Page 112 of Resist

“I know, but the others—” He lifted a finger, telling me he had more to say, so I closed my mouth and listened.

“We’ve got…to go,” he said through ragged breaths. “Dad’s…planning something.”

Calista’s eyes narrowed. “Planning something? What do you meanplanning something?”

He tried to look at her, but ended up lolling his head back and resting it against the wall as he closed his eyes. “Something’s coming… Something…big.” He took in a breath, trying hard to speak, to warn us. “We’ve got…to make it back.” As I watched him, I felt completely heartbroken. I had never seen someone struggle so much just to speak. He was so out of shape from spending months in a prison cell, and god only knew what was done to him in that surgery—how much blood he lost, what drugs were still pumping in his veins. “The Dissenters,” he pushed out again. “They need…me.”

“Jacob,” I said as I cupped his cheeks in my hands. “We can’t go back.”

“We have…to.”

“No, Jacob, we can’t.” I argued. “If we go back, the North is just going to put you in prison and then you’ll go to trial. And I—” I hesitated, feeling the fear welling up inside. “I don’t think they’re going to let you live.”

Jacob opened his eyes as he took in another deep breath, trying to look at me. “Mara, I…I’ve done a lot of horr-horriblethings.” His eyes flickered, and I could see the pain he felt. The remorse that was eating him alive. “I-I’m prepared,” he paused, taking another deep breath, “to pay…for my crimes.”

“Jacob—” He lifted his finger up, silencing me.

“I deserve…to pay…for what I’ve done. But they need…to know”—he took another shuddering breath—“what’s coming.”

Tears welled up in my eyes. I couldn’t lose all of them. Not all three. “But Jacob—”

“Mara,” he interjected, “I’m…not afraid.”

“But Iam!” I yelled at him. “I’m afraid of having to do all of italone!”

He lifted a shaky hand up, brushing the tear that fell down my cheek. “You still…haven’t learned to…believe in yourself.”

A breath I didn’t realize I had been holding escaped me, as I felt his gentle touch and gazed into his eyes. And then he smiled. I hadn’t seen Jacob smile in a long time, and the simple expression almost brought me to my knees.

“Mara,” he began again, “trust me.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the tears slowly slide down my cheek. I had done so much, given up so much, lost so much…and now I was going to lose him. The one person who I had been fighting so hard for since the very beginning. Jacob was asking me to bring him back to the North, to sacrifice him, so he could help take Raúl down for good. I didn’t think it was possible, but I felt myself break all over again. It was all falling apart, all shattering, and I was losing control of everything.

I breathed in deeply, trying to regain control as I resigned myself to him. “Jacob, I—”

Suddenly, the stairwell door flew open, causing Calista to whirl around ready to fire just as I reached for my pistol and aimed, finger on the trigger.

“What the hell are you guys still doing here?” Matias growled as he limped into the stairwell. His leg was bleeding, soaking hiscargo pants, but he had managed to wrap his belt around it like a tourniquet. A bruise colored his right eye, and swelling was puffing out the tissue just under it.

“How the hell…?” Blondie let out just as Wes came around from behind Matias.

“Wes,” I breathed out, my heart seizing as immense joy and relief shuddered through me. Wes had a nasty cut on his left brow that was definitely going to need stitches, and his right shoulder hung down limply, the sleeve soaked with blood. “Oh my god, are you guys okay? I thought you were both going to die.”

“Yeah, so did we,” Matias said as he stretched out his neck.

“What happened?” Calista asked.

“The fuckers just suddenly turned and bolted,” Wes said as he ejected the magazine from his gun and winced as he rummaged in his bag for another one.

“What?”

“You heard him,” Matias confirmed. “They just suddenly turned tail and left.”

“Why would they do that?” I asked.

Matias shrugged. “Beats me, but I don’t intend to stick around and find out.”

Wes slapped his new mag into his gun with a grunt. He was in pain, but I knew him well enough to know that he would die before he showed it. Nothing more than grunts and a slight narrowing of the eyes. “Everybody reload,” he ordered, the scowl painted across the lines of his face, “and let’s get the fuck outta here. There’s no way this is over, and I’ve got a real bad feeling that we’re not gonna like what’s coming next.”

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