Clemency

"I'm starting to get some majorly negative vibes from that car, man," Nelson warned when we were somewhere in Georgia.

"What kind of negative?" Nelly only shrugged. He had always had a gift for sensing how people felt, but he nearly never revealed what he knew to others. He thought it was an invasion of privacy. Normally, I applauded him for it. But not when it involved Jade, not when I didn't know, not for sure, that she was okay. My imagination ran wild.

What if someone had hurt her? What if she was passed out, not resting against the window?

"Pull up a little closer," I ordered. Nelly shot me a look that clearly said he thought it was a moron, but he obeyed. After all, if I screwed this up, the only person to blame would be myself. Just as we approached the car, her head moved, turned toward us. Before I could duck, her eyes landed on me for the briefest of seconds.

"Sugarcane!" I exclaimed in place of a rather more inappropriate word, slipping down to the floor and curling up there like some sort of kidnap victim. Nelson roared with laughter. "Can it," I muttered, glad that his hearing wasn't nearly as good as my own. He wouldn't be able to hear the blood rushing in my veins from that split second of eye contact, though it was as loud as a waterfall from where I was sitting. "Has she looked back?"

"Yeah. Dude, I think she saw you."

"Really? I hadn't noticed," I replied sarcastically. This was going to be a long, long ride. Hopefully, if she didn't see me again, she would just think she had imagined it. I didn't think that was especially likely, but there was always hope.

Later that night, I insisted on Nelson getting some sleep while I took the entire night's watch in the hallway outside of Jade's room. Honestly, what was her father thinking, putting them up in a place like this? Probably, he wasn't. This had the hand of Arden in it.

I stood across from her room, looking through the peek hole, watching her examine the window. She traced one long crack in it, crossed over to her bed, and dug a roll of duct tape out of her bag. I snorted. Did she really think that would help? Apparently, yes. She tore off a long strip and covered the crack with it. It was a mark of how boring my day had been that I had to fight off crippling laughter.

Her head snapped in my direction, and I could have sworn our eyes met. She crossed the room nearly silently, faster than a blink. One green eye appeared, widening at the sight of me.

The door flew open. Jade stepped out, shutting it behind her silently.

"What are you doing here?" she demanded, crossing her arms tightly across her chest, fingers clenched tight. There was a surprising hostility in her expression, and behind it something more yearning, something that made my stomach twist. "What do you want from me?"

I did my best to keep my expression neutral. That question could have been taken in several ways, and if I chose the wrong one, I could end up revealing something better left for later. "What do you mean?"

"Cut the crap, Carrick. I might have been ignorant before, but I'm not now." This wasn't looking good.

"Jade, please."

"Don't 'Jade, please' me! I want answers, and I want them now. Stop stalling!" Jade snapped. There was a dangerous glint in her eyes.

"Okay. Ask something more specific, and… and I'll answer."

"No lies. No evasions."

"You would know if I lied," I pointed out. And the way she was looking now, it seemed just possible that she would start throwing punches if I took too long to give her the information she wanted.

What had happened today? This was totally unlike her.

To my surprise, she burst into tears. I didn't stop to think about what I was doing or how easily it could result in loss of limb. In one step, I had crossed the narrow hallway and wrapped my arms around her. Jade punched blindly until she seemed worn out, then sank to the floor, weeping all the time.

"Jade? Jade, what's wrong?" I asked. I had never once seen her like this. She looked up at me with tormented eyes but didn't say a word.

After what seemed an eternity, she wiped her eyes, sniffed once, and straightened her posture. Her expression was carefully composed. "Sorry about that," she said in a strangely distant voice.

"Please, Jade. What's going on?"

"I should be the one asking you." Betrayal. That was what I had seen before.

"I told you, I need something more specific than that. Telling you every detail of… everything would take more time than we have."

"I really doubt that. We have all night."

"I don't think we do. This place, it's a trap. This trip was probably set up just to get you on your own, without me there to protect you."

"See, that's part of what I'd like explained. Who's trying to trap me? What do you need to protect me from? And…" Jade shook her head.

This wouldn't be easy. But I could tell that if I didn't answer her, and answer fully, she would never trust me again. I didn't know if I could handle that. "Alright. There's a group, the Coalition. They're led by Arden and whoever else he could con into following him. Some do it for power. Others do it because they take a perverse pleasure in the pain of others. But… they're not good people, none of them. They want you because of the necklace around your neck. Really, it's a wonder it took them this long to figure out that you had it."

"Okay. Alright. What exactly does this Coalition do? What's the point? And why try to take the necklace? And speaking of the necklace-"

"Slow down. One question at a time. What do they do? They follow Arden, whose main goal is gaining power. He's a man who will stop at absolutely nothing to get it. It's bad enough, to be so consumed by something like that that it dominates your life… but the way that he goes about things makes it even worse." I hesitated. How much should I tell her? How much could she handle hearing right now? She still seemed so fragile, with translucent skin still blotched from crying, her eyes glowing green against the red.

"Go on," she prompted softly.

"That necklace," I began, changing tacks. "It's very unique, and very valuable. One of a kind, and the most powerful of any artifacts. We call it the Clemency Stone. It's magic at is absolute purest." There, I'd said it. I examined Jade's face, looking for any surprise at the word. She raised one brow, but it seemed to me that she was more wondering why I had stopped talking than about the existence of magic. "What, that doesn't surprise you at all?" I blurted.

Jade shook her head. "Do you really think I'm that oblivious? I might not have put that word to it, exactly, but I knew there was something… unusual going on here." She shut her mouth and stared at the floor. It seemed that was all I would be getting out of her for now.

"There are countless legends about the origin of the Stone. Some say it was a gift from an angel, something to give us the power to combat the dark, tempered by the gift of mercy. Some say it's as old as the earth, and has simply always existed. No matter where it came from, though, it still has the same effect- it is a very strong force of good. Anyone who is exposed to it long enough is gifted with better senses and reflexes, an innate need for goodness to prevail, and an enhancement of their strongest qualities. Take my friend Nelly, for instance. He was always very empathetic- from what I've heard. I only met him after his run-in with our group, after he'd been… changed. He can tell what people are feeling. But where he used to get into everyone's business, back before, and try to make things better for people- or so he's said- he now has the wisdom to stay out of it, for the most part. He won't share what he knows about others, and he hardly ever confronts them about any of it."

"You should take a leaf out of his book. It would really do you some good," Jade muttered under her breath. A small smile appeared, and the merest hint of a dimple.

"Yeah? Well, you should-" A sudden exhalation of breath, something that normally wouldn't register but somehow struck me as terribly wrong, cut me off. Jade's head snapped up, and her eyes found mine. So she'd heard it, too.

"It came from the lobby," she muttered under her breath. I nodded.

"It sounded like in movies when people have their throats slit," she added. I nodded once more.

"You were right. This was a trap."