Far From Broken (6 page)

She chased after Jasper, feeling surprisingly calm considering there was no doubt in her mind that whoever had taken that shot had meant the bullet for either one, or both, of them.

“Bloody hell, Callie. I told you to stay put.”

Stopping just behind him, she said, “And you thought I would listen to you because…?”

His angry breaths puffed into the air and he glared at her, but held his tongue. Instead, he replaced the pistol in the holster at his back and pulled her into his side before crouching low to the ground. He dragged his finger through a patch of snow that had been speckled with black dust.

“What is that?” she asked.

“The faint smell of cigar smoke still lingers in the air. The shooter must have been smoking while he waited here to take his shot, but he was smart enough to remove the evidence with him, except for this bit of ash.”

“But why would he bother to take a spent cigar butt with him?”

“Because it’s evidence. Something that might be used to identify him.” He paused before straightening as if the evidence of cigar ash meant something else to him. His gaze followed the footprints that disappeared a few feet away where another set of prints—hoof prints—started and blended in with all the rest along the narrow path. “Which means we are probably dealing with someone—”

“Someone we know,” she finished. The implications of that revelation hit her, and her stomach turned. “But who? And why?”

He frowned. “Come. We had better get back.”

“Jasper, tell me what is going on. Why are we being shot at?” Callie grasped his arm with her gloved hand when he would have turned from her.

She had never been the type to shrink from confrontation and wasn’t impressed with his silence. A woman of modest family didn’t become a world-renowned ballerina by hiding away in the shadows and letting men take care of her, nor did she learn to walk on mechanical legs if she was afraid of falling.

You
are
afraid of falling
.

She silenced the inner voice, but had to acknowledge the truth. Yes, she was afraid. It was a constant in her life now. Fear of falling. Of what she’d become. Fear of what the future would hold now that everything she’d worked for was gone. She’d even been afraid of Jasper—of how he would look at her, and what he would make her feel when she finally saw him again.

But fear was useless and she refused to be brought low by it. Anger was better. Anger and emotional distance—which would have been easier if the walls she’d put up to protect herself hadn’t already started crumbling.

She looked up and saw their burly driver rushing toward them. He carried a short-barreled Tesla pistol that would have been confiscated as illegal if the constabulary had caught him with it, but even though word of gun shots in the park had already spread like wild fire if the screaming was anything to go by, the Manchester police were nowhere to be seen.

“Tell me what this is all about,” she repeated.

“Not now.” His jaw clenched and he took her hand to pull her back to the carriage.

Callie bit her tongue, fighting to maintain her composure. If Jasper thought he could put her off and keep her in the dark or—heaven help him—lie to her, after all that had happened, he was sorely mistaken.

“Sir.” Samuel stopped in front of Jasper, his face a mask of concern. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine. It’s just a scrape,” he said to the coachman.

“What?” She spun around. “You’re hurt?” For the first time, she noticed the slice in his outerwear, on the arm. Blood had left the fabric sticky, and the edges of the hole were seared black. He’d been shot.

At the sharp edge in her tone, his gaze shot up. “It’s nothing, Callie. Don’t worry.” His voice lowered and she winced at the obvious attempt to ease her anxiety.

He pushed her along and before she knew it, she’d been maneuvered back into the carriage. Jasper spoke to the driver in a low voice before he joined her and shut the door. She waited until they were in motion before demanding answers once again.

“Is this related to some other trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, or is it…?”

“I don’t know for certain,” he admitted. “But I’m going to find out.” The darkness in his eyes made him seem a stranger, and she had the revelation that whatever had once brought them together in marriage was not what would keep them together now—if that was even possible.

He was obviously torn between wanting to protect her and his promise not to lie to her again. And while Callie wished she could curl up and hide where this kind of violence could never touch her, she wouldn’t blindly leave her safety in anyone else’s hands again, even Jasper’s.

Again, she wondered if he knew what deals had been struck for her future. If he’d been a part of them. She debated whether she should simply ask and get it out in the open once and for all, when she noticed they were nearing the corner where she had seen the homeless man earlier.

The guilt and shame she’d felt for turning her back on him returned, and she leaned forward to rap on the wall separating them from the driver. “Stop the carriage.”

“What is it?” Jasper glanced out the window as they pulled over and slid to a stop near the alley.

Callie didn’t answer. A feeling of dread settled in her gut as she threw open the door and climbed down onto the street. The old man wasn’t there anymore.

“Where are you going?”

Entering the alley where the sun couldn’t penetrate, she pushed aside the chill, aware that Jasper was right behind her. At least he hadn’t tried to stop her. Yet.

Whatever the reason for the old man’s disappearance from his spot on the street corner, Callie was somehow certain he hadn’t simply gotten up and gone elsewhere. The rank stench of violence was heavy here. A feeling she was altogether too familiar with. Would never forget.

She saw them then. Two men at the end of the dark lane, standing over the prone body of a third, all of them half hidden by a pile of stacked crates and refuse. Despite the shadows, as Callie narrowed her gaze with her enhanced vision she could see blood dripping from a blade. One of the thugs clutched a worn hat in his hand and dug into it for the coins the old man had painstakingly collected.

They looked up at her gasp of outrage, mouths twisting into matching sneers.

“Callie, get back.” Jasper tried to push her behind him, but the men rushed forward quickly and he was forced to step up and meet them.

“Ye chose the wrong alley fer a little slap an’ tickle, gent.” The taller of the two chuckled as he looked her up and down. The other one leered, his switchblade flicking open and closed as he swung his arm in front of him. Open and closed. The sound drilled into her brain, making her angrier.

She’d had enough of threats from devils who thought they could hurt others and get away with it, who thought there would be no consequences for their evil deeds.

“You’re going to pay for what you’ve done,” she promised. A rush of adrenaline flowed through her. Her breathing came out in quick visible clouds as they both laughed. She could see why they thought they had the advantage. After all, the two toughs stood against one man and a mere woman. Armed, while they assumed she and Jasper were not.

“Listen, we don’t want any trouble.” Jasper stepped in front of her again and held out his hands. “Go on, Callie. Leave, now.”

She knew he was trying to get them out of here without bloodshed, but she ignored his order to return to the carriage. Was she foolish? Reckless?

No doubt about it. But rage blocked out rational thought. All she could think about was the poor old man, who hadn’t been able to defend himself, lying there in the dirt. She felt the strength coursing through her blood, giving power to her artificial limbs—and it was about time she stopped thinking of them as a curse and started using the gifts she’d been given for something useful.

All fine and good, but when one of the men lunged for Jasper and the other darted around toward her, she froze for just a moment. The look in his eyes was all too familiar. She’d seen it before on three other monsters. They had taken such pleasure in breaking her bones, carving her up, making her scream.

“Callie!”

Jasper’s shout penetrated her fear, but the man’s fingers had clasped around her arm in a cruel vise. She pulled back and hit him with her closed fist, hearing the distinct crunch as the bones in his nose gave under her iron knuckles.

He let go and flew backward. Jasper was right there moving between them and hitting him again before he could straighten. Blood spurted from the man’s nose as he swore and cried out in pain, but he quickly recovered with a furious snarl, and joined the other man, both of them moving against Jasper together.

“Go.” Jasper threw the order over his shoulder as he dodged the swipe of a blade and countered. His movements were sure and capable. He blocked easily, striking back with strength and focus. As his fists connected with flesh more often than the others were able to hit him, she wondered why he didn’t draw his weapon against them, but soon realized that the very close quarters of the shadowy, narrow alley made that a worse idea than fighting hand to hand. In any case, it was obvious that Jasper’s military training had done him well and he could more than take care of himself. But she still couldn’t leave him.

In very little time, he had disarmed both men. One lay unconscious, having been thrown back. He’d fallen and hit his head against the sooty brick wall. The other was bent over on his knees, cradling his broken wrist to his chest.

Turning to Callie, Jasper did his best to rein in his temper, but a fire burned in his gut and a tic worked in his cheek. A rush of adrenaline surged through his system. “Get back to the carriage and have the driver hail a constable,” he bit out between heaving breaths.

After that, it was just short of an hour before they finally returned to the clinic. Callie had stubbornly refused to leave until the police officers assured her the old homeless man would be given a decent burial—to be paid for by Jasper, of course—and the men responsible for his death would not go unpunished.

It was only when he had seen the victim lying dead amidst the garbage and realized he had only one leg, that Jasper’s anger subsided enough to let him breathe again and he’d been able to understand what had set Callie off. In the thick of the altercation, he hadn’t noticed anything but her—rushing into danger. Now, at least he no longer wanted to throttle her for her reckless behavior, although he still intended to shake some sense into her as soon as he had her alone.

Malcolm was waiting for them. The look on his face told Jasper everything he needed to know. Their time was up.

General Black had arrived. “Where is he?”

The captain tipped his head toward the drawing room entrance. “In there with Mrs. Campbell. Arrived a little over an hour ago.”

“Who?” Callie looked between the two men.

Jasper nodded and started walking. “All right. Take Callie upstairs.”

“No,” she said.

She followed him and he spun back around to face her, his temper cresting once more. “You’ve already caused enough trouble this morning. Let me deal with this.”

“If you’re implying that it’s somehow my fault we were shot at. Or that I asked you to follow me into that alley…”

“Bloody hell. You were
shot at in an alley?
” Malcolm glared at Jasper, waiting for answers. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose, then stifled a groan at the sound of a throat being cleared behind him.

“Colonel Carlisle. What is this about a shooting?”

Callie’s short, indrawn breath told him she knew very well who’d come to greet them.

He turned around to face the man whose methods against Britain’s enemies had painted him the bloodiest and most ruthless general in recent history. Black towered over Mrs. Campbell, who had accompanied him from the drawing room, although he stood eye-to-eye with Jasper.

However, while Jasper was lean with the aristocratic figure that had characterized a long line of Carlisle earls, Black was wide and burly, attesting to his common beginnings and hard-laboring past. The scar cutting across his face had only added to his dark reputation, but Jasper was unimpressed.

“General Black. I heard that you had arrived. What brings you to Manchester? Is there suddenly a shortage of women and children to exploit and murder in France?”

He was tempting fate by so blatantly taunting a superior officer, but couldn’t seem to help himself. It was said that last year the general had ordered the detonation of an incendiary that had taken out an entire building in a slum of Paris. While he’d believed it to be a secret office of the French Resistance, it had, in fact, been a rough-and-tumble orphanage. Everyone inside had died, including at least twenty innocent children.

If that weren’t enough to provoke Jasper’s contempt, Black was also responsible for sending Jasper on the mission that almost cost him everything—his life, his wife, his very heart and soul. Just the sight of the bastard turned his stomach. No way in hell was he going to let Black anywhere near Callie.

The general only looked amused by Jasper’s antagonism. “You were shot at on your outing this morning?” he repeated. “And what happened to the criminal responsible?”

“I’m looking into the matter. It’s nothing for you to be concerned about.”

“I beg to differ,” answered Black with a patronizing smile. “Anything that threatens my new agent is of concern to me.”

“She’s not your anything,” Jasper snapped, moving to shield Callie. He still had her hand in his and refused to let her go. “She’s
my
wife.”

“Ah, but she’s also a very expensive investment of the Ministry, as you are well aware.” Black crossed his thick arms, drawing attention to the gun belt he still wore strapped across his chest. “Did you not agree to the terms of her rehabilitation?”

“
I
agreed,” he emphasized, glancing aside at Mrs. Campbell. “The deal was made with me, not with her. I am grateful to the Ministry for making Dr. Helmholtz available to my wife, and because of that the War Office has my continued commitment to the cause.”

“Two for the price of one.” Black laughed. “That sounds good to me.”

“No. The deal was made with me, not with her.”

“I’d love to stand here and argue the point with you, but I believe I’ll take some rest. It’s been a long trip. The discussion is rather pointless after all, as Lady Carlisle herself has already agreed.”

“Agreed to what?” He looked at Callie, whose expression had turned cold and distant, just like before. All the progress he thought he’d made with her was suddenly gone. Disappeared in the blink of an eye.

Black threw up a mock salute and turned to Mrs. Campbell. “Thank you again for the hospitality, madam. Dinner is at the usual time, I assume?”

Just how often had Black been here? The idea that he had come behind Jasper’s back, poisoning Callie with his darkness, left Jasper cold.

“Yes, General. If you require anything at all, please let me know.”

“You’re too kind, but all I require at the moment is a soft warm bed to lay my head.”

When both Mrs. Campbell and the general had gone, he let out a deep breath and released Callie’s hand. She too turned from him without a word and made her way up the stairs. He didn’t want to let her go, but he needed some time to think.

“Where the hell is Murphy?” he asked.

Malcolm’s usually calm façade was cracking and he looked almost as angry and frustrated as Jasper felt. “I don’t know. He was around this morning, but he said he had to go out for some supplies and I haven’t seen him back. No doubt he’s trying to keep out of Mrs. Campbell’s way. She tore a strip off him late last night for wandering the halls and knocking over a vase or something.”

Truthfully, he didn’t much care what Murphy was up to. All he really cared about was Callie and finding a way to keep her out of Black’s clutches.

“So it’s true,” Malcolm said. “The War Office is staking a claim, and they’ve sent the infamous General Black to collect.”

Callie veered toward the sound of shouting coming from one of the rooms farther down the hallway, passing the door of her own room along the way. Normally, she wouldn’t have cared, and it didn’t escape her that this was the second or third time today she’d allowed real life to penetrate the shell she’d been living behind since the attack. It seemed her protective cocoon was all but gone. She’d barely been able to keep her composure when faced with the general, but even worse had been the look in Jasper’s eyes…

Shouting gave way to the familiar sound of breaking pottery. Since she’d done her fair share of smashing water pitchers and breaking mirrors in the last four months, she knew it was likely to represent an expression of someone’s frustrated rage and pain.

Without bothering to knock, she pushed open the door and immediately ducked to avoid getting clocked in the forehead with a flying stoneware goblet.

“Oh, my lady! I’m sorry. You probably shouldn’t be in here.”

Callie ignored the very young looking nurse, who had never attended her personally. If she had, she would have known that there were straps hanging from each side of the bed, for keeping the patient immobile in times of…upset.

That memory made her shudder as she looked at the boy. Under the coverlet, the bed past his knees was flat. He hadn’t yet been fitted with new legs. His wiry upper body hummed and thrashed with violence and he quickly drew back his hand to throw something else.

This time, Callie reached up and plucked it out of the air before it could hit her or the wall. She glanced dispassionately at the hairbrush, thinking the raging bull in the bed should consider using it to tame the wild mop of hair sticking out from all sides of his head. She let it drop gently onto the dresser beside her.

“Have you thought about removing the objects he might be able to reach, so that they can’t be tossed about the room while he indulges in childish tantrums?” she asked the overtaxed nurse.

The girl gasped and sputtered at Callie’s callousness, obviously offended on her patient’s behalf.
He
howled, yelling obscenities that the most hardened sailor would have found vulgar.

“My lady,” the nurse started, darting glances between the two people causing her so much trouble. “I really think that you should—”

“Leave.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Leave us. Now.”

The nurse blanched. Her fingers twined together but then she rushed to do exactly as she’d been told, proving just how new and inexperienced she really was. Callie wondered if she would run to the doctor, but doubted it. From firsthand experience, she knew he was notoriously unavailable for patient tantrums.

She turned her attention back to the youth, who glared at her as if the devil herself had strolled into his room. “What do you want?” he snarled.

“I don’t want anything. Except, perhaps, for a little peace and quiet,” she said, taking a few steps closer. For some reason this child—who couldn’t be older than sixteen years, despite the lines of anger in his face—didn’t make her feel what she thought she would feel.

She didn’t feel pity for him. His pain didn’t magnify and reflect back the desolation and hopelessness that had plagued her own recovery.

“I’m sorry if my bloody dismemberment has inconvenienced you, my lady.” He sneered. Ugly. Angry. But although he was looking at her, she didn’t think he was really
seeing
her. “Perhaps you should shove off then and leave me the hell alone,” he grumbled.

At least he’d given up throwing things, for the moment.

Callie let out a small smile. She couldn’t help it. Even broken and terrified—she could see it in the slight tremble in his chin that he tried to hide—this young man was a fighter. The kind of fighter she wished she’d been. And she felt the urge to try and help him, although he wouldn’t trust her and would try not to let her.

“Do you have a name, sir hellion?”

He huffed a rather tormented sigh and crossed his arms over his chest. That was fine, she thought. She could wait here with the doctor’s sullen patient the rest of the day if it meant avoiding Jasper and General Black.

He must have determined that she really wasn’t going to give up and leave, because after a long moment he dropped his gaze and said, “Name’s Patrick. And what do you care anyways?”

Callie lowered herself into a narrow chair at the foot of the bed. She took the opportunity while he was quiet and had stopped throwing things, to look at him. He was very thin. Black smudges lined his eyes, and deep hollows carved out his cheeks. It was obvious that every movement brought him pain.

She tried to let go of her own tension and wondered again at his true age. It was difficult to tell for certain. He wasn’t yet old enough to grow whiskers, but he had a long torso, and she imagined that with his legs, he’d have been quite tall. All the more reason for him to have been enlisted so early by the War Office. And if it saw nothing wrong about using children against Britain’s enemies, there was little chance it would relent when it came to the general’s plans for
her
.

Patrick finally glanced up and she knew the moment when he really
saw
her. His gaze flew over her, from the long leather jacket and breeches, to her short hair and last, but not least, the mechanical eye. She’d tried more than once to wear a patch and cover it like she did her legs and her hand, but the microscopic mechanical organisms that took signals to her brain didn’t like when she wasn’t able to see, and she’d always ended up with monstrous headaches that threatened to spill her brains out through her ears.

“What happened to your eye?” His question came out grudgingly, as if admitting to curiosity or showing any signs of life was a betrayal of his vow of sullenness—something she could relate to since she’d felt pretty much the same way right up until a few days ago.

What had changed? So little, but it was like a tiny pebble in a dark lake, rippling outward and touching everything.

Jasper.

She lifted her hands and tugged off the leather glove. “The same thing that happened to my hand.” She returned his wide look of surprise with a sad smile. “And both my legs.”

“Lordy,” he muttered and glanced down at the space where his own legs should have been pushing up the coverlet on the bed.

“Yes. Well. I was very angry about it for a very long time.” Her voice broke and she cleared her throat. She’d used her shattered voice more today than in the last four months put together.

He nodded his head. “I can’t breathe for the anger,” he admitted. “It feels like I would have been better off dead than forced to live like this.”

“You know, the doctor can truly work miracles.”

He gave her a disbelieving look, but when she purposely stood up with a smooth motion and took a step closer, his expression turned to one of uncertainty and fear. And thank goodness, there was a glimmer of hope too. She took a deep breath. “Would you believe me if I told you that despite feeling like an impossibility now, it does get better? And one day you’ll wake up and it will feel as if the sucking weight on your chest has eased? On that day, you’ll discover the reason why you were meant to live through this…and maybe it will even be worth it.”

He grumbled, but she thought she might have gotten through to him. Just a little.

As she turned to leave, he reached for her hand. “Would you…?”

“What is it?” she asked.

“Will you be here when I wake up from the surgery tomorrow? After the doc puts the metal legs on me? I mean, could you? Be here, that is?”