The Rebel Assassin

Chapter 43: Prisoner Loose

I didn't so much run to Jaden as crash into him and then find his arms around me, holding me so tight it hurt.

Tears stung and fell so fast I couldn't keep from sobbing out loud. He didn't say anything, just squeezed me against his chest and rocked slowly from side to side, murmuring softly into my hair.

This wasn't the Jaden I remembered. Even with his firm hold he felt fragile, thinner than he had been, too slender in my arms. The faint scent of mint and city smoke that always clung to him had been soured and corrupted by the must and rot of the cell. I could feel a beard he had never let grow before scraping against my hair.

But it was his same soft, amused voice that finally said, "I think you managed to grow since I last saw you." Gently, he pulled away from me, hands on my shoulders to keep me still as he examined me. The way he used to when I fell or jumped from too high, checking for injuries I might be ignoring or hiding.

I'd missed him. I'd missed him so much. And he was right here. Light eyes that flickered between gray and green, black hair overgrown and streaked with more gray than it had been, exhaustion weighing the lines of his face. I knew he was cataloguing every change in me at the same time that I saw the changes in him, and that old, familiar hope that he was proud of what he saw choked my throat with its very calmness. My eyes were wet and hot again.

His gaze turned sharp. "Is that blood on your sleeve?"

I looked down at my cuff, sniffing back tears and snot. "Oh, that's Iso's."

"Dead?"

"Very."

"Good job," he said warmly. "You aren't hurt?"

"No." Not from tonight's encounter, at least. And I couldn't tell him about my Mark now. I felt sick thinking about telling him at all. "Are you?"

"I..."

I saw his hesitation, and he saw the way I tensed just at that pause.

"No, I am not hurt," he said hastily. "I only need some time and rest to recover from this. Captain Joshua?" He looked over my shoulder with a raised eyebrow, not even looking really surprised, in way that was particularly Jaden-like.

"Just Joshua. Me and the captaincy have parted ways." Joshua shifted uncomfortably. "We're running out of time. We can't stay here."

"He's right," I admitted, though I hated to say it. Not just because it was almost physically painful when Joshua was right, but also because Jaden was clearly weak. I didn't want to make him walk far, and I desperately didn't want to leave him, as I was going to have to. "We have to get you out of here, and find some place you can stay. It's an incredibly long story, but we're staying with the Protector right now, and we have to return before anyone finds out we left."

"What trouble have you gotten yourself into now?" Jaden asked with a sigh.

"Hey. No comments from the man who got himself kidnapped."

That brought a ghost of a smile to his face. "One might say that the attention of powerful enemies is just a very particular kind of compliment."

In that case, I had more compliments than I knew what to do with.

"One might also say," I replied, "that a kidnapping is one trouble you have gotten yourself into that I have not."

Joshua snorted. "That's not remotely true. You were literally kidnapped by the same guy who kidnapped him."

I shot him a withering look, but it was too late.

Jaden raised his voice for the first time that I could remember in years, a sound that instantly startled me more than anything Iso ever could have said. "You were kidnapped?"