djinn wars 03 - fallen (20 page)

“But then?”

She glanced away from me, over at the watercolor of the Rio Grande gorge that hung on the opposite wall. “We’d been locked up for about a week, I think, when he came roaring down into the holding cells. I really thought he’d lost his mind — he kept yelling at us, ‘How did they do it? Why did they take him?’”

Uh-oh. The sick feeling in my stomach told me who that particular “him” probably was.

Something must have showed in my face, because she said, “So it was you. I figured it must have been someone from Taos who came and took Miles away. But…I guess that’s one thing Margolis and I have in common. We both can’t figure out…why?”

The last thing I wanted was to interrupt her story with a recounting of everything that had gone wrong in Taos since I got back. Julia needed some context, though, so as quickly as I could, I told her about the rogue djinn and having to use Miles’s device here to keep us safe.

“But the djinn can’t keep on like this forever,” I said. “That’s why we took Miles. We desperately need him to modify the device so it can protect us without sapping all their powers.”

“And he’s actually cooperating?” she asked, expression indicating she didn’t think such a thing was possible.

“Yes. But he hasn’t had much luck so far.”

She seemed to absorb that, leaning against the pillows, her dark finely arched brows drawing together. “It sounds like you might have done Miles a favor in the long run, getting him away from Margolis. I can only hope he figures that out. For a brilliant person, he can be pretty dense sometimes.” Her eyes shut, and I wondered if what she’d told me so far had sapped her strength enough that she didn’t want to continue. I couldn’t bear that. I dreaded hearing what had gone on back in Los Alamos, but I needed to know what had happened to her and Dan.

But she blinked then, and focused her gaze on me. “I’d thought Margolis had lost it before, locking us up like that. But that was nothing. He came in and pulled Dan out of his cell, took him someplace. I don’t know where, but I’m guessing up to the labs, since that was where he had his goons torturing your djinn.”

I winced, and she added,

“Sorry. I’m just — I’m tired.”

“It’s all right,” I said. Past was past, but we still needed to hear about it so we could formulate our plans for the future.

“No, it’s not.” A shiver went over her, even though the room was quite warm now that the fire was dancing away happily in the hearth. “Anyway, Dan came back with two black eyes and a broken nose. And there wasn’t a damn thing I could do about it, locked up in my own cell the way I was. We couldn’t even really talk because of the security camera. All I could do was watch him huddle in a corner and try to stop the bleeding with a piece of fabric he tore off from one of the sheets on his cot.”

I almost stopped her there. Hearing the way they’d hurt Dan, someone who’d survived the Dying with his dignity intact, who’d protected Stacy from the more predatory survivors…well, unless you counted Margolis among those predators…it made me want to scream at the injustice of it all. Problem was, I had a good idea that there was far worse news yet to come.

“But they didn’t leave it at that,” I said, almost in a whisper.

“No. They beat him up for…I’m not sure, but I think it was at least four days in a row. Maybe five. Then Margolis came down and stared at me in that way he has — you know, where your skin wants to crawl right off your body?”

Unfortunately, I knew all too well. And he hadn’t even done anything to me, except send a few leers in my direction. He’d been occupied with other things…other women…and so, thank God, he’d never expended too much energy on me. I nodded, but didn’t reply.

Julia drew up her knees and clutched them against her body. Staring at the watercolor on the wall, she said, “He told me that Dan had confessed to helping Jace escape, and then to assisting with the kidnapping of Miles. He said that Dan was a traitor, and there was only one thing they did to traitors.”

“Execute them,” I whispered.

“And that’s what they did. I didn’t see the execution, of course. No, Margolis wanted to keep me safely locked up. Only his own people were allowed to bring me food and water, keep watch over me. Maybe he thought I might have a few allies in town, so the best way to keep me completely isolated was to only allow the people he trusted implicitly to see me. But Stacy told me later. She didn’t go into a lot of detail, but it was enough. I knew anyway, though, even without being told. It’s pretty obvious what’s happened when your cellmate is taken away and never comes back.”

I had no words. Funny, how I’d heard people say that before, but I hadn’t really believed it. There was always something you could say. But now — hearing how a good and decent man had been killed because he’d dared to do the right thing, it seemed as if every single word of condolence I’d ever heard had just shrunk up and melted away.

Problem was, I feared that still wasn’t the worst of it. Not completely, anyway.

With a shaking hand, Julia reached over for her water glass and drank what remained in it. She stared down at it for a few seconds, then remarked with very little emotion in her voice, “Too bad that wasn’t Scotch.”

“We have some here at the resort,” I said, “but I don’t really recommend drinking it on an empty stomach.”

The faintest ghost of a smile touched the corners of her mouth. Except for the bruise on her jaw, and the shadowing under her eyes, she really did look much more like the Julia I remembered. But that darkness in her, that thing I couldn’t quite figure out until she told me about her abusive fiancé — that darkness seemed magnified now. There was something even more distant, more reserved, in her manner, as if the only way she could deal with any of this was to put up a wall between herself and what had happened.

Still in that same flat voice, Julia went on, “It was the day after Dan was taken away and never came back. Or night, maybe. There aren’t any windows down there in the holding area.”

I nodded, and she grimaced.

“Sorry. Forgot for a moment that you’d been there, too. So.” She stopped then, fingers running through the damp strands of her hair. As it dried, it was taking on a faint wave. I’d remembered it as straight, but she’d probably blow-dried or flat-ironed it. She picked up one lock, holding it between her index and middle finger, then let it fall again. “That night, or afternoon, or whatever. I’d been dozing, probably because I didn’t have anything better to do, and it could have been nighttime. But then I opened my eyes and saw Margolis standing there outside my cell. He looked…smug, like he knew a secret that I didn’t. And then — ”

Her head tilted upward, as if she found something vitally important in the dark wood beams that crossed the ceiling. I knew that probably wasn’t it, that she just wanted to avoid looking at me.

A taut silence filled the room. Not sure whether I should say anything, I nonetheless blurted out, “You don’t have to tell me. It’s okay.”

The quiet was so thick, it seemed to throb against my eardrums. “No,” she said at last, her tone brittle, calm. “I’m not going to hide from it. I’ve done too much hiding in my life. He came into my cell and locked it behind him. And then” — she swallowed, and I could see tears shimmering in her eyes — “then he did what he’d come there to do. All in silence. Not one word. He didn’t have to tell me why. This was his way of getting revenge. I knew that the whole time. And so I endured it, and didn’t say anything, either. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. And then he got up and left.”

My stomach twisted. Right then I was glad I hadn’t eaten anything. “Julia, I’m so sorry — ”

“It’s all right. I lived through it.” A blink, and the tears seemed to recede. “I’m not going to give him power over me by dwelling on it. Anyway, that went on for… a couple of days, maybe a week. I started to lose track. The whole time I was wondering whether he planned to keep me down there forever, or whether he was going to kill me, too, once he got tired of me. But then he started working on me, saying he didn’t want to keep me a prisoner anymore. All I had to do was confess to helping Dan, and he’d let me out.”

“Margolis was just going to let you go?” I couldn’t prevent a note of incredulity from entering my voice. He didn’t seem the type to simply allow a woman like Julia to slip out of his grasp.

“Well, not exactly. He said he’d have me come live with him, and that after a while maybe he’d let me be his assistant again. Once I’d ‘earned back his trust,’ in his words.”

Shuddering, I asked, “What did you say?”

“I told him I’d think about it. He didn’t like that — said I should be grateful to him for giving me a second chance. And I laughed and said I didn’t think I should be grateful for the opportunity to be his sex slave and his lackey.” Her hand went up to touch the bruise on her jaw. “That’s when he hit me. I just took it, of course. It wasn’t as if I didn’t have some experience with that kind of thing.”

“Oh, Julia,” I whispered.

“I won’t lie — it hurt like a bitch.” She shrugged and pulled the blanket up so it was snugged right under her breasts. “But it did feel good to laugh in that bastard’s face. He stormed out after that. All I could do was sit there and wait for him to come back. But it wasn’t Margolis who showed up the next morning. It was Stacy.”

“Stacy?” I asked, bewildered. “Did she — ” I broke off there, since I couldn’t think of a delicate way to ask if she knew what had been going on between Julia and the commander.

“Oh, she knew. Maybe Margolis bragged, or maybe he talked in his sleep. I didn’t ask. But she told me I had to leave. It took me a few seconds to process what she was saying, but then I realized she wanted me to go because she didn’t want me interfering with her relationship with Margolis.”

“She
what?
” Hearing how Stacy had ended up sleeping with the commander just so she could get a better housing assignment had squicked me out enough. To think she actually was pleased enough with the arrangement that she wanted Julia completely out of the picture…I couldn’t help shuddering a little.

“I know.” Julia smiled grimly. “But I wasn’t about to argue with her personal choices. Not if it meant getting the hell out of there.”

“So she broke you out?”

“Basically. She’d heard how I disabled the security system, but she really didn’t know how to do it herself, so she wheedled one of the guys — Zach Royce — into doing it in exchange for a blow job. She knew he wouldn’t tell anyone because then his head would be on the chopping block along with hers.”

I shook my head. “Very resourceful, our Stacy.”

“And talented, apparently. So she smuggled me out of there in the back of her SUV, gave me a change of clothes and a jacket, and dumped me right at the edge of the safe zone.”

That explained how Julia had gotten out of Los Alamos, but I still couldn’t figure out how she’d managed to walk sixty-plus miles from there to here and not be attacked by the rogue djinn. I asked her as much, and she only gave me a fatalistic lift of her shoulders.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I was terrified the whole time. I kept expecting to have them come swooping out of the sky at me or something. But I didn’t see anything. I came into Española and tried to see if I could scrounge some food or bottled water or something, but our people had picked it over pretty well, and I couldn’t find anything. I slept there, though, because I was dead tired. And I headed up Highway 68 the next morning, figuring I could make it at least half of the distance between Española and Taos.” Pausing then, she gave me a deprecating smile. “I’d forgotten about the part where it was all uphill. Took me a lot longer than I thought it would. I did find some water in a gas station in Dixon, though, and that helped a little. After a point, I suppose I wasn’t really thinking of much of anything except putting one foot in front of the other and getting here. I’m not even sure why I chose Taos as my destination, except that you and Jace were here, and maybe you’d take me in.” Another one of those weary little shrugs, and she said simply, “I didn’t have anyplace to go.”

“Yes, you did,” I said, my tone a little fiercer than I’d intended. “You had here.”

She didn’t respond at first. But as I watched her, a certain tension seemed to leave her body, and she slumped back against the pillows, as if she was finally allowing herself to relax. Then, “Did I hear someone talking about soup?”

A rush of relief went through me. She had a long way to go before she healed, but I thought she’d just taken the first step. “Coming right up,” I told her.

She smiled.

Chapter Eleven

Miguel brought the soup himself, and seemed a little astonished at how quickly Julia had recovered. “You should sleep for real after you eat,” he told her in stern tones. “I don’t want you to overdo things.”

“No worries,” she replied. “I think I’ll probably sleep for a week or two after this.”