew as well as Jared did that his reply had been dangerously unapologetic.
Brenton's eyes narrowed and Jared could sense his father's anger reforming, turning its head straight towards him, like a roll of thunder. It made him feel an ugly satisfaction, a fierce relief that finally he'd get a chance for some sort of release – some way to vent the panic and frustration that'd been building inside him from the moment this plan formed.
"Well," Brenton said through gritted teeth, "maybe you should've figured that out before letting her go back to her goddamned family without consulting me."
"You're the one that made that machine we used on her," Jared snapped. "You should've told me about the side effects."
"I didn't know what happened would be a side effect!"
"WELL THAT'S EVEN WORSE!" Jared screamed.
For a moment, the room was entirely silent and Jared blinked, shocked at his outburst. He'd never yelled at his father like that, not ever. He could see Brenton's second-in-command, Parker, sneering at him out of the corner of his eye and he felt suddenly overwhelmed.
He shouldn't even be here. The chaos Leah created back at the hotel should've killed him, and he felt strangely cheated that it hadn't.
"How do you expect any of us to keep fighting for you when you don't even understand what you're doing yourself?" Jared finally asked.
There was an intake of breath and Brenton's eyes narrowed.
"I don't need to completely understand the connection between the two worlds to know that what the S.I.S is doing is cruel. Don't forget that none of this would've happened if we'd been in a world where death doesn't exist. No one would've died, no one would be grieving lost loved ones."
"No," Jared said, anger straining his words. "This wouldn't have happened if you'd been less impatient. I told you to give Leah more time with them before –"
"I WASN'T GOING TO MAKE THE ENTIRE WORLD WAIT FOR YOU TO GET YOUR GUILT UNDER CONTROL!" Brenton shouted.
"Enough!"
Jared hadn't realised he'd been advancing towards Brenton until Evans came between them, pushing them both backwards forcefully.
"Arguing will solve nothing," Evans said, his voice hard. "What's done is done. We already need to do damage control now that this fight has gone public. We can't be worrying that Leah is going to attack us again as well. Focus on that instead of tearing each other apart."
Jared took a step back, eyeing Evans angrily. The fact that he was one of the only rebels Jared unswervingly respected was the only reason he wasn't considering punching him.
"There's not much we can do about Leah now," Jared said. "Not after Brenton told her we were tracking them through the necklace. They'd have gotten rid of it by now."
"Well, you need to figure something out," Brenton snapped at Jared. He'd backed up too, but his eyes were still flaming. "This is your fault. You let her go, now you need to fix it."
"How?" Jared bit out.
"I think you know," Brenton said. "Find her and kill her."
"How am I meant to –"
"We're fighting for a good cause, Jared," Evans said quietly, his calmness a contrast to everyone else's anger. "Don't forget that. None of us want to hurt anyone. It's the S.I.S that are forcing us to."
Jared's hands clenched to fists but then he sighed, feeling suddenly flat. "I know."
He glanced at Brenton and for a moment he could see the desperation behind his anger.
"You need to find a way," Brenton said.
Jared nodded numbly.
"Whatever the cost," Brenton pushed.
Leah's voice was suddenly ringing in his head again, her words from the world of the dead rolling between his ears unrelentingly.
Your father is cruel. Is it that hard to believe he'd murder someone he loved?
Jared banished the words to the back of his mind.
"Can I leave now?" he asked.
Brenton nodded and Jared exited quickly. Panic was pushing against his veins, and he didn't want anyone in that room to be near when it inevitably exploded. There were hundreds of images pressing against his eyelids, merging together into a fogged-out landscape of blood and bullets. His mind replayed them over and over, torturous in their clarity.
He wasn't sure why the rebels' actions today felt more like murder than their attacks used to; he wasn't sure when he'd started thinking he was stealing lives rather than extending them. But even if that's what it was, wasn't it for a good enough reason?
He'd made it half way down the corridor when he heard a door open behind him and a second later a hand slammed into the centre of his back. He stumbled forward and spun around to find that Parker had followed him out of the room. He was sneering, his eyes glinting nastily.
Jared's eyes narrowed. "What do you want?"
Parker had always unsettled Jared. There was something twisted about him, a potential thunder clap hidden behind everything he said. While most of the rebels tried to curb Brenton's radical side, Parker always encouraged it. It made him a dangerous second-in-command, and Jared had refused to follow his orders enough times that the enmity between them long stopped being subtle.
"I just want to make a few things clear," Parker said, moving forward. Jared refused to step back and ended up far closer to Parker than he really wanted to be. The older man stunk of sweat and blood.
"You might've convinced Brenton and everyone else that you're still with us," Parker said, "but I'm not quite so gullible. Just know that if you make one wrong move I won't hesitate to kill you."
Jared stared at him blankly for a moment before he started to laugh. It was manic, unhinged, and he could feel a cut on his ribs breaking back open with the movement.
Parker's mouth twisted in rage as Jared buckled over in front of him.
"Laugh all you want, but you're not as untouchable as you think."
Parker went to grab him by the collar, but Jared dodged out the way, whipping his knife out and pressing it against Parker's neck, his laughter shallowing to silence.
"Considering we're exchanging threats," Jared said, "here's mine. If you ever touch me again, I'll rip your arms off."
He flicked his knife forward and nicked the side of Parker's neck. The older man jerked away, his hand covering the scratch.
"Now get out of my way," Jared said coldly. "I have a job to do."
For a moment Parker stared at him, his jaw tense, but then he turned and started to walk back towards the conference room.
"Watch your back, Maverick," he growled. "If you fuck us over, even Brenton won't be able to save you from me."
...
Hey everyone!
Just wanted to say a massive thank you to all of you who are reading for sticking with the series!
Poor Jared's feeling quite conflicted. Do we think he's going to do what Brenton asked him to?
This chapter's dedication goes to @kinikiligx for your hilarious comments on the last chapter :P
Next update in 2 weeks time :)
- Skylar xx