Tortured: Book Three of the Jason and Azazel Trilogy Read online

"Do you agree that everything's falling apart?" asked Professor Moretti. "That a rough beast is slouching toward Bethlehem to be born?"

  "Of course not," I said.

  "Perhaps slouching towards Shiloh?"

  I jumped back as if I'd been burned. Shiloh was the place that Jason was born. Did Professor Moretti know? "Shiloh?" I repeated, trying to sound nonchalant and clueless.

  "What's happened to you in your life that you understand Okonkwo's plight, Amy?" asked Professor Moretti.

  "Nothing," I said. "I don't understand his plight. I don't know. I guess he did have flaws. I mean, maybe he did bring the whole thing on himself."

  "Maybe he did," said Professor Moretti. He put my paper down on top of the pile of other students' papers and stood up. "In Things Fall Apart, the rough beast that changes the world of the Igbo is the white missionaries. This school is funded by the Sons of the Rising Sun, as I'm sure you're aware of. Do you know much about the Rising Sun legend?"

  I swallowed. "Why are you talking to me about this?" I asked.

  "Are you late for something, Amy?"

  I shook my head. "It's lunch," I said.

  He nodded. "That it is. I won't keep you too long. I promise." He smiled. "The Rising Sun?"

  "A little bit," I said. "But I don't see how it connects. I mean, the Rising Sun isn't a 'rough beast' is he? He's not evil."

  "Our legends tell us he would impose a completely new order on the world," said Professor Moretti. "He would change everything. Is there any way for change to happen without violence and bloodshed and revolution? Aren't there some people who would see that as evil?"

  "But it's a legend, right?" I said.

  Professor Moretti shrugged again. "There have been reports," he said. "Buzzing in our organization. Signs and wonders. A boy who can drive men insane and rise from the dead. A boy and with him . . . a girl."

  I swallowed again. Shit. He did know. "But that doesn't fit, does it?" I said. "I mean, the Rising Sun was supposed to act alone, right?"

  "You know more than a bit about this legend, don't you?"

  "No," I said. "No, I don't know anything. And I really was supposed to meet someone for lunch."

  Professor Moretti nodded. "Mr. Black, then? The two of you seem quite close."

  Damn it, damn it, damn it. He had to know. First George Churchill. Now this. Jason and I were going to get ourselves killed. Of course, George had seemed scared.

  "The reports," I said. "Officially, I thought that the organization didn't think that the boy in those reports was anything special."

  "Well," said Moretti, "wouldn't it be odd if things were falling apart in the organization? If the center couldn't hold?"

  "So this boy, then," I said, "if you saw him, you might think that he could be, well, dangerous. To things he perceived as threats." I was treading a pretty fine line, here. After all, Professor Moretti did work for the Sons. Directly. And I was all but admitting who I was. Still, if the word about Jason had travelled this far, maybe I could still scare him. Maybe.

  Professor Moretti raised his eyebrows. "Noted, Amy. Noted." He smiled. "I wouldn't think he had anything to fear. Not from me. Go to lunch."

  * * *

  I couldn’t find Jason in the cafeteria. I tried calling his cell phone, but he didn't pick up. Instead, I just sent him a text message, telling him we needed to talk as soon as possible. Palomino and Chance were sitting at our regular table. I got some food and sat down with them.

  "Where's Jason?" asked Chance.

  "I don't know," I said. "I haven't seen him since our last class. He's not answering his phone."

  "Are you two fighting?" Chance asked. "Because last night when I got back, he didn't seem like he was in a great mood."

  "We're not fighting," I said.

  "You can tell us," said Palomino. "We were fighting, you know. It's okay to fight."

  "We're not fighting," I said.

  "Is it about your drinking?" asked Palomino.

  "Yeah, are you drunk right now?" Chance asked.

  "I'm not gonna drink anymore," I muttered.

  "We're just trying to help," said Chance.

  I got up. "I'm not really hungry," I said and walked off. Chance and Mina were calling after me, but I didn't pay attention.

  Instead, I left the cafeteria and went for a walk. I had a lot of things to think about. Outside it was warm. The leaves on the trees were green. The grass was growing. It was late spring. I could hear birds calling to each other. Could see insects crawling along the sidewalks. It was a beautiful day. And everything was going to hell in my life. Fast.

  I wandered between the ancient buildings of the Sol Solis school, gazing at my feet if I passed anyone. I wanted to be alone with my thoughts. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I didn't even want to smile at anyone.

  It was bad that Professor Moretti seemed to know who Jason and I were. Even if he said that we didn't have anything to fear from him. What did that mean, anyway? How had he figured it out? Was it really because of my stupid essay? Was that enough to arouse his suspicions? I guess, despite the fact that Jason and I had changed our names, we still did seem suspicious. We appeared right after the incident in Shiloh. We were together. And Jeremy and Amy were maybe too close to our real names. What was Professor Moretti going to do? Would he tell someone? Would he try to hurt us?

  Even if he didn't do anything, I didn't like the idea of his knowing who we were. It meant he had power over us. If we didn't need to get into that library so bad, I would have told Jason that we just needed to leave. Of course, it wasn't like we had anywhere to go. We were fugitives from the Sons and probably from the authorities too. Maybe there were wanted posters up in Georgia, with my picture on it. I was a murderer after all.

  That was what the dreams were trying to tell me, weren't they? I was always dreaming about doing horrible things. Clearly, I hadn't worked through my guilt over killing my brothers and Lilith. But hell. Was that the kind of thing you worked through? Did you forgive yourself for stuff like that? Was there even a way to forgive yourself for something so horrible?

  Did I even deserve to be forgiven?

  Why had I done it?

  I'd done it for Jason. I'd done it for me. They were going to kill Jason—Noah and Gordon. They'd captured me. They'd pursued me in their car. They'd forced me to wreck. They weren't exactly nice brothers. But that didn't mean they should be killed, did it?

  My parents had always told me that life was about choices, and the best thing you could do was to make the most constructive choices possible. Anything destructive, they'd said, should be avoided at all costs. And I'd destroyed my brothers. And Lilith too. With Lilith, it seemed like a clear case of self-defense, though. She'd had a knife to my throat when I did it.

  Still.

  Even if I'd been defending myself. Even if I'd been defending Jason. I couldn't accept the fact that I'd done what I'd done. It had been bad enough when I'd had to deal with the fact that Jason killed people to defend me. This was something that I just couldn't deal with. I didn't know how.

  The worst part of it was that sometimes I wondered about Jason himself. My family had been convinced he was so evil that he deserved to die. His own mother had prophesied that he'd enslave the human race. His own father thought that Jason was a monster that he'd created. And my brothers had shown me all these interviews with people who said that Jason had killed people. And that while he'd been doing it, he'd been smiling.

  Jason said it wasn't true. I believed him.

  Didn't I?

  I had to believe him, didn't I, because if I didn't, what did I have left? I'd done everything, sacrificed everything for Jason. If I didn't believe in him, what did that mean my life was? A farce? A waste?

  Besides, I knew Jason better than I'd ever known someone. Hadn't I held him when he'd cried? Hadn't I slept in the crook of his arms, feeling him hold me, listening to him murmur that he'd do anything to keep me safe? If I'd sacrificed for Jason, he'd sacrificed for me too. Ev
ery time he did something to save me, he lost a piece of his innocence, and he didn't have much left. I'd wanted to spare him that. I'd wanted to take care of myself. But if we kept this up, would there be anything left of either of us, or would our souls disappear into calluses? Would we rub them so raw that eventually the only protection we'd have would be not to feel?

  In some ways, Professor Moretti was right. I did feel like Okonkwo's life had been stolen from him. And I felt like my life had been stolen from me too.

  But the truth was that things were never going to be the way they used to be. I was never going to be normal girl, going to school, just thinking about school dances or what to do with my hair. And if I were honest with myself, I didn't even want to go back to that kind of naiveté. Ignorance might be bliss, but knowledge, however painful, was always preferable.

  * * *

  By the time I got back to my dorm after classes that afternoon, I was starting to get worried about Jason. He hadn't called me back, and he hadn't been in any of the afternoon classes that we had together. I didn't know what had happened, but I hoped Professor Moretti didn't have something to do with it. He'd said that Jason didn't have anything to fear from him, but now, as near as I could tell, Jason was missing. As I made my way up the stairs to my dorm room, I tried calling him one last time. It went to voicemail, as it had all day. Where was he?

  I burst into my room and flounced on my bed. I was worried.

  "Hey," said Palomino.

  "Hey," I said.

  "Why'd you run off at lunch?" she asked.

  "I've got a lot on my mind," I said.

  "Like what?" asked Palomino. "Because I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do with this baby, and I'm not being rude."

  I sat up and surveyed her. "That's debatable," I said.

  She threw a pillow at me. "Come on," she said. "What's going on? You can tell me."

  "I haven't seen Jason since English," I said. "I've been calling him nonstop and he's not answering."

  "He's probably hanging out with his brother," she said.

  I stood up. "What?"

  "I was going to tell you at lunch, but you ran off," she said. "I met Jason's brother this morning. His name's Jude or something?"

  Jude. Crap. I crossed the room to Palomino. "Where did you see him?"

  "Outside the dorm this morning," she said. "He asked me if I knew Jason."

  "And you said yes?" I was incredulous. "Didn't you ever think there was a reason Jason and I are going under assumed names?"

  "Jesus. Don't yell at me. He's Jason's brother," she said.

  "Who tried to kill him the last time we saw him!" I exclaimed.

  "Oh wait," she said. "Maybe I do remember something about that."

  "So help me, Palomino, if anything happens to Jason because of you—"

  "Calm down," said Palomino. "I didn't tell him anything. I just said that I knew who Jason was, but I didn't know where he was."

  "You didn't tell him anything? Nothing at all?"

  * * *

  I called Chance. Jason wasn't in his room. He hadn't been all afternoon. I told Chance to let me know the minute he showed up, or better yet, have Jason call me. I paced, even though Palomino couldn't understand why I was so upset. I wanted to break down and spill everything to her, but Jason and I had decided that it was safer if Mina and Chance were in the dark about most things. The more they knew, the more danger they'd be in, or so we thought.

  I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't think Jude was really a match for Jason. Jason had been trained by the Sons, and he was fast and strong and very deadly in a fight. Jude had spent all his time growing up with his crazy mother. Jude hadn't had any training. Of course, that hadn't stopped him from putting a bullet in Jason's skull, just a few months ago. If Jude had a gun, could he have . . . ?

  I didn't want to think about it, but I couldn't think about anything else.

  There was no one to help me.

  The last time Jason had disappeared and I couldn't find him, I'd had Hallam, Jason's friend from the Sons. But Hallam had been working with Edgar Weem all along, betraying us. Hallam was out of the picture. Jason had told Hallam that if he saw him again, he'd kill him. And I was pretty sure Jason had been serious.

  I asked Palomino where exactly she'd seen Jude and began asking everyone who lived in our dorm if they'd seen him too. They hadn't. And they hadn't seen Jason either.

  I thought about trying to call Brother Mancini in Rome, but the Reddimus monks weren't violent people, and I didn't think they'd be able to do anything. Besides, while Brother Mancini and the Church were willing to help us in our struggle with the Sons, I didn't think they were extremely concerned with our welfare.

  As the hours ticked by, I began to get more and more desperate. Every call I placed to Jason's phone went straight to voicemail. I didn't know what to do. I could go and look for Jason, but I had no idea where he might be. If Jude had taken him or done something to him, they could be anywhere. I didn't have the first idea about where to look.

  But I had to do something. Curfew was looming, but I left the dorm anyway, and went to the assembly hall. The old church didn't seem a likely place for Jason and Jude to be, but it was the only place Jason and I went to besides our dorms. And I had dreamed about it the night before. I felt drawn there. The guards there were getting ready to lock up the building, but I told them I really needed to go the bathroom, and it would take me just a second. They let me in. I hid there, hoping that they'd go do some rounds and think that I had left while they weren't looking.

  It worked.

  Once the guards were gone, the old church was silent and dark. I crept out of the bathroom and did a quick sweep of the sanctuary. No one there. I'd known this would be a bust. There was no reason to come here. There was nothing I could do, except sit by my phone and wait. But if Jude had . . .

  On impulse, I traced the path from my dream last night, back through the church. Jason and I had never been in the church's basement. As far as I knew, it didn't have one. The basement in my dream had been a figment of my imagination. There was no way that there was a door back here.

  But there was. And it looked exactly like my dream.

  Had I seen this at some point, out of the corner of my eye when I was in the church? How could I have dreamed about something I didn't know existed? Swallowing, I eased the door to the basement open.

  A flickering light greeted me from the bottom of the steps.

  I took a step inside, placing my foot on the first step. I tried to do it carefully and slowly, but it made a noise.

  "Hello?" said a male voice from the basement.

  And before I could move, Jason rushed up the first few steps. He was a little sweaty, his dark hair sticking to his forehead. His face was dirty and so were his clothes. He was holding a gun.

  "Azazel," he said.

  I rushed to him. "You're okay?" I asked, hugging him hard.

  He hugged me back. "I'm okay," he said. "How did you find me?"

  "I . . . I had a dream . . ." I pulled back from Jason and surveyed the basement. Jesus. It was exactly the same, even down to the light bulb hanging on the chain. And in the corner, tied up in the same place Chance had been, was Jude. He looked unconscious. He looked like he'd been beaten up pretty badly. I could see that his right eye was red and swollen and that his lip had been bleeding. I turned to Jason. "What happened?"

  Jason shrugged, wiping at his sweaty forehead with his dirty shirt. "I ran into Jude," he said.

  "That's it?" I asked. "Why is he tied up? What did he try to do you?"

  "Nothing," said Jason. "I didn't give him a chance to do anything."

  "Okay, so why is he tied up and beaten up?"

  "Well, he did shoot me in the head the last time I saw him, you know. I don't think he's exactly trustworthy."

  That was true. But Jude looked like he'd been punched around a little. Okay, a lot. "You hit him?" I asked.

  Jason was quiet for several seconds. "Azaze
l, you should go back to your dorm."

  "What?" I said. "No. What's going on here? You haven't been answering your phone—"

  "I've been busy," said Jason.

  "You weren't even going to tell me about this?" I asked.

  "Of course I was," said Jason.

  I looked around the basement again. It was so much like my dream. The whole situation was weirdly like my dream. But instead of my brother tied up, it was Jason's brother.

  "Look," said Jason, "it's obvious what has to be done about Jude. And I know that you've been having those dreams. And I didn't want you to have to be part of it. It doesn't bother me so much, so I thought I'd just take care of it, and then let you know after. But you don't have to watch, you know."