“I don’t know, the mountain doesn’t look very dead to me.” Jo didn’t quite hear the severity in Takako’s voice.
“No. . . I could kill him,” she whispered.
“Who?”
“The prime minister.” Takako looked to her, horror creeping onto her face. For a woman who’d given up her entire world for the sake of her country, Jo couldn’t imagine what such a suggestion took to make. Jo couldn’t even fathom what it felt like to be loyal like that to a country; she’d always been work-for-hire to the highest bidder.
“That isn’t a solution.” She decided to save Takako from that line of thinking. “It’s a power squabble. Kill one and two more will rise up to fight over the scraps. Plus, the assassination would likely widen the Severity of Exchange, not lower it by throwing the country into sudden chaos. Everyone would focus on the death of their leader rather than keeping the discussion on the evacuations.”
“You’re right,” Takako admitted, her breath growing regular once more. “I just. I wish I could do something. It’s my family, my home. All I’m good for is pointing and shooting.”
The confession, said almost offhandedly, startled her. It was such a similar feeling to what Jo had experienced during her first wish in the Society that she instantly felt a kinship with the woman that she hadn’t before. Jo linked their arms, locking elbows.
“Let us take care of you, this time,” she said, trying to will as much comfort and confidence into the words as she had to spare. But really, beyond all else, she just silently hoped they could.
“I’ll leave it to you.” Takako didn’t make any motion away from her.
“But I’ll grant you, it’d be nice to see if a bullet could even penetrate the PM’s thick skull,” Jo muttered.
Takako laughed, a sound as brief as it was soft. She looked back over the caldera, sighing, the levity unable to stick in the circumstances. “Do you really think we can do it?”
“We have to.” Jo followed her gaze. “I don’t think any of us are ready to accept failure.”
Chapter 25
Twelve Hours
EVENTUALLY, THEY PULLED themselves back to their feet and through the autonomous, free-standing steel Door that led to the briefing room. It shouldn’t have been much of a surprise to find everyone seated around the table, presumably waiting for them to return, but it still made Jo bristle nonetheless.
Before Snow or anyone else could say anything about them wasting time, Jo dropped into her seat with an overly dramatic huff.
“I know we didn’t clear it with team mom first.” Jo shot a glance to Eslar. “But I didn’t use any time and Takako barely used two minutes, so there’s nothing to worry about,all right?”
Snow wasn’t the only one who seemed surprised by her outburst, but he was the only one she locked eyes with, willing him to argue, to fight. But mostly she was just hoping to see a crack in his otherwise carefully constructed facade.
It hadn’t even been hours since she’d been lying in his bed, reveling in the feel of his arms around her, his lips against hers. How had everything gone to shit so quickly? When a momentary stare-off provided barely more than a flicker of recognition from the man, Jo looked away, feeling something cold and heavy drop into the pit of her stomach.
Maybe this was what Wayne had been trying to warn her about? Pursuing the possibility of romance with any member of the Society was only going to complicate things, and Snow? It was an infinitely trickier balance. She couldn’t hold onto him now with the same emotional grip she’d clutched him with in bed. She had to pull herself together and draw some demarcation lines in her mind and heart or things would go from merely complex to ugly, fast.
“Even if your moments beyond the Door were without lost time—” Snow eventually picked up the pre-derailed conversation and put them back on track. “I assume it was also without purpose. What we need more than tantrums is a course of action.”
Jo opened her mouth to defend their spontaneous field trip, but one look from Takako kept her silent. She didn’t look chastised, nor regretful, but rather accepting of her decision. Swallowing back her argument, Jo nodded, trying her best to accept the fact herself: Takako was truly a mature and admirable individual to be composed, even when hurting so completely and being chastised for merely letting out some of that pain.
“Fine, fine, okay,” Jo said, sitting up straight and looking at each member of her team in turn. They hadn’t failed yet; there could still be a missing piece to the jigsaw puzzle hidden beneath the great, despair-shaped couch cushions. . . or something. They just couldn’t give up hope, couldn’t stop searching. “So what have we done so far? And what can we do different in forty-eight hours?”
“Both very good questions.”
When all eyes followed the interjection to the double doors of the briefing room, it was to find Pan leaning against the frame, fingers linked behind her head and feet crossed lazily at the ankles.
“Time’s a ticking, you know,” she said, using one of her knuckles to tap a rhythm against the wood that seemed eerily accurate to the width of a precise second. “What exactlyareyou going to do?”
Pan let her hands drop then, turning towards the room with a flutter of long, obnoxiously bright pink fabrics. And the dress wasn’t the only thing bright and obnoxious about her ensemble today. Beneath the dress were blue- and purple-striped hose cut off at the knee by white gogo boots, and atop her head, her hair sat in two elaborately curled pigtails dyed an unnaturally iridescent gold.
The contrast of such bright colors intermingling with such a somber conversation left Jo feeling almost disjointed, off-kilter, and particularly annoyed. Not just for the unwelcome presence, but for the teasing lilt of Pan’s voice, the obvious smirk on her lips. How she’d managed to put herself together in such a way eluded Jo. What made it all worse, was that she didn’t exactly look like someone trying to update them on their time; she looked like someone eager to gloat over just how little they had left.
Or, gloat over that she’d known what had been coming all along, a tiny and very suspicious voice whispered in the back of Jo’s mind. But such a thing was impossible. . . at least, Jo thought it was impossible.
“So?” Pan raised an eyebrow at the room, though her gaze seemed to settle lazily on Jo for a moment. Maybe she just imagined it, but either way, it left Jo’s pulse racing.
